Welcome to my website! Music can be
a source of great joy, peace, puzzlement
or even vexation! I've spent a lifetime
listening to it, playing it, creating
it, and sharing it with everyone around
me. If you'd like to be one of those
someones, come on in! Read, listen,
think, and explore!
--the webmaestro, Michael Hammer
([email protected])
concert pianist, organist, composer, and
teacher
This week, a classic, the old Toccata
and Fugue in d minor, which is THE
halloween piece for many people. It
probably wasn't written by Bach (perhaps
there is your Halloween scare) but it is
nonetheless an exciting piece to play,
and to listen to. I often like to leave
the beaten path, but this time we go
right down Main Street with one of the
most recognizable openings in music. But
do yourself a favor and stay for the
end. You won't regret it!
There is an entire hour of similarly scary organ music to listen to this
week on
PianonoiseRadio.
I've recently made a recording of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which you
can hear by clicking the blue title at the end
of this article. You'll recognize the opening: it's one of the handful
of classical pieces that everybody knows, or rather, that they know
the first ten seconds of, anyway. It will probably also remind you
of something right away, too. I'm thinking of a certain autumnal
holiday this week. This isn't because Bach wrote the
piece with that in mind, it is because somebody in Hollywood thought
the piece sounded scary and decided to get some yardage out of it.
It's been making the rounds of the scary movies ever since, and poor
Bach doesn't get any royalties.
Then again, there are some people who don't think he even wrote the
thing in the first place, so why should he? Now, when I first played
the piece as a teenager I assumed what I was supposed to assume. The
piece was Bach's and that's that. I was also introduced to a group
of little preludes and fugues that it turns out Bach didn't write
either and now that I am older and know something about Bach's music
and have a more developed sense of musical quality I can certainly
see why people have their doubts because the pieces aren't really
that good. The pieces are pretty slight anyway, so what does it
really matter?
But to cast doubt on the Toccata? Now that's shattering.
A couple of months ago, during a performance, I
had one of those moments onstage where everybody
was laughing at me. You've probably experienced
something similar in your nightmares, only this
was actually happening. And I loved it.
....It seems that artists have spent so much
time trying to get the audience to behave
decently (often by bullying them) that what
results is a culture of fear, rather than
respect. Keeping quiet because you want to
understand and communicate with the music is not
the same thing as being quiet out of the fear
that if you dare to make a sound, people will
look at you like a leper with hemorrhoids.
Repetition
before you can't get that song out of your head
you have to put it in there
When I was just starting music school I
remember asking myself, "how does a concert
pianist practice?" I figured I couldn't very
well sneak into somebody's house and find out.
But right away, my response to my own question
was, "become one and find out!"
