A New Pedaling Technique?

This post expands on many of the points covered in my video, "An Introduction to Double Pedaling."

Over the past two months, I have been developing “double pedaling,” a pedaling technique that allows the damper and sostenuto pedals to be used together in new ways. The sostenuto pedal, patented by Albert Steinway in 1874, remains little more than a curiosity among today’s pianists—even many experienced pianists have only a hazy idea of the potential applications of this pedal. Double pedaling greatly increases the possibilities of the sostenuto pedal, giving pianists unprecedented control over the resonance of their instrument. The pedal mechanism on the modern piano has a crucial flaw that prevents or complicates double pedaling in all but the most trivial instances. Fortunately, this flaw is easily fixed with a slight modification.

The Sostenuto Mechanism

The sostenuto pedal is like a selective damper pedal. The actual damper pedal (the right pedal) lifts all the dampers, the sostenuto pedal only holds up the dampers of the notes that are being played when it’s pressed.

The picture above shows the damper lift rods of a grand piano. The sostenuto mechanism consists of two elements: the sostenuto rod (a metal bar that runs lengthwise next to the damper mechanism), and sostenuto tabs (covered in red felt in the above picture, each damper lift rod has a tab attached). When a damper is lifted, the corresponding sostenuto tab goes up with the rest of the mechanism. When the sostenuto pedal is depressed, the sostenuto rod moves into the path of the tabs, preventing the raised tabs from going back down and holding the raised dampers up.

The picture above was taken with the sostenuto pedal depressed. The sostenuto rod has moved into position and has caught two sostenuto tabs, preventing the corresponding dampers from descending.

The dampers that are down when the sostenuto pedal is engaged won’t be held up, because their sostenuto tabs are under the sostenuto rod. Those dampers will still go up when the corresponding keys are pressed, but their sostenuto tabs will remain underneath the sostenuto rod. To facilitate the normal action of these dampers, the sostenuto tabs are attached to the damper mechanism with a hinge so that they can bend downwards, as in the picture below.

The Problem with the Sostenuto Pedal

This brief discussion of the sostenuto mechanism demonstrates why the sostenuto pedal does what it does: it holds up any dampers that are raised when it is depressed. It’s worth taking a step back, though, and asking the question, what should the sostenuto pedal do? My answer: the sostenuto pedal should hold up only the dampers that correspond to piano keys that are being played.

There is a small but crucial difference between what a sostenuto pedal does and what it should do. As long as the damper pedal doesn’t enter the picture, the sostenuto pedal works correctly—dampers are only raised when the corresponding keys are being played. However, the damper pedal lifts all the dampers, rendering the sostenuto pedal useless! If the sostenuto pedal is pressed while the damper pedal is down, all the dampers will be caught in the raised position, regardless of which keys are being played at the time. While this seems like a small issue, it completely undermines the usefulness of the sostenuto pedal. Classical pianists today use the damper pedal almost all the time in music from Beethoven to the present. As a result, the sostenuto pedal can only be used in unusual situations, and it requires special care so that the damper pedal doesn’t screw it up.

In order to reap the full benefits of double pedaling, it’s necessary to modify the mechanism so that the damper pedal doesn’t interfere with the sostenuto mechanism—in other words, the sostenuto pedal will function as it should, even when the damper pedal is depressed. We can then catch notes or chords on the sostenuto pedal while the damper pedal is down.

The Solution

The problem boils down to the fact that playing notes on the keyboard and pressing the damper pedal are equivalent as far as the damper action is concerned. In both cases, the dampers are raised in the same way, to the same height. The key to solving our double pedaling problem is to restrict the damper pedal so that it raises the dampers to a slightly lower level.

Experienced pianists know that pedaling is not really a binary thing. There’s the “black and white” of pedal up and pedal down, but there’s also an infinity of grays in between. This “half-pedal” zone can be tested by depressing the pedal very slowly and continuously testing the piano’s resonance. Half-pedal is a deceptive term, as it’s actually much closer to the “up” pedal position. At the position we call “half-pedal” (or quarter-pedal, or three quarters-pedal) the pedal is barely depressed, and the dampers are barely raised off the strings, muting them to some degree. Once the pedal has been depressed further, to about half or three quarters of the way down, the dampers are already fully off the strings and the piano sounds exactly like it does at full pedal. A fully-depressed pedal lifts the dampers an extra few millimeters, but doesn’t actually change the sound of the instrument. However, these millimeters are crucial, because the damper needs to be lifted all the way in order to be caught be the sostenuto pedal.

