["Pomp and Circumstance"]
Happy New Year, 2024, and welcome back
to another episode of the PianoPod, here, tradition
meets innovation.
We bridge the timeless beauty of the piano
with the dynamic pulse of today's world.
I am your host, Yukime Song.
I hope you all had wonderful holidays surrounded
by your loved ones.
After a brief break, I'm so happy to be back podcasting
in the new year and interviewing incredible talents
of the classical music industry.
As an inaugural episode of 2024, I am excited to tell you
that I invited Dr. Michael Kunrod, performing
classical pianist, recording artist, educator,
and arranger of music for the left hand
alone, who has recently retired from the Interlochen Center
for the Arts after a remarkable 46-year tenure as a piano
faculty member.
Usually, I would continue the episode
by reading the guest's bio right now,
but today, I wanted to do something different.
Before our usual introduction and welcome,
I decided to invite and chat with a special guest, who
is a dear friend and colleague of mine, whom
I've known for many years through working
for this nonprofit organization in New York City
as a board member and through many fun projects
I get to collaborate with.
He has also become a contributor and faithful listener
of the PianoPod in recent months.
So please allow me to introduce my friend, classical pianist,
educator, web designer, and my personal tech advisor, Mr.
Bo-Ki Wang.
Yay, thank you.
Great to be here.
So today's guest, Dr. Kunrod, you
introduced me to this amazing pianist and teacher.
I know that you met him through the Interlochen Arts Academy.
So tell us, what was it like learning from him?
So let's start with how you met.
When I was 15 years old, I moved from Taiwan
to Michigan.
And I remember our first day there, all the pianists,
all the new students, it's like a jury, right?
You play for all the piano faculties,
unless you indicate who you want to study with.
By the time I didn't know anybody.
So I followed the normal position.
We play, I think, a piece or two and some skills, basic stuff.
And then I was told I was going to study with Dr. Kunrod.
So that's how we met.
So what was the reason you chose the Interlochen Arts Academy?
I understand it's one of the prestigious music
schools in the United States.
So at the time, we were looking at high schools
specifically for performing arts.
And there were three of them.
There are three different schools, one in California,
one in Michigan, one in Boston.
Matter of fact, I was actually going to Paris, originally,
not in the United States.
So at the time, I was learning French back home.
And my mom felt maybe we need to have a backup plane.
So she flew here, visit schools.
And then she thought Interlochen was the right choice.
Wow.
But it's surprising to me, because after so many years,
I didn't know that you were planning to go to Paris
and study French.
Oh my goodness.
I had everything ready.
At the time, I have all the visa ready.
Everything was set.
But because I just turned 15 at the time,
and the life in Paris is really different.
You have to be on your own.
So at the time, my family thought,
maybe that's not a good idea.
So that's why we were looking at this backup plane.
I can't imagine you speaking in French.
It took me a year.
It's difficult.
I bet.
But coming as a high school student from Taiwan,
and I'm sure you've encountered so many cultural language
differences, obviously.
Later on, you came to New York and studied at Manhattan School
of Music.
You went through college and master's degree.
But before then, starting from the Interlochen,
what was it like?
I met Kunrod after I learned, OK,
I'm going to study with him.
I remember first week, or even the second week of school,
after my lesson, he said, if I ever feel lonely,
if I want to feel like being at a home setting,
he want me to call him, because he said,
they have extra bedrooms.
I'm more than welcome to stay with them.
And that was only the second week I just met him.
He doesn't know me.
I don't know him.
And that made me feel like, wow, you would do that for me.
We left our family to come here to study,
and he want to make us feel welcomed, or even feel
natural to homesick.
Right.
And also safe.
I myself was an international student.
And then more than anything, because you
feel so insecure because you had to learn the language,
that's one thing that really takes a lot of toll on you,
not knowing the language.
I don't know how much you were speaking English at that time.
I was going to mention that.
So I had very poor English back then.
I had no idea what was going on.
I remember my first set of class was September 11.
September 11 happened.
I was walking to lunch.
And going through lunch, we go through a hotel lobby.
We have a hotel in our campus just for guests to stay in.
And that's where the cafeteria was, behind a hotel.
And I was walking through the lobby,
and then TV was showing what happened during 9-11.
And my English was so bad at the time,
I thought it was a movie.
I didn't know what was happening at the time.
So of course, the school canceled the day.
I can't remember detail, but it was a chaos, as you can imagine.
So it was your first, really, first day of the school
as a boarding.
As an international.
Right.
So once you have someone talk to you this way, saying, hey,
if you want, call me.
We'll pick you up.
You can stay with us over the weekend.
That's really something.
So tell me what it was like to be part of Dr. Kunra's piano
studio at Interlochen.
You want to be better.
That's why we practice every day.
And it can be stressful.
Maybe we will have competitions coming up, or any reasons.
Because Interlochen, just like conservatory,
they were very, very strict or competitive.
But with Kunra, we are always, yes, of course, we work hard.
But he wanted to make sure that we have a balance.
Where Interlochen is, we're basically
in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nature.
Right.
Oh, nice.
So he will take us out.
I remember there were times we would run around the building.
