I'm not a classical pianist

[Theo Verelst]

my experience with classical music with score reading is pretty much only from high school where I had a girl friend who'd practice with me, and after she was gone, I played by ear and by theoretical understanding (I read books and practiced chords and later rhythm with discipline), or for instance a little later in a small churchy setting I became proficient with guitar chord symbols.

 

Now I've for some reason or another followed some of Tiffany Poon on Youtube, who I think is good at what she does, and she made progress with a selling CD and international concerts. I suppose for a classical pianist (only ?) that's pretty good, though I don't know what a Bill Board success actually means for people or financially, etc.

 

TV

[Outkaster]

Well, I was told at 16 I wasn't conservatory material and not good enough. 

[ProfD]

 

 

There's an audience for the music she plays.  I don't imagine they will dance or head nod or toe tap but they are in the building.😎

[CyberGene]

Classical music is more of a European thing 😀 I really can’t say if it’s nature vs nurture but classical is what I feel like my natural habitat. I appreciate almost any music on earth, even the most repetitive EDM, cheesy pop or brutal death-metal, however classical is like going home ❤️

[marino]

Love letter to the classical player:

Classical performers should be respected more for what they do. I know that Schumann Sonata a little bit, it's *diabolically* difficult, and while Tiffany Poon's interpretation isn't maybe the most perfect I have ever heard, it's absolutely excellent with regard to technique, musicality, cleanliness, phrasing, intention, passion. It's many degrees of magnitude above any kind of performance I could ever have achieved, even if I had taken the necessary years of hard study. Yes, it takes 'many' years to reach that kind of performance, and you also have to keep yourself in constant shape, like an athlete - and try to keep your musical focus in the process. Some of my conservatory classmates have attempted that route, and I know it can be absolutely brutal, with total impact on your personal life.
In this era of automation and AI, this very human dedition should be regarded as the high level, irreplaceable art that it is.

[AROIOS]

6 hours ago, CyberGene said:

Classical music is more of a European thing 😀 I really can’t say if it’s nature vs nurture but classical is what I feel like my natural habitat. I appreciate almost any music on earth, even the most repetitive EDM, cheesy pop or brutal death-metal, however classical is like going home ❤️

But "Classical" is such a giant umbrella. When my friends make similar comments about how much they love "Classical music", I find it as descriptive as "loving Pop music".

If we break music down by 1) Melody; 2) Harmony; 3) Timbre; 4) Rhythm; 5) Articulation, the only thing Classical music have in common is 3).

Case in point, I love the works of Satie, Debussy, Ravel, Liszt and can enjoy some Bach on a good day, but the Schumann Sonata above just bores the shit out of me. 😃

[U.Honey]

7 hours ago, jazzpiano88 said:

 

That's nothing.  The Dr. slapped my mother when I was born. 

 

That's nothing. When I was born, the doctor slapped the wrong end.

[Shamanzarek]

There is light classical and then there is impossibly demanding concert classical piano. I was watching Lang Lang on PBS last night and he falls into the impossible category while doing the European-style facial expressions.

[CyberGene]

1 hour ago, AROIOS said:

but the Schumann Sonata above just bores the shit out of me

Schumann is not my cup of tea either. If it’s keyboard/piano music I love Scriabin most, there’s a lot of jazz-like harmony there, of course Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy.

 

It’s also symphonic/orchestral music that I adore, especially the Russian composers: Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff. I also love Bruckner, Mahler, Sibelius, baroque composers… Well, anyway, as I said classical is my thing ❤️

[Theo Verelst]

There is varying types of classical that can raise my attention at times, and if I know the lick or passage, I may well be able to do an imitation on the digital piano, which by now should be able to sound like the real machine.

 

Apart from personal preferences I like the playing choices and testing of the acoustics. Digital recording still generally sound pretty awful unfortunately, that's an interesting subject.

 

T

[ElmerJFudd]

It’s all just music.  Music in many styles.  You’ll be best at whichever you spend the most time on.   
 

“Success” - monetary success has nothing to do with how skilled you are as a musician.  Billboard proves that endlessly.  YouTube proves there are skilled players across the globe - few make their living playing.  

[ElmerJFudd]

6 hours ago, Theo Verelst said:

There is varying types of classical that can raise my attention at times, and if I know the lick or passage, I may well be able to do an imitation on the digital piano, which by now should be able to sound like the real machine.

 

Apart from personal preferences I like the playing choices and testing of the acoustics. Digital recording still generally sound pretty awful unfortunately, that's an interesting subject.

 

T

Yes, as you mention, there are many styles inside of what we’re referring to as Classical music. Each period has various playing techniques and arranging styles that defined the period.  Music notation was the only method of recording/saving a performance and so reading became important.  
 

