While once in a while listening for enjoyment is fine, it's the copying that I irks me. My teacher doesn't think it's a good idea and I agree because when people try to copy what another person does, they lose originality in their style. It's basically musical plagiarism, imo...

I agree. Listen to music because you like listening to the music. Or because a professor assigned it to you. :p

But use the score, not a recording, for figuring out how to play the piece, figuring out how it should go, etc.

I don't know. I don't see the harm in listening to a recording if you get stuck or a part doesn't make sense. It has helped me before, and I wasn't "copying" someone's interpretation. Also, I think it might help if you listened to a lot of different recordings of a piece you are working on to get used to listening very closely and to get ideas about how it COULD sound, not necessarily to copy it.

Perhaps only if you get stuck or have problems rather than listening to it immediately before studying a piece, which shouldn't be done IMHO.

If listening to someone meant you'd end up copying them, then everyone would sound like Horowitz.

My teacher says that a lot of pianists today ARE sounding too much like each other...little originality

Sometimes I think I might TRY to copy another pianists recording of a piece I'm learning.

I don't think it would be that easy - think what happens when a 10-year old tries to copy, for example, a Rembrandt painting. How closely would it resemble the original? I've seen art students in museums trying to do just this. I think a lot can be learned about nuance, phrasing, and things like how much rubato and dynamic contrasts go into a musical rendition (I know I tend to be conservative on the last two things when I compare my recordings with professionals).

My point in doing this wouldn't be to play a concert exactly like Horowitz but to be able to learn from him.

Good point. I've been sitting here thinking about it very hard, lol. I've listened to Zimerman's recording of Schubert Impromptu op 90 no 3 many, many times, and I'm pretty sure when I play that piece I sound nothing like him. I think it would take a tremendous amount of control to be able to play something exactly like someone else, and in gaining that control over a piece, I feel like you would have to get to know it really well for itself, even if you listened to other people playing it. And then, if you weren't really stubbornly set on copying someone else, you would discover how YOU can make it sound good. Idk, sorry for the rambling, I might be totally off, but that's just what I'm thinking.

You appear to assume that listening to a recording will result in copying. I don't think that's necessarily the case at all. And "once in a while listening for enjoyment" puzzles me a bit too. I listen to music frequently for enjoyment. I suppose I know what you're getting at, but the way you've expressed it all seems a bit anti-musical to me, as if you daren't listen to anything in case you can't help yourself copying it...

I'm talking about listening to the particular piece you're working on for enjoyment WHILE you're learning it

I know - so was I, at least partly.

Well, maybe, if Horowitz recordings were the only ones they listened to. But, you know, it seemed that in the late fifties and early sixties, some pianists DID sound like Horowitz, or were trying awfully hard.

I avoid listening to recordings of music I am working on because I've found they have a way of intruding on what I am trying to do. Some of it is like copying, but it is unintentional copying. It's usually along the lines of some random inflection of a phrase or timing of a rest or some small thing like that will turn up while I practice, and I realize that it came from a recording I'd recently heard. It's kind of weird, when it happens.

Once in a very great while I will listen to a recording to help me figure something out about music I am working on. Just in the last few days I have been thinking it might be a good idea to turn to YouTube for help in understanding a couple of spots in WTC that have me puzzled about execution. But in general, I think it a very bad idea to listen to recordings to find out "how it goes", because I believe it is really important for musicians to know to do that from the score.

A couple of times, I've heard pianists say they have modeled their interpretation of a piece on some recording they admire, which I thought was strange. I don't quite understand how someone who could play pretty well would either need or want to do that.

I certainly agree with you there.

I don't understand this. Why do I so often hear this regarding this subject? Are we all not being educated sufficiently?

I see no problem.

I've been listening to music - on radio, concerts, cassettes, LPs, CDs - ever since I was a child; and probably since my early 20s, I've rarely learnt a piece that I haven't heard before from someone, somewhere. In fact, often it's hearing the music that prompted me to learn it for myself. And I've never played like any of my idols, not because I consciously make a point of not copying, but because I prefer it my own way . If I was to consciously avoid learning any music that I've previously heard before, I'd end up playing only obscure contemporary music and Byrd, Gibbons and Couperin....

I think you'd have to have no musical personality of your own to end up copying what you heard from someone else when you learn a piece.

I always find it distracting to listen to recordings of a piece while I'm learning it - a little less distracting while I'm 'finishing' or molding an interpretation. I might listen to a couple of contrasting recordings if I'm stuck on something.

I advise my students that it's preferable to listen to 2 or 3 different recordings of a piece while working on it, than to listen to just 1.

Maybe because I was young and impressionable when I first heard them, but it took me years to erase the Pollini from Wanderer Fantasy (tempo) and the Gould from the Italian Concerto (articulation).

I find it funny when I'm working on a piece and then start listening to recordings of it which I previously liked and then find myself disagreeing with everything that I'm hearing.

IMO learning something about a piece by listening to a recording is no different from learning something about a piece from a teacher or learning something from a piece from an edited score. Since most students spend most of their time on fairly standard piano literature, haven't most them heard performances of those pieces on recordings or in master classes before they've begun to learn them?