I mean, we were 15, 16 years old.
He will take us around around the building.
And you can see everybody was working so hard in the studio class.
And we're the only one running around.
Just two laps.
Really, just two laps.
We run around the building two laps.
We'll come back in the building.
He will have everybody lay under the piano
when other people are playing.
Or sometimes he will make tea for us in the studio class.
Our studio class, he wanted to make sure that we are all relaxed,
not too stressed, and it's all about the balance.
We can just be in the practice room for a long time.
But during the studio class, it was really important.
We did a lot of things that normal studio classes people,
we teacher wouldn't do.
And we'll goof around.
We were kids at the time.
And that was great.
He takes time to talk to you.
He cares about you.
Being an artist or being a pianist, it's not, yes.
You practice hard.
You do all the right things.
But you've got to love what you do.
And I think at the time, Dr. Kumrat, he always
tells us, we know he's really, really busy.
He still performed.
He made a lot of recordings.
And how do you find the time?
And because he just loves what he does.
And it doesn't seem like a work to him.
And so music, again, it can be very competitive.
Or it can be something that it's about you, what you love.
Not trying to, I want to be better than you.
I think that's one of the things I learned.
Do you have any fun stories, besides all the things
you mentioned, with Dr. Kumrat, learning from him?
Or maybe spending some time with him, like memorable moments?
All the serious things aside, right?
Because I think that everybody there will practice.
We will do academics.
We do all that.
But the things I remember the most,
it's those things that other people don't do.
Again, it was doing studio classes,
because there was a group of us.
He took us on the little hike behind the school.
We found those roots.
And we came back in the studio.
He made us tea or something, just from the roots,
doing our studio classes.
And I think at the time he was doing the finalist week,
I don't remember exactly the timing at the time.
But I know the whole thing that he did that for us,
because he wanted us to do something else, not just
practicing.
I don't know if we're allowed to use fire at the time
at the piano building.
But we made tea in the studio class.
Those moments stay with you, because those
are abnormal moments.
And you appreciate that.
Don't take it too seriously.
I guess that's why it is.
How did Mr. Coonrod influence you and change your life?
He recently retired.
And his retired concert was livestreamed on the website.
I was able to watch it.
And he played his transcription of the Danny Boy
for Life Hang Only.
And at the time, I was like, oh, man, this is so beautiful.
I know he just recorded a CD.
And because I'm not there, at the end of the concert,
he goes, when you leave, pick up a copy of the CD.
He wanted to give it away.
And all of the time, I was like, man, I really want it,
because such a good recording.
So I wrote to Coonrod.
I said, I watched this.
I would love to have a copy of your transcription,
because it's such a beautiful transcription.
So he sent it to me.
That's right before I went to Vermont.
So Vermont, we spent a week there.
Basically, it's a piano retreat, but whatever.
So I learned it.
That was last summer, right?
That was last summer.
So we have a half-year reunion concert coming up in January.
And I'm planning to play that.
What reunion?
So Vermont, this program.
Retreat.
We always do a half-year reunion concert in January.
And I'm planning to play Coonrod's arrangement of Danny Boy
for the concert.
And he's really excited about it.
And as he was telling me that, it's
really nice to hear someone else playing his arrangement.
And I'm very honored that I can do it.
Poki, thank you for being here today
as the guest of the introductory segment of this episode
and telling us the memories and personal stories
you shared with your mentor, which
adds so much anticipation and excitement to the interview
with Dr. Coonrod.
Looking forward to it.
So before finally inviting Dr. Coonrod,
let me briefly cite his bio.
Dr. Michael Coonrod's illustrious career
as a classical pianist, recording artist, and educator
spans continents, captivating audiences worldwide.
His musical footprint resonates globally
from enthralling performances with orchestras
playing Beethoven's Concerto No.
4 to sharing the stage with the Kindow Conservatory of Music
in China.
He has graced esteemed gatherings
like the American Liss Society, the International Violin
Congress, and more.
Among his several recordings is the album highlighting Michigan
composer Albert Fillmore's work, which
was a passion project supporting aspiring composers
through his scholarships.
Dr. Coonrod boasts over 50 years of enriching students'
lives through teaching piano.
At the Interlochen Arts Academy, one of the nation's
prestigious music institutions, he passionately
nurtured countless talents for 46 years
until his retirement in 2022.
Beyond music, Dr. Coonrod finds joy
in crafting a model railroad, performing chamber music,
and lending his talents to accompany a church choir.
His life orchestrates passion, expertise, and a symphony
of diverse interests.
So before getting started with this special episode,
I want to welcome all our first timers to the PianoPod.
I'm a classical pianist and educator from New York City.
Whether diving deep into a piano career,
working professionally in the classical music scene,
or simply having a passion for piano tunes,
this podcast is your backstage pass
to the fascinating piano world.
I also want to welcome back and thank you
to your amazing TPP fans and faithful listeners
who are tuning in today.
Please rate and review the show on your favorite podcast
platform because every rating review
will help people find the show.
So dear TPP fans and listeners, I
can't wait to interview Dr. Michael Coonrod
to hear about this remarkable career as a concert pianist,
recording artist, and educator.
