What is piano playing all about?

For me, the audience.

Well, partially it is for myself, because I would play piano even if nobody else ever heard it. However, I love it so much that I want to share with others, and for that reason, most of the time what I do is for the audience.

I've always thought music was meant to be heard, so the more the merrier. Being on stage is a priviledge, my responsibilty is to fill the air with the best possible music making I can bring... It's ultimately about the audience for me too.

It depends. There is music that I love and I think deserves performance that only a tuned-in audience will "get." Plus, a piece must have a certain amount of intellectual and/or emotional content for me to invest the time and energy in learning it. So the first task of the music is to keep ME interested. If there's nothing there to sustain my interest, there won't be much to communicate to an audience.

I should state that my usual frame of reference is contemporary music. With the tried-and-true classics, I might balance the equation somewhat differently.

An interesting point RealPlayer, on whether the audience gets it or not. I would consider myself more populist, I certainly enjoy intellectual complexity but it's the emotional content that I consider the priority since that's what's more likely to connect to the average listener.

For me performing is more of a social endeavour - to share and connect with others, than a purely musical consideration. (that said, the best way to communicate is to be entirely focused on the music)

I've always played for myself and an imaginary audience. Since I was a little girl, I secretly wanted to perform but I never had a teacher who held recitals. In my growing-up household, asking to perform would have been viewed as immodest.

I'm 60 and have played before an real audience exactly 6 times. Each time I liked the experience very much. When it went really, really well, I was high as a kite for hours. I want to do it more.

Pretty much only for myself and my own enjoyment. I tend to get performance anxiety so it's not all that fun to perform. I'm happy just being able to practice and play for myself. My wife enjoys listening on the occasions I play without headphones when she is awake. (Not that she's asleep all that much, I just get up early and practice before the day gets going.)

In a way, it's a form of communication.

It's so much better to have an audience.

I can stay at home if I want to play/perform for myself.

But that's boring - though practicing at home never is.

You can say that we're in front of an audience as an usually unworthy representative of the composer, or the composer's wishes, intent, ideas, etc......(a slight similarity to the relationship between an actor and the writer of a script?).

But I don't consider myself to be playing for the composer, unless the composer is sitting in the audience.

Why play "for" anything? I am not convinced that a reason is required.

Like the great Sviatoslav Richter and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, I'm contemptuous of audiences... , and only tolerate them as a source of income. Hang on, I don't play for money.....

In which case, I'll only play for myself. (If the composer wants to observe from on high, he's welcome too).

I think I posted this in another thread, but it fits here, too. I have my father in mind a lot when I play. He died about five years ago, and he was quite a good amateur pianist. I inherited a lot of my love of music from him, I'm sure. I feel sort of a communion with him when I'm playing, especially when playing pieces from some of his music books that have his notations on them.

myself

Kind of OT, but there are a couple different ways of "Playing for an audience" that I've tried:
1) "I'm going to show these people how much I practiced and how good I am" -> FAIL
2) "I'm just going to immerse myself in the music and play what the music calls for" -> SUCCESS

So my goal is always to play for the MUSIC, not just NOTES. And then it doesn't matter if I have an audience or not. I want my audience to enjoy what I'm playing, and I know that won't happen unless I am engaged in what I am doing. Unfortunately I still often fall into just playing notes because it is easier as it requires less of a time commitment.

For music.

At least for me, playing music is about communication. I play to communicate the message of the music from the composer, through my performance, to the audience.

I do it for myself, but I very much enjoy the company of those who want to listen, NOT people who treat my performances as 'background music' and rudely chat over it.

For myself.

It's for the music, for myself, and I guess...sometimes for the audience. Playing 'for the composer' seems a little egotistic, but certainly, I think about the composer while I play/before playing (that's to be expected though.)

Egotistic? How so?

I play because it gives me joy. If others enjoy my music and CDs, it is even better, but I mainly play because I don't think I could survive without music.

All of this but I also generally like trying to get into the heads of composers through their music. I feel like you can sort of get to know these people...

I play for pleasure, mine.
Playing for an audience woudld require vast amounts of narcissism, which I do not have.

I was curious about that also, because it almost seems the opposite of 'egotistic' to me.

I'm an adult amateur, I never play outside of my own living room, and my lifelong passion is in my screen name -- and I seem the first poster to answer the question, without hesitation, as for the composer.

I imagine he's there (or that he's listening somehow), and I try to channel him. I also have a very nice bronze bust of Chopin, and the Delacroix portrait hangs on the wall of my bedroom. All these things inspire me and affirm my passion.

On the fairly unusual occasions that I play something not written by Chopin, I think my answer is still the same -- it's for the composer -- even though I don't feel the same intimacy with any others.

I'm a conduit for the composer's art, and my ego is irrelevant except in that I want to practice my craft as skillfully as I can ... to honor the composer without whom the music wouldn't exist.

I don't really relate to that approach to music.

Playing for an audience only to get a specific emotional reaction from them, and/or for the sole purpose of attracting a certain level of attention from them is narcissistic.

Playing for an audience in which you aim to perform at your best for them because a) you wouldn't be there in the first place without them, or b) they're spending their hard earned money to hear and see you, so you better do your damned best - which'll hopefully give them their money's worth - that's far from narcissistic.

I hear you. But, if you read what you just wrote again, in a different mind set, you will find that you have just decorated narcissism with some altruism. "You play your best" (obviously..why would you play your worst?), and "they paid money to come see you" are statements that assume that you are worth it, that you have something to say AND it is worth their trouble to come hear it. It has got be so, otherwise you can't be successful as a performer. Narcissism is not necessarily a bad quality in this context.

To which approach? Mine (being the post above yours), or the OP's 'approach' as reflected in the title question?

If you mean mine ... well, you don't have to relate to it! But FWIW ... what I described isn't an approach to 'music' but rather the way I approach playing/practicing/performing at the piano. It's certainly not how I approach listening to music.

Playing the piano is about expressivity. It is about channeling the composer through one's own psyche. It can also be about sharing that with a private listener or a public audience. So, playing the piano can be about any or all of the above.

Andromaque, what I think you're describing is just a healthy dose of self-esteem, but not narcissism.

Or maybe it's a case of performers ego? I dunno. I've performed with tons of narcissists over the last 36 years (ha! not like I've weighed them all, or anything ;)). I hope that by now, I can tell the difference between healthy ego and narcissism.