I’ve illustrated this in the diagram above. The “sweet spot” refers to the point in the damper’s upward trajectory where the dampers are fully off the string, but are not yet high enough to be caught by the sostenuto pedal. Restricting the damper pedal’s range so that it can’t go past the sweet spot will prevent the damper pedal from interfering with the sostenuto pedal. Pressing a key on the keyboard will still lift the damper all the way.

On most pianos, restricting the damper pedal is a simple operation that only takes a few minutes. There is usually a screw that is attached to the bottom of the body of the piano, above the damper pedal rod. Adjusting the screw is one solution (see the picture below).

For a quick fix, or for pianos without an adjustable screw, there are various points in the pedal action where a barrier can be added to restrict the pedal motion. In the picture below, I added a folded piece of paper at the top of the pedal lyre.

Troubleshooting a restricted pedal

Restricting the damper pedal should allow double pedaling on any well-regulated instrument. Unfortunately, many instruments, even carefully maintained concert instruments, have issues with the sostenuto mechanism that are ignored because the sostenuto pedal is so rarely used. The adjustments suggested below can be attempted if restricting the damper pedal doesn’t produce the desired results, and should only be carried out by a trained piano technician.

The most common problem is that the sostenuto rod is not in the correct position and catches dampers that are barely raised. The diagram below shows how a faulty sostenuto mechanism can cause instruments to have no sweet spot at all.

This can be solved by adjusting the sostenuto rod so that it catches the tabs in a higher position.

Sometimes the sostenuto pedal is not consistent, catching some notes but not others. This happens when the dampers are lifted unevenly. Regulating the dampers is a major operation that can take several hours. Depending on how severity of the problem, adjusting the sostenuto rod instead may be a more cost-effective solution. For the purposes of double pedaling, it’s advantageous to have the dampers lift further off the string, which increases the size of the sweet spot. However, too much lift can affect their ability to dampen the strings promptly on release of a key, since only the force of gravity returns the dampers to the rest position!

Another common problem occurs when notes are caught on the sostenuto pedal after the pedal is depressed. Sometimes the hinge on the sostenuto tab does not work correctly, so that the tab “jumps” over the engaged sostenuto bar instead of flexing down. This may require adjusting or replacing the faulty tabs.

Double Pedaling Techniques

Once you’ve “liberated” the sostenuto pedal from the damper pedal, you’re ready to explore all the possibilities of double pedaling. I’ve found four basic double pedaling techniques:

1. Joint Pedaling

In joint pedaling, the sostenuto pedal catches part of a larger sonority (usually including a bass note). The damper pedal is then used normally, but with the advantage that the pedal can be changed without losing the sonority. Most double pedaling applications in the standard repertoire fall under this category.

In the above passage from “Ondine” from Gaspard de la nuit by Ravel, it’s impossible to achieve a legato bass line as marked without double pedaling. Holding the C sharp with the damper pedal blurs the change of harmony on the second beat. By catching the C sharp with the sostenuto pedal, the damper pedal can be changed on the second beat without losing the bass.

This would normally require the pianist to keep the damper pedal raised while the sostenuto pedal is depressed, creating a gap in the sonority that undermines the sensual sweep of the right hand arpeggio. Restricting the damper pedal solves this problem!

2. “Only Hands Small” Technique

Do you have small hands but big ideas? Pianists with smaller hands often have to break chords or release notes early, and are left with the dilemma of either losing the full sonority or muddying the pedal. By catching some notes with the sostenuto pedal immediately before a damper pedal change, it’s possible to overcome this disadvantage. Here’s an illustrative passage from the Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 44 by Tchaikovsky:

My left hand isn’t big enough to hold the bass D in the final rolled chord. That means that I need to change my pedal early in the roll (before the F sharp) to catch the bass D.

This solution is not ideal, since it makes it impossible to preserve a legato connection between the melody D in the right hand and the preceding E. A better solution is to catch the bass D with the sostenuto pedal, allowing me to change the damper pedal at the melody note without losing the bass.

It is important to release the E octave in the right hand (shown in the full except above) before beginning the roll; otherwise it will be caught on the sostenuto pedal and will blur the D major chord. The E will still be held on the damper pedal.

