A Natural History of the Piano by Stuart Isacoff

Author:Stuart Isacoff [Stuart, Isacoff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-70142-8
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

WRITING MY MUSIC by Billy Joel

A lot of my songs began as an exercise for the piano, something that could be played on its own. I think of how Mozart must have approached his music. Writing in sonata form satisfied his need for melody and variation; [he had] something that led away from the theme, which I call a bridge; and then he reiterated and concluded it. I think this goes back to my piano lessons, all that Kuhlau and Mozart and Clementi; their melodies can easily end up as songs.

Remember that group in the 1960s that took a Bach melody and turned it into a hit song [that started,] “How gentle is the rain …” [“A Lover’s Concerto” by the Toys]? Then there was a version of a Mozart sonata, sung by a group called the Tymes: “Somewhere, my love waits for me.” I’m writing my own classical pieces, to turn into rock and roll songs.

The master wizard is Beethoven. He’s the one I keep going back to over and over again. I discover secrets about music by what I call “breaking the Beethoven codes.” His harmonies are filled with things you don’t notice. There are times when I’ll think, “He did this on the bottom, underneath the chord,” and the hair will stand up on my arms.

One of the things you like about this kind of music is its variation, its shadings, nuance, and subtlety. Rock and roll, on the other hand, obliterates. That’s the essence of rock. [But] its sexual energy, passion, angst, rage are in classical music too. I guess it’s a matter of maturing to the point that you’re ready to hear something other than the same three-chord songs over and over.

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