An analysis of this performance would be most welcome--it's very followable, so some insight into what you were thinking along the way would really help cement fugue improvisation concepts!
I'm flattered, thanks so much, Luigi. But I'm also one of those people who thinks talent is a myth... I was a nerdy kid that messed around a lot composing and improvising. It's not a mystery how I am able to do this, and I teach others how to do it for half a living!
I do not doubt anything you say in the least. I think it is a complex subject. From my observation, I realized that there's two kind of people: those with no talent, who are skeptical about talent, and those with talent, who are too modest to admit that they have it. You clearly fall into the latter category. Your modesty is admirable. Of course, hard work always plays a heavy role, regardless of talent....hard work will improve anyone, right? If that weren't the case, most aspiring musicians would be doomed right from the start. But you know better than I, through studying music history, that talent is real. Haydn said that little Mozart was 'the greatest composer known to him, in person or by name'. Schumann proclaimed that Chopin was a genius. You might have two people at the instrument, taking exactly the same lessons, and having them practice for the same amount of time, yet one of them might progress far faster. But yes, I also believe that with dedication AND the right teaching, a whole lot can be done, and develop any 'latent talent'. Of course, practice is vital, but without method, and high quality teaching, practice won't do much. But yes, I do believe that much can be always learned. And if one never really tries, how will he ever know? But in the end, I think that as long as one has authentic love for music, the talent matter loses relevance. After all, music is not a contest, and if one has a real and burning love for music, then he should be a musician. Once a musician, always a musician, right? The rest doesn't matter. It is also true that some people use the 'Oh, I have no talent' excuse to bail out of dedication. Most of the times it means: 'I don't have enough patience to learn anything'. There's quite a few of these people. You are a fantastic teacher, not just a brilliant musician. (Sorry about my ramblings again, and thanks for reading. You don't have to reply.).
@@luigipati3815 Thanks again for the really nice compliments, I'm truly flattered. I understand how you feel, and it is a complex subject. It's not as though certain things are not easier for certain people, this is certainly the case. But is it nature? Or is it that one student takes better to a certain teacher? Mozart had one teacher his whole life, his father, who made him work inhumanely hard as a child. His sister was, as is well-known, his equal on the keyboard. She was probably also an excellent composer, although, because she was not encouraged in this art (as many women at the time were not), she did not spend so many hours. I think your point about truly loving something is the closest we get to agreeing on this: Mozart said "Love is the soul of genius", which I take to mean "the more you truly love something, the more you will care to do it often, learn it well, and improve deliberately". If we are endowed with anything, it is likely curiosity and obsessiveness, not innate talent.
@@parallelfifths2824 , I agree. And of course, Mozart has the last word! But talent cannot be denied, this can be seen even on youtube, I saw a little girl sight reading Bach fugues she had never seen before, it was incredible. Or Alma Deutscher. I certainly believe in improvement, that is for sure. This is indeed the good news, almost anyone can improve. In the end, no true musician really questioned or cared about his talent, at least in the beginning....he or she simply and absolutely wants to be a musician, no ifs or buts. Maybe this mysterious call is talent itself. I believe that. No real musician listened to the nonsense about how they need to pay the bills and therefore they should not choose music....for the true musician, this stuff goes into one ear and out of the other! Music and its secrets simply drew them into a world from which they can never return, and they are very happy to be in it! I think it would be shameful to bail out of music with the excuse that one is not a genius....this betrays a weakness of character, in my view. Whether one owns a huge garden or a tiny one, it should be cared for. No one can do another's work, that is for sure. I wish you a great week 😃
And Nicola, in regard to Mozart, you know better than I that from a very early age he was already a virtuoso and that he was giving concerts all around Europe. I don't remember how old he was when he did that, about 7 years of age? The question arises, how much 'practice' and 'learning' did he really do by that time? He was only a child. Children have a very short attention span compared to adults. It is highly unusual for a child to master musical activities of any kind, by learning, while they learn to read the alphabet. Again, I think we can see a similar story with Alma Deutscher, her parents are not musicians and she displayed uncommon musical abilities from early on. Moreover, each one of all the harmony and music theory books I have, which are several, mention talent and 'genius' in every edition. These books were all written before about 1950 or so. In each one of them it is mentioned that learning certainly helps and it is indispensable regardless, but that it is no substitution to talent. Talent is undeniable, it is very clear to me. It is mentioned in every corner of credible and ascertained music history and music theory books written by eminent scholars and musicians. I mean, where does music theory comes from? Just the analysis of the works of highly talented musicians. I am certainly not saying that unless one has a prodigious amount of talent, cannot be a musician, or that much cannot be done by learning, just that talent is undeniable, it exists, always has, and it varies in quantity, and it is rare in proportion to its quantity, like gold. To you, what you do might seem nothing special, but I already notice a notable difference between you and other scholars who do similar work as you. You have a fluency and facility that they don't seem to have in the same amount. They are very good, but you are better. They too worked their behind off, perhaps even more than you (I don't know, I am just throwing a wild guess and I might be wrong about that), yet they seem to struggle more than you do. Even Mozart, you might recall, wrote to his father that he could not understand why that particular student found so hard to write a melody, and his father told him: 'Do you really think that everybody else is like you?'