Listening to yourself play

[rchmnnffbelle]

Does anyone ever feel like even though you have all of the notes and dynamics
down that something is just missing? Like how do you not get stuck with just playing notes?
 
How do you get someone listening to you to not only be impressed with the song, or how good you handle the difficult passages, but to get caught up in it -feeling-wise. To make them wish it had never ended,or to be holding their breath when it does end? How do you hear that yourself and know when you are doing it right?

sorry if this question isn't real clear, hope it's understandable.

[ramseytheii]

I think this is along the lines of Armstrong's, "If you have to ask, you'll never know."

But to answer your third question, Nabokov said, "Rely on the sudden erection of your small dorsal hairs."

Walter Ramsey

[andric_s]

That's a difficult question.  I mean what is that "je ne sais quois," anyway?  

It might not be answerable, but it's still worth exploring.

You have to give yourself up to the music.  If I catch myself drooling onstage, it's a good sign... I think.

[bench warmer]

Your headliner is the answer.
Listen to yourself......but after you've played.
Record yourself and play it back so you can critically listen to your interpretation of the piece.

When you are playing you often only hear how you Think you are playing. Listening afterwards is a real Ear-opener (oh no, way too much pedal there! or Crap , I thought I was playing staccato but there is no continuity in the phrasing).

Listening post-playing will help you hear where you need to make changes in your playing to get the effects  you want. A teacher/coach should be able to help also.

[slobone]

Your headliner is the answer.
Listen to yourself......but after you've played.
Record yourself and play it back so you can critically listen to your interpretation of the piece.

When you are playing you often only hear how you Think you are playing. Listening afterwards is a real Ear-opener (oh no, way too much pedal there! or Crap , I thought I was playing staccato but there is no continuity in the phrasing).

Listening post-playing will help you hear where you need to make changes in your playing to get the effects  you want. A teacher/coach should be able to help also.

I only partially agree with that. Listening to recordings of yourself is very valuable, but you can and must listen to yourself in "real time" too. True, it won't sound the same to you as it would to an audience, but it's essential for correcting things that aren't quite right, and for learning the difference between just playing the notes and making music.

Listening to the piano is also crucial. By which I mean, not just which keys you pressed, how hard, and how long you held them down, but what kind of sounds the piano made after you did it. Pedalling in particular is something you can't do right if you're not listening to the piano.

And of course, every piano is different. This is yet another reason why learning to play on an electronic keyboard, especially listening through headphones, is so damaging to students.

[ted]

The trouble with me is that my perception of what is good varies. Musically trained people might not have this ambiguity; for them it is possibly a simple continuous improvement of an external sound toward some absolute mental idea of quality or goodness, which they have acquired through years of study, and which largely remains fixed. Being untrained, I find my conception of what is vital and interesting in my own playing, or anybody else's for that matter, even recordings by famous people, is unstable, even in the long term. Having said that, this very instability of perception makes listening to my recordings, especially improvisations more than a few weeks old, one of life's delights.  The only thing I refrain from is judging a recording immediately after making it. For some reason my reaction then is almost always exaggeratedly negative. I usually wait at least a day to hear it.

[atticus]

Would it help to compare your own recordings to recordings of the same piece by the masters and look for differences?  You could pick one or two things to try to incorporate into your peformance of the piece and then have a listen to see if it makes an improvement?

[ramseytheii]

These days, the concept of "taste" is always presented, unjustly, as a completely subjective matter that has no power to decree what is good or bad.  People cynically see taste as a mere fad of a cultural construct; something that comes, and goes.  Of course, there is fad taste, and there is the classic taste of those things which have elemental power, those things which last, and those things, we can see in all fields of artistic endeavor; music, painting, fashion, poetry, literature. 

It would be a mistake to view all tastes as essentially the same, as fallible as the taste for the fad.

Many people believed during his lifetime, that Gould's novel and strange playing was a fad that would soon be put to rest.  Of course the elemental power of his pianistic approach is still fascinating people more than 20 years after his death.

We should always search for the elemental, the sound principles which lend timelessness and strength of conviction to our playing, and seek to avoid only the fads, those throw-away acquisitions that make our playing eventually sound dated, weak, and sloppy.

