FULL AND HALF KEYBOARDERS: VIVE LE DIFFERENCE!

Although I began (somewhat) serious musical training at age 60, I have always loved music.  When much   younger, I taught myself to play some simple pieces, Schumann's First Loss being one of them.  I was deeply moved by it.  Much later, my piano teacher informed me that when she was very young, this piece also had a  profound effect on her.  First Loss is from Schumann's Album for the Young, written in 1848.  The composer felt rejuvenated during the creation of this book of short piano pieces.  He set himself the task of writing music for children that captures the world of childhood without ever being childish.  The compositions are simple but often, as is the case with First Loss and some others, profound.  

The purpose of this article is not merely to make this wonderful composition known to those who have never taken piano lessons or to resurrect this piece for those who have forgotten it; I have written the article in order to answer the question,  Why are some people affected by the serious, even tragic, aspects of life  more than others?  Why, regarding music, are some people convinced that their soul will not be satisfied, and will not grow, if limited to hearing only upbeat compositions?

  

This article is especially written for those whose emotional response to life is characterized by a broad range.  I will give an analogy: the piano keyboard has 88 keys.  Let us assume--that is, let us pretend--that middle C is a state of being neither happy nor sad.  Let us further pretend that the forty-four keys to the right represent increasing feelings of happiness, until the utter ecstasy of the highest C is reached, four octaves above middle C, that is, 44 notes higher.  Similarly, the 39 keys to the left represent a decreasing scale of happiness, until the utter misery of the lowest A note is sounded.  The keyboard thus becomes an emotional gauge with happiness increasing as we progress toward the right. Why is it that some people's inner life, if transcribed into music, would have a wide range of notes, while others would have, say, the octave-and-a-half or so of a singer?  (Please note: possessing a wide emotional range doesn't make you better--a great singer can do so much more with her octave-and-a-half than an average musician can with all 88 keys at his fingertips.)

Shakespeare undoubtedly had the broadest emotional keyboard at his disposal--and so do a good deal of drunks. Most successful businessmen, I imagine, have a more limited range of available emotional notes. I want to make clear from the beginning, however, that this article is not about contrasting artists with philistines, but about two different personality types which are widely distributed among artists and non-artists alike.  I will in fact contrast First Loss with a composition by another great musician, who, to my knowledge never ventured to the left of middle C.

First let's listen to the piece, which I have recorded for this article:

(You can also access it by googling Thomas Dorsett First Loss Youtube)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji3Wi167hXU

What a beautiful piece!  But it is a sad beauty indeed.  Schumann's genius captures a young person who very much still lacks full emotional range but has very definitely, as the title of the piece implies, entered the territory to the left of middle C,  for the first time in his life. I think of him as a bright, sensitive child of 8 or 9--a very significant transition has been reached.  Prior to this it was all sun; from now on there will be periods of sun and periods of shadow.  He now has no chance of becoming an inveterate optimist.  He has tasted inner sorrow--for this music is very internal--which means that sorrow will arise not only from external factors--which happens to nearly all of us at some time--but from internal factors as well.  He has been introduced to a beauty that evokes both joy and sorrow--he will have greater emotional depths than most, and will pay for it dearly.  (Optimists are, of course, happier, and tend to live longer.)

In the works of Schumann the emphasis is mostly to the right of middle C, although, he, to a degree that this piece merely hints at, was familiar with the whole keyboard.  If the proto-Schumann depicted in First Sorrow progressed exclusively to the left as he grew older, he, might well grow up into an adult who could identify with this poem by Platen (my translation):

TRISTAN 

He who has seen beauty with open eyes
is already firmly in death's power;
his work will fail, however hard he tries,
yet, when death approaches, he will cower,
he who has seen beauty with open eyes.

The pain of love will gnaw at him forever--
For only a fool on this sad earth
hopes to satisfy desire--Never
shall beauty's arrow cease to rend and hurt;
the pain of love will gnaw at him forever.

Ah, he'd like to disappear like steam
or inhale poison as he scans the skies
and fade away, as if he'd never been;
he who has seen beauty with open eyes,
ah, he'd like to disappear like steam!

August Graf von Platen
--Translated from the German
by Thomas Dorsett

Schumann would undoubtedly agree with this poem at times, but certainly not always, as most of his music attests.  But many--perhaps the majority of people--live only in the upper keyboard; to them the poem would be just about meaningless, merely the rant of a pathetic depressive.  

The upper keyboard is a very pleasant place to be; those that remain there are content.  Living only in the lower range is a miserable existence, although, if the person in question has genius, it might be a profound existence, but miserable nevertheless. Living the whole keyboard is living life from its depths to its heights; these individuals, when artists, will tend to produce the most profound art of all--Bach and Shakespeare are good examples.  Since most live in the upper keyboard area, , upper keyboard artists tend to be the most popular.  (Posterity, of course, is a full-range judge. During their lifetimes, the upper keyboarder Telemann was much more popular than the full-keyboard Bach.)

Although, in by opinion, the best art tends to be created by full keyboard artists, there are many, many many exceptions.  (Boccherini, Monet, most of Dvorak.)

Let's discuss one of those exceptions now as demonstrated by the deservedly popular song by Bob Marley, Don't Worry About a Thing.

