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.
The most important thing is to have a good attitude and positive attitude to help students
not be so self-critical.
You want to be better, right?
That's why we practice every day.
And it can be stressful.
Maybe we will have competitions coming up or any reasons, right?
Because interlocking is just like conservatory.
But with Kunrad, we're always, yes, of course, we work hard, but he wanted to make sure that
we have a balance.
Our studio class, he wanted to make sure that we are all not too stressed.
And it's all about the balance.
Hello piano enthusiasts.
Welcome to the PianoPod with me, Yuki Misong.
They were diving deeper into the second installment of this season's ninth episode with extraordinary
artist and educator, Dr. Michael Kunrad, who served as a distinguished faculty member
at the renowned Interlochen Arts Academy for 46 years.
In case you missed our captivating part one conversation, exploring his teaching methods
and philosophy, don't worry.
You can catch up on all the excitement on your favorite podcast platform right now.
A warm welcome to all our new listeners.
This podcast is your all access pass to the captivating world of piano.
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So my friends, here is part two of the PianoPod's season four, episode nine, featuring Dr. Michael
Coonrod.
Please enjoy the show.
What's great about being a teacher is I'm a teacher too.
And I learned from my students quite a bit.
I think it's a reciprocal relationship that I love about with my profession.
So any lessons you learn from students?
Yes.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
I learned a lot from students.
I learned to listen to what they're saying.
I mean, if something's bothered them in life or they can't do something, they worked hard,
they can't do it.
I listened to them.
Now, if they didn't do something because they didn't practice, well, they're out the door.
I don't like that at all.
They really try hard, but they didn't make so much progress.
Discuss what it is.
And so they have to tell me these things.
Let's see.
It's important to be available between lessons.
I mean, if you're having less than two hours away, you can't expect to have the teacher
be with you all the time.
But here or in the neighborhood, you can get involved with the students' lives.
I have a colleague who goes to somebody's tennis match whenever possible.
I try to do that for my grandson.
There are other interests.
If people have balance in their life, they're not just playing the piano constantly, and
that's all they're doing.
I mean, it takes a lot of time and effort to do that.
But if you just do that, you're a little bit one-sided.
I'm grateful for my University of Montana training at an undergrad school because I
studied liberal arts, French literature, English literature, British writers, art history,
anything that had to do with creativity.
It helped my music.
So it's important to not be so self-centered or just focus on total piano, although they
have to be taught that you have to practice a lot more than you really are.
If you practice more than six hours, you're likely going to hurt yourself or else you'll
get brain fog.
That's tough.
And it's different for different people.
Some students with small hands can strain more easily, so you don't want them to practice
too many hours or in the wrong way.
The teacher really needs to supervise how they're practicing.
Sometimes I will watch somebody practice to see what they're doing.
Other times I'll have students watch me practice to see what I do because practicing means
something different in the learning process.
You always say, well, don't just run through something.
But at the end, you can run through things three times in a row.
That's very helpful.
I learned that from Conrad Wolff, my dear teacher from Peabody.
He wrote the book on Archer's novels teaching and taught me great things.
And he said, one of the best things is just go through a piece three times in a row, like
seeing a movie three times.
You know what's coming up.
But at the beginning, you'll break things apart in Schmerg method.
One little thing I learned from the student is stretching my fingers.
I'm going to show this to you.
It looks like a contortion.
I do it every day and I get my students to do it every day.
It's to stretch the webbing between the fingers.
So B. Can you see that?
D and a perfect fifth with two and three.
The elbows to go out and go down and then slowly twist it.
So it's the opposite.
The elbows in the fifth fingers down and the thumb down.
You just go back and forth.
Kind of like I don't know if people know what silly putty is.
You know, if you stretch it slowly, it moves.
If you start fast, it snaps.
You don't want to snap.
And then you do it with.
Well, I can't do it here because I don't have the fourth finger.
The left hand's three, four back and forth.
So be mindful of the elbow way out and then in and in and four or five.
I mean, if a small hand can't do it, go to a perfect fit for the perfect fourth.
Thank you.
All these practical tips to philosophical topics in terms of teaching.
So now let's switch gears and chat about your life as a pianist and recording artist.
I mean.
First of all, how did you discover the love for music?
As you grew up in the musical home, what was the turning point for a young Michael
Coonrub to start developing a passion for becoming a pianist?