Why do many studios have two pianos if not for the teacher to demonstrate? I would broadly classify teachers non technical instructions as interpretive "suggestions" or more extremely "that's just wrong, and it should be played in this way"(something that's clearly in the score but the student isn't doing correctly). Should a student never take any of this advice just because it wasn't from his own mind?

If you agree that a student should learn something from a good teacher, then what's the difference between that and listening to a recording?

I think it's important to listen, but if you listen too much to one recording you could end up unintentionally end up copying that one recording. However, if you compare lots of different recordings of the same piece it's a lot more constructive as you can compare the different things each pianist does.

I agree, but the question is why. I think part of the reason is that pianists tend to spend way too much time in the practice room and not enough time exposing themselves to the arts - visual arts, theater, literature, music for other orchestra and other instruments, choir, etc..

I also think part of the reason is that pianists spend far too much time worrying about fidelity to the score. As a result, they end up playing as if they were simply trying to do what the composer wanted, and not putting anything interesting of themselves in the playing.

I listen intently and often, and don't feel i copy an interpretation. It is such a wondrous shortcut to know the score intimately.

jmo

Why, you have no imagination? I'm sure you do. A lot of times people don't give themselves enough credit when it comes to this. Come on!! You can read music, can't you? You're more than capable of interpreting it. And as of the many ways it could sound - you have yourself, what better tool to explore this?

I hate to say it, but I think the biggest problem with originality is ourselves, the audiences and critics attending concerts, and our attitude towards those who dare to be different. Just take a glance at the many threads on this forum that castigate those pianists with individuality (who you can tell within a few minutes, if not seconds, who the pianist is).

This wasn't the case 80 years or so ago, before the widespread dissemination of recordings. In Chopin, you could hear Horowitz, Rachmaninoff, Paderewski, Cortot, Koczalski, all of whom had individual (and subjective) takes on this composer. We'd call anybody who played like them 'mannered' (if not worse) if we'd to hear them in concert today. It's interesting that the pianists who also composed tended to be the ones with real individuality (of the above, three composed copious amount of music while the other two arranged a lot of others' music).

Even if you listen to the piece trying NOT to copy someone's interpretation, you will subconsciously pick up on various things and they'll stay with you. And you will be convinced that is the right way to play it because subconsciously you'll remember it that way. It's natural.

But why? Richter wasn't going around listening to recordings. Or Horowitz, or Rachmaninoff - and their playing is SO unique. There is so much you can get from the score itself - there's a lot in there that will open many doors for interpretation, and different interpretations too.

It's so much more interesting and more challenging to work from the score alone. Modern recordings have DESTROYED so much of performance today. That's why everybody sounds like [censored], and the same, because of the heavily edited stupid recordings which are note perfect. So you have a student learning a Chopin concerto and listening to some perfected and fake recording (I hate editing), and so the student gets used to having this "holy" note bulletproof interpretation, and even if they don't realize it they spend SO much time trying to be that. And music making goes out the window, because there is such a huge focus on the mechanics and not having any slips. If you listen to any of the live recordings of the old masters, you'll RARELY hear a note perfect performance, in fact you'll most likely not. The whole thing makes me so mad. Individuality is getting lost (and if anyone dares to tell me being a performer of classical music isn't original, you'll be receiving instructions from me on where to shove those words).

Read more music, listen to NON piano music, which will open your ears and will be so benecifial for you. Pianists often remain that - pianists. It's one thing I want to avoid when I finish school. I want to be a musician.

I hope I didn't offend too many people. But then again, a lot of people here are offended by so many things, it's hard to know when to shut up. So I didn't.

That's completely different than listening to a recording. First of all, it's bad teaching. "No, this is how it goes" - who does that?! That's extremely bad. Teachers use words, they explain things, while listening to a recording - you'll do whatever you hear but you won't know why they did that, and often artists have very good reasoning behind their choice of interpretation. And if you just go and blindly copy, it'll sound different and obvious that it's pasted. A good teacher will communicate and rarely demonstrate and insist the student copies it. Unless it's something to do with mechanics - like producing sound, working on posture, etc.



Are you really asking that? Have you ever had a teacher? A good one?

I probably didn't state things clearly in my attempt to describe something in a brief phrase.

I didn't mean the teacher literally saying that or doing that.

I meant to contrast two kinds of comments:

1. At one extreme, a suggested interpretation(where the teacher may very well say something like "another idea/possible way of playing that phrase that you should consider would be"...)

2. and the type of comment I have seen thousands of times at master classes with conservatory students where the student has made an error not really open to opinion. (Blurring the pedalling where the was no reason to do so, not playing something as written in the score without even realizing they did so, using an awkward fingering when one suggested by the composer is easier, playing a note in a phrase way too loud or soft again without perhaps even realizing they did, an obvious interpretive error, etc.) I certainly didn't mean to imply that the teachers didn't explain whatever they say to the student also.

In either case, or for cases in between, I think the student may learn something from the teacher and use it in their performance. Same as listening to record and learning something as long as one is thinking about about why something on the record is good or bad.

Many of the master classes I've heard in Mannes have really been like listening in on a private lesson because they are held in tiny rooms with only a handful of people listening.