Thankfully, music notation provides us with a very detailed record of exactly what the player was doing.   But, first and foremost, this music was played and heard.  Notation is a facsimile of music, not the music itself.  

 

I’ve met many pianists (usually on the younger side) with great dexterity and a sizable repertoire of significant works who are not great readers in real time.  Meaning, they spent the bulk of their time building technique and musical memory - not being thrown new pieces everyday and performing on sight.  That skill set is stronger in piano accompanists, orchestra/big band musicians, church organists, choir directors and the like.  
 

I’ll share what I tell my students.  Reading music is easy. Anyone can learn in one sitting where  A through G are and see what order they need to be played in. SIGHT-reading is an additional skill that takes years to develop.  
 

If you want to be good at sight reading, you have to spend the kind of time on it that you do playing.   It’s not the only way to make music and so you may prefer to spend what hours you can devote to other musical activities.
 

You may prefer to develop your ear and learn melodies that way.  Focus on chords, chord progressions and accompanying styles.  Or devote most of your time improvising solos, or on jazz theory or both.  Or using a DAW to build arrangements or using an arranger keyboard.   Simply put, we don’t have a lot of time on this earth, so we have to make decisions all the time on where we want to focus our attention.   We’ll be best at where we spent the most time. 

[MathOfInsects]

"Classical" in the strictest terms refers to the 70-year or so period during which Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven lived and composed, and the term isn't local to music, it's social/cultural/artistic. So many of the composers mentioned in this thread aren't "Classical" in the strict sense. But most people use the term to loosely refer to any and all "art" music from Bach on...which is why it's so hard to say any one thing about it. Most Classicists would find Schumann static and non-complex, just as Schumann would have found it stodgy and meaningless to write in the style of the Classical era composers. 

The history of European Art Music is a series of relationships with tonality and resolution. That very brief 70 years formed many our enduring ideas about the meaning of a home key, and how we wander away from it and return to it over time. It is VERY closely aligned, metaphorically, with the way Europe viewed (and comported) itself at the time, and as the era of Europe as the world's "homeland" began to wane, so did composers' interest in blindly reinforcing a "home key" as the organizing characteristic of long-form (or even short-form) composition.

It is still disconcerting to Western ears to hear prolonged dissonance or atonality, so that amazing 70-year period still stands up to repeated listening and interpretation. 

Funny enough, even though I grew up playing classical music, in a family of classical musicians, I greatly prefer stuff that's "in the cracks." So it's Late Romantic Era for me all the way, into 20th-century stuff. 

[CyberGene]

15 minutes ago, MathOfInsects said:

 

"Classical" in the strictest terms refers to the 70-year or so period during which Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven lived and composed, and the term isn't local to music, it's social/cultural/artistic.

 

Indeed, I’ve always found it confusing that there is classical period in… well, classical music 😀

 

Some musicologists in Bulgaria tried to instead use the term academic music but understandably it caused additional polemics, arguments and disagreements and I haven’t heard it used outside a small circle of people here. 

[MathOfInsects]

3 minutes ago, CyberGene said:

Indeed, I’ve always found it confusing that there is classical period in… well, classical music 😀

 

Some musicologists in Bulgaria tried to instead use the term academic music but understandably it caused additional polemics, arguments and disagreements and I haven’t heard it used outside a small circle of people here. 

I'm not sure if it's only an American term, but we call it, in the aggregate, European Art Music, or EAM.

[CyberGene]

1 minute ago, MathOfInsects said:

European Art Music, or EAM

Learned something new, thanks 👍🏻

[AROIOS]

20 hours ago, CyberGene said:

Schumann is not my cup of tea either. If it’s keyboard/piano music I love Scriabin most, there’s a lot of jazz-like harmony there, of course Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy.

 

It’s also symphonic/orchestral music that I adore, especially the Russian composers: Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff. I also love Bruckner, Mahler, Sibelius, baroque composers… Well, anyway, as I said classical is my thing ❤️

Count me as another big fan of Tchaikovsky. 🤝

[AROIOS]

20 hours ago, Shamanzarek said:

There is light classical and then there is impossibly demanding concert classical piano. I was watching Lang Lang on PBS last night and he falls into the impossible category while doing the European-style facial expressions.

LangLang epitomizes the fetish in Classical circles that worship "fast/hard" for the sake of "fast/hard". Throw him a Jazz Swing piece and wait for a cringy disaster.

1/128th notes at 240 BPM are "impossibly demanding". But what's the point? That a human can catch up with a MIDI sequencer?

[AROIOS]

14 hours ago, Theo Verelst said:

...Digital recording still generally sound pretty awful unfortunately...

Pseudo-Science

[stoken6]

15 hours ago, MathOfInsects said:

I'm not sure if it's only an American term, but we call it, in the aggregate, European Art Music, or EAM.

