Questioning our limitations: Albert Frantz
It’s a rainy morning when I arrive in Vienna to meet Albert Frantz – a professional pianist who began piano studies at the unusual age of 17. In our interview Albert shares his inspiring life story, his insights on adult learning, and why he might as well be the first pianist to play the Moonlight Sonata in space.
Interview and Photos: Max Wittrock
The text has been edited for length and clarity.
You can also listen to our full conversation below.
Diatonic: Albert, thanks for taking the time for this interview. Before we start: Could you describe where we are at the moment – we're sitting in a very special room – and what your connection to this place is?
Albert Frantz: This is Boesendorfer. We are not at the Boesendorfer headquarters – which is in Wiener Neustadt, a little bit outside of Vienna. We are in the Musikverein building, the well-known concert hall where the Vienna Philharmonic plays.
I think that this hall is best known for the New Year's concerts from the Philharmonic. And Boesendorfer has a beautiful showroom here in the building. So that's where we are right now.
And as for my connection to Boesendorfer: I have a piano technician in Philadelphia to thank for the connection actually. I came here too many years ago to count – or to admit; I’m getting a little older (laughs).
I came here as a student. And it was an amazing piano builder named Ralph Onesti in Philadelphia who put me in touch with Boesendorfer. Of course I had played some Boesendorfer pianos, at least one which I really, really liked. It was a model 225 back at my university. And when Ralph put me in touch with Boesendorfer I was just so thrilled and they were so kind.
When I came here I had zero money. And Boesendorfer gave me the opportunity to practice every day. They were very, very welcoming. I will be forever indebted to this company.
Diatonic: What makes the Boesendorfer sound so special for you?
Albert Frantz: Boesendorfer preserves the classic Viennese sound. And let me mention that I also love other pianos. I think we're very fortunate. If you look at the high-end piano brands and at the market we're pretty spoiled for choice.
There are a number of brands that make outstanding instruments – so at some point it's a matter of taste. But I love this classic Viennese sound personally. It's a very singing tone. That's something that really speaks to me.
And through the Viennese influence of my mentor Paul Badura-Skoda and all my teachers in Vienna that really sank in. And I think that's something that's very special. I think certain music just truly comes to life when you hear this sound. Schubert was the quintessential Viennese composer. I think Boesendorfers are absolutely perfect for Schubert's music.
Diatonic: So which instrument do you have at home? Which instrument do you practice most often on?
Albert Frantz: Well, those are two separate questions!
I’m fortunate because through some incredible stroke of luck I got my dream piano – which I never thought I would be able to do in my life.
It is a Boesendorfer Imperial Concert Grand, the flagship. And I try not to practice too much and hammer away on it. I have a digital piano and I don't want to scare off the neighbors if I’m practicing Avant-garde music, like Ligeti Études or something.
Kawai makes a great digital piano or keyboard controller. Basically they took a real genuine wooden grand piano action and then just turned it into a MIDI controller. So for me that's actually perfect. The Vienna Symphonic Library based here in Vienna: They do these amazing samples of beautiful instruments: a beautiful Steinway D, I think they have a Bechstein, they have several different Boesendorfers, they have a Yamaha CFX… it's actually a really good solution. Often I practice early in the morning or late at night. And in an apartment in the in the middle of the city you can't just play at all hours of the day. So I use headphones. And it's great – not necessarily for all the fine work, I need a real acoustic piano for that – but for the learning process. Sometimes I'm just memorizing the piece or I’m working out fingerings. And the sound is remarkably good.
On occasion I've also traveled with it: It’s a little heavy, but two people can get it in the car. If I have a concert then that way I could just practice in the hotel room with headphones. That's actually been a great solution. And I can't do that with a Boesendorfer Imperial (laughs).
Albert Frantz: But it's actually worth telling the story of the Imperial, because I've just always dreamed of a Boesendorfer Imperial. And they cost as much as a house. So I thought: Okay, there's absolutely no way.
But one day I had a rehearsal. It was actually here with a violinist.
And the moment I played the very first note on this piano I thought: Oh my god! This is the perfect piano. It sang just so beautifully, it was just so well balanced. And it was so responsive to nuance… I couldn't believe it. I thought this makes me sound better than I am!