As an example of learning from listeing to a recording, I have recently been playing this Jarrett piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iENQgr0l2Qw

Since I think he plays ballads incredibly beautifully, I listened to his performance and noticed that he often starts a phrase loudly and ends softly. I'd put this in the category of learning another "suggested interpretation" because although I sometimes do this, I don't think I did so to such an extreme as Jarrett does.

I don't think it's necessarily the case that one when listens to a recording "one will do whatever you hear, without knowing why they did that". That assumes the listener is not capable of figuring anything out for themselves.

BTW(in reference to another later post) Richter did listen to many concerts both live and on recordings. His journals are filled with comments both good and bad on those recordings.


Yes. Yes. Yes.

Well, most people who listen obsessively to something they're playing just for ideas aren't capable of figuring it out for themselves. That's why they go to the recording in the first place - because they can't make sense of the score. But it's not a skill you're born with and it can be developed.



Richter didn't copy. There is a difference between hearing a recording and listening to it obsessively - and a lot of people do the latter. There's nothing wrong with learning, and definitely you can learn a lot from recordings. I listen to recordings all the time - but pretty much always to things I'm not playing. Especially orchestral stuff, chamber music and opera.


Yes.Yes.Yes.[/quote]

I don't quite believe the last answer, but whatever.

There's an easy way to avoid this. Just listen to lots of recordings of the same piece.
As a person who has to have music playing constantly from when I wake to when I sleep, and considering that I only learn music I love, I don't like the prospect of going several weeks (or however long I hold onto a piece for, months sometimes) without being able to listen to a particular piece except through my own playing.

I don't think it's a bad thing to listen to the pieces. it's not ideal to completely copy, but if a particular issue regarding rhythm or something is irritating you - then go for it. I listen to pieces A LOT when I'm learning them, but I don't feel the need to copy that Pianist's interpretation, I just listen for enjoyment and if I'm having trouble with a particular section - not to plagerise that pianist's play

I often find it hard to get a feel for rhythmically complicated contemporary music without listening to it.

Who said anything about listening "obsessively?"

I didn't say he did. You said "Richter wasn't going around listening to recordings", but he did so a lot.

I guess with you two out of three is better than nothing.

And I'd add that for those less advanced/talented than you, listening to any piece of music can help with rhythm and virtually everything else.

Let's not go above our stations here, or start getting a misguided sense of superiority. Almost all the major concert pianists today listen to their colleagues (both in concert and on CD - I often see well-known pianists in the audience at piano recitals), and some have pithy things to say about others' playing too (e.g. Ashkenazy greatly admired Richter, but the latter was dismissive about Ashkenazy....). We all have lots to learn from the great and the good. Which is not the same thing as copying them.

Reading biographies of some famous pianists, I'm often struck by how often they're inspired by the great pianists playing when they were young, to learn particular works, or repertoire they might not otherwise have considered. Do they then go on to copy their idols?

I listen to other pianist's interpretations because they reveal to me different ways to phrase particular parts of a piece which i may not have thought of otherwise. Of course my interpretation is my own but i may be listening to a piece and hear something which leads me to think "wow, that's interesting, i haven't noticed that before" and then i may go away with that in mind and develop it further to suit my own interpretation.

Well that's what is meant by "listening to recordings of a piece you're playing". People have a tendency to listen to them again and again.

I didn't say he did. You said "Richter wasn't going around listening to recordings", but he did so a lot. [/quote]

I'm sure he did, but in a different context than what I meant. I should've added "Richter wasn't going around listening to recordings to see how a piece goes or look for ideas".

Yeah. And they'll never learn how to do it themselves. Isn't that bad? Or is it just me. What do you do when you're playing a contemporary piece that hasn't been recorded?

Why would they "never learn to do it by themselves"? Hopefully, they learn something from one recording that could be applied to another piece of music also. It's only when someone listens in an unthinking way that the same stumbling blocks appear again and again.

Same with using a fingered edition. Just because I look at some, say Godowsky fingerings, doesn't mean I can't find fingerings at all myself. It just means I realize that he might think of or know something that I don't know. Hopefully, each time I look at some of his fingerings I add to my knowledge of fingering. He included fingerings for almost all of his pieces, many of which can only be played by super virtuosos. I doubt many who play those piece feel insulted that he did this.

Well I have got better in spite of this so that cant be true.

Many interesting points, not sure whether this has been discussed but what about listening to recordings of yourself playing the piece? Is that considered by you pros a good or bad thing? Do you ever feel you haven't really heard yourself play the piece until you record yourself?

I can't imagine it would hurt to listen to many different recordings. Just listening to one recording might have a great deal of influence, listening to many is another story.

Everyone is in different stages of learning....
And really, I don't think it hurt my not reading that I did this once or twice in the past.



I'm not saying I have NO imagination...but hearing different possibilities can help develop imagination, don't you think?

There comes a point when you shouldn't need to. Especially if you're at a college level. You can develop many ideas and develop your imagination too by listening to the composer's other works. Other genres.

You know, suit yourselves. I don't feel the need to listen to something I'm playing for ideas. It's too limiting, and plus we have teachers to guide us, no? It's also the easy way out instead of figuring it out yourself.