So stick with me till the end of our conversation
as it will lead to a more reflective discussion on how
we train classical musicians, should keep classical music
relevant, and thriving in today's rapidly changing world.
So here we go, dear friends.
Please enjoy the show.
["Piano Pod"]
You are listening to the PianoPod,
where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century.
We are here with Dr. Michael Coonrod,
performing classical pianist, recording artist, educator,
arranger of music for the left hand alone.
So welcome, Dr. Coonrod, to the PianoPod.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm honored that you would ask me.
Thank you.
I'm looking forward to it.
Same here.
Now, Pocky Huang, fellow pianist and educator
and my colleague at Non-Profit Organization,
the Piano Teachers Congress of New York, connected me to you.
I understand you were Pocky's teacher
while he was studying at the Interlochen Arts Academy,
and you are a mentor to him.
And he says you changed his life and made him
who he is today as an artist and educator.
So nice to hear, because so often students might not
contact you for years, sometimes decades, sometimes maybe
weeks.
But to know that I was an influence on his life
after so many years, well, maybe what, 12, 15 years
when I was teaching him for three years,
it was really gratifying to know.
It's just, for me, it's the best job I could ever have.
Oh, that's wonderful.
I know you've taught at the very prestigious Interlochen
Center for the Arts, which is located in Michigan for 46
years, I believe.
46 years.
I've taught at the Arts Academy, yes.
Oh my goodness.
And they recently retired from being a full-time faculty
member there.
And of course, Interlochen is one
of the prestigious music schools in the nation.
And internationally renowned as well,
where young students' creativity has
flourished since its founding in 1928, I believe.
And then the school boasts a distinguished alumni
network of musicians, as well as dancers and actors.
In the last three and a half years of podcasting,
I have interviewed several Interlochen graduate,
actually, for the piano pot.
So I want to know what drew you to the institution,
and what makes it stand out in the realm of arts education?
Can you share how you first became involved
with the Interlochen Center for the Arts?
Well, I did grow up in Missoula, Montana.
I had been playing piano since age four.
And this was the early teen years, which
is the time most people have this burning craving
to play music.
That's just fascinating to me.
What causes that at those early teen years?
My father, who was dean of liberal arts and sciences
at the University of Montana, had
a dear friend who was dean at Illinois State University.
And this dean recommended Interlochen,
that I would study with George Luxemburg.
This was 1967, a few years ago.
So I saw a picture of Interlochen National Music Camp
at that time.
It was called, now it's Interlochen Arts Camp,
because it has all the arts media, not just music.
And so it was recommended I go there.
So I spent 1967 summer studying with him.
I remember I took theory, composition.
I was in the festival choir, which
any adults or students could sing in.
We did the Verdi Requiem.
Wow.
It was wonderful.
And I practiced six or seven hours.
And that's what I went to do.
And I went and heard concerts.
And the unique thing is that it's a camp,
and it's right there.
You just have to walk as far as half a football field
to go to concerts.
And they're all outdoors.
And it's also a social experience.
And also, they ask you to have sports activities.
At that time, they called it Forced Fun,
which was a very good name, because it's something
I really enjoyed doing.
I took tennis lessons.
And I never knew that that would be my only job in life.
If I had known that, I would have thought more of it
other than just smelling a little iron in the water.
I would have thought, oh, if I had a premonition,
this was going to be my job teaching.
Of course, at that time, I didn't
think I was going to be a teacher.
I was just trying to play the piano as best as I could.
Well, I was a grad student at Peabody Conservatory
in Baltimore.
And the director of placement, Sydney Forrest,
famous clarinetist who was teaching there,
contacted me and four other students
knowing that we were looking for jobs.
And I guess I was unknowingly smart,
because this was in August, and Academy began in September.
So I said everything, not just a cover letter.
Cover letter, transcripts, recordings, grades, courses,
everything.
And that turned out to be good, because the administration
had their hands full on vacation.
And so they had me come in and play a concert
in three weekdays notice.
I played Elliott Carter Piano Sonata, a couple etudes,
and some Schubert.
And it's good that I did some etudes,
like Muszkowski and Chopin, because interlocking really
promotes the study of technique.
So that's how I became a faculty member, a piano faculty member.
Years after that, one of the piano faculty members
said, because I asked them, how did you hire me?
Why did you hire me?
Because I never taught anybody.
It was between camp and Academy.
They said, well, you smiled and you forgot your suitcase.
So you must be a good musician.
Introduce us to the Interlochen Center for the Arts.
Brief overview, maybe programs.
And I know Interlochen summer camp is very famous too.
And some of my students are trying to go there.
And so also maybe the key milestones,
if you know, to shape its legacy and so forth.
Interlochen is quite a substantial part
of the music culture in the world.
Started in 1928, as you mentioned.
I did some research on some statistics,
because they're a little different every year.
Turns out that there's six orchestras.
There's two bands and three choirs.
There's 3,230 campers representing 40 countries.
And 60% are international students.
At the Academy, there's 567 students as of this year,
representing 45 states, 27 countries,
and 85 international students.
Oh my goodness.
I mean, it's incredible what they have.
But it's divided up into junior students, age 8 to 11.
