The 60-Day Course in Perfect Fake Piano Playing

[goose]

Thought some of you might be interested in this article from Sunday's NY Times about  actors who learn how to fake playing the piano for film roles.

May require registration:
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/movies/10toum.html?th&emc=th

Best,
Goose

[BoliverAllmon]

interesting.

[Dazzer]

already posted

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,10608.0.html

[BoliverAllmon]

and posted not that long ago. I must of missed that thread. Oh well.

[bernhard]

Here are two related threads:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3659.msg32880.html#msg32880
(actors who actually can play the piano)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3454.msg30662.html#msg30662
(pianos in movies)

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[gorbee natcase]

What on Earth is the point of that

[bernhard]

What on Earth is the point of that

Here is the point (for me at least):

We are told that to become an expert in the martial arts may take 10 or 20 years.

We are told that you can only speak a second language with a native speaker’s accent if you were raised in the country and learned the language as a child.

We are told that in order to achieve virtuoso level in piano playing we need to start as early as possible and practise eight hours a day for 10 years or more.

Then we see actors – who are not specially talented in those fields (martial arts, language, music) – being able to master convincingly such subjects in a matter of weeks. E.g., Keanu Reeves and martial arts in the matrix; Meryl Streep and her multiple accents and Katherine Hepburn and piano playing (see below). And, these are just three names thrown in as an example. Apparently actors get away with this stuff all the time as a matter fo fact.

Martial artists, native speakers and professional musicians tend to sneer: “He would never survive in a real fight (as if theywould!). She would be immediately spotted as foreigner, and anyway all she de was memorise a few select lines, she would not be able to keep that accent in any consistent way for any length of time. She might have learned to press the  notes for a little piece, but there was no musicality in it, and she would never be able to play in any satisfactory way.

Now I take a very different stand on this. Instead of getting upset, I get curious. I conclude that these actors may be into something after all. So I want to know more about their methods. Sure I could use some?

In the particular case of Hepburn (she was playing Clara Schumann in the movie “Song of love”), the actual playing you hear in the movie was done by Rubinstein, but he is on record saying that after a few weeks of coaching, her playing (of that piece) was as good as his.

“"Song of Love" opens with Clara playing the dazzling finale from Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2. The actual piano playing for the film was performed by Artur Rubinstein. Hepburn worked daily with one of his pupils, pianist Laura Dubman, on fundamentals and techniques down to the distinctive hand posture for playing the piano used during that period. This Meryl Streep like devotion to the details paid off brilliantly and the illusion that Hepburn is actually playing is quite impressive.”

(you can read reviews of this movie here:
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/630220898X/104-4906643-3963908?v=glance)

Wouldn’t you be interested in knowing what this coaching consisted of?

Best wishes,
Bernhard.