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In order to critique a pianist's performance, do you need to be as good or maybe even better than the pianist whose performance you are critiquing?

(If you are a worse pianist than the one whose performance you are critiquing, then should you not critique that pianist's performance?)


Yes or No.

No, you don't have to be as good a pianist or even be a pianist at all.

Absolutely not.

When you eat at a restaurant but are not a chef, do you still not critique the food?

When you watch a movie, but are not a director or actor, do you still not critique the film?

Not all critiques are equal, true. Comments from those with less ability or experience might be viewed more or less as just opinions, while critique from a maestro might be viewed as being closer to the truth.

NO! I'm not a winemaker, but I can surely tell the good stuff from the plonk! You don't have to have a degree in meterology to know whether it's raining outside!

No, you don't need to be as good.

No, taste is taste.

No

Nope.

No.

But you do have to be familiar with the level of playing. For example, I wouldn't trust a critic who only listens to maybe 5 or 6 live performances a year. Listening to a thousand recordings is not sufficient experience to judge a live performance. On the other hand, someone who listens chiefly to live music and has no knowledge of the engineering process probably shouldn't critique recordings.

No

No.

Otherwise most of us would not really be entitled to opinions about anything at all really.

NO, but it depends what kinda critism you're looking for and what you're planning on using them for

Does the poll heading imply that all constructive, useful stuff is forbidden? Hope not (for obvious reasons, I hope)...

While what one himself can play signifies nothing in itself when determining his capabilities as a critic (depending on the level of playing, it can imply a competence (but merely imply, at least in one isolated occasion, because we don't know what nuances are deliberate and what aren't), but you don't need to be able to play something to perceive everything relevant, and so those two abilities are essentially seperate (the ability to play and the ability to perceive), eventhough you need the latter to be consistently good in the former activity), there *are* some things that need to be considered... For example, Wagner, while not a good pianist, surely had enough perceptiveness to distinguish a Liszt from a Liszt pupil (it has been documented (by Wagner himself))... But not everybody has... And could Wagner have said something meaningful about the first recording he would have heard (if he had heard it)? I don't think he could have... The recording would have been repulsive to him (because of the relatively bad sound, to which he hadn't gotten used to), and he would have reacted accordingly... (Sorry for the lack of economy, but it's *so much* easier to write something with more words than with less words)

And I would, for another example, gladly concede, in the name of reason, that I shouldn't be trusted as a critic of live performances (I don't hear them more often than perhaps six times a year, and that's not sufficient exposure in order to get rid of the 'Wow it sounds SO GOOD' feeling and the feeling of something extra-ordinary happening (in contrast with ordinary, everyday stuff)... Have you heard a Mozart symphony live? It just captures so many things that a recording doesn't; but if you haven't heard many of them live, you tend to at least unconsciously compare them with recordings (the first time I heard some Beethoven overture, it was in a concert, and I was totally awe-struck...then I looked for a recording of the piece, listened to it, and "uh, is this really the piece? it can't be... is that all? can't be? bet it isn't!" oh, it was all!)

PS. I didn't quote Kreisler's post to disagree with it, eventhough my approach was, in a way, an opposite one (it's there because I felt like capturing the fresh breeze of constructive reason that hit me in this otherwise vapid poll (no offense PJ, I just hate polls (unless they are polls about favourite somethings)))...

PPS. Edited the original post a bit...

It depends on what, specifically, it is your aim to critique. If you intend to criticize an artist's rendition of a piece, that is, his musical interpretation, then I think we all have equal footing on which to stand. As Brendan said, taste is taste.

But looking through many of the threads here, there is a trend to do much more than that in one's criticisms of a pianist. I will use the most recent example, which is, surprisingly, not a Lang Lang-bashing comment.

For someone who is not a pianist of extraordinary skill, to say, "I do not like Horowitz's playing" is fine. We are all entitled to our taste, as Brendan so keenly pointed out with a far less winded diatribe than mine has been. But for someone to say that Horowitz was "a cheap bag of tricks", when that person is NOT skilled at the piano lends one to begin asking how such a person could come to that conclusion, given that they have no intuitive or knowledgable foundation on which to base such a comment. (In other words, since they can't "do", there is no way for them to distinguish levels of technique above their heads. It would be the equivalent of living your life in a 2-dimensional world and then trying to perceive a third dimension without having ever seen it. Or, in our case, trying to perceive more than four.)

"And so, there you go."

Nope, and I think lots of people can recognize a "cheap bag of tricks" when they hear one without being a pianist too.

No. And especially if you DON'T understand a note of it, you are the greatest . If you are a pianist yourself you always listen to too much detail and technical things...

I don't think you have to be a better pianist, but I think a good pianist will offer higher quality and more useful criticism. I listen to the recordings posted here and I think they are all FANTASTIC. But then y'all raise detailed points about timing, pedalling, etc. that I missed completely.

I don't even know what it means to be a "better pianist."

Example:

Horowitz was a better pianist that a 5-year-old kid who struggles to play Mary Had A Little Lamb.


Clearly, some people are better at getting the right notes/rhythms. Some people are better at expressing their interpretations. Some people are better at understanding the music.

Some people are really good at all three of those, and others are not as good at those, and so we say that the ones are better pianists than the others.