For all your enthusiasm I find it very easy to totally disagree with you

I always listen to recordings of pieces I am learning. So what? I thought that is what you-tube and iTunes are for.

That's fine. It doesn't affect me..

Pogo is not alone in this fervent belief. Some schools of thought / teachers are "absolutely" opposed to listening to a piece one is learning. "Listen to his operas instead".. "This is Donna Anna 's voice" did not do it so much for me.. but listening to Clara Haskill did.. I, unfortunately, still do not play my Mozart like she does though..
I always listen but not obsessively, just kind of regularly and widely . Plus how can you avoid it? I listen to music very frequently, hours every day..
In fact it is very enjoyable to listen to a piece with the score extremely fresh in your memory and fingers.

There's a big difference, I think, between general listening and listening to recording of a piece while working on it. Or, for that matter, going to a concert to hear how someone else plays it.

One could make the same argument about taking piano lessons.

One could just as easily say that NOT listening to other recordings is too limiting. Teachers can guide but recordings can't? Some would say that listening to recordings by the greatest pianists might even teach one more than taking lessons from someone who is not in that elite category.

Not if one thinks that one can learn something in general that could be applied to whatever one is working on the piano by listening to recordings or going to concerts.

I'm sure the vast majority of you are aware of my stance, but I'd like to say that I completely agree with Pogo here.

Many will say recordings aren't a crutch, but read through some of the above posts and you'll see that that's exactly how they're being used.

Learn to do it FOR YOURSELF!

Aren't crutches good things? They help you get better (when you break your leg). I'm sure you wouldn't advise someone to "learn for themselves" to play the piano without any instruction from a teacher.

And sometimes I need "inspiration" to hear how good something can potentially sound when I am in the middle of hashing out the notes or in a stage where it just doesn't sound good yet (not that I do it a lot, but I have before).

Okay, I guess I should have added the "For me, there's a big difference..."

Teachers are crutches. Learn how to play piano by yourself!

No. With teachers you have communication, you discuss things. With bad teachers, yeah, you might as well put that CD in. I don't understand how you can be comparing the two.

Also if the piece isn't inspiration enough and you need to look at outside sources, maybe the piece isn't for you? I don't know. I've never had that problem.

I already answered that question near the beginning of the thread.

Why do you need a teacher...can't you figure it out for yourself?

No I can't figure out how to get a nice huge sound on my own and I also don't know how to play effortlessly. The kinds of things you won't get from listening to a recording.

Also a recording doesn't teach you how to practice... a good teacher does.

I never said that one should only use recordings to learn how to play the piano or that they were a substitute for a teacher. I said they could be useful in addition to a teacher.

OK, people seem to be talking about different things. I wonder would most here agree with this:

[1] Listening to music is A Good Thing.
[2] Obsessively listening to ONE recording of a piece you're studying is not such a good idea. You will have one performance imprinted on your brain and may find it difficult to do anything else.
[3] Listening to the piece you're learning because you can't work out the notation yourself means you need to work more on your reading skills.
[4] It would be pretty unusual to begin your work on a piece having never heard it before. Most people have heard such pieces multiple times. You can't avoid it, nor should you, surely.
[5] Listening to a variety of performances of the piece you're working on may give you some ideas on interpretation. Whether or not this is helpful and/or needed seems to be disputed. And in fact this seems to be the main point of disagreement on this thread.

I don't think arguing from extremes ("is it ok to listen to a piece?" morphing into "obsessively listening to one interpretation only") is particularly helpful. It's easy to disagree with things nobody actually said, or meant.

It seems an important question here is:

If you're working on a piece and you listen to a recording of it, does that necessarily mean it becomes a crutch?

On one hand, I agree with Pogostores in that any respectable pianist should be able to figure out a piece of music and create a convincing interpretation from the information provided in the score.

The attitude I don't agree with is that it's preferable to avoid listening to a piece when you're working on it. I think that's a silly idea. Here's why:

There are some recordings I'm intimately familiar with - Lupu's D. 959, Richter's Prokofiev 6, and Gould's Berg sonata. I've never played any of those, but they're all pieces I may very well learn someday. The question is - were I to learn one of those pieces, how is my familiarity with a particular performance any different than listening to a recording while working on it?

If it's important to avoid listening to Lupu's 959 so that I don't copy him while I'm learning it, does that mean I should avoid becoming familiar with any of his Schubert recordings, just in case I want to learn one in the future?

I would hazard to guess that the difference is listening to the recording for enjoyment or listening to it for interpretive help.

Or did you just say that?

When I made bouilliabaise for the first time, I opened and read the recipes in 5 cookbooks, closed the books and made my own version. It was delicious and completely my own.

I listen to other musicians if I don't know a piece. I might listen to many pieces by a composer to gain a better understanding of the style. I might listen to 6 or 8 interpretations of a piece when I am well along in the learning process and already have solid ideas about my own interpretation. I might listen to make sure my understanding of a piece isn't too "out there". I sometimes listen to see if my tempo is "in the ballpark". Occasionally, I am not satisfied with how I am playing a phrase and I just can't seem to make it sound right so I listen to many interpretations to get ideas, but like my bouillaibaise, I develop these into my own ideas. As far as imitation, I don't do it, except for once - I admit it -I stole two terrific trills in Bach's F# major fugue from Schiff. They sound great and I couldn't resist.