I thought: I'm not this good – but this piano just sounds so good. And then the violinist came. And she kept interrupting the rehearsals, saying: Oh my god, that piano. I've never heard a piano that sounds so beautiful. And then afterwards, I just asked Boesendorfer.
I said: This is a really special instrument. Is there any way that I might be able to use this for a CD recording? And then we got to talking about it. I learned that it wasn't brand new, that it had been selected for this building, for the Vienna Musikverein. And it had been built ten years before and was used in the halls here.
Then they took it back and completely redid the whole thing. They made it even better than when it was new. They redid the action. They re-strung it, new strings, new hammers… and it was just absolutely perfect.
And because it wasn't brand new I asked: Okay, I'll never be able to afford this, I'm afraid to ask… but how much is it? And then they even helped me find financing for it from the bank.
That's how I got my dream instrument!
Diatonic: Great story! So while I was riding the train here today I read about and thought of Franz Liszt… who many considered to be the first superstar of classical music… if I'm not mistaken he was friends with Ignaz Boesendorfer? And owned Boesendorfer grand pianos himself?
Albert Frantz: That's right.
Diatonic: And not too long ago you recorded Franz Liszt’s Transcendental Études for an album. Could you maybe elaborate a little on the story of that recording and why you chose Liszt and these études in particular?
„What I had was a lot of excitement and passion, I was willing to work.“
Albert Frantz: That had long been something on my bucket list really. I love this music.
I discovered the piano, classical music, and my talent for piano really very late, in my late teens.
And some of the first music that I heard was by Liszt. And at that age… I was not mature for my age by any means… I'm sure I still am not.
But what fascinated me most of all initially was just the sheer virtuosity! I could not believe that ten fingers and 88 keys could be capable of that. It was just so astonishing to me.
That's what initially attracted me to it.
I also have to confess that when I started I knew nothing about what really counts in music: harmony and counterpoint and phrasing… I had absolutely no real rhythmic control or anything.
Basically what I had was a lot of excitement and passion, and I was willing to work.
I did have the work ethic and somehow, in a way that I didn't understand, I had the fingers for it.
So when I heard music like this… I had to try my hands at it. And what I discovered is: Okay, if I try hard enough… somehow I can move my hands that fast. So that was what initially attracted me to it.
Basically I played it for all the wrong reasons. But it had always been a dream since then to play and record all of the Transcendental Études. And these are really special pieces!
I'm in my mid 40s now – and the sheer virtuosity is not their main attraction to me anymore actually. When I shared my recording with Marc-André Hamelin the first thing he said was: Masochist! And if Marc thinks that then you have to respect that (laughs).
They really are every bit as hard as legend has it. I like them no longer because of their difficulty – but despite their difficulty. And to me they really are… like philosophical essays. In German there’s this wonderful expression… Glueck im Unglueck… I don’t know how to translate that…
Diatonic: If we were to translate it word by word it means finding…
Albert Frantz: … fortune or good luck despite bad luck or something. I had a recording session at Boesendorfer in Vienna Neustadt in their factory. There they have this big showroom that has a beautiful natural acoustic. We were recording on the wonderful new model, the 280VC, the Vienna Concert series. It's big with a nice, deep and brilliant, very flexible sound that's really well-suited to this music. I was sharing a recording session with Carlo Grante. A couple of days into the session we discovered that there was some defect. For some of the takes for whatever reason one of the microphone channels just didn't work. Carlo Grante had traveled from Italy for this recording. So I said: You know, I'm at least here in Austria, I can come here anytime. But you have to finish your album.
That ended up turning out to be a stroke of good fortune. Because when I listened to my playing… it was impressive; I don't think it was bad playing. But I had the feeling: Okay, there's more to these pieces. There's more to the story.
Then I just took another year to work on them. I thought they were fast, they were impressive, but through all the speed there's something that's actually missing. I think there's more drama. Interpreting music is really all about storytelling. You don't do it for yourself or your own glory. You do it for the music. And nobody would tell a story faster just to show how fast you could speak. I mean, that doesn’t make any sense. So why would I do that in my playing?
Therefore I really considered the tempos and then I re-recorded them again a year later. And for me it was completely different, completely transformed. I really took pains just to concentrate on musical storytelling. And I thought: What is this piece all about? For example, “Feux Follets,” the fifth Étude, is famous for its incredible technical difficulty. And it really is that hard!
