Piano and Music Videos

You might think this sounds simple. (All you have to do is play a note, right?) but there is actually a lot more to it. Tuning correctly with other musicians is vital to a good sounding performance.

This is a unique challenge that pianists face. Unlike pretty much every other musician who can bring their instrument with them, typically the pianist will have to perform on whatever piano is in the venue. Sometimes you will have very limited time to prepare yourself and try out the piano so it’s great to have a quick routine ready to check the piano.

There will be times that the first note you will ever get to play on a certain piano is at your performance. This type of instant adjustment is very difficult and if you can avoid this you should. Assuming you have some time to try the instrument you will want to make sure you check certain critical aspects of the piano.

The first thing I always like to check is the pedals, even before the action or anything else. This is because pedals can be drastically different from piano to piano. When I was growing up my father had a number of pianos around the house and the difference between the pedals on the Steinway baby grand and Baldwin grand were immense. On the Steinway if you even leaned your foot on the pedal the notes would begin sustaining and on the Baldwin you had nearly half an inch of play before anything would happen. It’s incredibly important to know how the pedals respond because it can drastically alter your performance.

Another thing to check with the pedals is whether or not they make any noise. For example, if the pedal thumps when you press it down with force you will want to depress it gently avoiding noise. One great test is to play a chord and, hold the pedal down and then slowly lift up to observe the point at which the pedal disengages.

When it comes to the una corda pedal (or soft pedal) the results can be dramatically different from piano to piano. On some instruments it’s like throwing a blanket over the piano and on others it is barely noticeable. This can have dramatic consequences on your performance so getting an idea of how the pedal works on a particular piano can be very important. Sometimes a piano will be voiced very bright and you might want to use the soft pedal quite a bit to give a warmer tone. Other times it might be a very dramatic effect and you will want to use it sparingly.

If your music contains sostenuto pedal (the middle pedal) you should check to see if the pedal is even functioning properly. The middle pedal is used rarely and sometimes the pedal doesn’t operate properly! If your music calls for it you really need to test to see if it is functioning properly.

The next thing I like to do is check the tone life of the piano. I do this by playing something with a high melody like a Chopin Nocturne. Getting an idea of the degree of sustain and how long the melody lasts will greatly impact how you perform on specific pianos. You will also want to check to see how quietly you can play on a piano and still control the notes. A nice slow and soft melody will help to determine this.

On the other hand, you will need to test the piano with something big. Sometimes you will play on a piano and if you go above a certain level of volume the sound will become degraded and ugly; in extreme cases you might even experience vibrations and extraneous noises. There could be issues with the damper rail guides or the felt being worn out; these are things you should test before playing a performance on a certain instrument. I will typically play a big chord section from something of Chopin or Liszt. Don’t be afraid to really settle into something and play it like you would during the performance so you discover the limits of the instrument ahead of time.

Knowing the capabilities of a piano before you perform on it can be absolutely crucial. If you have time to perform your entire program or even half your program on your performance piano you should absolutely do it. Understanding the qualities of the instrument will aid you immensely.

This seems obvious enough. What would you be doing on stage if you weren’t engaged enough to give a performance? This topic has profound implications.

I remember when I was going to the Manhattan School of Music and I attended many concerts at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. I would hear many emerging pianists and while most played brilliantly, sometimes I would find my mind wandering during some performances. I began to wonder if there was something wrong with me until I noticed that often times, there would be a memory slip by the artist just at the point that I would lose my attention. I began to understand what the real problem was.

The performer would become disengaged from their performance and it would cause them to have a momentary memory lapse. Beyond their mistake, the audience would become less involved in their performance and their brief slip indicated a loss of concentration. I began to understand the importance of staying engaged in your performance and staying focused.

It might be difficult to find enthusiasm for a piece you have practiced countless hours and played on numerous occasions. Sometimes a piece of music may become stale and your excitement for it has waned. So how do you keep yourself engaged and your audience excited?

When I perform a piece I have played hundreds of times before I try to find a new expression and find something in the music I haven’t discovered before. I bring new life to something so that it isn’t a routine run through but a fresh experience. This is something that gets me excited and raises my energy and focus during a performance. In doing this I am bringing a new level of excitement to my performance and engaging the audience in the process.

Keeping your audience engaged and entertained throughout your performance is something you must master; it’s one of the most important aspects of becoming a great performer and not just a great pianist.

Everyone practices a great deal to avoid mistakes but we are all human and sometimes mistakes just happen. I don’t care who you are or how accomplished a musician you are, there are a myriad of reasons that could create a mistake. There could be a problem with the instrument, there could be a distraction in the audience, a finger could slip, your memory could fail for a moment; the list goes on and on of potential problems that could lead to a mistake.

The best thing you can do as a musician is to play with continuity. Let’s just say there is a really big train with a lot of cars. If the train derails, there would be utter chaos – the cars would go everywhere and you would have a huge mess. But if instead of the train derailing, it simply slipped back onto the track and kept its course, while the event might be scary, it would not lead to disaster; instead the train would simply chug along almost as if nothing ever happened. This is how you need to think about a musical performance. It must keep moving along!

