Geoffrey Thomas

Does the word creativity raise images of half-crazed geniuses who cut off their ears, paint masterpieces, party like mad and die of drug overdoses? These stereotypes may make good movie plots, but do they correspond to reality? Is this really what creativity is like? Let’s examine some of the myths. Continued…

Wind and string players spend endless hours maintaining and improving their tone. The great Dutch cellist Anner Bylsma once told me that a string teacher can forgive a student who has better technique, but will hate a student who has better sound.

Very few keyboard players pay such close attention to their tone. After all, the glorious sound of a French horn or the haunting tone of an English horn are completely unattainable on any keyboard instrument. But, careful focus on tonal quality brings unexpected benefits on the keyboard. Clearly, having good tone will make your playing more pleasing to the listener, but it will also improve the quality of your practice. You can solve many technical problems more effectively by paying attention to tonal quality. Getting the correct notes is a fairly low order problem for the perception. Playing the notes with the idea timbre and color is a far more intriguing problem for the perception. As a bonus, the right notes will come.