And let me be the first to admit I'll never be able to play that piece as fast as Evgeny Kissin or Richter –but it shouldn't be a race! Liszt actually writes allegretto. He doesn't write presto, he doesn't write prestissimo. He writes allegretto. And “Feux Follets” translates to “Will-o'-the-wisp.”
You have to think of some dark marsh in a dark forest and little sparkles of light. That's your task as the player, as the interpreter. It’s not to race through it. So I thought, what if I only think about the color and the imagery? I tried to do that for all the pieces. Hopefully I did them some justice, I don't know.
I mean there are many different ways to approach music like this. But you know there's at least the approach that I took now. Hopefully people will like it.
Diatonic: As an amateur pianist, when you try to tackle a piece: You play it, you might listen to a recording of yourself and then you think: Okay, I kind of got it now. And then you move on to the next piece.
But as a professional, when you prepare for an actual recording session, do you solely rely on your own judgment throughout this process of getting to know the piece? Do you play it for other people and get their opinion before you actually go into the studio?
Albert Frantz: Yes, absolutely. That's extremely important. I played the cycle through for several professional musician colleagues. That was very helpful. Even just to get some general tips like: You were too fast in this passage or you're going to have to get that under control. It just helps to go through the process of playing for people. And let me add to that: It never stops. I will never be too old for piano lessons. It always helps to get expert opinions.
„Don’t overcomplicate it. That’s the art“
Diatonic: Since I'm quite early in my piano journey… what would you say is a good first Liszt? What’s a good first piece to play or to consider when still starting out on the piano?
Albert Frantz: You might want to take a look at the Consolations. And one thing I think that is so important: You don't have to become a virtuoso, playing Rachmaninoff concertos or something in order to explore your joy of learning a musical instrument. There’s so much music that is out there that is more accessible.
And I think it's a mistake to assume that just because something is technically harder to play, meaning physically it's harder to move your fingers fast enough in order to get the notes, it's a mistake to assume that it’s automatically more difficult in a musical sense.
Because musical difficulty isn't the same thing as technical difficulty. Sometimes we conflate the two. There are pieces that are musically more complex – but technically more accessible, and vice versa. And then there are ones that are technically simple and musically simple. One thing that I truly have Paul Badura-Skoda to thank for: He taught me when not to play expressively. For example, if a composer writes something that is musically simple, he taught me to express it in a simple way.
Don't overcomplicate it. That's the art!
It took me the years of study in Vienna in order to come to appreciate that because when I was younger the playing that really attracted my attention was the flashy, more attention-grabbing kind of playing.
But what I learned from my teachers – not just from Badura-Skoda: I have to credit Steven Smith at Penn State University, who was my mentor for five years. I have to give special credit to Sally Sargent here in Vienna, an expert on 19th-century performance practice. And then I have other teachers who I've had the honor of working with, but for a shorter time like Roland Batik at the Music and Art University of Vienna. Unfortunately I only got to work for him for one year and wish I had an opportunity to learn more. And others as well, including Carlo Grante and Marylène Dosse.
I owe my teachers everything. I got to learn a lot from Harvey Wedeen at Temple University in a limited time, one summer, plus on a couple of other occasions I got to play for him and get his advice. So all my teachers were very, very influential.
Jörg Demus was also very important as a musical influence. I was fortunate to learn a lot about the Viennese style through his work.
So what I learned from my teachers: The real art is to make an interpretation not sound like an interpretation. In other words: Even though there's an infinite number of possible interpretations – and possible good interpretations – the art is to make it sound in the moment you're playing that you're not hearing an interpretation, that you're just hearing “the music.” That's the trick. It's going to take me the rest of my life [to achieve that]. It’s like a guiding light for me. That's my Platonic ideal.
Diatonic: That's beautiful! When I was first introduced to piano music and falling in love with classical music… I was also very much drawn to the really virtuoso playing and I think that's just natural.
If I'm not mistaken the first piece you ever performed onstage, which I would also call very technical, was the Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin – who was also famous for really hammering away at the piano just like Liszt. Can you share what made you choose that particular piece for your very first performance? Because for a first performance of a beginning pianist it's quite an unusual piece, I would say.
Albert Frantz: I didn't know how hard it was! But I guess I have to rewind a little bit and share how this all came to be actually.
