Are concert pianists superhuman?
Kenneth Leong
I was just wondering how concert pianists manage to play for half an
hour or an hour of incredibly difficult pieces without any noticeable
mistakes or anything like that. And how do they remember thousands and
thousands of notes without needing a book? Sure....people can play
really fast up and down the keyboard for short durations...but it's
scary when you see a concert pianist play for ages and with such control
and discipline. Their style is almost robot like....have these kinds of
people got something better than the average human?
Also I was wondering if there has ever been any big concerts where
the pianist has slipped or made a noticeable mistake and had to stop for
a while?
Kenny L.
--
Kenny Leong
email: Kennet...@marlin.jcu.edu.au
Peter
Sure I have seen lots of such instances. You need an abyss to contain
Horowitz's wrong and otherwise false notes.
I have seen Augustin Anievas, the renown Chopin expert, lapsed many times
while he was giving an all-Chopin recital in Hong Kong a few years ago.
And I have to admit that my "pianistic mentor" Artur Rubinstein, whom I
will never cease to adore, had struck heaps of wrong notes even in his
selected recordings ...
Peter Chan
Janos Horvath
Nathan Eberhardt (eber...@pilot.msu.edu) wrote:
: It's not as hard as it may seem to actually
: learn the notes, unless ofcourse you're playing some sort of
: ridiculous atonal music.
Many would take issue with my opinion... but isn't "ridiculous atonal"
redundant? :) :)
Toshiro K. Ohsumi
I think one thing to add to this interesting thread is that sometimes one may
forget that rarely are performances as technically perfect as what one hears on
CDs. Of course, hearing great pianists such as Rubinstein or Horowitz miss a
number of notes on a live recording and still be hailed as one of their great
recordings (e.g. Last Concert for Israel or Horowitz in Moscow) should show
that technical perfection isn't what makes for a great performance. I believe
(and follow) the philosophy that the emotional content and expression is what
makes or breaks a great performances. I still take great pains to make the
music technically good as possible.
Most pianists are not superhuman. (There are some who are far better than the
norm at getting things note-perfect, such as Kissin.) They work very hard to
get it right and perhaps a bit of talent. You know, the human brain is amazing
at storing pieces or other memory. (For the non-pianist, think of how many TV
shows or movies, or persons/conversations, you can remember in clear detail.)
It's a matter of training to get the brain to remember pieces. Do it for a
couple of decades and you've amassed quite a collection. (Here, I can say I
speak from experience.)
Again, I'd like to reiterate that I do not believe that technical perfection is
what one should be impressed by, but rather by how much the performance moves
one. Indeed some of the greatest perfomanced I've heard are a far cry from
note perfections. (Schnabel's set of Beethoven Sonatas, while riddled with
mistakes, is still one of the benchmarks of the grammaphone.)
All of the above are strictly my own opinion only,
- Toshiro K. Ohsumi
Richard m
> hor...@acs6.acs.ucalgary.ca (Janos Horvath) wrote in article
<540lc8$12...@ds2.acs.ucalgary.ca>...
A tautology perhaps : ))
Pkatula
I really enjoyed reading this thread. Of course, I know it's not so
much a matter of being superhuman, as it is of realizing that people
have a few different personality temperaments, according to personality
theorists such as Jung (remember Psych 101?). Now, I want to elaborate
on the two personality temperaments specifically adept at performance,
and I want to point out that these two temperaments describe just about
everyone you would think of as a virtuoso. The note is particularly
good in this thread since Rubinstein has been studied in such a way and
a post was just made that included him (as it should). The discussion
is taken from a letter from me to one of my friends (who as you will
see has the _other_ personality type), but it was compiled from various
articles and books a bit too numerous to give credit to in an informal
newsgroup discussion such as this (I'd be happy to provide the basic
reference if anyone wants it).