That's really an interesting subject because I like many things. I was never adamant about
playing sports in groups. I like individual sports like tennis and swimming, skiing,
but we're talking about age five and six. I remember my parents said,
if you're not going to practice, we're not going to give you lessons. Oh, no, I want to play piano.
So my teacher arranged the theme from Zorro. That's a show that I liked as a kid. I still remember it.
I liked it because you could do this at the end.
That inspired me to practice a little bit more. I mean, I liked nature. I was in Arizona. I was in
the frog and toad stage. Although in Arizona, it was in the snake and lizard stage and scorpion
stage. I liked critters. I liked hiking out in the woods. I always liked that. Back down in Montana,
up here where there's a lot of pine trees, I just dearly loved being out there and lying in the
grass or the pine needles. It's one of my favorite smells is pine needles warmed by the sun and hearing
the trees, the wind blowing the leaves and the trees. It sounds a little bit like the whoosh of a
pedal when you lift it. So I had cap guns when I was a kid, but I've never wanted to be a hunter.
Just got my cap guns as a kid. As I said before, it's interesting how the early teenage years,
all of a sudden the fire in the belly starts. For me, I guess I was 10 years old and I loved the
Rachmaninoff C sharp minor prelude. Everybody knows that of course.
But my teacher said it's too hard. And so I took that as a challenge. And so I went and learned it
and memorized it and played it for the class in school. And so I think that's a lesson for us all
to realize if kids have a passion to learn something, we need to listen to that. If it's
something that's way beyond them, I think it's wise to say, well, just put that on the piano
and we can do that someday. But here's two pieces that are very much like that. For example,
instead of doing Rachmaninoff, you could do Kabalewski and try to meet them halfway.
Don't be discouraging. Don't be negative. Always be kind of positive. But that piece was,
I was able to do it. And then another experience I remember was being with my grandparents in
Missouri. And I went to the small town store and I found this copy of Rachmaninoff second concerto,
which everybody loves. And I was just fascinated with it. And I started practicing that
and incessantly. And then by the time I was a sophomore in high school, I was able to play it
with my high school orchestra. So that created, that was it. Then I started practicing a lot.
The senior year in high school, I got up at five in the morning and practiced two hours before
breakfast. And I go to high school and then I go to the university afterwards and practice
two, three hours, then come home, do homework. I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it good right away.
And my mother would say, you know, you just can't do it overnight. I said, yeah, I want,
it's time to waste him. I'm interested to see how that passion is developed in others. And I usually
ask them, it's a pinpoint milestones in my life. Yeah. But everybody has that sort of, you know,
moment where, oh, you realize, oh, I better practice more because I like it and I love it.
You know, I love the way it makes me feel afterwards. Yes. But also students will say,
oh, I practiced for three weeks. I don't feel like I got better at all. And we have to counsel them.
We don't see gradual progress. We see all of a sudden they're there. And then all of a sudden
we're there. You don't notice it gradually. But also if you have different goals, yearly goals,
monthly goals, weekly goals, daily goals, to say, I'm going to spend 15 minutes on this passage of
our measures, then you get better. And you don't get better by just running through things. You
have to address the issue and you have to just say, well, what technique is this that we use?
Is it rotation? Is it arm? Is it wrist? Hmm. Yeah. Okay. So where were we? No, it's great. But now
who was your mentor? We are so very lucky if we have at least one person who believed in us. And
for me, it was Lushen Hutt, a Dutch pianist who was 10 years old when the Germans invaded Rotterdam.
And he has really vivid memories of that. I think in his later life he was a hoarder.
He saw a kerosene lamp that he liked in a garage sale. He'd buy seven of them.
I mean, it had to do with him growing up and he didn't have food. He didn't have wood for fires.
Can you imagine growing up during that Holocaust? It was terrible. But he would tell me,
if you can make a few special moments, then you're successful. And so he said,
I'm capable of doing that. So that just stimulates me to believe in what I'm doing.
And the other person was Conrad Wolff. I spoke about him earlier, a biographer of Archer Schnabel.
I learned some great things. Like the line is the most important. You got to keep a line going
because the sound decays with every note. You have to make sure you keep on going. And there's a way
of doing that that sometimes makes it just as linear as a violin, a string instrument.