And they're separated between male, female,
in different parts of campus.
Interlochen means between the lakes.
So the one side is for one gender,
and the other side for another gender.
It's called Pine Side.
And then age 11 to 14, intermediate level.
And there's different programs for each of them.
Finally, there's high school.
When I first started teaching there,
we taught every level, including college.
It was the summer camp for the University of Michigan.
So it's quite a substantial place.
There's four different branches to Interlochen.
Number one is Interlochen Arts Camp during the summer,
which includes an intensive six weeks.
And that's a separate group of students
who are generally more advanced and over there
to have master classes all day and go
to concerts in the evening.
Not so many kind of social camp experiences.
You can't help it.
There's socializing too.
It's been very successful, maybe 20 years old now.
It's been a piano intensive session for maybe 12 years.
And so that's the camp.
The Academy is like an arts academy,
which is high school 9 through 12.
We see students for a longer period of time
so we can see more development.
The camp, you give them four to eight lessons.
But during the year, it's just nine months of lessons.
And you get to know them because it's much smaller.
I mean, 3,200 is different than 500.
And then we also have Mallory Towsley Center
for Arts Leadership.
That invites adults to come in for the weekend or four
or five days to talk about arts activities, different arts
areas, maybe talking about crafts.
And they could be anything.
They have their own building and they
have their own director that's separate from the school,
from the high school.
Let's see, we also have Interlochen Public Media.
And that provides classical music and a news station
throughout the general northern Michigan area.
And let's get them all.
Yes, one, two, three, four.
That is all under the umbrella of Interlochen Center
for the Arts.
It's a big institution and one of the most influential art
schools in nation.
Now, you mentioned that there are
substantial numbers of international students.
So does the school offer a boarding school?
It's 90% boarding school.
So they can get out of bed and walk across the street
and have their lesson or their classes.
We have 1,200 acres.
But during the winter, it's only on one side
and it's just very close.
During the summer, students have to walk from the other lake
over to have breakfast, to have the meals on the main campus.
I mean, life is harsh, right?
They don't have to drive two hours for a lesson.
I see.
Now I understand that.
Wow.
That's such a good point.
There are day students.
People can come here from China.
Sometimes parents come over here and live.
And they can have their children be day students.
So it's a little bit less expensive.
There's an extraordinary amount of scholarship available.
So the tuition is quite high, like all boarding schools.
But there's an endowment for a lot of scholarship.
I don't remember the number.
There's 5 million or 10, 15 million.
They don't give somebody free passes to come here.
It's good to be able to have something
that parents can offer.
So people don't need to be dissuaded
by steep tuition prices.
I think the goal for the future is to have free tuition.
That would be amazing.
Just attract the true, genuine talents.
Sometimes in the past, we've missed
having Eastern European students who are really exceptional.
But they can't afford anything.
Well, we were bringing them, but then
still couldn't afford that.
So we're hoping to reinstate that.
Oh, that sounds really a dream come true
for all the young artists.
We have an incredible president we love, Trey Devey.
And he gets to know everybody.
He knows people's names.
And he's out there promoting Interlochen and raising money.
And he's a fantastic president for us.
So what sets apart from other institutions?
What sets Interlochen?
Maybe you already mentioned all the unique way
to provide musical experience to young students.
But what else?
Well, there are many really fine art schools out there.
I just mentioned the things that we offer quite extensive.
And we've had a history of decades of successful students.
I mean, I asked the school, can you
give me some of the famous people who have come through
here, either in the camp or the academy?
And it's just incredible.
I mean, two or three pages.
Anthony McGill, he's the principal clarinetist
in the New York Philharmonic.
Aaron Dworkin, founder of Sphinx.
David Schifrin, the clarinetist, famous clarinetist.
Elaine Duas, who's principal oboe in the Metropolitan Opera.
Lauren Maisel, former New York Philharmonic conductor.
He was here as a 10-year-old.
Oh, my goodness.
And we have 50 presidential scholars.
Evidently, there's 13% of the orchestra musicians
are graduates of Interlochen.
There are 32 Tony Awards, 26 Emmy Awards, three Oscars,
and four Pulitzer Prizes.
Wow.
But you know what really impresses me
is not so much the famous people who have been so successful,
but what about the people who have moderate talent, who
weren't that advanced here, but then later on,
after college and grad school, if they go that route,
they're very successful.
Like Jewel.
Say Nora Jones.
I mean, they've been here.
But they've been a great name for themselves.
And I've had students who are very talented, but not
really advanced.
And you really work with them.
It's a little harder to develop them, their technique,
things they really need, some rudimentary skills.
It's extremely talented.
Students are fairly easy to teach,
unless they have a chip on their shoulders
and they don't accept what you have to say.
But that doesn't happen very often.
But what's rewarding for me is to see a moderately
talented student work really hard
and have a mission to succeed.
And to see them excel and be happy and satisfied
and they've fulfilled their dreams, whatever it may be,
is very gratifying.
Can you share some of the most favorite or memorable or
rewarding moments as an educator there
you've experienced while teaching?
I'd be happy to.
I've been thinking about this.
