Lost Secrets of Master Musicians: A Window Into Genius - Softcover

Jacobson, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 099695791X ISBN 13: 9780996957915

Publisher: Sfim Books, 2016

Synopsis

Can Talent be Explained?

In this groundbreaking look into the world of "classical" music, David Jacobson interweaves his educative experiences at the Curtis Institute of Music with his quest to understand how performers such as Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vladimir Horowitz, and Glenn Gould achieved such unsurpassed levels of musical expression and technical skill. What were their "secret" techniques and musical insights? 

Jacobson, founder and director of the San Francisco Institute of Music, has spent many years analyzing the approach of these and other master players uncovering their "secrets" which he reveals in clear, precise, non-technical language, supplemented by diagrams, photographs and annotated musical examples. His conclusion: the methods, paradigmatic shifts and musical approach of these masters are fundamentally the same, yet diametrically opposed to what is taught by contemporary music teaching systems (such as those of Ivan Galamian and Shinichi Suzuki) for string playing, orchestral instruments, piano and voice. Jacobson's exploration of the "secret" techniques and musical insights of great performers aims to revitalize the art of classical music in general. The rediscovery of these techniques and concepts, he argues, will:

• Create many more outstanding performers and composers
• End the need for a conductor's presence in orchestral performance
• Decentralize musical bureaucracies and power structures
• Alter our understanding of both opera and ballet
• Change our ideas about the nature of genius, talent and our own potential

About this title

Review

"Why has the audience for classical music declined? David Jacobson's painstaking studies of the performances of past master musicians support a provocative and original hypothesis: The quality of musical expression has declined over the past century. Important reading for anyone concerned with the future of classical music and the training of classical musicians."
--Robert J. Flanagan, The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras: Artistic Triumphs and Economic Challenges

"Musicians become virtuosos in many different ways, and David Jacobson has extracted common principles and codified them to help us all achieve higher levels of mastery. Thorough and engaging."
-- Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain on Music

Mr. Jacobson's unique idea, what he has termed the "bel canto instrumental technique," eschews the idea of individual musical talent in favor of exploring--and challenging--how music itself is approached and taught from the most basic level of instruction to the pinnacle of performance.

The unique "Bel Canto Instrumental Technique" as described by master musician, David Jacobson, in Lost Secrets will shift the way we think about the very nature of musical genius and talent.
-- Chanticleer Reviews

"Jacobson challenges sacrosanct beliefs and opens a Pandora's box of questions...he analyses in great depth the genius of past masters and controversially questions Galamian's and Suzuki's teaching methods. Jacobson exhorts us to see, hear and feel anew."
--Mary Nemet, Austa National Reviews editor

"To demonstrate that talent and skill can be investigated, understood and learnt, Jacobson has developed from his analyses a scientific performance approach: "bel cantoinstrumental technique"...Jacobson's part-autobiographical narrative is logically structured and fluently written...and is accessible to a wide readership. "
--The Strad

"A tremendously enlightening book brilliantly written by a truly renaissance man. Every musician should read this."
--Endre Granat, The Heifetz Scale Book

Book Description

Paradigmatic Shifts in "Classical" Music--Education, Composition, and Performance

"In the absence of a paradigm...all of the facts that could possibly pertain to the development of a given science...seem equally relevant...In the absence of a reason for seeking some particular form of more recondite information early fact-gathering is usually restricted to the wealth of data that lie ready at hand."--
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Interest in classical music is declining. Everyone in the field desperately tries to understand why, attempting to solve this chasmic generational shift.

Music administrators make programs more "pop" oriented. Musicians dress differently. The audience dresses differently. Orchestras play movie music. Musicians demonstrate classical music to school children, hoping if they catch them young enough interest will stick.

But it doesn't seem to.

The one possibility musicians never consider is that it may be the musicians themselves who are generating disinterest.

Upon examination, not only does the training--the educative side of the field--confuse or often permanently impair a student's innate talent and enjoyment of music (parents and students beware), but the way professional musicians understand the music is, to put it simply, boring.

The field is an interesting example of functional incoherence. The system functions, but in a way that destroys itself.

"Classical" music is suffering from an institutionalized constriction, a myopic understanding of what music actually is. This is fueled by a desperate search for order within the field. We, classical musicians, are attempting to create order within a genre--the so-called disciplined art of music--that is unable to agree on much of anything regarding underlying principles.

Edition details

• Publisher: Sfim Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 099695791X
• ISBN 13: 9780996957915
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 470