But I was playing Schubert B-flat Sonata for the Liszt Society and he was there. And he had to catch
a bus train. He had a commitment. So he was there for the first movement. And he wrote me a little
note, which I still have. And it says, I'm furious I have to leave, but I want you to know you're
doing everything right. So that made me really love Schubert's music.
Which you have the entire CD dedicated to Schubert.
Two CDs in that, 150 minutes. It's just that that music fits my personality. Beethoven's great.
Beethoven often is very, very aggressive. I mean Schubert's dramatic is also, but in a more elegant
style, elegant way, except maybe the wander fantasy as well, Beethoven-esque. But in the rest of my
life, I would like to spend time with Schubert's music. And my dear colleague, we both love the
music of Schubert. And she asked to help her know how to play the fantasy in F minor. And I wanted
to do the bronze piano quintet for two pianos. And so we did both those together.
I want to know a little bit more about your musical career. Any memorable performances
that you experienced that you can share with us today?
Well, in 1994, I was granted a sabbatical leave. And so I was asked to play a concert at the Chopin
Academy Music in Poland, and also in Poznan, another town. And so I played George Crumb's Christmas
Suite, George Walker's first piano sonata, really important works of the 20th century in America.
And so that's what they wanted. And Poland is really interested in 20th century, 21st century
music now, a leader. And so they want to know what American 20th century music was all about.
So I went there and I played, I gave a masterclass, I showed them how the Christmas Suite was
conceived, and I played it for them. That was really a wonderful experience for me. Also, I
played Chopin's third scherzo for one of the Polish teachers who's a renowned Chopin expert.
Remember, the main thing she said was Chopin wanted his music in time, play it in time.
And that resonated with me because I don't really care for self-indulgent music. It's not elegant,
it just draws attention to, oh, I'm so musical. But you can create the respect for one's playing
by promoting the composer and not going overboard. That's what I like about Schubert. It can be just
so gorgeous, but if you stray from the tempo, too much rubato, too much retard, it seems to lack
the elegance. So I learned that from her. That was one experience. The other two influences were
memorable experiences were playing these concertos. One was the Kenji Bunch concerto for the left
hand alone that I commissioned. And I was so very lucky that when I lost my finger, colleagues,
friends, family collected $30,000 for me to commission music for the left hand alone. And so
I played Kenji's music before I saw him in Maple Mound. He was the guest composer.
He was the guest composer. And I had played his music. And there's a lot of jazzy rhythms,
not jazz like in Gershwin or Duke Ellington. It's just syncopated and really attractive to
general audiences as well as my colleagues. When I selected Kenji to be the composer,
my colleague said, oh, I was hoping you'd choose him. So I premiered that with our
semi-professional orchestra in town of Traverse City, the Traverse Symphony Orchestra.
And I played an encore of the Danny Boy for my left hand. So it was very touching to see
that I had made lemonade out of the lemons. It's amazing that you are continuing to perform
despite of, you know, life's curve balls. But yeah, it's great. The third thing was playing
the Chaconne in D minor by Bach, but for the left hand alone, my Brahms. And the ironic thing was,
I learned that three months before I lost my finger because I loved it. But like three weeks
after the amputation, I was teaching at the Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Maieri, Italy.
And I played that, you know, with a bandaged right hand. And I also, in subsequent years,
in subsequent years, I did the Kenji Bunch concerto with the second pianist.
Those were memorable experiences for me. Now that you mentioned about your finger,
you know, so let's talk about your finger injury first, before we are getting into your recording,
you know, CD albums that I have here with me today. But I know you mentioned that it happened
about eight years ago, 2015. 2015, I was 65 years old. And it was a Memorial Day. Well,
Memorial Day weekend. Yeah, so very memorable to me. You're taking your students somewhere,
right? It was before graduation. And I wanted to have one last get together. So we had dinner and
then they wanted me to take them to Interlochen's property, which butts up to our fence. And so we
have 12 acres. So I hiked over there and I jumped over the fence. And I don't know how it happened,
but I was wearing a padded glove. But I had my father's big ring on that finger. And so when I
jumped over the fence to try to find a way for them to get through the fence, they got hung up
and the other side was 10 inches lower. I didn't realize that. And so I'm here to tell you that
shock happens instantly. Not shock like putting your finger in a light socket. It's just you
completely lose strength. You can't believe it. Didn't believe very much, but I was holding it up
like that when I was holding. And so they got found a hole in the fence and they pulled me
through it. We went to the house, which is only a football field away. My wife drove me to the
hospital and they called an orthopedic surgeon and people were saying, oh, we can fix this. It'll
be okay. It'll be okay. But it's pretty mangled. And he said, you know, if you cut it off, we can
suture it on again. But when you mangle all those nerves, there's only about 10% chance you'll be
able to have the finger. He said, because you have insurance and you're a pianist, we're going to try
everything. So in the middle of a rainstorm, thunderstorm, they flew a jet helicopter up from
Ann Arbor University Hospital to pick me up. And they had to take me in a gurney to try to find the
helicopter. And we went all the way down there and my wife didn't go because she needed the car. So
she went home and then drove the next day. And so they got me there. So within four hours of the
injury, five hours of the injury, they did a three hour surgery. It's supposed to have been some kind
of innovative Chinese experimental surgery. And then they put my hand in a plastic billowy hot
plastic thing with a hair blower going through it to try to get the blood flowing. They even
put leeches on the end of my fourth finger to see if, you know, they still use leeches.