The worst thing you can do as a performer is to stop and dwell on a mistake. It’s absolutely crucial that in the event of a mistake you continue to maintain the proper time of the piece and make sure that you don’t stop playing. If you make a mistake that is jarring for the audience, everyone will notice no matter what level of musical sophistication they have. Just like if you are watching a movie and the frame skips even a few seconds forward or back, it is much more jarring than if there is a moment of blurriness or garbled audio.

The most important thing is to keep the music moving. This is essential when you are playing with other musicians because you will not be playing together if you lose or gain time! Even if you miss a note or crack a note you must keep moving; don’t let a mistake slow you down or stop you mentally. If you pull this off correctly nobody in the audience will be offended by the mistake. You just have to keep the flow and the time of the music intact and everyone will enjoy the performance even if it’s not perfect.

When it comes to classical music, there are typically countless details written directly into the score including dynamics, phrasing and more. Some musicians see this as a challenge in creating their own interpretation of the work. On one hand, you want to remain faithful to the composer’s intention. Yet, you want to put your individual mark on each piece you perform. So, how can you interpret classical scores to be your own and not have them sound like everyone else without deviating from the score?

Think about Beethoven playing one of his sonatas. Do you think he would play them the same way every time? I have performed certain pieces for decades – sometimes thousands of times – and yet every time I play them they are unique experiences. If the notes, the rhythm, phrasing, and expression are already written in, what can you possibly do to make it different?

Some works of art like paintings or films are works of art that are complete expressions. You can do certain things like change the lighting or setting to influence the work slightly, but generally, they are finished works which don’t allow for interpretation. On the other hand, you have literary works of someone like Shakespeare, plays that have been around for centuries and have every line of dialogue and stage direction written directly into the text. Yet every performance can be dramatically different and unique in substantial ways. Even the inflection of every word is left up to the individual actors!

A musical piece is a lot like a play or a screenplay in that it’s written down as a blueprint but it’s up to the performer to interpret and bring it to life. Just as no line of dialogue would be read the same way by two different actors, a section of music could be performed dramatically differently from musician to musician. Even the balance of a single chord on the piano can be dramatically different from pianist to pianist and from performance to performance. Even though there are some dynamics written in, how you play each note from phrase to phrase is impossible to indicate with notation alone. If you’ve ever played a score on a computer with MIDI, the results sound like a machine is playing it – there is no life to the music! This is because the score is merely a skeleton for the performer to flesh out the music and bring it to life.

As a musician who uses a reed with their instrument, the particular reed they are using, how it feels that day, and many other aspects can alter a performance dramatically. As a pianist, the sound of the piano you are performing on – even if it’s the same piano you always use – can differ from day to day. The acoustics of the room, the mood of the audience, the ambient noise, all these things factor into the sound and end result of the performance. Even your own mood can inspire different realizations of the score.

As you continue to play and perform music you will see how each piece can be interpreted differently and how each performance can differ dramatically from one another.

If you’ve been to classical concerts with multiple movements you might have heard people applauding in the wrong places. For the uninitiated, it can be a challenge. You have just heard a performance of a piece with a heroic ending and then there is silence from the audience! As a musician – especially when it comes to solo performances – you want to avoid these random bouts of applause since they can disrupt the flow of the music. This article provides some tips on how to avoid applause in the wrong places and how to deal with them when it inevitably happens.

As a performer, you will want to give your audience clues where to clap. I recently performed the Schumann G minor Sonata (a 4 movement work) and the 1st movement ends with such a ferocious finale that you might think it’s the end of the piece. If you finish the first movement in a dramatic fashion and put your arms in your lap, you will probably garner applause. While you don’t want to temper your performance diminishing the energy, when you finish, keep your hands over the keys ready to play the next movement. This will signal to the audience that there is more to come. While there is no way to definitively stop an audience from clapping, this will certainly help cue them to the structure of the work.

So what do you do if the audience begins to clap anyway? Well, there are a number of ways to handle this and some are better than others. Some people might actually stand up and take a bow in the middle of the piece. I wouldn’t suggest doing this because it disrupts the flow of the piece, however, you should acknowledge the audience in some way. You can look at them and thank them by nodding your head and smiling. They will eventually stop and everyone will realize in a few moments that there is more to come. You can handle this in different ways. I have seen performers put their hands in the air and signal the audience to stop! While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this, it certainly will help to quiet the audience. No matter what you do, it’s best to acknowledge the audience in some way so they don’t feel embarrassed.

A successful performance is not just about how you play, it comprises the entire presentation. If you find yourself in a situation where the audience has reacted before they should, you should simply thank them and move on. After all, they are there to see you and if they are applauding before they should it’s simply a sign that they have enjoyed the performance so far.