When I was in high school, as a teenager, there was a friend who was on the track and cross country team. I was an avid runner at the time. He was a jazz guitarist, Brian Urso. We would go on these runs together and he would just always talk about all these great jazz musicians, all the great jazz guitarists. And I became curious. As a kid I tried my hand at the piano, until the teacher fired me and literally told my mother: Take your money every week and throw it in the garbage. Albert will never be able to play the piano!
The reason is: I'm not a natural reader and she couldn't get me to read music. I got as far as level one and then that was it. So there had been a couple of attempts at the piano when I was younger, but I had never heard classical music. I didn't grow up with classical music. I didn't know what the piano was capable of. And I never got anywhere with it.
So when my teacher fired me I didn't care. I just thought: Great! I don't have to show up! I don't have to go to a piano lesson. There was no big deal. But later on I became curious. I was 17. And I thought: Well, I am probably not going to be become a guitarist. But I at least tried piano as a kid and didn't get anywhere. So maybe I can learn to plunk out a couple of pop tunes or something?
I signed up for lessons with the local teacher in our neighborhood, Nancy Lou Pellett. She was actually not a pianist. She was an opera singer and she was an excellent, really well trained professional musician. She never played a note for me on the piano. But she recognized my talent right away. And she gave me a song from the Gershwin songbook.
Diatonic: Do you remember which one?
Albert Frantz: Yeah, it was called “The Man I Love.” I played it for the student recital. And all of a sudden I was the star student. But I had just started playing… and I didn't understand it, I was discovering that I can actually move my hands, that I can get my hands around the keyboard, which is really weird because I'm completely clumsy otherwise in real life. I only have manual dexterity at a keyboard (laughs). In everything else I'm a complete klutz and just totally uncoordinated.
But she discovered that I had talent. And then I heard George Gershwin and thought: This is incredible. I've never heard music like this before. There was a TV commercial, I think from United Airlines, that used a theme from the Rhapsody in Blue. I didn't know that at the time, I just knew the commercial.
I would hear this music. I would hear this theme and didn’t know what it was. But then I went to the local library to try to find out: Who was George Gershwin? I found a recording of the Rhapsody in Blue. And I listened to it in the library with headphones. All of a sudden that theme from the commercial came on and I thought: Oh my god, I recognize that, that’s from the TV commercial!
It just moved me. I got goosebumps. It moved me to tears. Then I went to my next piano lesson and said: I have to play that, I'm playing the Rhapsody in Blue!
And my teacher – very wisely, very smartly – said: Well, that's not for beginners. That's actually for professional concert pianists.
I replied: I don't care, I have to play it. I already bought the score!
And then she said: But you can't read music!
But I didn’t care, I had to do it. I took every free moment to learn the Rhapsody in Blue. To this day I don't really know how I managed to do it. And then there was an opportunity to play it on stage…
Diatonic: With an orchestra or as a solo performance?
Albert Frantz: No, it was solo performance within a number of months, less than a year later. It wasn't a big thing, it wasn't Carnegie Hall or anything. It was something like a school music competition.
But through that performance I felt like I discovered who I was all along. It felt so good to be onstage, to share music with an audience. I somehow managed to learn the full solo version of the Rhapsody in Blue – I'm sure musically it was a complete mess. But it was there, I could play it, I could perform it.
And that just felt incredible.
„I didn’t know it was impossible“
Diatonic: Going back to that day, after the performance. Did you know instantly: This this is what I want to do? Because what I find really remarkable about that story of yours is of course that you pulled it off technically, with lots of practice probably and lots of persistence. But what I really find fascinating is that as you pursued to become a concert pianist – I mean you must have realized that all these other people started much, much earlier in their lives. Did you never have any self-doubt like: Am I too late? Can you describe how that went?
Albert Frantz: Oh, I have self-doubt every day of my life (laughs).
I didn't know it was impossible. I got so obsessed with classical music and the piano. And I just read, I devoured everything. At that time we didn't have Spotify, streaming music or the internet. But we had CDs and where I grew up in the US there were CD clubs where for just a few dollars a month you could get the latest CDs. So I ordered all these piano CDs and I went to the library and listened to everything that I possibly could.
So a little more than a year later I was – at least in terms of hearing – familiar with… pretty much the entire standard piano literature. I loved it so much. I could play “name that tune,” like: Oh, that's the third movement of this opus, etc. I was just so excited by it! And that's really interesting: Because if you're really interested in something then then you will just absorb it like a sponge.