Really? Oh my God. But they didn't sense anything of interest. So it didn't work. So after three days,
it was obvious that it wasn't working. So I just say, okay, take it off. So I'm really grateful
that they took the whole thing because if it was just half, it kind of hit my way. So there's two
things I remember instantly. Number one, I'm really grateful it didn't happen to a student.
I mean, I've had a career of performing. I have five CDs. Well, four, one is two. And then, you
know, I'm 65. I'm 73 now. I've had a good life, but to have it happen as a teenager would be
horrible. And the second thing I was grateful for is happened with the weakest finger. If I would
ever strain my hand, it was always the fourth finger because the fourth doesn't lift very far.
My colleague says, you know, you sound better now. I don't know if I can believe him, but
I do know that when I was a kid, I was really adamant about substituting.
You know, substituting every finger to make it legato. I avoided the bites against it. So finally,
I realized it's more constricting than just playing the tone. So a good tone can be produced by your
finger or a pencil. I don't have a pencil, but it's a matter of...
I mean, you can... In other words, it's not so good to...
Unless you're an organist, you have to do that. But...
So there's two with octaves. It's hard to play 5-4 with octaves. I play 5-3.
But if you play 5-5, it works. So I do a lot of 5-5 for octaves and having strokes to make...
You know, like a marimba, you play with a certain pressure, it comes out a nice tone.
That's how I adapted.
You mentioned about shock. I can't imagine the shock, right? But then tell us about the
process of recovery, because that's another phase after you've really seen the shock,
you sense the shock. Now, next phase would be physical and emotional recovery process.
And how did you maintain, even through then, how did you maintain your passion for music
and stay motivated?
Well, I was really lucky that I played the Chaconne of D minor in my Aurelion Festival
back in the day going, and it was successful. And they liked it. And one Italian man, he came up
and he kissed my hand and they're very, very emotional over there. And so I got a lot of
feedback that way. I also realized that my colleagues were building this incredible fund
for a left-hand concerto. I mean, these things that happened wouldn't have happened otherwise.
So I can't say I'm grateful to lose a finger, but it turned out okay. And I subsequently
found out I can play with both hands. Like on the dedication recording, that with nine fingers.
And there's three left-hand pieces on it, the Chaconne, the Scriabin left-hand eight,
and my Danny boy. But everything like the symphonic eight, the Schumann,
I have to confess that I can't play first inversion chords that well. For example,
in A major, the first inversion C sharp, E, A, but you know, you don't want to do one, two,
three, five, good stretches the hand. It's, it's, it's a strain. I can do that if it's really slow,
but ordinarily I just leave it out because that's the note you voice out anyway,
instead of playing. Cause you got a lot of tonic notes anyway.
So I can play many things, but I can't play Chopin etudes or list pieces, which is okay.
I've done enough of that in my life. I want to focus on the composers that I just mentioned,
Bach, Schumann, Brahms. They tend to be cordial. Rachmaninoff might be difficult because there's
a lot of fast scales in Rachmaninoff. But I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing.
So Rachmaninoff might be difficult because there's a lot of fast scales in Rachmaninoff. And,
you know, just interested in playing beautiful music. My colleague, Hamin Kim and I, we played
the recital and we did overture to Candide by Bernstein arranged by my good friend, Chip Miller.
That was really fun. I can do that. There's not too many scales.