3. Overlapping Technique

Overlapping the damper and sostenuto pedal can produce all kinds of highly complex sonorities. The current piano repertoire doesn’t offer too many opportunities for interesting overlapping effects. This is an area that I hope will be explored soon by budding composers.

Here’s one example of overlapping technique, from the Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 30 by Rachmaninoff. This passage alternates between two chordal melodies moving in different directions. While Rachmaninoff doesn’t indicate it, you can get an interesting effect by sustaining each melody while the other melody is active, for a true contrapuntal texture.

Here is the conventional pedaling approach:

Most recordings use this pedaling, or something similar. This pedaling sustains both melodies equally. However, you can still hear an eighth-note gap in one of the melodies at each pedal change (shown with big red rests):

Theoretically, double pedaling lets you play both melodies legato, without any gaps. On each beat of each measure, first change the damper pedal and then change the sostenuto pedal:

It works as follows: on the first beat, the damper pedal goes down, and then the sostenuto pedal catches the chord from the upper melody. On the second beat, the sostenuto pedal holds the upper melody while the damper pedal changes, and then changing the sostenuto pedal catches the lower melody. On the third beat, the sostenuto pedal holds the lower melody while the damper pedal changes, and then changing the sostenuto pedal catches the upper melody! And so on. This pedaling looks intriguing on paper, but in practice I found it too cumbersome at tempo. Still, it shows some of the vast potential of the overlapping technique.

4. The Partial Sostenuto

Double pedaling enables catching part of a chord on the sostenuto pedal. That’s impossible with conventional pedaling, at least without releasing the extra notes. The “partial sostenuto” technique is useful in this passage from the Etude-tableau Op. 39, No. 7 by Rachmaninoff:

With double pedaling, I can catch the first chord in the left hand of this example without catching the right hand notes. First, I play the chord and depress the damper pedal. I can then lift my right hand and the pedal will keep the melody ringing. Since I am no longer holding down the right hand notes, they won’t be caught when I press the sostenuto pedal to catch the left hand chord.

Conclusion

I have only begun experimenting with double pedaling technique over the course of the past few months, and I am already convinced that it is a powerful tool that has wide-ranging potential to enhance the coloristic and expressive capabilities of the modern instrument, with numerous possible applications in the standard piano repertoire. Modifying the pedal mechanism to allow double pedaling is a simple operation that can be achieved without any additional piano parts—only minor adjustments are necessary.

My goals with my double pedaling project are as follows:

1) To increase awareness of the sostenuto pedal’s function and its applications, and to develop and spread the practice of double pedaling.

2) To make a working sostenuto pedal a standard part of every instrument. Many entry-level grand pianos still do not have sostenuto pedals, and it is rare to encounter an upright piano with a sostenuto pedal (Steinway uprights, select Bösendorfers and the Yamaha YUS series are the exceptions). Of course, having a sostenuto pedal on a piano does not mean that it will actual work, as keeping it regulated is frequently seen as optional!

3) To encourage piano makers to modify their pedal mechanisms in house, so that double pedaling works correctly on new pianos without any further modifications.

I’m optimistic that I’ll see some real progress in these areas in the near future. Unfortunately, I don’t anticipate it will be a smooth road. The current environment in the piano world is very hostile to any innovation in piano design. So I’m asking for your participation! I would love to hear any feedback on double pedaling, or any new pedaling ideas that you might have. Also, please share this article and my video on double pedaling, which is available here: http://youtu.be/AWEFgQyCRok

Thanks!

As a final note, there is one type of piano that consistently has a working sostenuto pedal: electronic pianos. On most full size modern keyboards, it’s simple and cost-effective to buy a pedal board with a sostenuto pedal, if it’s not already included. Due to a quirk in the way that keyboards are programmed, it is slightly easier to have a sostenuto pedal that works independently of the damper pedal than the alternative. It’s not surprising that keyboard manufacturers have taken the path of least resistance and have developed a sostenuto pedal that works perfectly for the purposes of double pedaling.

Happy pedaling!

Paul Schoenfield's Peccadilloes

That has to be one of the best performance indications ever: “kvetch”. It was pencilled in my score of Peccadilloes by the composer himself, Paul Schoenfield, when I visiting the University of Michigan last summer to play for him. I wish he had added it to the actual published edition. This particular passage is from the fifth movement, “Shuffle,” out of a set of six. The innocuous title belies the sombre mood, dominated by specters and ghosts which rise out of the blurred harmonies in the lowest piano registers.