-Paul Katula
----
"Wanting to be competent" is not a strong enough expression of the
total force behind my quest. I _must_ be competent. There is urgency
in my desire; I can be obsessed by it and feel a compulsion to improve,
as if caught in a force field. My compulsion is similar in its tractor
base to your compulsion to perform, though different in its object:
You must act, but have no interest in improving (though your
performance becomes superb); I must improve, but have no interest in
action as such (though I _do_ act and with increasing precision and
exactitude). In a sense, you are my mirror image. For you, ability is
a mere means which sets you free to perform, while for me, performance
is only a means for enabling me to store up my beloved abilities:
Means Ends
me Performance Abilities
you Abilities Performance
[[Editorial note: In other words, I never really perform, and you never
really rehearse. Everything seems like it's a real performace for you,
while for me, not even the actual performance "counts" but just goes to
the development of another skill, namely understanding a particular
piece of music better.]]
In passing, we might anticipate finding that none of the other
personality temperaments have more than a meager interest in
performances and abilities. And we perhaps can understand others
better if we notice this relative disinterest. They would seem to have
other fish to fry and may well be puzzled and confused by the militance
we show in the extreme. Those like us, diligent about ability or
performance are just as puzzled by others' indifference.
Oddly you seem to have endurance beyond that of all other types. You
seem able to put up with discomfort and show courage in ways others do
not. But this is because others are goal-oriented, reluctant to exert
themselves unless there is a reason. Since you are not moving toward a
goal, you do not experience the duration or distance of your action.
You simply continue, often beyond reasonable limits for others.
This penchant for acting on impulse contains a seeming paradox, for
you, living only for immediate action, have the same personality
temperament as the world's great performing artists: the virtusos of
art, entertainment, and adventure. Virtusos need skills that come only
from excited concentration on an activity for long periods. No other
type can mobilize what virtuosity takes: untold hours of continuous
action.
But how can this be, in a style which is driven by impulse and which
disdains rehearsal and commitment? Once caught up in your
action-hunger, you can persevere in that action for hour after hour,
continuing long after other types would have abandoned the effort. And
it is this impulsive stamina that makes virtuosity possible. You seem
to be the sole possessor of perfection in action, and yet you never
practice in the sense that others do. I, for example, seek perfection,
but perfection evades me. You are oblivious to the pursuit of
perfection, do not practice in order to achieve it, and yet you achieve
it. I knowingly and deliberately practice, by the book. You simply
and spontaneously act, endlessly, tirelessly, caught up in the act
itself, having no end beyond the doing. Somehow caring about
perfection and working for it only get in the way; the act in itself
alone realizes perfection.
Rubinstein was of your type, as is Heifetz. In a sense, you do not
work, for work itself implies production, completion, accomplishment.
You have no such desire for closure, completion, finishing. You are
process-oriented. What ensues from your action is _mere_ product, mere
outcome, mere result, and is incidental. Thus your work is essentially
play. You do not despair when your rock rolls down the mountainside
each night after a day's toil of pushing it up. Your very joy is in
the _act_ of pushing it up, not caring that no permanent monument to
your hard work remains.
WAW
Music with a lot of notes... just try learning a vocal, operatic work like
Wozzeck, by Alban Berg!
JS Willans
Pkatula (pka...@aol.com) wrote:
: I really enjoyed reading this thread. Of course, I know it's not so
: much a matter of being superhuman, as it is of realizing that people
: have a few different personality temperaments, according to personality
: theorists such as Jung (remember Psych 101?). Now, I want to elaborate
: on the two personality temperaments specifically adept at performance,
: and I want to point out that these two temperaments describe just about
: everyone you would think of as a virtuoso. The note is particularly
: good in this thread since Rubinstein has been studied in such a way and
: a post was just made that included him (as it should). The discussion
: is taken from a letter from me to one of my friends (who as you will
: see has the _other_ personality type), but it was compiled from various
: articles and books a bit too numerous to give credit to in an informal
: newsgroup discussion such as this (I'd be happy to provide the basic
: reference if anyone wants it).