But then we did the Schubert fantasy in F minor that has some scales in it, but mostly chords,
broken chords. I can do fugues. And then the really difficult part was the Brahms piano
quintet. It used to be a quintet, string quintet. And then Clara said, let's make a two piano
sonata of it. And then finally, he arranged it for piano quintet. That's its final form. But the
piano sonata is definitely fine. My colleague who's a violist says, I like the two piano versions
better. Yeah, there's some few notes. There's a lot of fast notes, but a lot of octaves and chords.
And so that satisfies me because I have some balance in my life, in my retirement. For decades,
I've wanted to build a diorama of my home city of Missoula, Montana, in the middle of the Rocky
Mountains with a train running all around it. And you're building right now. That's right. So
I spent five hours a day on that. We did that recital. We're going to be in Ducs de Moire,
play for church, for church choir. I work with the Boy Scouts as an adult leader. That keeps me busy.
And for anybody who's retiring, I would give advice, don't retire unless you have a project,
something to do. You want to go back to work doing something else. But I wanted to be retired. They
even asked me at Interlochen, could you come back and teach piano lessons for people whose major is
something else? And I said, no, no, I really want to be retired. What advice do you have for other
musicians facing, I wouldn't say similar, but very difficult life's setbacks right now due to
life's unexpected curveballs? What kind of advice do you have for them? Well, I feel a little
self-conscious for saying certain things like this is the world's worst thing, but, you know,
I could have lost an arm or a leg or people come back from war or automobile accidents. I mean,
compared to that, this is nothing. I can still play with both hands. But still, it was shocking.
I would say, count your blessings. There's many really good things that have happened to me
because of that. And I'm grateful. So many wonderful students who keep in touch.
The collection of money for the guest artists, for Interlochen students and faculty.
Stay positive. I mean, I'm really lucky. I have a wife of 52 years, three wonderful children,
four grandchildren. You know, I'm really fortunate to have some good things happen to me.
Pokey Huang. So we talked about he was the one who introduced me to you, but he was practicing
your Danny Boy on the left hand. Yes. And then I remember seeing one video clip that he was
practicing on Instagram or something. Anyway, can you tell us about the arrangement? So did you
compose or arrange pieces before that, before your injury? Or is there something new? Ironically,
ironically, about 25 years ago, when I was playing bagpipes as part of my balancing act,
I really loved Danny Boy because it's one of the most beautiful songs ever written. And so I
arranged it for two hands. It was for a Kayleigh, which is a Scottish party, but I lost it. And then
all of a sudden this finger thing happened. And I thought, Oh, it's really, I bet I could do that
for a left hand alone. And it took me a long time to figure out how I was going to do it.
Because I wanted to have counterpoint in it as well as the melody. And then the arrangement,
I'll send it to you if you're interested. It's not easy. You have to really work hard at voicing
because you have to play the melody like it's a voice, but then you might have the melody.
So I arranged that and it's been a nice encore to play. And I played it for the assembly
at Interlochen when I was my last week there. I played it in the Malfe Coast Festival and I
finally recorded it on the CD you have. The dedication CD, yes.
We're going to talk about your recordings now, but where can we get these CDs?
Everything except the dedication is on Spotify or YouTube.
And then dedication, if they wanted this CD, should they contact you?
Yeah, they can write to me. email.
kuhnrodmm at interlochen.org.
Now I will list that in the description so that my audience can reach out to you and then get the CD.
So speaking of CDs, so I have all five of them, but actually this has two of them inside. So
five CD albums here with me. I want to particularly know 50th anniversary favorites.
And also we talked about dedication and also the life and the music of Albert James Fillmore.
So let's start with 50th anniversary favorites.
Okay, open the cover, the jacket and show us the picture of my mentor, Lucian Hutt.
Yes, which you mentioned about him.
I dedicated this with him in mind, a Dutch pianist who studied with Vronsky and Babin,
the famous piano duo team. And they had studied with Artur Schnabel. So I have that connection there too.
So now let's talk about the other album titled The Life and Music of Albert James Fillmore.
Could you share more about Mr. Fillmore, his background and your connection with him?
Additionally, what inspired you to undertake the production of this particular album?
Well, he's a dear friend, about 80 years old. And he had a cottage up here at Crystal Lake,
and he would come up to visit. And I knew him in like 1987 when he was composing these prelates
for piano. And he wasn't trying to do unique things in contemporary vocabulary. He called it
the Muse of Chopin. And he just loved the preludes of Chopin and decided to write them in the
different keys. And they're short, but they're not insipid at all. They're on wonderful harmonic
progressions. Some of them are very difficult, and some of them are good teaching pieces.
