etcetra, Hi. I've been out of town.

Well, what can I say to you? I know you're right, I call it a lack of judgement just because of age. I mean, I was 14 years old and I hated playing keyboards, I was just so purist about the piano that I would kick my own ass by now. But, I assume that it is called grow up, I became really open and started to detect where the thing was wrong. And I realized that it's in the beginning, because it's not about technique, it's about beauty.

Same with classical composers, neither Bach, Mozart or Beethoven had Sibelius or Finale in their pc :D, they just created parts for a lots of instruments by ear memory!!!!!. You can call that talent, of course, but without any help, the talent by itself vanishes.

But isn't that exactly what we're getting? I can't see anything personal and unique in the playing of Hiromi Uehara, Eldar Djangirov, Taylor Eigsti etc except brilliant chops.

Kennard19、

A lot of it has to do with circumstance too.. you probably wasn't born a classical purist... somehow you adopted that attitude.. maybe through your teachers.. or other adults who shared similar beliefs.

you are totally right about Bach and Mozart.. I was reading a book called "outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell' basically the author argues that talent is comparative advantage that we are not aware of, it has more to do with enviroment than inborn ability

My impression of great non-classical pianists is that they were free to pursue music in whatever direction they pleased.. some had extensive classical training, others don't.. but they were not discouraged to play by ear, and they were not forced to learn piano in a certain 'academic' way.. it was okay to find their own way and they had good mentors on the way too.

KlinkKlonk

I am not a big fan of Hiromi or Eldar either, but Some of Taylor's compositions are quite good.. my biggest concern about judging them is that I am doing so in a 'purist' way..some people easily dismiss Brad Mheldau and other younger pianists because "they are not Oscar Peterson or Bill Evans"", and they think what Chick Corea/Herbie Hancock are doing right now is shadow of what they used to do..

As far as younger musicians are concerned though.. I like Aaron Parks, Tigran Hamasyan, Marcin Wasilewski..etc

MEh guess that makes me a purist then

Well, I do understand your point of view, but I am guessing Chick Corea and Herbie was criticized back then because they were not Art Tatum, and I feel like I can say that about almost any composer