Is there a limit to your abilities?

[pianogal86]

What do you all think?  Is there a personal limit that you can reach in your piano studies and performances?  I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I am considering making piano my life, but wonder if I will ever be really truly good.  I guess I'm confused because of all the musical prodigies in history.  Have all great musicans been born with their musical life laid out, or is there some of them who started late, and had to work, work, work to accomplish their goals?  I want to be an accomplished musician/performer/educator, and I have the stamina, discipline, and work ethic to back it up, but I'm not especially good (not really bad either) though I try.
H.J.

[Dave_2004_G]

Well how old are you at the moment?

Dave

[pianogal86]

I am 17.

H.J.

[meiting]

There's no limit before you turn 5. Afterwards it depends on your natural gifts. imho

[dinosaurtales]

Natural gift, yes, but also the family environment and attitudes toward music growing up.  As an example, I LOVED the piano for years, and wanted to be a pianist.  If I learnt a Beethoven sonata and played it for my mom, she'd say *oh that's lovely, dear.  now play the Entertainer.  You play that so well!*.   My dad thought music was a *fun after school activity*.  My teacher was the nice old lady up the street that taught lessons.  Not exactly conducive to developing a career musician. No matter how much I practiced, and how good I *thought* I was getting, going to Interlochen really drove it home that I never had a chance.  Unless I was some sort of prodigy no one would have ever directed me to music in a serioius way.  So natural gift is necessary, but some adult person needs to notice the gift to get it used properly!  (Not that I ever had it really - I just didn't know any better)

BTW, that doesn't mean you can't love and enjoy music all your life.  I also play clarinet in a very good symphonic band, and wouldn't give it up for anything - great friends, great times!  That's what life is all about!

[Chitch]

You've got it, DinosaurTales, parents will always say things like "Oh that's nice" and say that's their way of showing support. Bullshit, what kind of support is that? Unless, by chance you're playing a piece that they know and like. But, with the practice hours you'll be spending on that song/piece they'll hate it by the next day and still feed the "Oh that's nice" like we're idiots.

From all of my students I can pick out who has the most supportive parents by looking at their success rate. I've got parents setting up recitals at each others houses (Mind you they only know each other from recitals we've had at the school) because they support not only their child, but all children in music. What the *** is this? I went to the same school, had a bunch of recitals their and not once did any of the parents show this kind of dedication.

Anyway, there's no telling how successful one person will be in music. Obviously most of it is based on their dedication to learning and their joy of playing. I disagree with you Mei-Ting (!), many people start music late and show the same if not better success at it than people who have been playing since they were 5 or 6.

[chopiabin]

Mikhail Pletnev didn't start until he was 13.

[IgnazPaderewski]

there is NO limit or maximum age. If you are talented, intelligent, and dedicated, you can accomplish anything. Remember, the only part that is helped by extreme youth (reflexes and technique) is the easy bit. What is hard (musical understanding) depends on your mindset, rather than your  age.

[eddie92099]

To rephrase the question, is there a point at which your practicing no longer improves your playing?
On first thought, I think "no". However, this begs the question, if we put enough time into it, then can we all play like Martha Argerich? Also, the answer is no. Either it would take more than a lifetime's practice to achieve that level, or there is, at some point, a limit to our abilities, making the answer to the first question "yes".  :-/,
Ed

[snafflemoose]

I personally don't think there is any limit to what we achieve on the piano. It is merely a matter of indentifying problems and finding solutions around those problems, be they technical or musical.  Martha Argerich (as she has already been mentioned) may be able to achievesome wonderful technical effects on the piano, but her basic physical makeup is no different to the rest of us.  She has simply taught her muscles and joints to respond in certain ways to certain technical stimuli.  There is no genetic deformity which produces 'piano hand's' - they are a result of careful practice and an intelligent approach to technical problem solving.  Slow practice is essential for this, as each technical difficulty needs to be programmed into the hands at a gradually increasing speed in order for the brain to correctly calculate the exact progression of movements needed.  

As for musicality.  Much of what we call musicality is simply musical interpretation.  I personally hate Stern's recording of the Barber violin concerto, or Horowitz' Prok 7 and would call them both un-musical.  But it is the interpretation that I dislike - they are both musical performances (whatever that means!?) Interpretation CAN be learnt, through careful listening and study of performances.  One old piano teacher of mine used to furnish me with tapes of 5 of 6 different recordings of pieces that I was learning (including recordings which he considered to be sub-standard), in order for me to analyse the differences and create my own interpretation based on my own emotional response to the music enhanced by my understanding of what others had also done with the same raw material.  

Good pianism is relies very heavily on intelligent analysis and problem solving.  If one possesses the intellect to grasp the musical and technical difficulties in a piece and respond to them in a personal and reasoned manner then there is no limit to what one can achieve.  

[bitus]

As in every other domain, the more you learn, the more you figure out how little you know. There's no limit! And you only are getting better when you get to that conclusion!
Will power can beat any age limit...
And remember... in music... unles you are the best out of the best in the place where you are, there's no way you can make it in life and be full satisfied...
You choose a hard way, but you must be aware of the ups and downs... and if you have the strenght to make it trough both of those, then it's worth it.
Bitus.