So those are C major to A minor to D major to B minor. My adult students really love them.
And so he had a cottage in Owasso where he was born, literally. And he also was Professor Emeritus
at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit. But he never drove because his father told him,
you're accident prone, you don't drive. What a thing to put on a child. So he was always
bumming rides. So we would take him down to Detroit. If I'm in Detroit for a conference,
we'd come up and I'd take him to his cottage. So I would sit with him and watch him compose these
pieces. And he was somewhat of an anglophile. He loved William Blake, his poetry, and he wrote
songs, lovely songs. And so he passed away after living with us for a while. He was recovering from
hip injury and he was in a nursing home with people who needed extra help. But he didn't need
help. His mind was right there. So my wife took care of him for a half a year before he went down
to Detroit. He developed a staph infection in his hip and they couldn't, oh, I see he broke his hip,
but he had a staph infection. They couldn't operate until they got rid of the staph infection.
He never did. So he passed away from that. And I wish I had made this CD before he passed away.
But I'm contending his legacy by bringing it to teachers in Michigan. I wish I could find other
ways of promoting it because my wife, desktop printed all the preludes and also this piece for
organ and orchestra variations on what love is this. And so it's a beautiful CD with a biography,
40 page biography that she wrote on his life. And she's the one to do it because she knew him
really well. They had the preludes and the orchestra piece and biography and children's choir
pieces and the songs by Robert de Vizzi. And it's a great anthology of music. And we did that.
Wonderful. Yes. Yeah. There's like a really chunk of book, sort of like a booklet inside of the album
and talks about the legacy of the composer and also some anecdotes documented with his handwritten
letters. Sometimes you see and the photos from his childhood and the houses that he used to live in.
Interesting. He did study with Nadia Boulanger in 1939. He was over in Paris and they had,
because the Germans were invading France, they had to get out immediately on a ship. He was one of
the last ships out to come over here. And she always told him, just follow your heart, compose
what you want to compose instead of being forced into something. Wonderful man. And we miss him.
I listened to the prelude. Very beautiful. In many ways, they are like many romantic literature,
the piano literature, the feature of romantic period, but also sometimes you can hear a hint
of impressionism as well. Yes. And Schumann, the F-sharp minor is very Schumann-esque. And the F
major is very Gershwin-like. My favorites are the E major, the B major, C minor, B minor, A flat major.
Yeah. I need to listen to them again, but thank you so much for sending me all these CD albums
to me. I'm enjoying listening to them. You have such a long career as a pianist and piano teacher.
So what's the secret to a long career in performing arts? It's not easy.
Well, it's my life. I mean, I love my wife and my family, of course, first and foremost.
But my reason for being is to play the piano and to share that with students and performances,
of course. And so I've known that ever since I was, well, I guess I said I had the passion when I was
13 or 14, but I played the piano my whole life. I think that music should be shared, not just
playing for yourself, although it's good therapy to play these pieces for yourself. I've been
reliving the spin of Gretchen. And I said, no, why are you doing that? I said, well, because I love
it. I don't need to perform it anywhere, but I would like to share it with people. So human
interaction is really important to me when I give a concert, just like I tend to not like receptions
because you can't talk to one person for any length of time. I like to one-on-one visit.
I guess I've done it my whole life and I feel it's part of my heart. And I enjoy getting to
know the composers and seeing what's maybe in their heart. That's why I like teaching piano
literature because I did it from the point of view of the composer, showing the students how it was
written, how they must have been thinking structurally and harmonically. They just don't
wake up and do this great piece. They do rules that don't sound like rules, that sound creative.
If you analyze things, you know what's going on. Now, this question is for you as a music educator,
a piano teacher. So how has music education evolved throughout your teaching career and
what are the most significant changes you've observed?
The obvious things is the technology, the recording, and the cell phones. When I was a high school
student, the present my parents gave me was a portable tape recorder. It was this big and it
was reel to reel and I used it a lot. It was portable, it was heavy and awkward, but I used
it into graduate school and it was very, very helpful. Nowadays, you put higher quality in
your pocket, of course. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for all the change. But for students,
well, we can say that the focus has diminished just because of the media and television.