First, I think, is letters and messages from former students
throughout several years after they
graduate, sometimes decades after they graduate.
And you develop this really close relationship
and you realize what you have done for them.
That's very, very important for me, rewarding experiences.
Also, there was a year in which we
had enough really advanced students to play all the 32
Beethoven sonatas.
And the last three were played by Richard Good, who came.
Ironically, he happened to be on the schedule,
unbeknownst to us.
Let's see, my colleague did the hammered clavier.
I did Opus 101.
And the students filled in the rest.
Not that the others are easier.
And we didn't do them on one concert or seven concerts.
When a student was ready to perform one of the sonatas,
they're on a student recital.
And then I had a big old chart and I just marked it down.
So by the end of the year, we got all these 32 sonatas.
Not only that, but we had some bagatelles.
We had Rage Over the Lost Penny, the difficult walk through.
Yes, yes.
And that's quite a milestone to be able to achieve that.
We could probably do that in other years.
But we only did it the one year.
What meant a lot to me was my retirement honoring.
I spent 46 years and they had me play
a piece for the assembly, which is very tearful.
It was Danny Boy, actually, a piece
that I arranged for the left hand alone after my injury.
Also, I had a piano festival that I organized for 12 years,
in which I brought teachers from all of Michigan and Ohio
and Illinois to listen to guest artists.
And we had basically two or three artists.
One was for advanced students, the other
was for beginners or elementary, like Amanda Vick Lethgo,
very famous composer of method books.
She came, had people talk about accompanying for dance.
I mean, it was a very successful festival.
But after 12 years, the school, well,
actually, I built a lot of money for it.
But we couldn't quite pay for everything.
So I think the school couldn't do the rest for that.
But that was very successful.
One thing I was really happy about
is that one of my dear students built thousands and thousands
of dollars for a guest artist budget.
This happened upon my retirement as an honor.
This person chose to be anonymous.
I can't say the name.
I guess I'd say her name.
That was really wonderful.
And I told my colleagues, it's nice to know
that my retirement helped the school.
And I don't think because they're glad to get rhythm-y,
because this wouldn't have happened had I not retired.
So I was really grateful for that.
And this person was here in the early years, graduated in 1977.
And so you never know what impact you make on people,
because I had never heard from her for decades.
And all of a sudden, we're close, and we talk, and we visit.
It's a wonderful, honorable thing that she had done that.
Remember when she graduated, she was here only one year.
She's from an Asian country, and she had a rough life,
because Shanghai Czech wouldn't let intelligentsia do anything.
They were actually interned and killed.
And her father actually made it through.
And then when she heard that I played
Danny Boy as an encore for that left-hand concerto,
she was in tears because her father, age 80,
after surviving that ordeal, sang Danny Boy.
Because every time somebody would leave the internment
and never be seen again, the survivor would sing songs.
And one was Danny Boy, very much what she had gone through.
And the last thing I want to say is very important to me,
is that my dear student, Carrie Huber, replaced me.
And I was not on the team to hire her.
But everybody agreed that she's one of the best people
to invite.
And so she is here.
She has been vocal about carrying on my lineage.
And wonderful person, first-rate pianist,
and wonderful teacher.
She's going to have a long lineage here.
So I was honored by having a former student fill my position.
So she was your student before.
Yeah, from 2005 and 6.
She plays all music really beautifully well.
Her passion right now is to promote women composers,
particularly in the 21st century,
but also 20th and 19th centuries.
One of these days, I would like to reach out to her.
Maybe I can interview her on my show.
I hope you do.
Yes.
You have 40-plus years of teaching piano.
So we need to pick your brain when it comes to teaching.
So we would like to know your philosophy
and methods of teaching.
What teaching techniques do you find most effective in helping
students develop technical skills?
So you mentioned about techniques.
OK, yeah.
I'm thinking, I counted up.
I have been teaching for 54 years, 46 here.
And so I taught beginners.
I taught elementary.
I taught class piano.
The last 20 years, I was teaching majors
and advanced students.
And so my philosophy is everybody
deserves good teaching, whether it's
a beginner or extremely advanced.
It's not like I teach the talent so much.
I teach the person and the talent together.
I always say the person is just as important as the talent.
I'll teach anybody who wants to work hard as a mission.
And a person needs to realize that failures
can be very helpful unless you quit.
You have to put yourself up and keep going,
and you'll be successful.
Discouragement is always followed by some kind
of encouragement.
That happens in my life.
If something bothers me or discouraging,
I just know that the next day or so something really helpful
is going to happen to me.
I don't know what it is, but it's really uncanny
how that happens.
You can call answers to prayer.
You could have it yin and yang.
Whatever you want, it happens.
So you asked me about philosophy, Spass, about teaching.
The most important thing is have a good attitude
and positive attitude to help students not
be so self-critical, because they come to Interlochen
and they see more advanced students
and they think they're no good.
Or they go to competition and they don't win.
They think they're no good.
It needs to be, I have to channel their focus
into something positive that they have something to say.
And I was encouraged trying to play special moments.
My teachers always said, if you can
have a few special moments, I mean really transcending
moments in a performance, you should feel lucky.
It's almost too much to ask every single turn of the phrase
to just put chills up your spine.
