Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner why does music sound more beautiful when...

...someone else is playing it?

OK, ok, big fat softball :>) I mean, besides the fact that just about anyone I'm listening to is better than I am...

Like last night I was watching The Deer Hunter for the 8000th time and listening to George Dzundza play Chopin's 15-3, I was struck all over again by how achingly beautiful it is, even on the beat-up vertical he's supposedly playing it on (I read it's probably dubbed). I've been working on this off and on, and as with just about anything I play for a while, it's a struggle to listen to my own playing with fresh ears...

This must be related to my ongoing struggle to hear myself more accurately, something I work on but as I said, still a struggle...

If I'm trying to listen to or judge a piano's tone I wouldn't play something that's difficult for me because that would cause some degree of distraction. Maybe when you listen to someone else play you can focus completely on the beauty of the piece without being distracted by performing.

If the performances you listen to are by a professional it's only natural that your own playing would sound less beautiful in comparison. But I think that's a good thing because if you can figure out why you like their playing better, it will help make your playing more beautiful. (Of course, if you broke down a got a teacher, you wouldn't have to figure out everything for yourself!)

I don't see how one can factor out the difference in skill level between yourself and some professional. If you listen to an amateur who plays worse than you I bet they don't sound better?

The piano, the recording, the player, the listener, all influence how a piano sounds.

It is hard to actually hear the piano to the degree you want when you are playing it, concentrating on your music.

If you want to gauge your own playing better, I recommend you acquire a small recorder to capture exactly what you are doing, so when you listen to it you can be more objective.

Invariably, when someone comes over to play the acoustic at my place, it always sounds better to me than when I play it.

Glen

I think its probably the same reason that food 'seems' to taste better when someone else cooks it. The 'closeness' to the activity somehow interferes with objectivity. Just a theory.

If I am playing beautifully, it sounds as beautiful to me as if someone else was playing. Is that weird?

Acoustically the worst seat in the house is at the keyboard. When I play I don't get to hear the completeness of sound that I hear when someone else is playing and I am seated near the tail of the grand. I love to hear others play my concert grand so i know what a wonderful instrument it really is.

I always laugh to myself when I enter a concert hall for a solo recital and see the audience crowded over to the left side of the hall (they want to watch the hands, I guess). I came to listen - so I have the pick of good seats on the right side where IMHO the sound comes together in the room and is glorious. Try it sometime. We all know the fingers go up and down and work the keys. Close your eyes and enjoy the beauty of the acoustics of the instrument and the hall.

When you add a moving video to a wonderful piece of music it also adds to the depth of the experience.

I think it goes both ways though. As a player we may think we are playing all the notes nicely, but we may actually be fudging a lot of notes, but we are so embroiled in the task of playing that we don't hear things as accurately as an objective listener. The objective listener may be hearing a big unarticulated mess.

I understand where you're coming from, but for me, the big attraction of a live concert is the visual aspect. Particularly if it is a pianist, well yes, I'll try to sit where I can see the hands.

Otherwise, it is certainly more convenient to sit in the comfort of one's home and listen to a recording. That way it doesn't make any difference where you sit.

No, I feel the same way. I'm not conceited, nor do I have an inflated sense of my abilities, but when I'm playing well, the act of playing imparts a sense of beauty to my ears, and it sounds as beautiful to me as I've ever heard. Hence the need to record, to understand what it sounds like to everyone else.

Also, certain pieces (Schoenberg, Schumann) make a lot more sense when I'm playing them than when I'm listening to someone else play, because with all that violent fluctuating, I often lose the sense of rhythm when just listening....

-J