:
: -Paul Katula
:
: ----
reading the discussion, it sums up how I feel without exception, and have
printed a copy for my reference (I hope this is okay). Concert pianists are
certainly very intelligent but I feel not superhuman, quiet the contary in
fact, concert pianists are very human they can express emotion in a very
down to earth fashion, their technical skills and ability to remember the
long musical pieces are to my mind not important (they are merely a
formality that can be gained by most intelligent musicians). The ability
of pianists to bring music to life, to make you love a piece of music, is
difficult. The lay musician, however good, can not always be put in the
concert situation and make this happen.
Regards
James
______________________________________________________________________________
James Willans (_ _) Music and Computing Student
University of Keele | | __ _ _ _____ ___ ___ email u5...@cs.keele.ac.uk
Keele | |/ _' | '_ _ \/ _ \/ __| u5...@cc.keele.ac.uk
Staffordshire _| | (_| | | | | | __/\__ \
ENGLAND \___|\__,_|_| | |_|\___/|___/
Pkatula
James Willans wrote:
> Concert pianists are certainly very intelligent.
As a group, compared with the general population, you're probably right
(then again, so are university students), but one difference between
the two "performance personalities" I spoke of is that those who seek
perfection but cannot quite achieve it tend to focus more on their
intelligence as another means by which they become competent pianists;
they tend to memorize to become more competent at memorization. Those
in Rubinstein's group, who achieve perfection but do not seek it, just
happen to memorize the music because they practice for so long;
intelligence has nothing to do with it; the memorization "goal" is
merely incidental and achieved along the way.
> Concert pianists are very human. They can express emotion in a very
> down-to-earth fashion.
_Very_ human?? :) I know what you meant (and agree), but I think the
original poster was just trying to say that virtuosos have unique
personalities which predispose them to behaviors which lead to
virtuosity. "Down-to-earth" is a really good way to describe it:
Those in Rubinstein's group are so naturally down-to-earth in
everything they do--their thought processes, their performance--that
they have no need to "develop" this abstract "ability". In other
words, they simply express emotion because it's there; ability really
just helps them with the expression, at least in their own minds, which
work in a "matter-of-fact" way. If there's emotion, they express it;
if there's not, they don't. In any event, they are not usually
consciously aware of "working" on expressing emotion. _When they are
performing_, it's not really an effort to express the emotion.
Now, those in the other group, which includes many performers who just
can't seem to get a performance note-perfect, tend to be extremely
aware of the emotion, can discuss it with words (and, depending on
intelligence, can understand it in performances by others), try very
hard to express it in music, but just can never get it to their
satisfaction. The reason is that they are concentrating so hard on
improving that their minds will never allow them to hear their
performance as perfect, since this would contradict their natural
belief that there is always room for improvement. To them, their own
performance will always seem like it's missing something, especially if
they compare it to those of performers with Rubinstein's personality.
Interestingly enough, performers in Rubinstein's group are less aware
of technical errors when they are performing (though they make fewer).
In fact, performers in this group will often use recordings and
criticism from other musicians as a crutch to verify the technical
accuracy of their own performances. Those in the other group might
record rehearsals but tend to rely much more on their own memory of
what they played for detection of technical errors. This difference is
more noticeable in students, of course.
> Their technical skills and ability to remember the long musical
> pieces are to my mind not important (they are merely a formality
> that can be gained by most intelligent musicians).
I'm sure Rubinstein would agree with you; skills, the achievement of
"goals", any products such as recording, and so on are completely
incidental. I would not agree. His interest is the performance, the
doing, what is happening right now. My goal is to improve, to become
competent, to make myself better down the road. Both groups of
performers will dedicate hours to practice, but I'll give up way before
he does, when I realize I'm not actually accomplishing anything
further. My very spirit will stop me upon realization of diminishing
returns for my effort of practicing. People in Rubinstein's group are
not interested in returns for their effort, so they will achieve
superior virtuosity, as they are able to continue indefinitely, long
after everyone else would have given up.