It would be nice.
Well, it's a little bit like if you try to play something
really special every single time,
it's maybe like nothing special.
If everything tries to be special.
I mean, you try to play beautifully, of course.
But there's certain places that are really special,
harmonically or motivically or architecturally.
And if you try to do those big high points everywhere,
then nothing is important.
Rachmaninoff was quoted as saying,
where's the high point?
Where's the point?
What are you going towards?
So if everything is a high point,
then nothing's a high point.
Regarding the teaching of, I believe strongly
in technique, study of technique.
Not so separate from music, but exercises.
I call it applied technique.
Actually, that's my teacher's term, applied technique.
So if you're going to do an exercise,
there must be a purpose for it.
For example, if you're doing some rotation exercises,
then you're going to do this.
It's going to be.
You study this in order to get the technique involved.
Hannon, I think, is the best book ever for studying technique.
It's not the only one, but I like it very much
because it fuses the fingers with the wrists.
So I'm not a believer in playing Hannon like usually you hear.
Kind of mechanical.
And it might help to strengthen individual fingers,
but it's not musical.
In music, we find things in groups.
We're in groups of three, six, fours, or eight.
And I have students practicing scales in fours,
and also, so there's this kind of pulsation.
I think people practice scales like machine.
And to me, that's not the end result.
So I like to infuse musical insights into the exercises.
Let's see.
Can you see that?
If you just do the.
It's just tight sounding.
It's not good.
I took students to Ann Arbor to hear Murray Pariah do a recital.
And afterwards, we went backstage to say we loved his playing.
And you know what we saw on the piano was the Hannon book.
No way.
And I thought, if he still does that, why shouldn't we?
Really?
Good old Hannon.
That's surprising to hear.
Sorry, yes.
And I do it hands alone.
Because if you're going to be doing this, and up and over,
up and over, dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly, dilly.
So it's groups of eight going down.
It's down, up, down, up, oval motions, oval, not up and down.
It's wonderful to do it hands alone because, well, number one,
you can focus on one hand instead of both.
You're going to be a little sloppy to do things both hands together.
So I really believe in Hannon as it applies to musical ideas.
Stroke.
You know, I really believe in this stroking, the downward motion.
Because the different attacks make different sounds.
For example, the Schubert impromptu.
Right?
You know, every finger has to have some kind of pressure,
different pressure.
Because voicing is everything, practically, in piano.
And so let's see this.
The Brahms ballade.
I was really impressed with Michelangelo,
one of my favorite pianists.
He kind of goes.
He kind of drops the whole arm on.
I know a lot of people might not want to do that because you
can do it by staying on the key.
If you phrase it, it doesn't come out.
Did you hear that?
Mm-hmm.
It comes out beautifully.
Right.
With a good tone.
A student might practice just going.
And of course, this is balanced by the other part
of the hand going.
It makes it more like a singer with an accompaniment.
I mean, there's so many different ways.
We don't have time for me to tell you
everything I do with technique.
I also require them to know their cadences.
I mean, sometimes people come from a very different background.
I mean, sometimes people come from abroad and they play
that cadence, which is 2, 6, 5 tonics of chord.
I want them to know that because it's in music everywhere.
And usually, it doesn't mean anything.
They just do it because they do it.
I have them do that in all the keys.
They need to know in all the keys.
And also in minor.
Four kind of cadences.
I asked for the subdominant cadence.
I mean, it's always tonic 6-4 dominant and tonic.
But whether you play this or you play Neapolitan.
Mm-hmm.
Or 6-6.
I want them to know all those cadences
in major and minor keys.
And then, of course, point them out in the music
where they're there.
Because even though we hear Neapolitan all the time,
even in Bach, it just still sends me.
I just think it's so wonderful.
So substitution chord for this, of course.
There are some things that are extremely musical on their own.
And these colorful chords are one thing.
Also, the leading tone is musically leads up.
The fourth degree of scale musically goes down.
You can't just stop there.
I mean, students need to know that.
Of course, the Mozart story gets up in the morning
because this Leopold says, Mozart runs down the steps.
He has to finish it.
It has that compelling tension.
How do you balance the emphasis on technical proficiency
with the development of musical expression and interpretation?
So meaning, is playing fast everything?
Well, I think probably every teacher
advocates practicing slowly.
And I practiced slowly.
But I didn't practice slowly.
I mean, really slowly.
So you can focus on memories.
If you do it from memory, do it from memory, slow practice.
It helps musically where you're going.
It helps technically, too, to know what the hand is doing.
You can't do that so much for playing a string instrument.
You're dictated by the speed of the bow.
But piano, we can do that.
Particularly because you play a note and it starts to decay.
But I always think of thinking it's between the notes.
The music is in between the notes instead of.
Absolutely.
So I have a technique, which I like.
It's to get subdivisions in your fingers.
For example, the C minor Prelude Chopin.
So I did that.
And you've got to think of that when you play without repeating
those.
You go down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down.
So you can feel the tension between the notes.
I told you on the phone about the Schmerg animal.
Yes.
It's my invention.
I always remember that because it's
the first letter of different aspects of music,
different parameters.