. And so on. Anyways, clearly no one can wait for talent to be handed down to them by the gods, so to speak, so one has to do what he can, and do at least some daily work. About that, I completely agree. As Epictetus said, there's things we can control, and things we cannot, and we should only concern ourselves with the ones we can control. And perhaps talent can be developed, to an extent, through learning. One will know only after doing it. I think that is what I have done, (I am just a pop and rock musician, but anything valuable I learned about music, comes from classical music, for example I never use the minor mode as used in pop music, but the melodic form as used in classical music....stuff that frankly pop and rock musicians are too stupid or lazy to understand) i.e. the first piece I wrote was complete nonsense, now at least I can write a coherent piece of music, that makes sense. By the way, for me the biggest challenge was developing a sense of form, which seems to be common to many, many musicians, even composers who write soundtracks, etc. Since the late 1800's many impressive books about musical form have been written, yet none of the old masters learned form from a book, for no one had written any yet. All the books on composition 'only' dealt with counterpoint. Of course, I am not saying anything you don't already know, but I am just saying. Again, you need not reply, I understand your time is valuable. Thank you for reading! Sorry for the long winded thoughts, though I am sure you understand what I try to say. I wish you a great week! :)
Hah, thanks a lot. It was a sigh of disappointment, but I really need to be less uptight about these kinds of things. Thanks so much again for the nice words and thanks for watching!
@@timothyj.bowlby5524 You can email me about this if you'd like, but we almost always play our own compositions. For exceptional music that gets sent to me, we sometimes read it and record it as a favor...!
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
An analysis of this performance would be most welcome--it's very followable, so some insight into what you were thinking along the way would really help cement fugue improvisation concepts!
You got it! I was actually planning on doing something like this for my next video.
Very nice !
Beautiful! I love it!
so brilliant, it's ridiculous. In this cases I always think of these 'authors' who say that talent is a myth.....ha ha
I'm flattered, thanks so much, Luigi. But I'm also one of those people who thinks talent is a myth... I was a nerdy kid that messed around a lot composing and improvising. It's not a mystery how I am able to do this, and I teach others how to do it for half a living!
I do not doubt anything you say in the least. I think it is a complex subject. From my observation, I realized that there's two kind of people: those with no talent, who are skeptical about talent, and those with talent, who are too modest to admit that they have it. You clearly fall into the latter category. Your modesty is admirable. Of course, hard work always plays a heavy role, regardless of talent....hard work will improve anyone, right? If that weren't the case, most aspiring musicians would be doomed right from the start. But you know better than I, through studying music history, that talent is real. Haydn said that little Mozart was 'the greatest composer known to him, in person or by name'. Schumann proclaimed that Chopin was a genius. You might have two people at the instrument, taking exactly the same lessons, and having them practice for the same amount of time, yet one of them might progress far faster. But yes, I also believe that with dedication AND the right teaching, a whole lot can be done, and develop any 'latent talent'. Of course, practice is vital, but without method, and high quality teaching, practice won't do much. But yes, I do believe that much can be always learned. And if one never really tries, how will he ever know? But in the end, I think that as long as one has authentic love for music, the talent matter loses relevance. After all, music is not a contest, and if one has a real and burning love for music, then he should be a musician. Once a musician, always a musician, right? The rest doesn't matter. It is also true that some people use the 'Oh, I have no talent' excuse to bail out of dedication. Most of the times it means: 'I don't have enough patience to learn anything'. There's quite a few of these people. You are a fantastic teacher, not just a brilliant musician. (Sorry about my ramblings again, and thanks for reading. You don't have to reply.).
@@luigipati3815 Thanks again for the really nice compliments, I'm truly flattered. I understand how you feel, and it is a complex subject. It's not as though certain things are not easier for certain people, this is certainly the case. But is it nature? Or is it that one student takes better to a certain teacher? Mozart had one teacher his whole life, his father, who made him work inhumanely hard as a child. His sister was, as is well-known, his equal on the keyboard. She was probably also an excellent composer, although, because she was not encouraged in this art (as many women at the time were not), she did not spend so many hours. I think your point about truly loving something is the closest we get to agreeing on this: Mozart said "Love is the soul of genius", which I take to mean "the more you truly love something, the more you will care to do it often, learn it well, and improve deliberately". If we are endowed with anything, it is likely curiosity and obsessiveness, not innate talent.
