Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. Today I have a really provocative subject for you: Why You Must Learn to Fake at the Piano. Now, if you have ever had a teacher or studied seriously, you have probably been told that faking is the worst thing you can do. You want to play with integrity. You want to honor the score. So how could I possibly tell you that you absolutely must learn how to fake?
The Wall Between Practicing and Performing
I have talked before about the necessity of building a wall between practicing and performing. They are completely different experiences. If you are not clear which one you are doing, you are likely not accomplishing either one effectively.
When you are practicing and something goes wrong, you must stop immediately. Find the place in the score. Identify the correction. Cement the correction. Then go back a bit so you can pass that trouble spot successfully. Finally, return to the beginning of the piece or section and integrate the fix into the larger context. That is how you prevent mistakes from becoming ingrained. You nip them in the bud. But when you are performing, the situation is exactly the opposite. The last thing an audience wants to hear is you practicing while you are supposed to be playing for them.
Why You Must Keep Going in Performance
In performance, if something goes wrong, you must keep going no matter what. You might wonder how great concert pianists can play for hours and seem flawless. Of course, nobody is perfect. There are always finger slips or momentatry memory lapses. The difference is that seasoned artists know how to recover without disrupting the flow.
When I was a child, I had the opportunity to hear the great Arthur Rubinstein in concert for his 80th birthday. I was enthralled. We even got to meet him afterward, and he was incredibly gracious. After the concert, my father mentioned that in the Beethoven sonata Rubinstein had improvised his way through a memory slip. I was shocked. I had no idea anything had gone wrong, and I would guess that the vast majority of the audience did not notice either. Only someone who knew the piece intimately could have detected it. That is the art of faking. It is not about being careless. It is about preserving the musical experience for the listener.
The Danger of Stopping
Think of watching a movie. You are absorbed in the story. If there is a sudden jump cut or the film skips backward even briefly, it is jarring. It takes you out of the magic. The same thing happens in music. The moment you lose time or stop to fix something, even listeners who know nothing about music can feel it. Suddenly they cannot follow the pulse. Instead of enjoying the music, they start worrying about you. That tension replaces enjoyment. As much as you may want to fix the mistake, you must resist that temptation in performance.
Practice Performing
There is practicing. There is performing. And then there is practicing performing. Whenever you sit down at the piano, you should know which one you are doing.
To practice performing, take a piece you feel reasonably secure with and play it through as though you are in concert. Do not stop. No matter what happens, keep going. If you lose your place, keep one hand moving while the other finds its way. Stay in time. Do not go back. Do not skip ahead. Stay where you are in the music and reestablish control. It is far better to simplify or approximate for a moment than to derail the entire performance. You can even record yourself and make a rule that once you start, you cannot stop. This is tremendously valuable training.
Develop Your Ear to Support Recovery
One of the best ways to strengthen this skill is to sing your music. The piano is unique in that you can produce a sound simply by pressing a key. You do not have to hear it internally first. But when you sing, you must hear the pitch before you produce it. As a French horn player, I can tell you that you absolutely have to hear the notes before you play them. Singing builds that connection between your ear and your fingers. If you can sing a melody and have even modest ability to play by ear, you can often find your way through a rough patch without anyone realizing it. Keep counting. Keep the fingers moving. Stay in the moment. Over time, this even enhances your musicianship. I have had occasions where I experienced a brief memory lapse and played by ear to get through it, only to discover afterward, listening to the recording, that I had actually played the correct notes! That comes from improvising and developing a strong connection between what you hear and what you play.
The Secret to Confident Performing
Prepare thoroughly before any performance. Then practice performing. Play for friends. Play for small groups, then larger ones. Use those opportunities to experiment with keeping the flow no matter what happens. When you know you can recover smoothly, much of the fear of performance disappears. And your audience will appreciate a seamless musical experience far more than a technically perfect one interrupted by stops and restarts.
So remember, build that solid wall between practicing and performing. Know which one you are doing. And yes, learn how to fake. If you cultivate your ear, practice performing, and stay committed to the musical flow, your faking can become so seamless that, just like that Rubinstein concert, nobody will be the wiser. That is the lesson for today. Embrace it, and it can be a true game changer in your piano playing.
This is Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource. Thanks so much for joining me.