Can amateurs have more fun?

[alzado]

I was playing a classical piece for my teacher.  I believe it was one from MacDowell's Woodland Sketches, if my memory serves me.

The piece had lots of dynamic notations here and there -- more than one usually finds.  "pp" "mf" and the like.  Also Italian phrases suggesting various finesse. 

I told my teacher, "that sort of thing drives me crazy.  I will just play it the way I want to play it." 

Her reply-- do as you wish . . . but a professional can't really be cavalier about things like that. 

Recently I was playing another piece for her with numerous rolled chords.  I didn't care to roll so frequently, and skipped most of the rolls.  Occasionally, where it thought it made sense, I would roll the chords.

When she played it to demonstrate, she rolled all the chords so marked.  Frankly, I didn't care for it much that way.  Apparently, as a grad of a piano performance program at a good university, she feels she must observe certain "standards."  [I don't mean to sound like I am "knocking" this.]

Sometimes I almost suspect it is more enjoyable to be an amateur.  My only problem is that I just don't play nearly as well as my teacher, and probably never will.

Other than that . . . . .

[thalbergmad]

she feels she must observe certain "standards." 

Then she is completely different to my teacher who has none. If i play him something and he likes it, he does not really care how or what i did. However, i think perhaps that if i was a youngster who aspired to become a concert pianist, he might well have certain standards.

I cannot speak for all amateurs, but this one here i am sure has more fun than his teacher.

I practise when i want, play when i want and what i want, i don't have to go on tour playing on sub standard pianos and staying in crap hotels and i am under no contractual obligation even to turn up to lessons.

I am so glad i was neither good enough or interested enough to make it into the pro ranks.

Thal

[nyonyo]

I have totally different view on this. I am an amateur, but I want to know the standard way  doing certain things. Many times during my lesson when my teacher instructed me to do something, I will ask him "Is it the standard way, or it is Mischa's way?" By the way, his name is Mikhail. I will force myself to do the standard way, because later if I want, I can do whatever way I want. But I want to know what a real professional pianist does. For me, being able to play as close as what a professionals do is much more satisfying than for example owning an expensive piano. But everybody has different goal in life.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I firmly believe amateurs can have more fun. I'm in the slightly anomalous position of being an amateur who plays piano primarily as a hobby, but who also gets to perform in public fairly regularly. I try to adhere to certain professional standards in my playing, but on the other hand, I can play exactly what I want, when I want. I don't feel any obligation to learn certain "standard" pieces of repertory "because it is expected that a performer should play sonata X", and I play exactly the pieces which interest me. I derive great satisfaction from an audience enjoying some obscure music that they are unlikely to ever hear elsewhere - this is very much a plus side of my amateur status.

[richard black]

I'm a professional and I have plenty of fun. But I'm not a very ambitious professional....

[lostinidlewonder]

Some amateurs (and even pros) like to skip the intricate details of playing a piece wonderfully and like to simply play just good. All musical students who are interested in the sound they produce and in the mechanics to produce their desired sound have great interest and fun trying to achieve their dream. That is my hope anyway. Some simply like to hit the right notes and don't care so much about the sound produced, musical immaturity I see in many young pianists.

A professional is not a slave to the sheet music or a singular concept as to how a piece should be played. In competition you might find it a different situation (you play in the way the adjudicators approve) but in public concerts of your own you basically can do whatever you like. So long what you do sounds right and is interesting and of good musical taste. These are all generalizations and its hard to put your thumb on exactly what this means, but if you can entertain then your doing it right.

Professionals have a lot more fun IMO because in public performances you can do whatever you like. It is your business your service your goods you are putting out there, you can talk, enchance your concerts with your insights into music, then you can demonstrate your ideas with sound. As a professional you have all your time dedicated to the search for the ulitmate way to play your music. If you love music, then this is very fun. Professionals are constantly with their music so they are always having fun, although it is hair pulling out hard work sometimes, we love it.

[pianistimo]

I also see this question from both sides.  I think both amateurs AND pros have fun in different ways.  As lostinidlewonder says - the pros have probably more fun because they are taking a discipline farther.  But, not performing much myself and considering myself working towards it  - i'd say that those amateurs like rondes des sylphes who perform a lot actually ARE professionals.  It doesn't take someone else (competitions) to tell you that you are good enough.  I've learned that all it takes is having a few people say 'wow, I liked that.  Can you play more?'  Although, in my case and in my particular family - classical music is just 'another fact of life' and nothing to get overly excited about.  If only...I had some PF friends on my street.  Encouragement from both teacher and peers is very helpful.  You see a reason to perform - and not just for self.  I enjoy practicing when I know there might be a venue to play what I am practicing.  Otherwise, the enjoyment of just practicing isn't really there.  You can learn a piece and forget it again - but what's the point?  I feel the point is to perform it.