I write all this to address this perceptive comment,

"The trouble with me is that my perception of what is good varies. Musically trained people might not have this ambiguity; for them it is possibly a simple continuous improvement of an external sound toward some absolute mental idea of quality or goodness, which they have acquired through years of study, and which largely remains fixed. Being untrained, I find my conception of what is vital and interesting in my own playing, or anybody else's for that matter, even recordings by famous people, is unstable, even in the long term. Having said that, this very instability of perception makes listening to my recordings, especially improvisations more than a few weeks old, one of life's delights.  The only thing I refrain from is judging a recording immediately after making it. For some reason my reaction then is almost always exaggeratedly negative. I usually wait at least a day to hear it."


In order to determine what is good and what is wanting in our playing, we obviously have to have a "mental idea" or "external sound" in mind.  These are built organically: this is how individual tastes are created.  I believe that a penny is enough to create a fortune, if someone is only wise and attentive enough.  So it is with building a fortune of artistic treasure and assessment: if you know one passage is beautiful, and know it without a doubt, you have the tools to seek for the beauty of any other passage.

By beauty I don't mean necessarily a sentimental, smooth sound, but rather the beauty that comes with clarity of thought and expression, the beauty that comes with an accurate reproduction of the mental ideal.

As pianists, I think we should all set about not only to improve our technical facility, but to appreciate, honor, and present this kind of beauty in ever finer and finer forms.  We should, in my opinion, always study our own work in order to more accurately and finely distinguish the exalted individual from the commonplace.

I've had students of course who tell me that they cannot tell what is good and what is not.  This may actually be true some of the time; but it is not true all of the time.  And if we know one thing that is good, we can learn a thousand things that are good.  Those who can be trusted in little things, can be trusted in large things!

Just a little ranting,
Walter Ramsey

[Bob]

I think actually being into the piece yourself will help draw people in.  All those little things fall into place.  Yes, you can perform with everything planned out, but if you're not really into the piece, it's more difficult for the audience to be.

Don't insult the audience.  I've been to a few recital were the performer seemed arrogant or condescending.  So what did I listen for?  Mistakes.  Even when they did something expressive, whether they actually felt it or not, I wasn't going to let myself feel anything because the guy was a jerk.

I think the key is being into it yourself.  If you can get that something across to the audience and they're willing to go with it, that's the goal.  I think there is plenty of room for mistakes and a good performance if you're getting that something across.

[mattgreenecomposer]

Recording yourself is so valueble.  I never thought about this when I was younger but now I always record myself first if Im going to play a concert in public.
This way you can really know your own weaknesses and strengths! Sometimes you may think your not doing something but in the recording you notice an accented note that your not intentionally doing.  Little things really add up.  For example, one of my weaknesses is "picking up" my fingers.  I play too legato so that notes are not as clear as they should be.  This is something I need to work on and would never have noticed without a recording of myself.

[rchmnnffbelle]

You have to give yourself up to the music.  If I catch myself drooling onstage, it's a good sign... I think.

  LOL    I have done that so many times!! It's so embarrassing.
 I think it can be allergies too.

 What about listening to yourself as you're playing the piano and at the same time trying to put yourself in the audiances place and listen to what they're hearing?
Is that possible?

[thierry13]

  LOL    I have done that so many times!! It's so embarrassing.
 I think it can be allergies too.

 What about listening to yourself as you're playing the piano and at the same time trying to put yourself in the audiances place and listen to what they're hearing?
Is that possible?

It is for sure you have to open your ears to the hall in wich you are playing.

[andric_s]

  LOL    I have done that so many times!! It's so embarrassing.
 I think it can be allergies too.

 What about listening to yourself as you're playing the piano and at the same time trying to put yourself in the audiances place and listen to what they're hearing?
Is that possible?

Hmmm...  it's difficult to say anything definite because it's kind of a metaphorical notion, to put one's self in the audience's place.  I guess it's one thing to hear the music subjectively, outside of one's self.  And here I find a paradox within my own philosophy.  On one hand, I strive to play free from ego, to feel that the music isn't me but that it's coming through me, and that I don't require the audience's approval.  On the other hand, I strive to feel the music to my core, to be overcome by the feeling of the music.  Um... maybe that's not such a paradox, after all.

I think my playing is at its worst when I'm overly concerned about what the audience thinks, with thoughts of "do they like me?" going through my head.  Or if I'm thinking TOO MUCH about things like getting the right notes and dynamics, it keeps me from putting anything visceral into it.  It's like  the dynamics have to come from a feeling or an urge, and then they will be correct... and powerful.

That's why I mentioned the drooling, because it means I've attained some state where I am not paying attention to my own body, where it doesn't matter if my body is doing something socially embarassing, and the music is everything.

I'm not thinking straight.  Is this paradoxical?....  "following urges"   vs   "free from ego"