[CAUT] excessive pedaling?

[Ed Sutton]

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Beautiful post, Fred.
Sometimes we forget that our work is about one of the most beautiful things a human being can do.
If we don't provide the possibility for gentle magic, why be surprised if people just bang harder and faster?
Ed Sutton


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Fred Sturm 
To: College and University Technicians
Sent: 3/23/2005 9:56:26 PM 
Subject: Re: [CAUT] excessive pedaling?


On 3/21/05 2:30 PM, "Chris Solliday" <solliday@ptd.net> wrote:


The trouble with being unaware is that one is unaware of being unaware. Chris Solliday


    Actually, other than making a triple negative and offering opportunities for a few wisecracks, I think that Chris, in his typical cryptic way, was making a good point. He was commenting on my post, where I said that as a young pianist I didn’t think much of the una corda pedal because I had never played a piano that had been well-regulated and voiced (specifically with respect to una corda). So I was unaware of the possibilities, and “unaware that I was unaware.” Hence I had a prejudice that was unwarranted, and was missing a very important skill.
    Which brings me to the reason I am bothering to parse Chris’ prose: As caut’s we have a very special responsibility. We are the ones who give the ever new generation of pianists their experience of what a piano can be. To the extent we succeed in giving them instruments to practice and perform on that are responsive, that have all kinds of subtlety possible by virtue of regulation and voicing, we will have helped educate not only them but their students. We will raise their expectations, so when they go somewhere else they will know what is possible and will demand it. Which is why I give a great deal of emphasis (as much as my limited time allows) to keeping the piano major practice grands in as close to performance shape as I can, along with piano faculty and the concert instruments. The rest of the inventory can be average. 
    If I don’t provide pianos that have had a good una corda voicing, as one example, the piano students who play them won’t learn what the possibilities are, and they will be unaware of being unaware.
    Nuff of that <g>

Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico 
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