Before I was introduced to this piece by my teacher James Tocco, I only knew Schoenfield from his Café Music trio, which has now gone viral and is already part of the standard repertoire. I asked him how he felt about being known by a single work, a fate famously bemoaned by Saint-Saëns (Carnival of the Animals) and Rachmaninoff (Prelude in C sharp minor). He was philosophical about it, remarking that at least he was known by a mature work of which is a good representation of his style.

I've received overwhelmingly positive feedback on this piece when I've performed it, and I wouldn't be surprised if it soon earns a place in the regular piano competition repertoire, just as the Carl Vine Piano Sonata No. 1 did eight or nine years ago. It's still little known though. Peccadilloes was written for Christopher O’Riley (of From the Top and Radiohead arrangement fame), who premiered it but hasn't played it much since. The only commercial recording is by James Tocco on the Naxos label, a brilliant performance that is marred by an out-of-tune piano (the B two octaves above middle C is jarring, particularly in the Shuffle movement where that note is very prominent).

Ironically, when I made my own YouTube recording, my piano also suffered from tuning issues. I was recording at the ELMS Conservatory in Jakarta, which has a recital hall on the top floor of a four-floor building. The tropical sun beats down on the roof and turns the room into a sauna, which the Kawai piano has adjusted to excellently—far better than I could. As I found out, turning on the AC ruins the balance. I literally started recording as the tuner was leaving, and by the time I was recording the Shuffle, the piano was in barely usable shape.

After a hiatus

One of the nice things about writing on an almost totally unknown and unread blog is that no one cares if I take an unusually long hiatus.

My last blog sat for a year, unattended, before I finally put it out of its misery and took it down.

The hiatus was caused by... well, I have no end of excuses. But there were a few good reasons. I redesigned my website, something long overdue and that took me down lots of dead ends. I wasted more time than was good for me trying to come to terms with Javascript and jQuery, before deciding to leave that to smarter folks who expect more from their browser experience.  Next step: Try to fix the margins so that it looks good on a tablet as well...

Another major cause was the looming deadline to submit my dissertation to the Juilliard Doctoral Committee. I got it in with 30 minutes to spare, on December 2. Much of the last few months of editing involved getting things to “flow”, as my advisor would put it. The language had to be fixed and compacted. Reading it now, it feels almost too compact, as if every sentence was trying to compress an entire chapter of my research into improvisation. My ideal would be a kind of do-it-yourself guide to free improvisation, touting the benefits (musical, creative, spiritual, health, whatever) of group improvisation for classical musicians.

I don't like brevity for its own sake. I bristled a little when I had to rewrite my sentences to make them a few words shorter, or I had to use circumlocutions to avoid repeating a single word too many times. It definitely made things more... efficient. But is efficiency really the end-all of writing? Writers like Malcolm Gladwell, or Steven D. Levitt of Freakonomics, manage to make their arguments simple and cogent, but they don't spare words. Instead they find a lot of different ways to get to the same point, emphasizing it through varied repetition. That's what I'd like to be able to do. Unfortunately, my repetitions, read back with the benefit of a few months' hindsight, merely sound repetitive. So they had to go.

I'll try to keep a reasonable schedule of updates here in the future. After all, I do enjoy blogging, even if it is mostly for my own edification.

CD of the Month

Garrick Ohlsson plays Gershwin. I caught the tail end of the Concerto in F on the radio last week in the car, and sat in the carpark until it finished. I played the Concerto six years ago, but I've never had an urge to revisit the piece until after hearing this. It's a piece that has some memorable tunes and great moments, but it can feel overblown. If it's in the wrong hands, that is. Ohlsson does it with sneaky humor and refuses to let it get bogged down in the big orchestral climaxes. Before they announced his name on the radio, I was guessing it would be a jazz pianist crossover recording. Truly amazing stuff.