And I think it's helpful to separate them.
So it stands for Schmerg.
Sound.
Practice the quality of sound.
So many high school students, not just boys, girls,
can bang.
They come in.
They're so excited about playing the background.
It's so ugly.
Even with Bartok and Prokofiev, good to have a rich sound.
My colleague from the embassy in Budapest
said, we play with rich sound Bartok.
We don't bang it so much.
I suppose sometimes in Beethoven,
he wants something to be really forceful.
But generally speaking, we've got
to try to get the banging out of the students.
It takes a little while.
My colleague and I achieve that.
OK, and then Schmerg.
H.
What do you think that stands for?
Harmony.
Yeah, I think it's important for students
to understand the harmony.
From the composer's point of view,
as a composer, I like to think, I mean, for traditional music,
thinks of this harmonic progression going
to wherever you're going.
There's a modulation that goes to here.
And then you put the clothes, the flesh and blood on it.
And usually, students do the other way around.
Learn things note by note, and it
doesn't make sense of the overall feel,
overall direction.
R stands for rhythm.
To make sure you get the actual rhythm, use the metronome.
I think I have decent rhythm, but I can't trust myself.
I have to check it out with metronome, which
includes subdivision of the beats, too.
If it's a quarter note, you do an eighth notes, sometimes
sixteenth notes, because my rhythm isn't
perfect by any means.
And if I record myself, I'll say, Michael,
you're not playing in time.
Not that you're staced in time.
Good composers want you to have rubato and bend things,
but you always have to come back to that tempo.
It's a very good idea to check yourselves,
check your tempo in the beginning of the piece,
the development, the coda, difficult passes
to see if it's the same as the beginning,
because often it's erratic.
And then M stands for melody, of course.
Play the melody by itself.
It's amazing how few students can play the melody by itself,
because they're so used to doing everything with it.
And then G stands for growth.
It's another name for architecture
or musical structure, not just sonata form,
but the length of the phrases.
Tubert often will have phrases of five, four, five.
Brahms, in the variations on an original theme,
is five plus five is 10.
The whole period is 10 measures long.
So that's the schmurg?
Schmurg, is that how you call it?
Yeah, I just schmurg, schmurg.
So S-H-M-R-G, that's the order?
Right, yes, right.
Sound is the most important.
If you have an ugly sound, who wants to listen to anything
else?
Absolutely.
Another question would be, how do you
approach performance anxiety and help students develop
confidence on stage?
That's part of like, it's a big portion of being a musician,
right, dealing with that.
Yeah, I think it's very important to perform a lot.
Because you perform once in front of class,
and it's a disaster.
It's not the end of the world.
Just come back, pick yourself up,
and keep doing it until you're successful.
It's just a matter of perseverance.
Or a colleague of mine said, stick to itiveness.
Keep at it.
You can't expect to play soup soup well just right away.
It's a process, just like life is a process.
Record yourself.
When I was making one of these five recordings,
I recorded the music at least 12 times.
Because I didn't want to waste a recording engineer's time
by me saying, oh, I didn't play fast enough or slow enough.
So I resolved those issues through recordings.
And then when I go into the recording session,
I go through it a few times, and I take the best.
Sometimes once is enough.
Play for your colleagues.
Play for students.
Play for the dog.
Play for the cat.
Play for your parents.
Anything that might make you a little uneasy or nervous.
So you kind of get used to it.
Good musicians almost always get nervous to some degree.
Horowitz was a basket case.
They had to push him out on stage.
Of course, he didn't look nervous.
Know your music.
I mean, really well, know your music.
I think that's probably the best.
Avoid too much anxiety.
To know your music well enough, let's
see if I can do something for you.
Um, do you know what that piece is?
Ha ha ha.
["The Last Supper"]
His cell was 109.
109, mm-hmm.
Or the last note.
I'm pushing.
Some people call it ghosting.
I feel the notes.
I feel it, but I don't play it in order,
in the pads of the fingers.
And another way of doing it is you don't even feel the pads.
You just sense which finger you're going to play,
but don't really put any pressure at all.
And it does three things.
Number one, it secures your memory.
Number two, it develops sensitivity.
Because it's much easier to go.
["The Last Supper"]
You know, it's really hard to play.
["The Last Supper"]
And it develops your sense of where you're going.
And also, did I say memory?
Yeah, the memory, where you're going, and the tone.
So I'm listening for.
["The Last Supper"]
I'm hearing every one of those notes, G sharp, B, E,
changing to A major.
But the E stays the same.
["The Last Supper"]
Can you hear that?
Mm-hmm.
Okay, and I'm also changing the pedal very slowly.
So it's an overlapping pedal.
And there's so many ways of listening.
Extremely slowly.
Even.
["The Last Supper"]
It's really slowly with a good tone.
That's a piece of Brahms sonata to bang.
Yes, it's really fun to do that first movement, yes.
But yes, now I am more convinced to tell my students
to practice slow, because you said so, too.
You know, because my students don't believe me.
They think that the practicing fast will get them somewhere.
But I tell them to do the opposite.
But it's not like that.
I tell them to do the opposite, but it's very hard to convince.
And then, you know, I'm guilty.