Never heard of that over on this side of the pond. I have heard "Western Art Music" or "Concert Hall Music" as (attempted) terms to describe the wider (four hundred years, not 70 years) corpus/tradition of this art form.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[allan_evett]

I often refer to this style of playing as, 'Concert piano'; or those who perform it, 'Concert pianists'. I had approximately 12 years of studying that, and it enventually became a tiresome grind. My first two post-high school years were spent at a local college, and thankfully I had a sensitive and highly observant piano teacher. She helped in further strengthening my technique, but understood my wish to not pursue further 'classical' study. Thankfully that college's music dept. was structured for simple recital performances and single-teacher evaluations, vs. the typical live 'Jury' exams  - the idea of which terrified me. I eventually transferred to a more 'alternative' arts college - where my major emphasis was theory/composition and keyboard playing with the jazz ensemble. Columbia College, Chicago was a proverbial 'Godsend'. 

Granted, I can understand the value of juried exams for those pursuing live, concert careers; but I've had several piano students who considered majoring in music theory, composition or school district music teaching, then passed on the idea - due to having to slog through 4+ years of 'Jury' exams on their major instrument.  I feel those exams should be recommended for those pursuing solo, 'concert' careers, not neccessarily other music majors.

 

That former piano teacher was a big help in defining a musical path forward for me. I recall one conversation when she stated, "You should go to Nashville after college, or maybe attempt the commercial jingle scene in Chicago. But I'll likely see your name in lights with a band, someday" . Hey, at least she got me connected for a couple of faculty cocktail parties - even when I was still finding my way through a set of basic standards. 

 

 

[ProfD]

33 minutes ago, allan_evett said:

I had a sensitive and highly observant piano teacher. She helped in further strengthening my technique, but understood my wish to not pursue further 'classical' study. 

 

That former piano teacher was a big help in defining a musical path forward for me. I recall one conversation when she stated, "You should go to Nashville after college, or maybe attempt the commercial jingle scene in Chicago. But I'll likely see your name in lights with a band, someday" .

She was an excellent teacher/instructor. 

 

Musicians and students in general benefit the most when during their formative years, the folks responsible for their instruction and guidance are honest enough to put them on the most realistic path to success. 

 

We don't need teachers who push students toward unrewarding careers and/or the boulevard of broken dreams.  Keep it real.😎

[Ivan May]

I willadmit, I'm not a classical pianist either. I did take lessons, but my tastes were more Billy Joel, Elton John and Steely Dan, and those were the artists I wanted to play (albeit never seriously.) I do have a few keyboards, and like to noodle around here and there. But not a professional pianist, unfortunately.

[ProfD]

25 minutes ago, Ivan May said:

I willadmit, I'm not a classical pianist either. I did take lessons, but my tastes were more Billy Joel, Elton John and Steely Dan, and those were the artists I wanted to play (albeit never seriously.) I do have a few keyboards, and like to noodle around here and there. But not a professional pianist, unfortunately.

That's perfectly fine.  Find a lane.  Play it.

 

Instruments keep folks occupied in a constructive way.  Much better than over-indulging in food or drugs and alcohol.😎

[Tom Williams]

On 3/5/2024 at 11:52 AM, MathOfInsects said:

"Classical" in the strictest terms refers to the 70-year or so period during which Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven lived and composed

Yup!  That's why (just to be pedantic and annoying) when people ask me what music I like that I am no good at playing, I answer "Romantic Piano," which is technically accurate but functionally miscommunicates.

 

But damn, those Romantic guys could write and play.

[CyberGene]

27 minutes ago, Tom Williams said:

But damn, those Romantic guys could write and play

Mid to late Romantics are my favorite too. To me it’s like the golden period of art when every element was important and artists took pride in creating art that had the seemingly impossible quality of being both technically and artistically advanced, yet accessible and humanistically beautiful. Anything before or after was kind of excessive in one way or another, going way too much in satisfying either audiences mainly, or the author, or rioting the past/present art, the historic events… 

[ProfD]

34 minutes ago, CyberGene said:

To me it’s like the golden period of art when every element was important and artists took pride in creating art that had the seemingly impossible quality of being both technically and artistically advanced, yet accessible and humanistically beautiful. 

Fewer competing forms of entertainment and distractions.  No computers.  No internet.  No cell phones.  No GAS.  Just to name a few.😁

 

Reads like musicians had plenty time on their hands to be imaginative and creative. 

 

Of course, if those musicians had to produce and perform in order to survive there was an added incentive.😎

[Theo Verelst]

I think I'd like her as a person but the discussion about what type of concert pianist is a concert pianist is strange, there is a library full of classical pieces and times many people want to hear some of them played properly. I think she is into what the styles she plays are supposed to say, and how the show is hers, then success is more deserved.

 

T