Kids and adults will learn the things that they're really interested in. They will just absorb that. That's what it was like for me. I just became absolutely obsessed with the piano and classical music. And I spent every available minute with it. That's how I got started.
But importantly, I was always a hopeless nerd – if you can't tell. I loved math and science as a kid. I still do. I always thought I would be some kind of scientist or engineer of some sort. There was never any question in my mind.
That's what I was good at. I had long planned to become an electrical or computer engineer. That's what I went to the university to pursue initially. So suddenly there's this conflict. I went to Penn State, which has a very well-known engineering school. And the first thing I did when I first set foot on campus: I dropped off my bags in the dorm. Then I went outside and asked around: Where's the music building?
Diatonic: Wow!
Albert Frantz: That was my love. That was my real interest. I found my way to the music building. I walked down the halls and they had the names of the professors and their instruments on the door. And as soon as I saw “piano” I thought: Oh my god, a piano professor! I had never met a professor of anything in my life before that. So I knocked on the door to “Steven Smith, piano.” He was in his office. I was an enthusiastic kid, and I introduced myself: Hi, my name is Albert. I just arrived on campus. I'm actually an engineering major but I want to take piano lessons. Then he asked: Well, okay, can you play something for me? I had some things prepared. I played the “Winter Wind” Étude of Chopin. And then I played a Liszt Étude: The “Dance of the Gnomes,” the Gnomenreigen. And then he asked: Do you have any Bach?
And I thought – this is how immature I was – I literally thought: I can play Chopin and Liszt Études! If somebody could play that – why would anybody want to play Bach? I had a lot to learn, he realized that! Then I played a Bach Invention. I remember he commented about the Chopin and Liszt: That is the absolute fastest allowable tempo for those pieces.
He knew he had to rein me in, he had to slow me down. He knew that I had to get control of my fingers. He took me under his wing and really became my mentor. Without him there would be absolutely no chance that I could have become a pianist. It was very challenging for me because I had no support from my family. Sadly they even ended up selling the piano, which was heartbreaking to me. And it was in my second year that I felt I had to make a decision. By then I was actually starting to get somewhere with piano – thanks to Dr. Smith. And I knew: Okay, well, these are two very, very demanding subjects. There aren't enough hours in the day to really excel in both of them, at least not for me. But I thought: Well, I already lost my entire childhood not practicing!
By then I had gotten some awareness that the people who become professional pianists are typically child prodigies and they start extremely young. What I didn't know, though, is that in many other countries there are systems where there are special music schools, so talented kids go to schools that specialize in music. They’re getting excellent training from an early age. I didn't know that that’s what I was competing with. I started to get some idea. But at least I knew: Okay, I have huge amount that's missing. And if there's any hope at all in my life of becoming a professional pianist then I just have to do it now. It meant facing an enormous amount of pressure and uncertainty. And I think that maybe came back to bite me at some point. But I thought I have to do it now. This is my last chance! I knew I had the talent, and my teachers and my mentor knew that I could do it. He believed in me. That really made all the difference.
Diatonic: Was there ever a point when you said: Now I made it. I'm a professional now, goal accomplished?
Albert Frantz: It's not that sort of thing. It's not the kind of thing that you just check off your bucket list like, let’s say, going on a vacation to Paris one day. For me, my childhood dream was to become an astronaut (laughs)…
Diatonic:… it’s never too late!
Albert Frantz: Exactly, it's never too late. William Shatner did it at age 90, right? So maybe one day, I'll be able to do it or it'll become accessible. I'll play the Moonlight Sonata in space!
Diatonic: Sounds marvelous!
„I would never think that I’ve mastered something. It’s always an ongoing process“
Albert Frantz: But that's a bucket list thing that you could just check off: I did it – or not, right? That's different from becoming something. It's always an ongoing process. And music: Music keeps you humble. I'm always surprised if anybody says, Oh, that was masterful!
I would never think that I've ever mastered something. Because it's always an ongoing challenge. You could always go deeper in a piece, you could always try to do more, you could always try to do it better. There's just a perpetual challenge, and the music literature is inexhaustible. There's so much more great music that's been written for the instrument than any one person could possibly learn in a lifetime. There's always more to learn and that’s one of the things that I love about it.
