Duetting Canton Style: Promoting the Teaching of Piano Duets with Macao Piano Competition Founder Rebecca Yang

I spent a happy few days in South China in mid April.  I’m of the school that thinks its nicer to make music with others than on one’s own (better to play with others than play with yourself, as my old choir recruitment poster had it), and I’ve persuaded my friend Rebecca Yang, founder of the Macao Piano Competition, to promote the piano duet format.  So from time to time, she invites me to do a short road trip, and we go to different cities in south China to peddle our wares.  I start out with a general introduction to the subject in which spend about an hour and a half gently meandering through the contributions by Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Faure, et al., and even get as far as Stravinsky’s two books of rather charming and beginner friendly offerings.  I round the talk off by introducing Memories of Childhood, the little book of duets I wrote for my wife’s piano students during the various Covid lockdowns (I live in Beijing – yes, they were prolonged).  The audience for these talks is made up mostly of local piano teachers.  Their main interest and mine don’t quite align: I am all about kids experiencing the joys of teamwork (and a bigger piano sound than they can make by themselves) and all the associated musical benefits; the teachers are much more interested in how to double their money per lesson slot, but it’s at this end of the talk where the fun starts.  I always invite any brave souls in the audience to come up to the stage and sightread the primo part of last piece in my book, Lullaby, which was written on the evening of the day my younger son was born, and is for one hand only.  (Curiously, though I did not plan it that way, my wife tells me it works equally comfortably for right hand and left hand.  That’s serendipity for you!)  My purpose is to give teachers (most of whom have never experienced piano duetting before) the chance to feel how much fun it is for two to play together and how much support a more experience player can give through the process.  It’s always good fun, though the differences in ability between teachers in the lesser and the more developed cities (what the Chinese call their first and second tier cities) tends to be dramatic.  At the end of it all, Rebecca’s staff always make sure there are some books available for anyone interested.  On this particular trip, in Foshan, one of the punters asked how much the book cost.  “80 yuan,” he was told.  “And how many pieces are there?”  “10,” was the answer.  “8 yuan per piece?  Tooooo expensive.”  Alas, I was not party to this exchange, but on hearing about it afterwards, I certainly felt well and truly put in my place.  I’d like to say it’s my fault for not being dead, but dead composers in China are treated with even greater circumspection: in addition to both blatant and rampant unauthorized photocopying of their works, they have to put up with shabby editions and free downloads.  But it’s not all gloom and despair.  Things are very different in the first tier cities: in Shenzhen not only were more people interested in the music, but I was even peremptorily “demoted” to the one hand part of Lullaby by a very feisty teacher who did an excellent job of sightreading the secundo part.  More good news is that Memories of Childhood made the 500 copy milestone on this trip, which my publisher assures me is pretty good for mainland China.  Tonight we eat!