[daniloperusina]

I have perfect sympathy for anyone wishing to do things their own way. In fact, this is the only way to achieve 'truth' in performance or composition.

I also think that there is more fun to be discovered around the corner, so to speak. A score is a medium where the composer is trying to communicate a musical idea that started in his/her head, at his/her piano or whatever. To try to look past the score and back to the original idea is what interpretation is about. Once you're there you're back again to doing things your own way, because it's inevitably your own understanding. You put yourself in the composer's place with the conviction that this is the original idea that would have made you write the score that way. Originality is never a concern, because you will always be original as long as you are true to your conviction. In fact, you can't avoid being original.

Altering a score is another matter. Are you doing it because you are convinced that it makes better sense? A sudden inspiration? Or are you just being obstrusive? In any case, history is packed with stories about the composers themselves doing wild deviations from the score in performance, so you'd be in good company!

The good professional is nothing but an amateur who gets paid, if he/she is good at what he/she is doing and people like him/her.

[counterpoint]

I was playing a classical piece for my teacher.  I believe it was one from MacDowell's Woodland Sketches, if my memory serves me.

The piece had lots of dynamic notations here and there -- more than one usually finds.  "pp" "mf" and the like.  Also Italian phrases suggesting various finesse. 

I told my teacher, "that sort of thing drives me crazy.  I will just play it the way I want to play it." 

Her reply-- do as you wish . . . but a professional can't really be cavalier about things like that. 

The question here is not about amateur or professional but if a musician wants to express his own ideas or if he wants to express the ideas the composer put in the work.

There are even professional pianists that take just the notes from a composition and then make their own fireworks out of it. The composer is good for telling which keys to press but then they do with them what they want.

That's not how I understand the task of a musician. Everything the composer has written in the piece is important and has to be followed, with very few exceptions, where the composer's instructions are obviously misleading. For example things like the "as fast as possible" (in Schumann's Sonata G Minor), many pedallings, many metronome marks and things like that.

The question about the fun: of course amateurs can have as much fun as professionals - sometimes even more, because they are always playing for their own amusement. But the fun does not come from being allowed to play how you want - every pianist plays like he wants. And in many cases this is just as near to what the composer wanted as can be imagined.

[viking]

Hey,
I just thought I'd put in a plug for my friend here, who's an amateur pianist who's really a dentist.  He plays the Rach 3 as good as any professional

[pianorin]

Thomas Yu?! hez great.. 

[richard black]

Everything the composer has written in the piece is important and has to be followed

That sounds like a fine sentiment and of course we all like to think we follow it (well, mostly), but since by their nature almost all musical instructions require interpretation (what you you mean by 'Allegro' or 'Forte'?) there is no absolute. And then if you listen to composers performing their own pieces - I mean composers who have properly mastered the instrument they are playing - they often take the most astonishing liberties with what they appear to have written.

[thierry13]

The question about the fun: of course amateurs can have as much fun as professionals - sometimes even more, because they are always playing for their own amusement. But the fun does not come from being allowed to play how you want - every pianist plays like he wants. And in many cases this is just as near to what the composer wanted as can be imagined.

I think professionals have more fun because they achieve way higher musical achivments and I would not be happy with an amateur result if I were a professional ... nor would I be happy of an amateur result if I was an amateur.

[Bob]

I think it's fun or can be if you want it to be so.

A professional will have fun in a different way than an amateur and there are times piano becomes dreaded work.  When I commit to something, there are times when I don't really want to be there, but have to.  The amatuer always has the option of going off track and doing whatever they want which can be fun. 

It's whatever you make it to be.

[alzado]

Everything the composer has written in the piece is important and has to be followed


This sounds like the "recording piano" that Rachmaninoff and others used early in the century.

Your quote sounds like the player hitting the keys is some sort of "recorder."

I am with those who find at least some interpretive art in the manner of the performance.  Which means -- do NOT function in a kind of "playback" mode, almost like a human CD player.

[richard black]

Everything the composer has written in the piece is important and has to be followed

Taken to extremes, I find that untenable: but surely everything the composer has written is deserving of serious consideration. They may have made a mistake here and there and they may have meant something that's not quite obvious, but they didn't put pen to paper without some kind of reason!