@@parallelfifths2824 , I agree. And of course, Mozart has the last word! But talent cannot be denied, this can be seen even on youtube, I saw a little girl sight reading Bach fugues she had never seen before, it was incredible. Or Alma Deutscher. I certainly believe in improvement, that is for sure. This is indeed the good news, almost anyone can improve. In the end, no true musician really questioned or cared about his talent, at least in the beginning....he or she simply and absolutely wants to be a musician, no ifs or buts. Maybe this mysterious call is talent itself. I believe that. No real musician listened to the nonsense about how they need to pay the bills and therefore they should not choose music....for the true musician, this stuff goes into one ear and out of the other! Music and its secrets simply drew them into a world from which they can never return, and they are very happy to be in it! I think it would be shameful to bail out of music with the excuse that one is not a genius....this betrays a weakness of character, in my view. Whether one owns a huge garden or a tiny one, it should be cared for. No one can do another's work, that is for sure. I wish you a great week 😃
And Nicola, in regard to Mozart, you know better than I that from a very early age he was already a virtuoso and that he was giving concerts all around Europe. I don't remember how old he was when he did that, about 7 years of age? The question arises, how much 'practice' and 'learning' did he really do by that time? He was only a child. Children have a very short attention span compared to adults. It is highly unusual for a child to master musical activities of any kind, by learning, while they learn to read the alphabet. Again, I think we can see a similar story with Alma Deutscher, her parents are not musicians and she displayed uncommon musical abilities from early on. Moreover, each one of all the harmony and music theory books I have, which are several, mention talent and 'genius' in every edition. These books were all written before about 1950 or so. In each one of them it is mentioned that learning certainly helps and it is indispensable regardless, but that it is no substitution to talent. Talent is undeniable, it is very clear to me. It is mentioned in every corner of credible and ascertained music history and music theory books written by eminent scholars and musicians. I mean, where does music theory comes from? Just the analysis of the works of highly talented musicians. I am certainly not saying that unless one has a prodigious amount of talent, cannot be a musician, or that much cannot be done by learning, just that talent is undeniable, it exists, always has, and it varies in quantity, and it is rare in proportion to its quantity, like gold. To you, what you do might seem nothing special, but I already notice a notable difference between you and other scholars who do similar work as you. You have a fluency and facility that they don't seem to have in the same amount. They are very good, but you are better. They too worked their behind off, perhaps even more than you (I don't know, I am just throwing a wild guess and I might be wrong about that), yet they seem to struggle more than you do. Even Mozart, you might recall, wrote to his father that he could not understand why that particular student found so hard to write a melody, and his father told him: 'Do you really think that everybody else is like you?'. And so on. Anyways, clearly no one can wait for talent to be handed down to them by the gods, so to speak, so one has to do what he can, and do at least some daily work. About that, I completely agree. As Epictetus said, there's things we can control, and things we cannot, and we should only concern ourselves with the ones we can control. And perhaps talent can be developed, to an extent, through learning. One will know only after doing it. I think that is what I have done, (I am just a pop and rock musician, but anything valuable I learned about music, comes from classical music, for example I never use the minor mode as used in pop music, but the melodic form as used in classical music....stuff that frankly pop and rock musicians are too stupid or lazy to understand) i.e. the first piece I wrote was complete nonsense, now at least I can write a coherent piece of music, that makes sense. By the way, for me the biggest challenge was developing a sense of form, which seems to be common to many, many musicians, even composers who write soundtracks, etc. Since the late 1800's many impressive books about musical form have been written, yet none of the old masters learned form from a book, for no one had written any yet. All the books on composition 'only' dealt with counterpoint. Of course, I am not saying anything you don't already know, but I am just saying. Again, you need not reply, I understand your time is valuable. Thank you for reading! Sorry for the long winded thoughts, though I am sure you understand what I try to say. I wish you a great week! :)
Very impressive
Thanks for watching, Tomaz. Cheers!
I don't know if was a a contented sigh or on of relief at the end but your improv skills are phenomenal!
Hah, thanks a lot. It was a sigh of disappointment, but I really need to be less uptight about these kinds of things. Thanks so much again for the nice words and thanks for watching!
cant believe this is improvised! mind blown!
Thanks for watching! You can do this too, for sure, with some practice!
What is this instrumemt? How can I get one?
Was the subject of your own invention? Do tell. It'd be fun to work up an elaboration of it... if thatd be okay with you.
Absolutely, I would be flattered! Yes, the subject was invented more or less on the spot, but it's based on a skeleton I know very well.
@@parallelfifths2824 I have a couple of tonal fugues for string quartet and I wonder if you(r players) might be interested in looking at/playing them.
@@timothyj.bowlby5524 You can email me about this if you'd like, but we almost always play our own compositions. For exceptional music that gets sent to me, we sometimes read it and record it as a favor...!