A Minute with Miles

Percussion players can vary the sounds of their instruments by using different kinds of drumsticks, or drumsticks with different kinds of heads. Timpani players, for example, use sticks that range from very soft to very hard. The heads of “normal,” or “regular” timpani sticks are made of felt—hard felt covered with soft felt—but the softest timpani stick heads are made of sponge, and the hardest are made of solid wood. Just imagine the difference in sound between a drum struck with sponge and a

Fiddle is an older word than violin – there were instruments called fiddles long before violins. Violino, which is Italian for “violin,” is the diminutive form of viola , which until the 1700s was the generic term for any bowed string instrument. The word viola itself came from the Old French viole , which came from the Provençal viula , which came from the Medieval Latin vidula . I used to think, as others did, that the word fiddle also came from vidula . Pronounce the V in vidula in the German

One of the things I love most about the field of classical music is the way it brings together people from so many different countries. Throughout my career I’ve worked with musicians from the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Bulgaria, Hungary, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Israel, Sweden, Finland, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Canada, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany. And I’m probably forgetting a few. Needless to say, the governments

I came across a collection of the letters of Arturo Toscanini recently, and in thē introduction the editor writes, “A whole psychology textbook could be written about Toscanini and anger.” Well all I can say is that if there had been such a book, Toscanini should have read it. He may have been a great conductor, but he was also an ill-tempered tyrant. Because in his day conductors had absolute power over their orchestras, Toscanini never had to control his temper the way most people have to in

Anybody who’s been around the music business for any length of time has met performers who are – how can I put this gently – legends in their own minds. Where the ego is large enough, the performer tends to think that the main reason a particular Beethoven sonata, or Tchaikovsky symphony, or Puccini opera is worth hearing is the brilliance of that performer’s performance; that no one else could possibly bring the work to life so wonderfully. Well, I’m all for musicians having appropriate levels

The image of the starving artist may be a romantic one, but it turns out that poverty has not always been a necessary condition for writing great music. Sometimes, in fact, great music has gone along with great wealth. Felix Mendelssohn, for one, came from a very wealthy family, and during his lifetime Johannes Brahms made more money than he could ever use. Closer to our own time, the best example of a wealthy genius may have been Francis Poulenc. Poulenc was the grandson of the founder of the

I always enjoy telling the story of how the piano got its name. Piano means “soft,” in Italian, and it seems a little strange that an instrument that can weigh almost a thousand pounds and compete in volume with a symphony orchestra should be called a “soft.” Well we have to start with the piano’s predecessor, the harpsichord, or gravicembalo , in Italian. The strings of a harpsichord are plucked, not struck, and no matter how hard, or how softly, you press the keys, the sound volume stays the

Turning pages for pianists is a pretty thankless job—the page turner is usually only noticed when he or she messes up. But for pianists who depend on page turners—and at some point most pianists do, at least those who haven’t switched over to electronic tablets—good, dependable, unobtrusive page turners are worth their weight in gold. They free the pianists from worry and make their lives much easier. Then again… virtually every pianist has a collection of page turner stories that are either

Have you ever wondered why pianists need page turners? They’re not, after all, the only ones who use both hands to play their instruments. The answer is that piano music goes by too fast: you can only fit half as much music on one page of piano music as you can on one page of music for a non-keyboard instrument. And that’s for the simple reason that in printed piano music, each line of music takes up two lines, one for the left hand one for the right. Each set of two lines together, for left

It was George Bernard Shaw who famously wrote, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” What Shaw forgot is that teaching is doing. And if you’re looking for a group of people whose unlimited dedication is matched only by their extraordinary skills, I suggest you look no farther than public school music teachers. To me, these teachers are heroes. They take classrooms full of children from all walks of life and with hugely varying skill levels-- sometimes starting as early as second grade--