> The ability of pianists to bring music to life, to make you love a
> piece of music, is difficult. The lay musician, however good, can
> not always be put in the concert situation and make this happen.
Performers are able to bring music to life, and skill-developers simply
perform each time with increasing precision (which, by the way, some
people will claim is enough for a good piece of music). As a skill,
independent of the person, bringing music to life is difficult, but
some (with performance- or skill-centered personalities) will practice
the long hours necessary to achieve it and some (who, in fact, probably
will be confused at how hard we have to work at this) will not.
True virtuosos operate on a different plane, having the natural ability
to bring out the emotion of a piece of music and express it just as
instinctively as they understand it. Those with goal-directed
tendencies, like me, really can't see beyond development of a skill
(which can still become quite good) to find the true emotion in a piece
when we perform. Those with performance-directed personalities, like
you, probably don't care the least bit about developing a skill (unless
it allows you to perform some piece of music) and express emotion
naturally. Maybe a good example of this difference is playing thirds
rapidly. Whereas I care about this skill and would be content to play
exercises all day, your thoughts would probably me more like "Who cares
about playing running thirds in both hands for 4 octaves, because no
one ever wrote that in a piece of good music?" I envy you for the
effortlessness with which you probably play.
Regards,
Paul Katula
Mike Imbler
Reading biographies of the great pianists, one thing stands out: Nearly
all start at an extremely early age. Not to downplay the great dedication
and sacrifice it takes to become a great pianist, I wonder if starting at
the age where the human brain is focused on developing language is almost
a necessity. The great musicians speak music as a language. Those of us
who learn a language as adults are translating our thoughts....
What do you think,
Mike
kojisato
> Yup. Take for instance Richter's ridiculous performance of the
> Appassionata at Carnegie Hall.....and even after hitting dozens of
> wrong notes was praised as though he were some sort of genius...
> He doesn't fool me! :-)
>
> -Nathan
Finally! Someone who agrees mith me about this performance....
Koji Attwood
Gary Waugh
Mike Imbler <MIKE-...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
<54c8jv$o...@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>...
I'd agree with this. Whilst I am in no way of concert standard (or even
close), I did start learning music and the piano as a very small child (age
3-4 or thereabouts), and it became natural for me to be able to read music
as easily as English, 'hearing' the sounds in my head. Now, when I'm asked
how you learn to do this, I find it difficult to answer in any definitive
way (beyond the suggestion that writing music helps, especially if you work
away from the piano) simply because I learnt to do it at the same time as I
was learning to read, and it's going to be a very different process for an
adult. Whilst it's certainly possible to learn at a later time in life,
it's much harder to do and requires a great deal of determination.
Could a gift for languages help an adult student? - Despite being a
qualified teacher (although I haven't taught for years), I have no
experiences to suggest whether or not this may be the case - does anyone
out there have an opinion?
--
Gary Waugh
<na...@dial.pipex.com>
Mike Imbler
"Gary Waugh" <na...@dial.pipex.com> wrote:
snip
>Could a gift for languages help an adult student? - Despite being a
>qualified teacher (although I haven't taught for years), I have no
>experiences to suggest whether or not this may be the case - does anyone
>out there have an opinion?
>
Mike
10636...@compuserve.com
Kenneth Leong wrote:
>
> I was just wondering how concert pianists manage to play for half an
> hour or an hour of incredibly difficult pieces without any noticeable
> mistakes or anything like that. And how do they remember thousands and
> thousands of notes without needing a book? Sure....people can play
> really fast up and down the keyboard for short durations...but it's
> scary when you see a concert pianist play for ages and with such control
> and discipline. Their style is almost robot like....have these kinds of
> people got something better than the average human?