The World Piano Competition: A Renewal

At the end of the finals of this year's World Piano Competition, based in Cincinnati, director Mark Ernster remarked that while the competition is currently in its fifty-seventh year, it's as if it had been born anew, thanks to its recent partnership with CCM and the Cincinnati Symphony. As a competitor, third prize winner and sufferer in last year's competition, I couldn't agree more. Unlike last year, the competitors were treated to a smoothly organized experience with great pianos, great audiences and a highly accomplished jury. I couldn't get to the first two rounds, but I listened to the live stream of the finals just down the hall from the actual competition in a vacant classroom (since the whole family came along, we needed a “baby-proof” setting).

The final round of any competition is always a strange thing. It's the most exciting, it draws the biggest audiences and the most speculation. But the finalists, exhausted from a week of non-stop adrenaline and working on a tight rehearsal schedule with the orchestra, rarely are in top form. It can be an exercise in stamina more than actual musicianship. While I can't confirm it firsthand, I did hear from a few others that this year's competition conformed to the rule. Still, the three finalists were all exceptional pianists who gave it their all.

Misha Namirovsky started the evening with a thoughtful and expressive Brahms D minor concerto. I was particularly captivated by a lush and serious slow movement that maintained an undercurrent of tension despite a tempo that was a little slower than normal. Unfortunately, the octave passages in the first movement were probably not as clean as he would have liked, and a number of little inaccuracies crept into the last movement as well. The real disappointment was a embarrassingly slipshod job by the Cincinnati Symphony under the baton of associate conductor Robert Treviño. They sabotaged the performance with a sluggish response to the soloist, incorrect tempi, and flat, lifeless lines. This concerto has too many extended orchestral interludes for the pianist to be able to hold the piece together on his own, so inevitably it came across as dull and long-winded. Namirovsky was awarded the bronze medal, quite fairly I think, although it's easy to imagine that the result could have been very different with slightly different circumstances.

Jin Uk Kim dazzled with a hair-raisingly accurate and polished account of Beethoven's fourth concerto in G major. He was the audience prize winner and the favorite of many of my friends. I thought he gave a powerfully structured interpretation of the first movement that climaxed in a brilliant cadenza. Ultimately, he was let down by his choice of repertoire; the finesse and lithe character were missing in a piece that is all about a quicksilver attention to gesture and shape. His style would have made for an unbeatable Prokofiev 3, or even Beethoven's Emperor concerto. He came away with second prize, although probably it was a very close call.

Marianna Prjevalskaya concluded the evening with a highly individual take on the Brahms D minor. Her presence on stage was electrifying, and she demonstrated true artistry in a compelling and tumultuous performance. I can't say I agreed with every interpretative choice she made—the second movement was stagnant at times and the slower sections in the third movement were a little mawkish for my taste. She was daring, she was challenging, she was maybe controversial, but her musical authority put her ahead of the pack and she emerged victorious as the gold medallist. The orchestra rallied behind her wonderfully, sounding like a completely different ensemble than only a couple hours before.

The level of artistry was inspiring at the World Piano Competition this year, and it looks to have turned over to a new leaf. It's an exciting time for piano and pianists in Cincinnati!

Mendelssohn and sempre pedale

Mendelssohn’s Fantasie, Op. 28 stands out among his wide-ranging output for piano. I think it's certainly one of his more challenging works, especially the final Presto. That’s probably why it’s one of the few Mendelssohn piano pieces on the circulating repertoire of our super-virtuosi, along with the G minor concerto. But the first two movements are so quirky—if I didn’t know the music, I doubt I would guess Mendelssohn as the composer. I'd go for Schumann, probably, especially with the bizarre asymmetrical phrasing in the second movement.

I’m currently working the piece up for the Art of Piano festival at CCM next week, and I played it through for James Tocco a few days ago. I don't think I've ever had a teacher who was more concerned about detail—Tocco has a musicologist’s mind for tiny things in the music that too many of us wouldn't give a second thought. But he manages to draw out so much meaning from these breadcrumbs off the composer’s table that he completely transforms my understanding of the music.

What would you make of this sempre pedale marking?

I probably thought what 90 percent of pianist would think: Mendelssohn is asking me to change the pedal here and hold it for the next five measures. There a similar passage in Beethoven’s “Tempest” Sonata, where the pedal blurs a single-line melody:

Mendelssohn was, of course, very much into Beethoven, and was one of the first pianists to tackle his monumental “Hammerklavier” sonata. He was surely familiar with this passage and might have been paying homage.