Diatonic: As non-professional musician I find that really fascinating. Because, as you said, there are binary goals like where there's zero and one…
Albert Frantz: … exactly: Did you accomplish it or not?
Diatonic: You're also a triathlete if I'm not mistaken. So at some point one thinks of finishing an Ironman, and then you actually finish it and you might run faster next time…
Albert Frantz: FYI, I did not run faster the next time!
Diatonic: But how do you set goals for yourself as a professional musician? Because you're not going to play Liszt the next time without oxygen or just faster. How do you keep track of your progress?
Albert Frantz: That's a really great question. You're right: If I have a goal to run a marathon then you run it in a certain time and then you ask yourself: Can I run faster next time?
With art it's very different. It should never be objectified.
This is so embarrassing… but I have to admit that when I first discovered the piano – I mean, as mentioned, I was just fascinated by virtuosity – I would actually go to record stores. (Does anybody remember record stores?) And I would look at any available recordings of something like the Chopin Études. And then I would flip it over and look at the timings and I would compare it. So whoever was the fastest I just assumed that they must be the best pianist, so I’d get that recording… which is really, really stupid (laughs).
Diatonic: But I think it makes complete sense. If you're just starting out with classical music… I remember being, I don't know, ten, eleven, or 12 years old… and back then it also fascinated me that someone could play an instrument really, really fast and loud. I can completely relate!
Albert Frantz: I mean, I clearly had a lot to learn. But art isn't about hitting absolute numbers. You're not trying to break a world record or anything. It's not about that at all. That's really the antithesis of art. It’s truly just about the message, about the musical message. For me it’s also really about musical storytelling.
And if you think of how a film is put together: Let's say it's summer, there's always the summer blockbuster. And that can be really, really well done. But if it's only special effects and explosions and whatnot then maybe something is missing? When you're 13 then that's thrilling, right? But if you're a little older you maybe want a little more substance, you want more character development.
That's what it really is all about in music as well. It's very abstract. There's never a time when I would think that something is ever truly finished. I could say: Okay, I think that's the best I can do. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do this any better. Most often I'll think: That was okay. Hopefully I did some justice to this piece. But you never really know.
I'm also a very poor judge of my own playing. This is a very hard thing for me. If I'm working on an album, that’s when I'm forced to listen to my own playing – as much as I'd like to avoid it (laughs).
I can listen to it one day and sometimes I think: Oh yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to say. Oh wow, who’s the pianist? Did I do that? That was great!
But I could listen the exact same recording the next day and think: Oh, my god, this is hopelessly embarrassing! I hope this never sees the light of day! So it's just very hard for me to judge my own playing.
Diatonic: Makes complete sense to me! I can’t stand my voice and my questions, so someone else might have to do the audio editing of this interview. But that's another topic (laughs).
Albert Frantz: I have a really funny story about that. I got a call once just out of the blue, saying that for the new renovation and re-opening of a Beethoven museum in Heiligenstadt, which is part of the city of Vienna on the outskirts, they needed an English version of Beethoven's famous Heiligenstadt Testament. That is the letter that Beethoven wrote to his brothers when Beethoven knew that he was going irrevocably deaf. It's a very, very dramatic letter and he was even contemplating suicide. Me of all people. I'm a composer, I'm a musician, I rely on my ears above all – and now they're failing me? How could I go on? It’s Beethoven's most important letter. So I got a call saying: Hey, you have a really good speaking voice. Could you record the Heiligenstadt Testament?
So I jumped at the opportunity to be the official voice, or at least the English-language voice, of Beethoven for the city of Vienna and thought: Wow, what an honor, right? I also figured: Well, if I can't become the voice of Beethoven through my piano playing, I can at least do it through speaking if nothing else (laughs). So I did this. Then they invited me to the opening of the museum. I went there, and there were these headphones where it says German or English and you press a button and listen to it played. But [shows me a picture on his phone] take a look at what it says here, there it is… “Narrator: Patrick Lamb.” I thought: Who the hell is Patrick Lamb? Somehow they messed something up and it was [a different name] but my voice (laughs). They were nice about it and fixed it in the meantime.
Diatonic: But Patrick Lamb could be your alter ego for voice acting.
Albert Frantz: Exactly (both laugh).
Diatonic: I also want to touch on the subject of adult learning because lots of times your name comes up on the internet when someone posts, asking: Can I still learn the piano at the age of 20, 30, or 40?
