Best self taught pianist?

[steinwaymodeld]

brendel <-------------------

[practicingnow]

Jazz is harder to play than classical.

Yeah OK - get real

[arensky]

Yeah OK - get real

Depends; for the person playing, Jazz would be easier, because they are creating their own parameters. But for anyone to play a transcription of one of Art Tatum's performances, this is a task that is the equivalent of a Chopin Etude, and in some cases harder. But then you're playing "classical" music when you learn one of Tatum's transcriptions, note for note as he improvised it. That is NOT Jazz...I think....

[arensky]

Regarding the stuff about individual technique, just imagine the hypothetical situation where Thelonius Monk has to give a piano lesson to Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli - or vice versa 

Wow...I would love to be the fly on the wall for that one! They actually have a lot personally in common; eccentric, reclusive, flamboyant, self modesty...I think they would probably get along! 

[porter]

Hello avensky and prometheus.

I like the descriptions of jazz piano you both use.

I find Monk, in most of his work, too abstract. There are plenty of improvisors of jazz piano that I find far more listening pleasure/inspiring than him.

I have been told that I have 'absolute pitch' (whatever that means) but if that prevents me from understanding some forms of modern jazz then so be it.

If my fingers do play something that grates on my musical soul I consider I've made an error.

Abstract music is a form I cannot appreciate. Must be my age.

To say one thing about this topic title. I would love to know how we define 'self taught'.

Surely that precludes any teaching what so ever,?

Alan

[rc]

To say one thing about this topic title. I would love to know how we define 'self taught'.

Surely that precludes any teaching what so ever,?

Alan

There's a certain branch of jazz that I have no love for either. Sometimes, late at night, comes on the radio some jazzer who seems to be trying to squeeze in as many off-key notes as possible. I have no idea why someone would deliberately do such a thing. It doesn't sound like anything to me.

I think in order to be truely self-taught, one would have to live like a hermit in a cave with no connection to the outside world. We're always picking things up from others. It's a fools pride to want to be 'self taught'.

[ted]

I think Morton would have to be one of the finest self-taught pianists. The sound and technique of his music is peculiarly his own. I have Dapogny's transcriptions of all his playing but although I can play the notes, making his pieces come to life as he did I find very difficult. I don't think he played much classical. Waller played a lot of classical in private, especially Bach, but he was a long way from being self-taught.

[thracozaag]

What is the best autodidact pianist you ever heard?

  Without question, Busoni.

koji

[stevie]

  Without question, Busoni.

koji

i think youre forgetting someone....

[prometheus]

Let me get some things straight.

When I talk about jazz I think of bebob.

Also, when I talk about jazz I see a trio, drums, bass and a solist. Nothing more, and no chords being played, only implied. (I do like piano in jazz music but for me the need for a pianist is a weakness on part of the solist and the piano is a terrible solo instrument. No expression possible.)

Surely music is at its strongest when it is abstract. I couldn't imagine it not being. I find non-abstract music a comprimise. Something for people who don't appreciate music for the sake of music alone.

Jazz is always improvised.

So yeah, I listen to jazz with those blurrs of notes where the chords are followed and the harmony is created by the solist only by putting the right notes at precisely the right time but with a lot more happening in terms of melody and rhythm.

[practicingnow]

  Without question, Busoni.

koji

Second that