But Tocco suggested a more radical interpretation: The sempre pedale could indicate that the pedal remains sustained, not a change of pedal. Then there would a single pedal starting nine measures earlier, lasting for a total of fourteen measures! This pedal would blur through the B minor-F sharp major chord changes on the second line of the example. More strikingly, F sharp major would blur with F sharp minor as Mendelssohn suddenly reverts to the opening tonality six measures before the end.

It might seem out of character for Mendelssohn. The image of Beethoven as a raving genius who thrust the Classical world kicking and screaming into the Romantic era matches perfectly with uncomfortably messy pedaling. But Mendelssohn? From a respectable upper middle class family, stylistically conservative, who according to Taruskin, never outgrew his precocious early style? On the other hand, Mendelssohn was very clear with his markings and didn’t normally leave pedal markings hanging unended. Surely if he wanted a pedal change, he would have written it.

That evening around midnight, I received an email from Tocco. His meticulous attention to detail hadn’t allowed him to sleep, and he gave me a near-exhaustive list of sempre pedale examples from Beethoven and Mendelssohn. The more you look, the less clear it gets, but he thought—and I agree—that there’s a strong case to be made for a single, fourteen-measure pedal. Beethoven often used sempre pedale to indicate a sustained pedal (no change), for example near the end of the first movement of the “Appassionata”:

Mendelssohn used the term even more frequently than Beethoven. Sometimes it seems to indicate a change of pedal, but more often than not it means to sustain it. One of my favorite examples is in his first sonata, Op. 6, where he writes sempre Pedale after a long cadenza-like movement that leads into a powerful finale:

Tocco classified this one as probably indicating a pedal change. But wouldn’t it be cool if it were sustaining? The sonority that would build up over the course of these seven measures would be pure cacophony on a modern instrument! Unlike in the Fantasie, there is really only one harmony here—a long dominant pedal—even through there are plenty of passing tones.

It’s long been accepted that the differences between Beethoven’s pianos and ours mean that we don’t really need to observe his more eccentric pedalings exactly. For every pianist who plays the “Tempest” passage above with one long full pedal, there are probably three who use shades of half pedal and half changes to keep things under control. I think the same could be said for Mendelssohn.

One more caveat: Sempre is a tricky term. I bet if Beethoven were alive today, he wouldn't use a crazy term like sempre fortissimo quite so easily. Like here:

He writes that at the climax of the first movement of the “Appassionata.” Counting the two measures of fortissimo before, there are seventeen(!) full measures of fortissimo before the next written dynamic, piano. I think everyone understands that the excitement has to wind down somewhere, without a sudden drop of dynamic right at the end of this passage. I think there would also be general agreement about what Beethoven means: this is a powerful, sustained climax. But in the best performances I’ve heard, this passage isn’t necessarily all loud loud loud. Instead it’s volatile, like a pot boiling over on full flame. It’s not surprising that a more considered approach is more exciting and effective than seventeen measures of jackhammer, but thanks to that sempre too many pianists fall into that trap.

Still, sempre fortissimo and sempre pedale are worlds apart. I have a clear preference for pianists who play with too much pedal over those who play too loudly. Too loud is just unmusical, but a good musician who takes chances with the pedal has balls. Or powerful ovaries.

Life, and art

The past month or so has passed so quickly! I gave a lecture-recital on improvisation in graphic scores back at the end of May. The recital was a requirement for my degree at Juilliard, but I talked them in to letting me do it in Cincinnati and save the cost of a plane ticket. I talked mostly about improvisation and played two graphic scores by Roman Haubenstock-Ramati. In the Q&A afterward people were more curious about the scores. Following a graphic score, even if you know the exact path and method of interpretation used, is inevitably an exercise in frustration for a classical music listener who's used to having everything clearly laid out. So when I made a DVD of the performance to send to Juilliard, I analyzed my performance of the solo version of Catch 2. It was pretty fun to listen back, really a discovery since I had surprisingly little idea of what to expect. As it turns out I managed to skip a whole line of the score—a whole repetition to be exact! I posted the video on YouTube here.

The birth of our son James Jerome on June 11 has made the past few weeks both terrifically exciting and frustrating, since looking after a newborn is a delightful chore that leaves little time for anything else. I'm still scrambling to finish revising my dissertation (on improvisation) since I'm told it will soon get worse. I have the Art of the Piano festival to look forward to here in Cincinnati in a few weeks; we're expecting some terrific teachers and pianists to come through. More on that soon.