First of all, let's listen to this utterly delightful piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mACqcZZwG0k
 (This piece can also be accessed by googling: Every little thing gonna be all right, Marley, Youtube.)

When in the right mood, tears of joy overwhelm me while listening to this piece.  Similarly, tears of sorrow and poignancy arise while listening to or playing the Schumann piece.   As these two pieces indicate, art can express both sorrow and joy; half keyboarders tend to listen only to  music which reflects their upbeat nature. Full keyboarders respond to the music of yes as well as to music of no, since their emotional life is, as it were, composed of both.

Is it the genes or the environment that turns the artist or the individual into full keyboarders or half keyboarders?.  I think genes play the most important part, but the environment certainly helps to either suppress or express them.  Let's look at the lives of Schumann and Marley to indicate why this is so.   

Here is a picture of Robert Schumann

Here is a picture of the house where Schumann was born, which still stands in Zwickau, Germany

Here is a picture of Bob Marley:

Here is a picture where Marley was born:

Need I say more?  Poverty is obviously not a major factor in the creation of full  keyboarders.

The contrasts between both men are extreme.  Schumann had a very literary father; both parents were good to him.  Schumann immersed himself in literature and music, both of which fostered the full range of emotions which were part of his genetic endowment.  Schumann had friends, and had a happy marriage with Clara Schumann, albeit after a very stressful court case in which Clara's father, Schumann's teacher, tried to have the marriage annulled.  (Schumann apparently lacked the common sense to marry Clara after she attained majority--which fell on the very day after the marriage!)  Schumann's first biographer wrote that he "possessed the rare taste and talent for portraying feelings" at the age of 12--a strong indication that the composer was a full keyboarder from the beginning.

But, internally, things could get very stormy.  His first attempt at suicide was at age 30, after hearing about the deaths of not too close relatives from the plague.  He suffered  from bouts of depression and mania his entire life; he also suffered toward the end of his life from aural hallucinations.  He died in a sanatorium at 56, where he spent the last two years of his life in a state of complete mental breakdown.

Marley did not have it easy in the beginning.  His father was white--he sent money to the  mother of his son,, but did not raise him;, his father died when Marley was 10.  

Marley's hometown in Jamaica is like a village transposed from Africa.  Everyone there is, genetically, completely of African descent.  There is no racial mixing, and thus no accommodation for those of mixed race, as in the United States.  Thus, Marley was teased unmercifully for being a half-caste.  It is said that he had to work twice as hard to earn the respect that was his neighbors' birthright..  This did not depress him, as these delightful words which Marley wrote about himself indicate:

I don't have a prejudice against meself.  My father was a white and my mother was black.  Them call me half-caste or whatever.  Me don't deh pon nobody's side.  Me don't deh pon the black man's side nor the white man's--Me de pon God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.

Marley seems to have been totally unable to experience depression, and periods of deepe sorrow, except those caused by the inevitable vicissitudes of life--from which he undoubtedly would recover much faster than most.  I think of Marley's First Loss was the realization, at the end of his life, that the cancer he forgot about had recurred and would soon kill him.  His sorrows, when they came, arose from external, not internal causes, which is characteristic of the half keyboarder. 

Schumann, though depressed at times, was by no means a stranger to joy, a fact which the majority of his music reflects.  But he knew both sides of life, and his work is much more the profound for it.  I can picture him nodding in wistful agreement after reading the first stanza of a famous poem by Goethe:

Who never ate his bread with tears;

who never spent a dismal night

racked by terrors, doubts and fears

doesn't know you, heavenly light!

His work, in my opinion--and I must admit to being a full keyboarder--was deepened by this knowledge..

As true with everything in life, you pay for what you get, and full keyboarders, like Schumann, sometimes pay dearly.  They experience life in a profounder way, which sets them apart from the majority, half keyboarders.  Their state of consciousness is deeper; their life more fragile.  Who is more profound than the fictional Hamlet who is more real than all of us?  And look what happened to him.

One of the positive aspects of being a full keyboarder is the tendency toward greater empathy.  I will give an example.  On the radio, I heard a discussion about a recent mass suicide.  One of the speakers said that although it was sad, the people who killed themselves had free will and made their decision, and that's that.  Spoken like a half keyboarder!  A full keyboarder would know that these poor people were lost in an area to the left of Middle C and, with a little, help, could move higher.  Half keyboarders tend to think everyone is like they are--since they would never commit suicide, they assume that only fools could.  Full keyboarders, who have experienced life more deeply, know what it's like to feel helpless and lost, and thus have more empathy for those who feel cornered.

I think evolution permits the recurrence of full keyboarders in order to deepen the creativity of our species ,thus enhancing its ability to survive.  If one were a half keyboarder full-time, one would tend to lack the desire to create something really new and profound.  At the very least, the full keyboarder will be able to experience life much more deeply.  I think it's worth the price, especially when the full keyboarder is able to ascend from the depths with the help of friends and a healthy lifestyle.  Silver clouds with dark linings are, I think, very important.  If you're a half keyboarder, you don't need advice; however, if you're a full keyboarder, take this from me: expose yourself fully, yet only periodically, to those dark-lined clouds--and when you do, have an umbrella ready.