I especially enjoy working with Urtext so my development of ideas is purely my own. I learn the music, inserting my own interpretation. Then, when I feel I really know it, I find it's fun to check a heavily edited edition to see how close I am. Often I am spot on and occasionally, my ideas are quite different, but if my teacher agrees they sound okay, I pat myself on the back and stick with them.

Nicely put. I couldn't agree more. Although I once had this discussion with a colleague and we both agreed that if our students came in sounding like Rubenstein, how bad would it be?

Bouillabaisse is what you are making, hopefully....[ can't help myself..]

In conclusion, we all "do it" except for Pogostores.
Of course we each call it / view it differently but the bottom line is that we do not live in a vacuum.

What you say is true, though I'm not sure that picking up interpretive ideas from another pianist would actually make one sound like that pianist. Performers are often locked into a particular effect because of their nature. Argeritch comes to mind. She is a phenomenal pianist with a tendency to play precipitously, which infuses much of her playing. So copying her dynamics or rubato, which might be considered more personal, probably wouldn't result in a carbon copy. Just saying.

Is listening to a performance for an emotional goal alright?

I heard a performance online that affected me very deeply, and decided to learn the piece. Throughout that process, I listened to that same performance daily, if not more, but I rarely payed attention to the phrasing or the dynamics...I focused on the emotional power of the piece and let myself be swept up in it. I'm still refining the piece and shooting for that emotional goal.

Does this argument only encompass the more detailed aspects of playing, or does it go broader? Is the emotional power of the music as open to interpretation, or is it unchanging, at the core of the piece?

That would depend on how one feels about imitation Rubinstein, I guess.

Your post reminded me of something - a few years ago I was watching one of the big piano competitions online, and one contestant gave me the very strong impression that practically everything they did was copied from recordings, in incredibly precise and minute detail. During the course of one piece, it was as if you could hear a whole string of different pianists passing by. There were moments where I was pretty sure I could identify which famous pianist's recording they had copied, too. It was very odd.

I agree with most of what you say, and it is useful.

I would quibble with #4, since I frequently work on stuff I have never heard before, and for which, often enough, there is no recording that I have access to, if there is a recording at all. For example, I'm working on a little piece by Moscheles right now for Unsung Heroes II that I've never heard anyone else play, and I don't think it has been recorded and I didn't find it on YouTube. Yeah, I know - this isn't most people's experience. But it certainly wouldn't hurt if people did investigate stuff off the beaten track a little more often, I think.

Thinking a bit more about it, when I was young, there really was quite a bit of standard (or at least fairly mainstream) repertoire that I was in the process of hearing for the first time. As a result, back then, it was a frequent occurrence that I would end up working on something I'd never heard, even if there were many recordings and it was performed regularly. I remember that I learned various Beethoven sonatas, or movements from them, long before I ever heard the music played by anyone else. Of course, recorded music was not nearly as readily accessible then as it is now, so this situation is less likely to occur. But the main idea would still hold, I think, since people still do have to hear the music for the first time at some point, and when they are younger, less of it has been heard (I hope this makes sense).

And you are right, #5 does seem the be the main point of contention. I think that may be in part because we don't all prepare music in the same way. And too, a person who has never had the experience of feeling the influence of a recording while they are working on something will likely have a different opinion about this than someone who has.

There's actually a recording where the pianist deliberately copies another composer - Edvard Grieg, to be precise (the CD set is called 'Chasing the Butterfly'). You can compare the original and the new side by side - luckily, the pianist is pretty good in his own right, as he also plays the concerto in his own way on the other CD).

But as I mentioned earlier, anyone who learns a well-known piece without ever having heard it in a recording or in concert before is either very deficient in musical knowledge and application, or is lying. And undoubtedly, he would have gained some insights into how to play it from having heard it from someone else, even if only once - but he won't necessarily have any intention of copying that performance. But no sensible pianist would learn a piece by obsessively listening to one performance of it over and over again either.

For my part, I can safely say that I gained much more insights into the baroque, classical, romantic and late-romantic piano styles and the interpretative possibilities from listening to lots of different performances than I ever did from any of my teachers. And though I have my favorite pianists, my interpretations are quite unlike any of theirs.

I can't say how it works with you, but with me, I just listen differently to music that I am working on. Sometimes that's deliberate, sometimes not, but it always happens. I even listen differently to music that I have learned in the past, particularly the recent past. But to answer your question, it doesn't happen retroactively - a remembered listening experience won't change in my memory if I work on the piece later. So yes, for me, the familiarity with a performance is different if it is remembered from the past or actually experienced while working on the piece.

So you checked! Busted

I'm another who likes to work on a piece having never heard it. I get a real kick out of it. It's a pretty exciting journey to go from the page all the way to a final performance shape. I can be quite determined to do it my way. Sometimes I go too far but I have a teacher who can give some gentle nudging hehe.

It's not hard to do because I don't listen to recorded music much and if I do it's not necessarily piano. I not a fan of background music so I don't have the kind of exposure that a lot of you seem to have.