Then someone else might mention: Hey, have you have you seen this TED talk by Albert Frantz? And one of your TED talks will be linked. But now you also have your own platform where adults can take online lessons, right? Could you share how that came about and how you developed a system for adult piano learning?
Albert Frantz: I'd be happy to. I discovered that I was often teaching the same piano lesson over and over again, sometimes to the same student… don't tell them (laughs). I thought: Maybe there's a way through the internet to reach more students. I envisioned a platform with video-based courses.
Since then I expanded it. Now it's a video and software platform. There's custom software that I've developed, so I went back to my engineering, nerdy roots. What I've discovered is that there are specific problems in learning piano, often for example learning music theory, that many students tend to struggle with. You really have to learn the language of music, which is harmony for most Western music, though by no means all of it. But if you're going to learn classical music or pop music or jazz you at least need to have some basic foundation in harmony. You need to know at least the rudiments. What I discovered is: Often I'd be teaching a student and something special would happen harmonically and I would point to a measure and ask: Do you know what chord this is?
And they would just give me this look, the deer-in-headlights look, the blank stare. Then they would try to figure it out: Okay, there's a D, there's an F, there’s an F#. And eventually they would figure it out. But I thought: That shouldn't take a minute, they should just know. You should be able to look at that and more or less immediately know: Well, that's just a D minor seventh chord, right?
Diatonic: I know that feeling all too well when you have to figure that out and it takes minutes.
Albert Frantz: The good news is: If you get over that hurdle and build a vocabulary of chords, then it becomes easier and easier. But I thought: Is it possible to facilitate this, so that students can learn to do it really quickly and more or less instantaneously?
That’s how I ended up developing one particular app that I called Chordio, which I built into my platform. The platform is named Key-Notes. And the idea is that it drills students on every chord in each piece in the lesson library for each piece they’re learning.
I didn’t want to overwhelm them, so I thought: What chords do they most need to know? Well, they most need to know the chords that are in the pieces, in the piece that they’re currently working on. That’s the most important thing. But it's also important not just to recognize it, but to actually play it and really become comfortable playing it. That helps the learning process.
You have to look at the learning process holistically. There are many different aspects, and learning music is very hard. It works all different areas of your brain. Because if you think about it, it's so multifaceted. You use your ears: So you need to have great sensitivity to sound. There's also this feedback loop: When you play something, well, believe it or not… one of the hardest things to learn, in my opinion, is how you actually sound! Have you ever recorded yourself playing?
Diatonic: I have, yes…
Albert Frantz: … and then discovered: Oh wait, I thought I did something very different. For me it took several years and a lot of very patient teaching from my teachers in order to get to the point where how I thought I sounded was actually how I sounded, more or less. That’s something that we should by no means take for granted. But that's just one aspect. So there's this feedback loop of what we envision in our minds, what we try to create through our fingers and on the instrument – and then what we actually do. So there's that sensitivity to sound, there's transferring that through our fingers to the keyboard. There's the visual aspect of reading music. There's also the harmony behind it. There's controlling rhythm and timing to a very precise degree. And often doing it all from memory. And then we have to play emotionally, we actually have to say something with this piece of music. That's really hard!
That is so multifaceted.
What I've discovered is that if you develop one aspect, then it helps the other ones. Let's say that you become quite skilled in music theory. Well, that helps you learn because then you could see the forest for the trees, you can see the structure of the piece, you can understand the chord progressions. And you're no longer just learning finger movements. You don't want to just work on one aspect, but instead realize that all of them work in harmony with one another. Also, I think it's important to get some reasonable picture of your own unique strengths and weaknesses as a musician. For me, when I was starting, I discovered I had the fingers. I won't say that I had a properly developed technique; it wasn't truly choreographed. It wasn't perfectly trained. It was all instinct. But I could at least get around the keyboard.
But the other aspects of me as a musician were very sorely lacking. There's an imbalance there. So you have to get some idea of your individual strengths and weaknesses – and then you certainly play to your strengths, but really working on your weaknesses is very important. They all help one another. That's one thing that I consider quite important about learning.
