Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Members Recordings - Pianist Corner Chopin - Nocturne Opus 37 No. 1

Okay, I'm going to chime in. At first, I was solidly in the, "It's rude to post a professional recording," camp, but after reading pianolover's last post, I do agree that sometimes, it is possible to illustrate something through example. For instance, if someone played the Rach 3, and I replied with detailed comments about the final recapitulation at the end, I might provide, say, Horowitz and Yuja Wang as polar opposites of the same passage, illustrate the differences, and use the two takes to elaborate exactly what I am trying to say through words. This, I would not take offensive, because it is well thought-out, intelligible, and certainly has a specific point. But for anyone who posted a video saying, "Do it like this," I would indeed find that extremely rude and dismissive.


Big +1 here.

Another +1 here

Yeah, but see, that's thoughtful.



*whew*! I'm glad that paragraph had a happy ending!

The whole point of posting a recording should be to be thoughtful.

The idea is that words are often a very poor substitute for an actual musical example. This is why in master classes and studios it's extremely common to have a second piano for the teacher to illustrate what they're saying. Or, if there is no second piano, the student is asked to stand while the teacher demonstrates some idea. Unless it's a very straightforward thing like "I don't think it makes sense to speed up there and there's no indication in the score", words alone are often inadequate.

I can't imagine a student requesting that a teacher not illustrate something on the piano because their feelings would be hurt because the teacher will surely play the passage better than they can. Any form of criticism can be abused, but I'm surprised that some think the idea of posting recordings is in any way inappropriate. It's the equivalent of what's done routinely in teaching.

Context, context, context. It's all about context Pianoloverus. What is a student performing live in masterclass getting from the master? Words. Words, words, words. Words that cushion. Words that cut. Words that mash. Words that shape. Words that chide. Words that soothe. Then, sometimes, an illustration by the master. Ideally, it is personal and specific. In a face to face, fully present personal interaction, there are myriad subtle overt, covert, conscious, subconscious, and unconscious communications happening between student and master, with micro and macro adjustments being made in the communication stream alone, before even getting to the musical technical adjustments to be addressed!

UBB threads pose a distinct problem in terms of making things personal and communicating clearly. Since we often do not know in any real way the people whose work we are critiquing, I think we need to be very careful to default towards encouragement, as opposed to discouragement. As I said earlier, to me, posting a video of the performance of an accomplished pianist who has, before bringing it to the public, spent countless hours honing his/her art (on top of extreme talent), and then who has honed the performance of a particular piece even further by numerous playings of it on tour before the ultimate performance which gets recorded... for someone to post such a video in response to a recording posted in this sub-forum and say, "Play it like this," could be discouraging to the extreme for the person on the receiving end. For some personalities, it really can be like a slap in the face. My preference would be for all of us to be extra sensitive to the way we pick up clues from the words people write in their OP as to what kind, and how much, critiquing we do. I can think of one recent thread in which the OP, an accomplished student sharing a recital piece, got her nose out of joint at what I considered to be someone's (actually two someone's) legitimate assessment of the performance piece. Pianists are a sensitive bunch, and feelings DO matter. The best teachers walk the tightrope with their students after and as they get to know them.

Add to the context picture the motivation of any person who would post a recording here, against any who would critique it. That could be a whole discussion thread in and of itself! We could call it "Competing motivations!"

On the whole, I think PW is a wonderful place to help pianists at any level to learn and to grow, especially when people give of themselves thoughtfully and carefully and remember to keep in mind:

Context! Context! Context!

Yes, in all the ways that you said and more. The comparison to lessons or master classes is totally off base -- totally.

In master classes and lessons, what the teacher does at the piano is:

-- specifically targeted to how the student has played, and usually to the student as a person too; and

-- almost always just small portions of the piece at a time, again specifically targeted.

Posting a recording has no relation to any of that. There might be some aspects that someone feels are relevant to a member's recording, but it's nothing like the above, plus it's not coming from a teacher or master that the player has sought. And, in line with what I said earlier, if the member knows enough to really know what might be relevant about some other recording, usually he knows enough to just say exactly what he feels is relevant.

Of course it does...you just can't see it or won't admit it. You're just looking for differences where I was looking for similarities. It's possible to find differences between any two things but that doesn't mean they're significant.

If the recording hadn't been posted by Louis, with whom you've been arguing endlessly for weeks, I frankly doubt you would have even objected. You look for every opportunity to try and discredit him and have been highly insulting to him in numerous posts.

My main objection, and the only reason I posted about this here, wasn't Louis' posting the recording but the way he presented it and most especially the things he said to Carey about his playing. (Look at my first couple of posts: I didn't even say anything about the posting of the recording. As bad as I think that was, it wasn't why I posted. I got into that only after others did. I didn't even make any reference to the recording until the 2nd post, and even then, it wasn't about Louis having posted it, but about Tim -- a friend of mine, or anyway I hope we're still friends -- having taken it as seriously as he did, which I thought was ill-advised.) I would have stepped in to support Carey no matter who had said such things about his recording. But in fact virtually nobody else on this site would present it in quite such a way and say such things. If they ever do, I'll come in just the same. I promise.