Having said that I often use youtube recordings to choose pieces (especially for exams). I'll listen quickly to all the likely pieces on the list, then listen to the chosen ones a 2nd time to make sure of my choices, then no more!

Except... every now and then i fall in love and have to obsessively listen to a piece, and begin to play it at the same time. This is love, and nothing to do with the study of music. It is irrational and I can't help it. Often these pieces I don't finish at all, some others have become learnt and in the later stages I will have stopped listening as I fall in love with my own interpretation instead. (oh dear this is not where i planned to go!)

Here's another exciting thing - if you learn a piece having never heard it, the first interpretation you fall in love with is you own. You become your own Richter. hmmmm i think I'd better stop now.

^ ^ ^
This.

It happens to me all the time.

Well, I did say it was my own version! Sorry for the typo.

You asked me why I need a teacher, as if just because I refuse to listen to recordings for ideas it's assumed I don't need a teacher. I'm trying to show you that having a teacher is different than listening to a recording. You're pretty much accusing me of being a hypocrite, and I'm trying to tell you why I'm not. My teacher hates, hates it if you go for a lesson with zero ideas (which means you've done no work, because ideas can be developed), expecting him to spoonfeed you and tell you exactly how to play something and what to do with the piece. He will tell you "call me when you're more prepared and you've done some work".

I don't know how it is for you, but if I'm working on something I will "hear" it and "listen" to it in a different way than the times I've heard it before. So this doesn't really apply..

edit: just read that wr said almost the same thing, haha!

The thing is, by "imitating" you don't really end up sounding like "Rubinstein" (or whoever), you sound like you but it's fake. I don't know how to explain it. It isn't sincere, and more often than not, it's obvious. You'll hear students imitate some kind of rubato that they heard, or a unique voicing that someone does, taken the idea from a recording.. etc. I still remember this girl played Rach second sonata a few years ago, and in the 2nd movement brought out the bottom voice of the chords (melody) which only Cliburn does....... it was so obvious! And disappointing.

I have heard things done like this before. People doing a certain rubato, voicing, or articulation just because they heard someone else doing it. I do not think that is very wise.

This is true. But I think the best reason to listen to a variety of interpretations is that it gives an emerging pianist "permission" to make his/her own decisions. Confronted with the realization that artists make decisions, hopefully arising from thoughtful study of the composer's intentions, a young pianist can feel liberated by the variety of viewpoints and find the courage to take flight with his/her own fancy.

Yes, this is what I pointed out in an earlier post.

Re the Cliburn imitation, though, if the girl brought out the melody, she can't really be faulted for copying, can she?

I wonder if many of the similarities we hear in performances aren't due to the fact that the composer has either indicated the effect in the score or that the overall affect of the piece calls for certain unavoidable approaches.

No, it wasn't the melody... it was the bottom notes of the chords with the melody (of which the high note was the real melody)

THIS! like i said, it's basically plagiarism

Well, possibly. But isn't plagiarism a little harsh? It's possible that more than one artist will find the same things to bring out in the music simply because it's there. When I hear another pianist who has found some of the same niceties I have found, I feel corroborated.

As you say, though, the bottom line is that taking someone else's work for your own is not to be encouraged.

Not so fast - one can check to see if there is a recording without actually listening. But this was before I decided to work on the piece, actually. I don't know if you do this, but sometimes I just search on less well-known composer names just to see what YT may have. Moscheles was one of those.

If you just follow the composers markings on the score there shouldn't be much of a problem.

yeah, I even suspected as much! And yes I have done that too. As I said earlier I love hearing the sound of a piece from myself first. Perhaps that reflects the composer in me, I enjoy recomposing a piece from the music-map. The pieces in my upcoming exam that I've never heard are 3 of the Six kleine Klavierstucke op6 of Schoenberg, and a movement from a Sonatina by an unknown Australian composer. I have to keep my wits about me not to mis-read, my teacher's ears can help with this like a safety net.

I'm very glad that i listened to my Brahms Intermezzo only when choosing the piece at the beginning, so exciting to solve the problems, test the possibilities on my own - oh I LOVE it!

I'm no purist really, I use those Youtube crutches to cut corners when I want to. But I prefer to have both possibilities happening in my studies.

Another thought, as a composer who has asked musicians to leap into a completely unknown score and find what's there (and yes they are sometimes trepidatious or overwhelmed) I would be a hypocrite to never do this myself.

and why exactly is that a bad thing? if you listen to a recording of a piece and hear something unique, and think to yourself, "that's brilliant, i love that!", are you going to keep from incorporating it into your interpretation simply because you picked it up from another performer? i don't think that simply voicing a certain part a certain way is even enough to constitute imitating another player. there's also the possibility that it was done subconsciously (upon listening to many recordings, cliburn's voicing in that particular section stuck the hardest to her memory), or even coincidental (admittedly not as likely, but still possible that she came up with the idea herself and has never even heard cliburn's recording).

don't dismiss the players who imitate so quickly. interpretating music isn't always about being completely and 100% original and pure, it's about playing it the best way you know how, and if that means stealing a couple ideas from somebody else, so be it.

Interpretation isn't about originality...well, that's a new one on me. Maybe I should quit.

so glad you could take that one part out of context and omit an important word. of course you're forming your own take on things, but when you see/hear a piece of music the same way as someone else, that shouldn't be a reason not to go ahead with that way of playing.

