Is Your Brain a Better Composer than Bach?

Vladimir Horowitz, who often heard things his own way. And luckily shared with us.

Bach Minuet with student miscue.

This suggests that the line between conscious and subconscious decisions surrounding these miscues is blurry at best, and it also indicates that when teachers are looking consciously at the notation, they see the veridical, but when they are called upon to perform the piece, they fall into the same schematic trap as the children.

Ode to Joy played with student miscue.

Schema-driven Miscues in Children's Piano Performance

Check out French and Richard's Clock This! experiment and find out for sure.

Ode to Joy, by Beethoven, played correctly.

Fiesta, by Gillok, played as the composer intended.

The Ambiguous Passages: Note how Schubert modifies the phrasing of the six-chord groups in the three following passages -- and in the clip below, how Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, and Rubinstein alter that phrasing to follow their own schemas.

We turn to Schubert’s Impromptu in Ab Major (Op. 90, No. 4) as an example of how the simplest melodic pattern can generate a deeply felt ambiguity, as played by Rubinstein, Rachmaninoff and Horowitz respectively.

Chopin miscues.

Because of the lack of written information (besides the fact that there is an F sharp noted in the signature), the students hear the opening measure as dominant (G) and the third measure as tonic (C), so they play an F natural in the third measure as if they are in the key of C. Unlike the Olympics Parade, the subsequent measure does not land on the actual tonic (G) so they don’t have the opportunity to correct themselves.

The E natural on the downbeat of measure 4 is an appoggiatura that resolves to D. Students often err on this note, preferring to continue the conjunct ascent rather than repeated a note across a measure.

Melodic Schematic and Veridical Misalignment: In addition, the children are assuming a dynamic accent because of the melodic pattern: They think the top of each run should be accented.

"Fiesta," by Gillok, played the wrong way by students.