>
> Also I was wondering if there has ever been any big concerts where
> the pianist has slipped or made a noticeable mistake and had to stop for
> a while?
>
Half the job of memorising music is completed simply through the sort of
continuous repetition that is needed to practice difficult music. By
analogy, if you take the same route to work everyday you can eventually
do it without even thinking. Concert pianists practice for HOURS. There's
no mystery except bloody hard work. I'm a cocktail-type pianist with over
1,000 songs in my repertoire, acquired simply by playing lots and lots.
No big deal.
10636...@compuserve.com
Eli
Concert pianists are not superhuman. If they were, they'd be able to play any piece of music without flubs.
I've heard mistakes many times in concert. The point is it's only real musicians who notice the mistakes. The general listener is not educated enough to recognize what a mistake sounds like on a particular instrument, which is certainly different from a missed queue in the horn section (not always as obvious as that!).
I haven't listened to a Vladimir Horowitz recording that didn't have more than one mistake. But it doesn't matter because the essence of articulation which he expresses in his piano-playing makes all else irrelevant.
On his "Discovered Treasures" CD, listen to the Scarlatti B minor Sonata (K.197; L.147). Simply gorgeous! Obviously, it's really Domenico, himself, who really deserves all the credit. Imagine what it might be like to listen to Scarlatti play his own compositions -- or Beethoven -- or Chopin?
In the past two years, I've learned movements I & II of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and Mozart's 23rd Concerto such that I can do it in my sleep. It's not that they are technically extraordinary pieces (like the Saint-Saens 2nd Concerto or some Prokofiev Sonatas). One must simply play, play, play... until it becomes second nature (like holding a toothbrush in one's hand!). At that point, you'll begin to focus less on hitting the correct notes and begin instead to form and express the music into an element of conversation. That's the essence of what all of the really great musicians do, oh so well!
But be aware of sensory mechanisms. When I play the Scarlatti F minor sonata (I forget the number, you may recall that there are over 600 of 'em!) I can only do it with my eyes closed. The minute I open my eyes, boom, memory-lapse. The reason this happens is because when I learned it, I probably did it with my eyes closed.
"Rudy" Serkin was a notorious hummer -- you can hear him hummin' away on many of his recordings. Why? Because he probably memorized the music that way.
Moral: Don't pick your nose during a cadence or just before a cadenza, otherwise it may develop into an integral part of your performance.
Eli
If the Saint-Saens 2nd Piano Concerto is simply a student concerto, then why the hell doesn't anyone ever play it, or record it?
I mean, come on, Bella Davidovich, Cecile Licad and the late Artur Rubinstein, couldn't cut it!
Andre Watts tried to, but his Tschaikovsky and Rachmaninoff are much better, as is Richter's!
Is Phillipe Entremont the only owner of this warhorse or what?
Yevgeny Kissin, why don't you challenge yourself? Get away from that "crazy" Hungarian, Liszt,
for a while and try the Saint-Saens live! If you're really a wunderkind, then prove it. Prove to your record-buying fans that you're worth that $1 Million dollar penthouse apartment in the Ansonia
Building, on 73rd & Broadway!
Tal Wyatt
Eli wrote:
>
> Concert pianists are not superhuman. If they were, they'd be able to
> play any piece of music without flubs.
>
> I've heard mistakes many times in concert. The point is it's only
> real musicians who notice the mistakes. The general listener is not
> educated enough to recognize what a mistake sounds like on a
> particular instrument, which is certainly different from a missed
> queue in the horn section (not always as obvious as that!).
>
> I haven't listened to a Vladimir Horowitz recording that didn't have
> more than one mistake. But it doesn't matter because the essence of
> articulation which he expresses in his piano-playing makes all else
> irrelevant.
>
Horowitz even said that it's good to make a mistake every once in a
while to make sure that you don't become a machine, so that you staying
a little daring and adventurous.
