Applause of the Uneducated

I'm recently learning (okay, yes that was redundent) a new (why not go for overkill here) piece of music on piano. It's a piece of music that's very familiar to all the members of my family, and most people who've played piano may have heard of it at some time or another. It's Rustles of Spring by Sinding. Now this piece may look fairly intimidating, but don't be fooled by the 32nd notes. It's not that difficult of a piece. It flows very well, the fingerings are fairly simple for the most part, and is very fun to play. Now it is a very difficult piece to master. I'm not sure how many people in the world can play seven against eight in a single beat equally. Or switch readily from 5 sixteenth notes a beat to 4 or 6 or back to 8 32nd notes. So it's easy to learn, very difficult to master.

I'm about three days into the piece, so it's still nowhere close to performance level. The thing is, people are so impressed by this piece. I was thinking about it and about the couple that's going to be living below me. He's a sax performance major, and his wife is percussion/piano performance major. I imagine this picture of her just cringing at my ability to butcher this piece of music, while everyone else would be amazed at the speed and ability of this impressive sounding piece. The difference of reaction in my mind is quite a large amount.

Even music majors can be quite ignorant of what a piece is suppossed to sound like though. There's only one individual at University of Kentucky that we can rely on to play all the tuba accompaniments, and play them well. I decided to learn the first movement of one of the hardest tuba accompaniments that we have. The tempo is about 132, and you play chords through the entire piece using 16th notes. Now add in changes of chord structures every two beats, and you have a bear of a piece. I spent several months hacking this piece out when I wasn't playing tuba, never getting even close to performance tempo.

I got the chance before I finished at UK to listen to him perform the accompaniment one last time. I listened as he started off okay, and then missed over half the notes through the rest of the piece. I was shocked. Here's a professional player who is suppossed to know his stuff missing half the notes. Now, don't get me wrong, he never missed a beat. In fact, he made up most of whatever he was playing, but I knew the exact notes and what he was suppossed to play. My opinion of him dropped immensely that night. He knows how to keep going and bs through just about anything, and never truly learns any of the more difficult pieces. If it wasn't for the actual soloist, I probably wouldn't have applauded. He may be a much better player than I am, but since I am now more educated on this piece than any present, even the other tuba players, I was the only person there in a musically literate audience to realize his errors, which were many.

I haven't reached any conclusions on my thoughts of this. Good, bad, or otherwise. A part of me expects that everyone should expect a certain quality that isn't being attained, while a part of me thinks that if that happens, everyone will be a critic. So for the time being, I'll bask in the applause of the uneducated, while making fun of myself in front of the educated. Yes, that will work for the time being.