And then, as an adult, the truth is the brain does change. I'm certainly not a neuroscientist by any means. The brain does change throughout our lives. We have to look at how adults learn as opposed to how children learn. For example, I learned German as a foreign language. I learned that probably differently from when I was a baby and a toddler learning English – I wasn't flipping through grammar books (laughs) trying to memorize declensions and whatever. So you do learn differently. That also applies to music. One thing that is very important for adult learning is repetition. So smaller chunks of information – with much more repetition – that will actually get you to your goal faster.
Diatonic: A lot of adults tell me: Oh, I could never learn to play the piano because I don't have one or two hours every day to practice. But for me I realized that it's much more effective to practice for 15 minutes every day than for four hours every Sunday for example. And that you actually don't need that much time – provided that you don’t want to play Liszt in 12 months. But if you just want to be able to become an amateur piano player – I think it's actually not just about the time you invest, but also about just sticking with it, about having the discipline to practice every day.
Albert Frantz: One thing that is very well-known is that a habit – something that you do consistently and that you put it in your daily schedule – is much better than trying to binge on the weekend. In general, you'll make more progress if you just do let's say 30 minutes a day, rather than four or three hours on Saturday because you have more time.
That is if you can do it. Because unfortunately – or I guess fortunately (laughs) – we're not machines. But unfortunately memory is not permanent. Our minds work on a use-it-or-lose-it basis. So if we just make a habit of doing something, a certain amount with real focus – that will allow us to achieve much more, ultimately in a shorter time. Do you know the anecdote of the tortoise and the hare? You don't want to be the hare or the rabbit just trying to race through something and try to get to the finish line. It's the tortoise that ends up winning the race because it's slow and steady. Put one foot in front of the other, find a little bit of time, 15 minutes well spent. Then also realize that there is a learning curve. In the beginning of the learning process everything is new. For example, if you're learning a language there's all this vocab, all these new words, all this new grammar – and it's really hard. It’s a long process before you can even just put a sentence together. Learning music is also like that. It's a process. But the great thing is that it's cumulative: Once you get over that initial hurdle, all of a sudden you can start to flow – until you reach the next plateau. It’s a never-ending process.
The other thing that I think is just critical with regard to adults learning a musical instrument is that you don't have to become a virtuoso. That's not the point. But I believe that we can actually accomplish much more than what we think we can. It doesn't have to be a Rachmaninoff concerto – but I think the average adult, even elderly adults, can learn to play the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata and learn how to play it beautifully. Again, that's something that is accessible. You don't need to have the fastest fingers in order to do that. And it's one of the most famously beautiful pieces. But is it going to happen overnight? No, no, probably not. But it’s definitely achievable and accessible.
Diatonic: Yeah, that's encouraging to hear. And for the end of our interview: Could you share a project you're working on professionally at the moment? Maybe a new album, and are there any particular goals you've set for yourself musically? Is there any composer you would like to tackle?
Albert Frantz: I'm currently working on an album of chamber music with clarinet and a wonderful clarinetist and conductor Piere Pichler. I didn't know how hard this literature was. This music is every bit as challenging as a solo piano album, and then some! Because you have to coordinate everything with another musician. We just finished recording this weekend Carl Maria von Weber's Grand Duo Concertant. The score to that piece is booby trapped. It’s an obstacle course for both instruments. But the trick is, you don't want it to sound like that. It's really an extraordinary piece.
We also recorded the Schumann Fantasy Pieces, Opus 73. And a world premiere recording of five very short pieces by an Austrian composer, Alfred Prinz. They were a lot of fun to play. Some of them are very free, some of them have a lot of rhythmic drive to them. So that'll be a world premiere recording. This was a composer I didn't know, and I'm happy to discover his music. And then Alban Berg’s four atonal pieces, and then finally the Brahms 2nd Sonata. So it's an immensely challenging program – but it's also incredibly rewarding to get to work on this music.
As far as dream repertoire goes, I have been secretly working away at the Ligeti Études. I am fascinated by Ligeti's music, probably because he combined mathematics and music in a very unique way. That just appeals to me so much. So a dream would be to record and perform the Ligeti Études. I've done a couple, I have several in my repertoire. But it's a huge, huge challenge. They are brain teasers. It's quite a project. Slowly I’m working on that!
Diatonic: Wow! All the best for those projects and thank you so much for your time. That was a great interview and you have a really, really powerful story. I hope it encourages a lot of people to not give up on their dreams! Thank you very much, Albert!