When I listen to movies from the 50s, there's these long swaths of speaking, but nowadays,
these very short periods, you think they can say one sentence and then they cut and then they
learn another sentence and that's not the rule. There are exceptions. There's some really great
acting in the dialogue or monologues and dialogues, but generally, there's less focus.
I mean, look at these clips between the TV shows or they're telling you all about the TV shows and
the movies. So you see half a second, you can go to this and you go to this and it just makes me
nervous. Just fast, fast, fast. But for students, I don't know, people are people. Maybe the styles,
you know, the styles of clothing is so much different. I see really smart students, much
much smarter than me. I mean, a student, a very special student, Davis, he's going to Yale now
and he can take so many different classes and he plays piano like I want to hear piano. He
hears the harmonies. He can play a fugue. He knows what chord structure is. He's the ideal student,
but he's a whiz at math and he takes different courses in economics. I think, what's he going
to do? There's so many things, paths he could follow. One thing I failed to mention before is
that I think students need to realize that you can't just follow one path and expect to do this
for the concert pianist. There's certain options that most of us take and most common one is
teacher. And if you're not people oriented and you don't really care to share with people,
what are you going to do? You're not going to perform all the time. It's hard to make a lot
of money playing. I play concerts, but I don't make money to live. I teach. So you have to really
enjoy people to be a teacher. So I can't tell the difference, so much the difference in people,
people are people. I mean, the language, I mean, the final language is everywhere in music and even
even interlocking, we just try to dissuade that. I don't hear it so much, but when you're in public,
you hear these words that are offensive to me all the time. In that regard, I'm kind of old fashioned.
So how relevant is classical training in today's this very fast paced society?
I think that it can really encourage longer attention spans and more focus and more dwelling
on sensitivity. I mean, the ancient Greeks used to have music therapy. Some person just all they did
was sports and triathlons and football players and coaches today are just strong. That's their
reason for being. You need to balance that out with things that are more gracious and sensitive,
dance, music, art. You need to have, here's that word again, balance. It's important. It's so easy
to be just doing piano, piano, piano. That's all I'm doing in my life. My balance is getting out in
the woods and hiking and camping and canoeing. It's mostly music, but I balance it with many other
things too. And then the Greeks, they knew the value of therapy. That can't be one sided. I'm
hoping that that could be a model for kids these days. That's why I say balance is really important.
Balance can make, like if you go out in the woods and just lie in the grass and just relax and relax
and relax your muscles. Then when you get back to practicing, you're more relaxed and you actually
practice better. And then that place like in unlocking allows you to do that because
surrounded by nature. That's so, so enriching as a young student, you know, to experience that while
practicing. Then you get out in the nature and being able to. And they take walks because we
live on 1200 acres and it's all wooded. They like to take walks, which is good. But I like to take
students out in the canoe, turn over the canoe. That's fine. You just get up and get the water out
and you've got to immerse yourself in it or take them out into a kettle. A kettle is a depression in
the land that we just have a glacier in it and carved it out. So there's a place that's emerald
green water. It's beautiful, but you have to get in the mud. I like to get hot and sweaty and hiking,
but I really like to get cleaned up even if it's a cold stream. That's the kind of nature I'm
talking about. Wow. That's so nice. What is your thought on our duty or gift as classical musicians
to society at large? I don't like to be one sided and say classical music is the best thing in the
world. Like PDQ Box says, if it sounds good, it is good. People like country music. I like it. It
reminds me of Montana, hip hop, jazz, and it's all sorts of really, really great music, good quality
music. Oh, do you like hip hop too? Oh, sure. Oh yeah. See, if there's a Simon and Garfunkel from
the sixties, I love that. It's still prevalent. The Beach Boys, of course, the Beatles, high quality
music. It's not just three chords. I think classical music has three chords, but it also has
modulations and has structure to it. It can really elevate a person's mind and also hopefully
sensitivities to the sound. I mean, fugues, you know, the pendulum has swung so far. Renaissance,
Baroque. Renaissance is kind of a classic time and you go to the Baroque and it got to be more
romantic. And then you got these thick fugues no one could follow anymore. So went over to just
three chords with Gallupi and Tartini and then Haydn, Mozart. And then you get to Beethoven,
which is you can't follow the gross fugue. I think you go back to, I mean, it's just always swinging
back and forth. There's all different kinds of classical music. But of course, PDQ Bach said
music was always, was once new. The old music was new at one point. Who's to say what popular music
is? Popular music was Brahms' raps, Hungarian raps, Liszt's raps, or Brahms' waltzes or Husserl's
dances. That was a hard question to answer in grad school. What is popular music? How's it
different from classical? Well, as we associate classical composers, it can be considered archaic
and old, 16th, 17th, 18th century. But when you perform it, it's there right then and there. It's
not like going and seeing a museum and it's just stationary objects. It comes alive. I always say
that we are recreative artists. We breathe life into the music. It's like taking cloning a dinosaur
and making it live again, if that would be possible ever. So it's not creative. We like to be
creative in the way we recreate other person's music. Now, what's the next phase and next goal
in your life? Well, I was so excited that my dear colleague, the collaborative pianist here
of the second year, asked me to play a recital with her. We did three and that happened exactly
when I played piano for almost 55 years. To tell you the truth, I'm a little tired of memorizing.