Since when is interpretation about originality? I would hate to think that a performer would take into account whether or not someone else has done something when making choices.

Taking Pogo's example above - since Cliburn voices the Rachmaninoff sonata that way, now nobody is allowed to do it? And how do we know Cliburn was the first one to do that? Do we really believe that nobody in the history of the Rachmaninoff sonata before him had experimented with voicing in Rachmaninoff? Has Pogo listened to every recording of the piece ever made to be sure Cliburn has a true monopoly on that particular voicing?

Originality for originality's sake is ridiculous. That's like Mozart should've quit composing when he was 15 because he was basically copying J.C. Bach. But here's the thing - Mozart WAS copying J.C. Bach, and he learned an enormous amount from doing so.

And maybe Rachmaninoff should've thrown the second concerto in the trash. After all, it's pretty obvious he was influenced by Beethoven's third concerto (same key scheme, very similar formal structures, even the melodic contour of some parts.)

Somehow I don't think anyone will argue those last two points, which begs the question - why is copying and letting an influence show through okay in composition but not performance?

And should we ignore Gould because he was influenced heavily by his teacher's approach to articulation and Tureck's performances of Bach? That hack! That copycat! He even admits it! Glenn Gould exposed!!!

Well said !!!!

True enough, but at least for me, I got that message when I was younger from teachers, fellow students, and via what I call "general listening". I did not get there by deliberately listening to recordings of something I was working on, much less than by feeling a need to listen to multiple recording of every single thing I worked on.

Well, you've reached a level of maturity and confidence in your understanding of style. I, too, think there is often the "wrong" kind of listening going on. Performances are so available on youtube that students don't seem to want to wean themselves from heavy reliance on them. My biggest challenge in this regard as a teacher is to convince students that xyz performer has paid his dues; what he does he has a right to. More often than not, the student isn't really up to the task, technically or emotionally.

This reminds me of a piece of advice I'd come across in a jazz book: if you find a solo you particularly like, copy it. Transcribe it, analyse it, learn to imitate it down to the tiniest details - how much you will learn!

I've always thought that trying to develop a personal style was pointless... by the time we've practiced enough for the music to breathe, style will manifest on its own. Listen and listen widely, if you find a good idea TAKE IT!

Re cliburn, she did tell me she never thought of it until she heard it. And it didn't sound good the way she did it, it wasn't convincing. She was also the type of player who would take different things from different recordigs, and cut and paste. It was never hers. The cliburn was just one example...

The point is, you shouldn't have to jump to recordings for ideas. You can form your own, from the score - that's all you need. That's all people had before recordings were made, when pieces were freshly written so obviously it's not impossible. It's also more interesting. And if your ideas happen to match someone else, that's great. At least you thought about it first. And people wonder why pianists sound the same.. Nobody looks for the voice within themselves, why?

Often, I think they're too busy looking at the score.

Also, I think a lot of pianists are rather dull artisitcally, having spent too much time in a practice room and not enough time (as I've said before) exploring the arts: theater, art, literature, poetry, dance, and non-piano music.

It's depressing the number of people who play the Mephisto waltz who have no clue what Faust is, or the number of people who play Gaspard who don't know who Bertrand is (or if they do, have only read the poems Gaspard is based on because their teacher told them to.)

And when you say that the score is all you need, I think that's a huge problem, because hopefully you're going beyond the score, looking at the composer's culture and artistic point of view. Cultural starvation doesn't promote originality, it hinders it!

Don't get me wrong, I have a healthy respect for the score. I spent over an hour the other night going over different editions of Ravel's Alborada just to make sure I was really paying attention to what he wrote. (Since then, I've also listened to about a dozen recordings of the work, and it's amazing the number of things in the score that get ignored by some very good pianists, including Lipatti, Richter, and Thibaudet!)

Agreed! I'm trying to get better at that. When I go to Brevard, I'm going to try to go as many of the events as I can, regardless if they're piano or not.



Don't forget Andre Laplante!!!!

Oh no I completely agree with you. People need to do exactly as you said. And also live.

Don't worry I made sure I read Faust before learning the Liszt sonata.. And I listen to non piano music 90% of the time.

And William Kapell.

Interesting. So do I, though I'm not currently a piano student. I spend a lot of time listening to opera, symphonic, organ, and Anglican Church music. After reading Brenda Lucas's book on her husband John Ogdon, I've listened to quite a bit of Ogdon lately... Scriabin 4th, Rachmaninov Bb minor, Alkan Concerto, Busoni Chopin Variations, etc. Amazing pianist, which could qualify as the understatement of the year!

To be an all-round musician, one should absorb all the cultural aspects of the music. And that includes not just listening around the music you're playing - the operas of Bellini whose bel canto style so influenced Chopin, for example - as well as the composers' other outputs (for example, noone can understand what Mozart is about who haven't heard his three Da Ponte operas at the very least), but also visiting the relevant places where the composers lived and worked. My view of Sibelius's music changed when I visited Finland (and his home Ainola); similiarly Grieg and Norway; but in terms of piano music, Vienna, which is probably any budding musician's paradise. You can hear the landler-like lilt of a lot of Schubert's piano music, for example, in the cafe music at street corners, and understand where it's coming from; and also understand the Viennese tradition that so infuriated several composers who still chose to live there.....