And no, you're not right at all about the first part of what you said either. The similarities between the things you're talking about are so slight as to be meaningless, literally meaningless. It's like.....let's see, what's it like ....it's like saying that "stupid" and "smart" are similar because they both have an "s."

Really. There's no more similarity than that. Frankly I think there's less. The things that make it good and useful for a teacher to play passages for a student are exactly the things that are missing with posting a recording.

Except he didn't just say "play it like this".

He expressed what he thought needed to be done and then gave the recording as a specific example of one that he thought illustrated his point. Exactly the way teachers do in lessons and master classes all the time. You make it sound like all he did was say "You're version is terrible and this is how it should be done" but that wasn't the case at all.

I find it bizarre that someone asking for a critique would be upset if someone told them that they felt some famous pianist plays it more to their liking(after explaining what their liking meant). Well, of course, they do! If a PW member who posts a recording isn't willing to admit this and learn from a recording by a great professional there's little hope for them to improve. A great professional pianist has a lot more to say than most anyone on this forum.

Words are often not clear enough to express many musical ideas which is why teachers almost always illustrate what they're saying at the piano. If someone posts a professional recording as an example of what they think needs changing, I see no difference between that and what teachers do all the time.

"And no, your not right at all."
And you're complaining about what other people say and how they say it?

Plover, that was a cleaned-up version of what I should have said.

And I would like to register a further complaint, which I may take to the Supreme Court of Piano World: Why did you change my spelling of "you're" to the wrong thing?

I've never had a teacher play a recording for me.



I missed the part where Phil asked for a critique. But that aside, what Louis said was clear enough without the recording.
I'm sure Phil has plenty of favorite recordings that he can draw on if he wishes.


Okay then, what needs changing? If the opinion wasn't clear in words, what does the recording teach us? Does Rubinstein teach us the same, Horowitz, Cortot? What did the recording add? Sorry, it's just rude.

Teacher playing in a lesson is virtually the same as recording playing. And plenty of teaches play recordings for pupils or suggest they listen to recordings. I assume your teacher has played for you.

When someone posts a recording it's usually assumed they want comments. Otherwise, why start a thread? Many posters made comments about the recording so they must all have assumed comments were appropriate. Whether what Louis said was clear enough is a matter of opinion. But if words were always clear enough teachers wouldn't illustrate what they mean on the piano. Louis posted a particular recording to illustrate the point he was making which I think is far different from saying someone can go to YouTube and listen to random performances.

Louis chose a particular recording to illustrate his point. Another recording might or might not illustrate his point. I think asking what the recording adds is like asking why should a teacher ever illustrate their point on the piano. I don't think that words are always clear enough and, in fact, think they are often feeble compared to illustrating at the piano. What other reason would there be for teachers illustrating their point that way?

Louis was already in my ignore list. So I didn't read what he said. So, I agree with Mark's comment about him.

That said, since Carey is old friends with him and he does forgive him, what are we discussing here really?

I think it is just a flame war between others who have some past issues between them and using this thread as a leverage.

Please go fight somewhere else, will you!

Yes my teacher had played for me, but it was always a couple of measures to explain specifically what he meant. The posting of an entire performance has no relationship to this, IMO.
I would fire any teacher that directed me to a recording.



I don't think the posting of a recording without comment on specific things in that recording clarify anything that wasn't already clear. I disagree with your opinion that this compares to a teacher's approach.




I thought the words were plenty clear and the recording a vague illustration....and did I mention, RUDE!

For those that think listening to recordings whether suggested by a teacher or otherwise is not a good idea:

"So I think it's a great resource to be able to hear these recordings and to learn from them." Benjamin Grosvenor

So a couple of measures can be useful but not an whole piece? Only two measures is OK and helpful but three isn't? Or does it become not useful only after ten measures? If Louis had suggested listening to the first ten seconds of the video as an illustration of what he meant it would be useful?

Now I think you are willfully missing the point. There is no relationship between the INTERACTION of a teacher with their student and the posting of a professional performance. That doesn't mean there is nothing to be learned from a recording.
Quoting teenagers doesn't add gravity to your opinion.

Oddly, I did -- once. It was a bad teaching moment by a good teacher....well, an okay teacher.


I also find it hard to understand your difficulty in grasping the distinctions being talked about. What we're talking about here -- posting other recordings on threads like this, or teachers playing recordings for someone at lessons -- has nothing to do with the general thing of whether it's useful to listen to recordings. And that's besides what Damon said about quoting teenagers.

But of course it does. They(listening to a teacher play, listening to recordings played by teachers, listening to recordings suggested by posters) all involve learning from listening.

Your comment about Grosvenor makes it sound like he's some random teenager instead of one of the best pianists his age playing today. I assure you he will feel the same way about listening to recordings when he is twice his present age, and I wouldn't be surprised if his teacher suggested listening to recordings.

In your opinion it was a bad teaching moment. The teacher didn't think so.