The Art of Playing Piano

864 Words4 Pages
In Lieu of a Preface: -”Before beginning to learn an instrument, the learner… should already be spiritually in possession of some music” -”The whole secret of talent and of genius is that in the case of a person so gifted, music lives a full life in his brain before he even touches a keyboard” -The work performed, the performer, and the instrument: these are three fundamental elements -Completely master the instrument in order to serve the cause of music: otherwise, imperfect playing from “musical” point of view -The clearer the goal the clearer the means of attaining -Learn ASAP “the artistic image:” content, meaning, poetic substance, musical meaning, understand through theory and explain it -Technique comes from Greek that means “art” ~”Any improvement of technique is an improvement of art itself and consequently helps to reveal the ‘content,’ the hidden meaning” -Technique does not just refer to velocity, evenness, bravura, “flashing and bashing” -Faultless reading of notes do not ensure artistic performance; technique refers to NOTES + ARTISTIC READING -With very gifted, it is difficult to draw distinction between work at technique and work at music; to them it is one-in-the-same -Repetition is mother of tuition ”It is well known that Liszt would sometimes repeat a particularly difficult bit over a hundred times. When Sviatoslav Richter played me Prokofiev’s Ninth Sonata (dedicated to him) for the first time, I could not help noticing that one very difficult, polyphonic and very lively bit (in the third movement, some ten bars, no more) came off particularly well. He said to me: ‘I practiced this bit without interruption for two hours.’ This is the right method for it gives splendid results… You have to put the kettle on the stove and not take it off until it boils. But you bring the water up to a temperature of about 40 or 50, then turn off

More about The Art of Playing Piano

Open Document