Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Musical Genius - HOW TO BE ONE

Sort of like the doctor only cares about making money, the engineer only cares about making money, the .....

As though the human ego can be reduced to that. No one cares about the quality of their work, or about how others perceive it (and us)?

AZN, I'm not saying what you said is wrong, but I believe hippymusicman was talking about the teachers he has encountered in the school system he is teaching in now. And that may be different from what you have experienced. He even said that the teachers here didn't seem to fit that bill.

i found your post interesting.

It's a twisted situation I know! but the question teachers should ask themselves is "why .. do the students not WANT to pick up the instrument?" Has it become a chore?

The idea for me is .. introduce it as FUN.. then show the student THE VALUE OF LEARNING AN INSTRUMENT.. Then you wont need to tell them to pick up the instrument. They'll just grab it. well my students seem to anyway.

No one has mentioned the elephant in this particular room: a bit hard to put down a piano!!!

Piece of cake compared to picking it up...

HAHAHA!!!!!

In fact! Putting it down is an eccentric muscle contraction - they handle far heavier loads.

Wow!!!
They are right ... you really are a genius after all !!!!

I know! If only someone had suggested this to me in capital letters 23 years ago, it might have saved my poor students from all that torture I forced them to endure! Maybe more people would be labelling me a genius by now!!11!

Yeh, learning is fun! Thanks for passing that little nugget on.

What you have described sounds more like "reasonable fluency" than "genius".

To those not accustomed to being around competent musicians, that kind of fluency seems like magic, and they'll use words like "genius". I know it seemed like magic to me once.

Fluent emotional expression through music is wonderful! And I have to agree that this aspect of music is under-nurtured in schools.

I don't mean to be discouraging, but from this and your other posts I have the feeling that you don't realize how good the really good musicians actually are. I'm not talking about the Mozarts and the Coltranes, but more like the run-of-the-mill working jazz musician in New York City. It's great that you can pick up a new instrument and find joy in it - that's my hobby too. But don't compare your abilities to the people who have been working on it for a couple years; measure them by the standards of the professionals in New York City, and you will be elevated.

Thanks for you post. I agree wholeheartedly!
And I am not easily discouraged, but thanks for your concern.

It's not that I don't understand there are people out there who are (as you said) "better" than me...

I just find the use of terms like "better musician" "great musician" "genius musician" are all terms we use to satisfy ourselves. If you believe you are "better" than someone else at music then that can satisfy something.. but that satisfaction is usually very shallow. I find that this kind of satisfaction gets further away as you get closer. I believe everyone is on a never ending quest to satisfy themselves.

I don't like to have a rating system. Because a rating system holds no purpose. In my mind, nobody is better than anybody. Everybody is as they are.

By the same token, I don't strive to be "better" or "great" I just love what I'm doing and that causes me to get "better" (whatever that means) .

HM ... the more you write, the more I like you!

hippymusicman, this whole thread is dedicated to you explaining what makes you a better musician than other people!!! Unless I'm horribly mistaken your opening thread sought to explain what it is about you that makes other people call you a genius, and you were seeking to elucidate others as to how they also could attain the label of 'genius'. Am I horribly mistaken?!

Don't mistake ego incontinence for genius - you've done it before.

I think it is more important to know how to lose your inhibitions at the piano, at least the ones that impact performance negatively. I'm exploring this concept by performing for different people.

I also wonder, should I perform TO my audience or should I get wrapped up in my inner world and make them do the work of appreciating that?

One of my problems when performing is I'll think, "Gee, I really got that note perfectly" and then right after that my mind will go blank.

To the OP, what about music that isn't all that emotional by nature, for instance a Bach Sinfonia?

???? Bach Sinfonia, not emotional ????

But I must admit, there are quite a few clunkers in that set.

Yeah, I must say, I find Bach Sinfonias to be the essence of emotion..... Hmmmm......

Further, please keep some of your inhibitions intact - clothes on, blaspheming to a minimum, that kind of thing.

I want people to attempt to attain the label 'genius' so they can understand that the word really means nothing, labels mean nothing, ranking systems mean nothing. There is no need for any use of the phrases 'better' 'musical genius' 'great musicians' besides trying to fulfill something inside of you.

Labels do not fill the inner holes..
they fill the external holes for a moment, in the same way buying a new car fills external holes. The next week, the feeling is gone and suddenly your mind is on the next thing..