[The Tempest]

In my opinion, it depends on whether or not you are born with the rare gift. For example, look at Arrau playing Liszt's TEs at 12; obviously he's been born with that gift. Then look at some hopeless individual (like me ); no matter how many hours they practise they won't get as far as someone born with it.

[snafflemoose]

The very fact that you class yourself as 'some poor individual' and that you have resigned yourself to never playing Liszt's Transcendental Etudes is the very reason why you will never play them!  Programme them for a concert (or maybe one of them - let's be reasonable) and force yourself to learn it.  Don't look at it as something which is beyond your ability - it isn't.  True you may have to spend longer learning it than some people; but that is simply due to the barriers which you put up to your belief in your own abilities.  

[bernhard]

Yes.

Death.

[eddie92099]

Programme them for a concert (or maybe one of them - let's be reasonable) and force yourself to learn it.  Don't look at it as something which is beyond your ability - it isn't.

How do you know? There is no point in programming a piece beyond your ability,
Ed

[meiting]

There IS a limit to your abilities. there ALWAYS is. That's what being human is about. Practicing is all well and good, but if you don't have the talent there's not much you can do - at least that's what most people believe. I believe that talent comes from early development. It doesn't mean that you can't have talent without early development, but with it you most certainly will. That was what my post about before 5 meant. If you start piano before the age of 5, preferably, before 4, and keep at it (so you need dedicated parents, good teacher, a combination of things) then you WILL be good. Humans are a product of their surroundings, true, but once you go past a certain age, THEN talent will dictate what you can or can't do. There are people who are wonderful musicians, who started late in their career, but have certain things pianistically that they'll never be able to do. That is a limit present for SOME late starters. Do you know of ANY pianists who started at the age of 3 and continued playing till adult life, and has a bad technique? no.

That being said, even for those who start early, kept playing, and have good, great, or amazing technique, there STILL is a limit to one's abilities. You can be the greatest pianist in the history (no names mentioned don't want another "overrated pianist" thread here..) of piano playing and you'll STILL have limits. Hence you always try to get better, and approach your limits.

Though I will say this. Most people don't get anywhere CLOSE to what their limit is. I believe that most pianists in the world have much more talent they give themselves credit for, and are capable of much greater things than they believe themselves to be of.. um, bad grammer, excuse me.

mt

[bitus]

meiting... you have a good point... if one can reach the best of playing the piano, then why should he practice more?
And, yo... The Tempest... it's the bigest mistake not to trust yourself... even if you know you cannot be at Arrau's level, you stil have to trust in yourself and try your best... otherwise, there will be very mediocre progress in your playing.
The Bitus.

[Hmoll]

 if one can reach the best of playing the piano, then why should he practice more?

The short answer is: to maintain repertoire, and learn new repertoire.

However, like meiting said, most people do not approach the limit of their abilities because of external adn internal constraints imposed on them. How many people do you know who never learned the piano because they said they have "no musical talent"? These people allowed someone else to convince them they are not able to learn something that they probably could have.

Instead of focusing on what your limits are, focus on what it is possible for you to acheive.  As people approach their so-called limit, they may not take quantum leaps in improvement, but instead improve more slowly. No matter how good anyone is, they can still get a little better.

[annrach3]

The point  is, you cannot quantify your abilities (e.g. how many and how much), so basically it's limitless. Everytime you gain more skills in playing, you are stretching the limit of your abilities.

sometimes creativity is the key to gain more skills in playing...

[meiting]

you CAN quantify your abilities at least to some point. There is a limit to how fast you can play scales - not that that matters that much, but you CAN quantify that. There is a limit to how reliable you can play soft things - that's also quantifiable. And a limit to how loud you can play. You can also quantify how many notes you missed. And as a figure of percentages, how reliable those things are. And you can quantify how many people enjoy your performance.

[bitus]

meiting... that's not true, not in this context. You can quantify what your abilities are at one point, but not your limits. Agree?
The Bitus

[meiting]

Yes:) you can quantify your abilities, but you can't quantify your limits until you reach them. But that doesn't mean you're limitless

[bitus]

Well, meiting... perfection cannot be achieved by man... in this way, i agree with you there's a limit. However... the question makes more sense like this: has anybody ever reached his/her limit of abilities?
In that way, my friend... i believe there's no limit
The Bitus

[Chitch]

Is there any one piece that truly challenges your physical abilities in all or almost all aspects of music?

[bitus]

Etienne... that would be a cool new topic ;] Though it would test many people's honesty
The Bitus

[c_vince]

Yes.

Death.

hahaha.. so simplistic, yet so true  

[super_ardua]

Yes:) you can quantify your abilities, but you can't quantify your limits until you reach them. But that doesn't mean you're limitless

That is a good point also.

I have a thought :

People's limits are slightly higher than they think ; for example there was a thread quite  a while ago with people thinking that it was near impossible to get octaves at the same speed and control as Yundi Li.  I thought so too.  However,  I applied myself to this problem,  and I found,  given another few months,  it is very possible - even for me,  who most people studying for the same time have overtaken in skill - all humans have roughly the same amount of brain,  and it can be tuned to coordinate amazing tasks.