In other words, one should absorb influences wherever one can find them, and apply them in one's music-making. Let's not forget that Richter was a repetiteur pianist in operas before he went on to greater things. Any pianist who shuts himself/herself in a vacuum and thinks that he/she should be able to form an all-round interpretation based solely on what's written in the score is sadly deluded. I remember watching a program where Ashkenazy visited China in its early years of opening up, and seeing lots of Chinese children rattling off Mozart and Chopin at high speed with no idea of bel canto singing style, phrasing etc. How could they, when they've never heard any classical music except what they're learning?

Art is a social and cultural activity. Music is a social and cultural activity. The notion that the creation or performance of art should be done without the study of and exposure to others' work in the same area is very strange to me.

Having played non-classical music most of my life, the notion of not listening to performers more skilled than me and learning from them and integrating their ideas into my own playing is very strange to me.

Jazz, rock and blues are almost exclusively based around a free exchange of ideas. techniques and styles. If you don't "copy" others, you never really learn the genre.

As for classical, the argument that it should all come from "inside" and from peripheral cultural knowledge may work for the most advanced players. For schlubs like me, I listen to many performances, admire them, pick the parts of each interpretation I enjoy the most, and emulate them if I'm able. Usually, there's no chance anyone would ever say to me "That's exactly like Horowitz's version," no matter how hard I try to make it so.

But what if it did sound good the way she played it? Would it still have been a bad idea?

Don't you think your thoughts about not listening to recordings of pieces you're learning might have influenced your view of how she sounded?

I think the line between copying another pianist's performance and learning from another pianist's performance and incorporating those ideas into your playing is not so clear.

For example, In an ealrier post I gave my experience about learning and listening to Jarrett's arrangement of "Be My Love".

"As an example of learning from listeing to a recording, I have recently been playing this Jarrett piece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iENQgr0l2Qw
Since I think he plays ballads incredibly beautifully, I listened to his performance and noticed that he often starts a phrase loudly and ends softly. I'd put this in the category of learning another "suggested interpretation" because although I sometimes do this, I don't think I did so to such an extreme as Jarrett does."

I wonder how those with the "don't ever listen to a recording while learning a piece" viewpoint would regard this?

Do you always disagree for the sake of disagreeing? I know what I heard I'm not deaf..

I think in most fields people tend to study the masters and learn from them. You will see art students copying famous paintings, athletes studying tapes of great players, people watching cooking shows to learn how the experts prepare a dish. I was playing a soprano cornet solo (Vesti la Giubba from Pagliacci) with a brass band once. I had never heard it before, and the first time or two I read through it with the band I had no idea what it was "supposed" to sound like or what the words were. When I listened to a recording of Pavarotti singing it, learned to words and wrote them on my music, my performance improved immeasurably. Should I not have done that, but just tried to find my "own" interpretation? Of course not. I think it borders on arrogance to think that we cannot learn from the masters, or that somehow listening to other performers will "pollute" our virgin interpretation. Even hearing a bad performance on YouTube can point up things we do not want to do, or things we might be doing that we realize sound bad. To take it to the extreme, why even have a teacher? Why not just totally develop your own style of playing so you're not influenced by that pesky pedagogy? I played in a symphony orchestra once with Antonia Brico as a guest conductor, and was privileged to have a private voice lesson from a retired vocal coach from the New York Met. Those were two of the most amazing musical experiences I have ever had. I would love to have a private lesson with, say, Kissin or Lisitsa. Nothing would please me more than to be influenced by their performance, their knowledge of the piano and their interpretations of pieces.

I don't think anyone in this thread is saying that. It's not as if someone is saying you must be able to produce a good performance of a Beethoven sonata with absolutely no experience of his style or the Classical era style.

Art students do that to learn how to paint, not how to reproduce actual paintings (unless they are considering a career in art forgery)



The connection to preparing an interpretation of a classical piano piece is virtually nil. An analogy might be to a pianists studying slowed-down clips of famous pianists playing Chopin op. 10, no. 1 to gain an insight into their technique, which is not the same thing as listening to recordings as a crutch to figure out the musical aspects of the piece.



I don't really know the intent and expectations of people watching cooking shows, but somehow the nature and scale of the variables involved in cooking and those in playing classical music don't compare very well.



I don't think anyone is making the argument that if you are playing a transcription, you shouldn't listen to a performance of the music in the original format. But that also doesn't mean that you really must do that, either. After all, although there's a wonderful variation set by Chopin based on an operatic aria, there are no recordings of that aria available, to my knowledge. So, do you think that nobody can play that Chopin work decently, since they do not have access to how it sounds in original form? If you think they can play it well, how do you think they manage to do that, without example to draw on?



This seems to me to be an over-generalized response to a very specific issue about musicianship. I don't think anyone is saying we shouldn't listen and learn as much as possible from whatever sources we can. However, attempting to imitate a recording because the pianist is unable or too lazy to come up with their own interpretation of a specific piece, is a whole different thing, IMO.