I was like that when I was a teenager, too.
So.
Yeah, probably me, too.
My favorite piece is a child.
["The Last Supper"]
I love it.
Well, that kid is going to go.
["The Last Supper"]
Nobody.
They're kids.
They're going fast.
Mm-hmm, yeah.
But, you know, it's worth trying to convince them.
In order to keep a kid's attention,
like when I taught in a camp in Kentucky,
Maple Mount Music Festival, I had this room
that had a nine-foot Steinway.
It wasn't that great, but it was the Steinway Grand.
And it was in the Madonna Room.
It was on a Catholic, Ursuline order area.
And so pictures of Madonna everywhere.
And so I said, everybody get underneath the piano.
Have you ever listened to music underneath the piano?
It's like being in a speaker in the box.
It just develops your sound.
It's an incredible experience.
My daughter did that when she was a kid,
and I would be practicing.
Really?
Oh.
Softly, otherwise you break their ears.
Mm, I need to do that with my students.
That's a good idea.
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You have such love and passion for teaching.
I can really sense that passion through this screen.
When did you know that teaching would be your life's work?
Like, that's difficult to say.
I was teaching in college for money.
I mean, it's a good source of income.
And then I went to Baltimore.
No, I'm sorry, University of Montana.
And I taught there for four years.
And at Peabody, I was hired to teach in the preparatory
department.
And I suppose that's when I really
enjoyed getting to know the students and helping them.
I remember this one older woman had a lesson.
And she showed up.
But there was a huge rain downpour.
Baltimore was kind of on a hill.
And there was water 10 inches deep.
And I was going to the lesson, and I slipped.
And I lost music and went down the drain.
No, I got there.
I caught it beforehand.
But I showed up for a lesson like a drowned rat.
And she was so nice.
She said, well, that's OK.
We'll do it another time.
I loved her for that.
By the time I got to Interlochen,
I was really dedicated to helping students.
As I said, I found out that you have
to get to know the students to help them musically.
If there's something bothering them,
they're really upset, they're crying,
they just can't start saying, do your hand.
And you have to talk to them and be willing to do that.
I was lucky to teach in high school,
because it's not like college.
Teacher comes in, you teach a lesson,
you don't see them till the next week.
That doesn't happen all the time, but frequently it
does at the college.
In high school, we were mentors.
We're surrogate parents.
The piano building is one building area.
And the students practice there.
We're walking down the hallway.
We hear somebody play a wrong rhythm or note.
We just pop in and fix it immediately.
I took them swimming for a couple of years
on Wednesday evenings.
Take them skiing, haul them over for dinner.
A couple of times a semester, we'd have Christmas parties.
We'd have graduation parties.
As a matter of fact, that's how I lost my finger,
was I took them on a hike.
And I went over a barbed wire fence
and didn't realize it was a lot further on the other side down.
So they helped me back to the house.
I mangled and the nerves were severed.
And so a very memorable outing.
Well, I know we're going to discuss much deeper
into that topic later.
I know it happened a couple of years ago, right?
2015.
2015, OK, yes.
So obviously, that is a life changing moment for you.
But we'll discuss that a little bit later.
What are the most important lessons you've taught your students?
Well, my watchword for everybody, for faculty, colleagues,
students, is balance.
It's important to have a balance in your life.
It's so easy to be narcissistic and just be totally involved
with what you're doing, practice six hours a day
and thinking about the next practice.
Even if a teacher, if you're teaching
and you're just thinking about when your next practice
session is going to be, your focus isn't on the student.
And that's no good.
I teach my students to be supportive of one another
instead of just always me, me, me.
And it's just natural for you to be concerned
around your own development and career.
But along the way, it's important to be aware of other people.
Support one another.
I have a chart and I require the students
to attend 15 recitals per semester.
That's not a lot, but it's to prove a point
that it's important to support one another.
Because normally they wouldn't do it
except for their few friends.
I said, go to concerts you don't even know them.
Go to a saxophone recital.
Anything to get 15 concerts so you listen to music.
And so it's an honor system.
When they go to a concert, they check it off on the board.
So I think it's important to support one another.
Let's see.
Oh, one thing I've taught is I got this
from a very dear friend and colleague who
is 80 years old from China, Benjamin Yu.
And he said, if the students can get 85% or 90% of it right,
they should feel satisfied.
When you set yourself up for perfection,
it's like for failure because you just
can't play perfectly, especially if you're
trying to be creative and take chances.
Perfection is not the end result.
So if you can get excellence, 85% or 90%, you're doing well.
Special moments.
I try to say if this particular turn to phrase or this harmony
really sends you in some way, you
can impart that to your audience.
It's great.
The bottom line is I think performance is human.
The goal is to have human interaction.
Reach somebody and they come backstage and they're in tears.
I feel they really loved what I was doing.
And pouring out my heart for some of them, they felt it.
Well, your students are so fortunate to have you
as a mentor and teacher.
And Poki is one of them.
And he always tells me about the experience
that he had with you.
And that's a wrap for the first part of this engaging episode
on the PianoPod with classical pianist, recording artist,
and educator Dr. Michael Coonrod.
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Thank you.