Norman Lloyd

Norman Lloyd, (born November 8, 1909, Pottsville, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died July 31, 1980, Greenwich, Connecticut), American composer and teacher, best known for his contribution to music theory. Julliard School of Music, 1946-1963. One of Julliard’s most gifted teachers, Lloyd began his career playing piano to accompany silent films. A self-described “artistic gadfly,” he focused his students on internalizing the music—allowing themselves to feel it viscerally and emotionally rather than just learning a series of notes on a page. He believed that while Music was a language one should learn, understanding it required something altogether deeper. He was fond of saying, “Learning a language means learning the meaning of a sound, not just the production of the sound.” He wanted his students to fully experience what they played, grasping not just the music, but its context as well. To that end he encouraged improvisation and riffs, which only work when a performer genuinely comprehends the piece they are playing or singing. His goal was to ensure his students didn’t just learn how to play or sing a piece, but to understand it to such a degree that they trusted themselves completely every time they performed it, so there would be no degree of separation between the artist and the music.