> On his "Discovered Treasures" CD, listen to the Scarlatti B minor
> Sonata (K.197; L.147). Simply gorgeous! Obviously, it's really
> Domenico, himself, who really deserves all the credit. Imagine what
> it might be like to listen to Scarlatti play his own compositions --
> or Beethoven -- or Chopin?
A pianist and a composer are two different things. And unfortunately,
so are a pianist and a musician. We need to be both. Horowitz could do
things with the piano that most composers couldn't control.
After Rachmaninoff (who was a legendary pianist as well) heard Vladimir
play his 3rd Piano Concerto, he never played it again in public. He
knew that Horowitz had an better facility with the instrument which
enabled him to express himself more elegantly and I guess Rachmaninoff
became self conscious of his own playing of the piece.
>
> In the past two years, I've learned movements I & II of Beethoven's
> Moonlight Sonata and Mozart's 23rd Concerto such that I can do it in
> my sleep. It's not that they are technically extraordinary pieces
> (like the Saint-Saens 2nd Concerto or some Prokofiev Sonatas). One
> must simply play, play, play... until it becomes second nature (like
> holding a toothbrush in one's hand!). At that point, you'll begin to
> focus less on hitting the correct notes and begin instead to form and
> express the music into an element of conversation. That's the essence
> of what all of the really great musicians do, oh so well!
I agree. Playing the piano is like speaking a language. You develop
the skills and then you use them to say something worthwhile.
> But be aware of sensory mechanisms. When I play the Scarlatti F minor
> sonata (I forget the number, you may recall that there are over 600 of
> 'em!) I can only do it with my eyes closed. The minute I open my
> eyes, boom, memory-lapse. The reason this happens is because when I
> learned it, I probably did it with my eyes closed.
Be careful with learning pieces with your eyes closed unless you're one
of those people with a photographic memory. It works well with some of
the easier pieces, but as you get to hairier pieces like Liszt's Valse
Infernale transcription (Meyerbeer) or Prokoffiev's Toccata Op.11,
frankly you need all the help you can get just to make it safely through
these pieces. Use your eyes, your ears, and your fingers to remember
these pieces.
The most I could handle with my eyes closed would be Beethoven's
Appassionatta or Chopin's Heroic Polonaise. It just makes the
"difficult" pieces harder so I use it in moderation.
> "Rudy" Serkin was a notorious hummer -- you can hear him hummin' away
> on many of his recordings. Why? Because he probably memorized the
> music that way.
If you watch Horowitz closely in his video-taped concerts, you'll notice
that he usually "mouths" the melodic line very slightly, more often with
his tongue than with his lips, instead of humming. He was always an
advocate of the bel canto (singing) style of playing. While he couldn't
sing worth a hoot, he moved his mouth and the piano sang for him.
I find that actually humming or singing tends to cover up the colors and
contrasts in the notes--not to the audience but to the pianist. So it's
not my style.
But one of the obvious benefits of humming or just "lip synching" is
that it calibrates the body's breathing pattern to the phrasing and most
of all the pace of the music. I wonder if you could imagine how wierd
it would sound to hear someone playing Scarlatti's wonderful F minor
sonata (K466 L118) while panting like a dog. It just doesn't mix.
Unless you're recording a soundtrack for Nintendo.
>
> Moral: Don't pick your nose during a cadence or just before a cadenza,
> otherwise it may develop into an integral part of your performance.
Good advice.
cc...@aol.com
See my web page at http://members.aol.com/cc88m/PianoBook.html about
concert pianists. I've written a book on this.
cc...@aol.com
A lot of the answer is in my book, Fundamentals of Piano Practice; it is
in the method of practice, although being a genius helps. Look up my web
page at http://members.aol.com/cc88m/PianoBook.html (observe the
capitals). It teaches the Franz Lizst method, which can be over 1000
times faster than what you might be now using!!!