Jon Kimura Parker - 2004 MTNA National Conference Artists

American Music Teacher, Feb-March, 2004 by Gail Berenson

In 1984 Parker met Aloysia Friedmann, a violinist and violist who also came from a musical family. They live with their four-year-old daughter in Houston, where Parker teaches at Rice University.

Now that he holds a teaching position, balancing teaching and performing responsibilities, along with practicing and his extensive touring put Parker's organizational skills to the test. In the past few years, The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University has gone to great lengths to recruit internationally active performers to their faculty. The most recent additions to the performance faculty are violist James Dunham (former member of the Cleveland Quartet), cellist Lynn Harrell and myself All of us live in Houston. So, of course, there is some give and take. I am a full-time professor of piano, but my students understand that while I may be gone for a week at a time, I will then make up lessons when I return. One thing that all of my students enjoy are my tales of adventures on the road Given his very busy schedule, I asked if he also serves on committees. I do serve on committees here and there--it's all part of being part of a faculty. Clearly, this is a very dedicated colleague who takes his university responsibilities very seriously and has found a way to do it all!

One of the most difficult scheduling problems for teachers is finding adequate time to practice. I asked how Parker maintains his practice schedule when he is traveling. Ah, complicated question. In fact, I get my best practicing done when I am traveling. At home, I am distracted by the phone and by wanting to play with my four-year-old daughter. On the road, once I get access to a piano, I can get an enormous amount of work done. But there is no "schedule." On some days I practice on and off for the whole day; on others I don't play a note. I've had many experiences of arriving in a European town on a Friday night and finding no one who can answer a phone and get me a piano until Monday morning!

Through trial and error, every musician discovers an approach to learning new repertoire. Finding a system that uses time efficiently is especially crucial, particularly when time is limited. When I asked, "How do you go about learning a new piece?", Parker replied with some very valuable strategies that students would be wise to explore: My first priority is efficiency, since I now have so little unstructured time. I mark up my music like mad, with all sorts of personal shorthand to help me learn quickly. Of course, I do believe in slow practice, but not as much as most people. Rather, I take a very short segment and immediately try to play it at tempo, because that's the only way I can be sure that I am picking the right fingering, I find that interpretive ideas start coming as soon as the notes are beginning to be learned I try to memorize intellectually as much as possible--certainly I would never dream of performing a work until I understood the basics of its structure, harmonic language, etc.