And so I want to be more relaxed in my life and I've spent time building my HO scale model
railway, diorama of Missoula, Montana. That's a big function, but I don't do that all the time.
But I'm not getting out of music. I want to play chamber music. And so we did this two piano
recital, a piano duet recital. We're going to do more of that. So those are two aspects in my life.
Travel. I want to travel with my wife. We took our granddaughter and her friend, age 19,
to Portugal and Spain, Barcelona. Wonderful. So lastly, any message, advice for young musicians
and piano students? Try not to be so concerned with yourself, what you're going to do, because
along the way you're missing out with meeting friends and having a balance in your life and
going skiing and doing other things that are more social. I see some students who
are phenomenally talented, but they don't know how to relate to other people. And I think,
what kind of life are they going to have? They have to learn that it's not just all about me,
me, me, me. So be careful with that. Have a positive attitude. Count the blessings you have,
the good things in life. There will always be trouble things and you have to downplay that.
My colleague, who's no longer living, said, accept the negative, dwell on the positive.
Absolutely. Wow. Thank you so much for this fun, inspiring, what a rich conversation we had,
Dr. Conrad. You're such a wonderful, wonderful host. It was just really a pleasure getting to
know you and answering your questions. Oh, same here. But before I let you go,
we have one more thing to do. It's called the piano pause rapid fire question. So this is the
part of the show where I get to ask fun questions to each guest. Now here's a little twist. As silly
as these questions may sound, your answers may reveal who you truly are. So ready or not,
please answer them with the shortest responses as possible. No explanation is necessary.
Wish me luck. Okay. Yes. So let's start with easy ones. Level one. What is your comfort food?
Italian lasagna. How do you like your coffee? I'm allergic to it. Oh, to coffee? Caffeine.
Really? Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. So what do you drink in the morning? Water. Water? Sounds good.
Cats or dogs? Dogs. Sunrise or sunset? Oh, sunset, particularly dusk. Oh, beautiful. Summer or winter?
Spring. No, no. Okay. Summer. Paper book or ebook? Paper. Level two. What skill have you learned
but haven't had the chance to? Build a model railway. Okay. What you're doing right now.
Yes. What is your word or words to live by? Balance in your life. What is the most important
quality you look for in other people? Genuineness. Sincerity. Name three people who inspire you,
living or dead. Lushan Hut, David Holland, Conrad Wolff. Name one piece in your current playlist.
Schubert B-flat Sonata. Level three. What do you believe in the key to a fulfilling life?
Listen to my wife. Good answer.
The last question. Please fill in the blank. Music is blank. Human interaction.
Beautiful. Thank you. So that concludes this episode of the piano part. Thank you, Dr. Conrad.
What fun it was. Oh, for joining my show today and sharing your stories, insights, and expertise.
So for listeners, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments.
So for listeners, if you want to find out more about Dr. Conrad and his incredible work and legacy,
please reach out to him via email at conradmm at interlocking.org. Right? Yes. Okay. And I will list
that information in the description. You can listen to his recordings on all major music streaming
services, Spotify and YouTube and so forth. And thank you to my wonderful audiences and fans for
tuning in today. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review it on whatever podcasting
platform you use. Remember to hit the thumbs up button and subscribe to my YouTube channel
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Instagram, and LinkedIn. I will see you for the next episode of the piano pod. Bye everyone.
Bye Dr. Conrad. Thank you so much.