Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner I get it. Some folks think you can learn something from Youtube.

Sorry, I was a bit slow on that one. It's obviously the frontier mentality - the Sears, Roebuck approach to learning.

So... what's the point of this thread?

Does it have to have a point? What's your point posting?

kbk, whenever I get a new piece of music, first thing I do is YouTube it, get an idea for how it sounds. Also, aside from the techique videos you're always "raving" about, you can learn a heck of a lot from watching hand position of Argerich, Rubinstein, ect...

YouTube is a blessing for pianists, kbk....

Matt

Matt, was that fill in the blank or do we get multiple choice?

Why even bother playing music when we can just put on a CD? After all, Horowitz can play anything better than I can. Why am I even trying?

Why bother making love? There's recording of that too.

You can learn a lot even just listening to the youtube recordings by the great pianists. You can learn even more by watching also.

IMHO anyone who doesn't think this way thinks they have nothing to learn.

Hmm, I wouldn't dream of listening to someone else's interpretation before understanding a work myself. The idea of needing to hear a work before you play is not just barmy, but would seem to preclude any sense of excitement. Do you need someone to read the newspaper to you before you have a go?

Instructional videos are different. Presumably the maker will know how to put his/her point across effectively but performances?? Didactically it's pretty unsound.

If you're refering to my post I never said anything about listening to an interpretation before learning a work. I am, however, not against that except *possibly* for the most advanced students. I would guess that even many conservatory students do this.

And, if after you learn a work you listen/watch a very great pianist play and then don't change anything or learn anything new, again I would say you think you have nothing to learn. Hence, your "didactically it's pretty unsound."

Is this really a thread about YouTube then? Or more about whether listening to others' interpretations of a work either before or while studying it is a valid thing to do?

I'm more than happy to make my own mind up about a piece without the influence of recordings, but I do find it interesting to see what others' thoughts are - especially if I find lots to disagree with. I've been looking at some Chopin Études lately (must change my sig!), have trawled through lots of recordings, and only found one of op.10 no. 1 that I really like - and even that is faster than my preference.

I used to refuse to listen to recordings while working on pieces but I've mellowed a bit in my old age I don't think listening to others' recordings while preparing a work is anything to be frowned upon as long as the player doesn't follow an idol slavishly and comes to his or her own conclusions.

Stuart, your approach seems quite sensible though personally, once I've got to know a work inside out I never can find an interpretation I like.

The thread's about whether using Youtube videos as instructional guides, especially those ones posted of the good and great to illustrate matters of technique (drives me mad when posters do this - anybody could come up with 10 showing the reverse), is at all useful. What is going on inside and outside a performer during a performance is too complex to be used as a model for anything beyond interpretation and that is something so personal.

None of them could possibly be as good as yours.
:rolleyes:

I agree, once you have your interpretation the study of others' can be quite a resource but it comes after and through your own considerable effort.

Well often yes to some extent. The great and good need to record all 32 of Beethoven's sonatas in a few months to make a living. I can spend years on just one. I even have time to go to the British Museum and study the first editions and manuscripts not to mention everyone else's editions. It's how it works with amateurs.

I agree with kbk. I don't usually find an interpretation that I like either, and I try to wait to listen to recordings until I know what I want to do musically. At that point, the recordings give me an idea of what can be refined.

Recently I have been listening to recordings of pieces I'm working on to see if anyone else has accomplished what I'm trying to do. I was having an awful time getting the opening of "La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin" to sound extremely legato, and after listening to dozens of recordings I only found one person able to achieve what I wanted - and it was Michelangeli! So now I know that I'm not trying to achieve the impossible.

Sorry if I didn't clearify, listening to the piece gives me an idea of what I'm working for in a piece. I try not to work on musicality or interpritation till after I have the basic note structure and fingerings complete.

kbk, have you looked at the some of the documentaries they have on YouTube?

-Horowitz: The Last Romantic
-Inside the 6th Franz Liszt Piano Competition
-Argerich: Night Talks
-Andre Previn interviews Oscar Peterson
-Imagine becoming a concert pianist

...just to name a few.

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
-- Confucius

Maybe I'm strange, but I like listening to others play pieces that I play. Sometimes I find they have found something I missed and so I work it into my interpretation.

Ed

But recording them in a few months is not the same thing as learning them in a few months. Plus maybe the world's greatest pianists could learn them more quickly and have greater musical insight than you.