complete pianist plan?

[moltar]

Hi, have you ever heard of a complete guide to becoming a full-fledged pianist? Taking every technical aspect and pieces a pianist should know into consideration, a list with pieces you should learn in chronological order?

I myself don't think this is a very good idea. Everybody learns differently, and it's not very inspiring to follow a plan religiously, but it would be interesting to see if anyone has ever written such a plan and if it yielded any results?

[tds]

where could we find that complete pianist plan u r talking about?

[moltar]

that's what I'm asking you!

[rc]

Well I guess that idea would be the graded RCM or ABRSM courses.

I can't think of anything else that comes closer to the 'complete pianist' roadmap.

[tds]

unless it was written by a concert pianist or a famous pedagogue, i wouldn't wanna waste my time reading a word of it. tds

[dan101]

It's always interesting to hear a point of view, especially if it's coming from an established concert pianist. Even if you don't agree with that point of view, the read is useful as it develops your critical thinking.

[lostinidlewonder]

There are certainly no rules as to how you become a performing concert pianist. Certainly in the modern day concert stage you have to be more of an entertainer than a performer. That you must have excellent public speaking skills and be able to use this to present your music that you play (which of course you must also play at a high standard).

You would have to win the very big competitions to really get a boost in your career, unfortunately this accounts for very few pianists every year, so aiming to make a name out of winning competitions is not a very sure way to secure your performance career.

Learning about self promotion is probably a key point for most starting out concert pianists. No matter how well you play, you will sell very few tickets if you do not know how to promote yourself, you certainly cannot hire a manager to do it for you until you know how to do it yourself. I can only attest to my own first public concert, where the hall was sold out, only because there was 3 months of promotions, preview concerts, selling my product, etc.

The thing is that being a concert pianist is very similar to running your own business. Unfortunately not many musicians are business minded, so end up never achieving their desire as a concert performer. I would say studying advertising, business skills, public speaking and motivation are key issues much more important than how well you can play your instrument.

The secret is, to give your audience something they didn't know they needed. So your performance has to be unique in that way, so that when people leave your concert they will remember you. Getting on stage, bowing, playing well, bowing and then leaving, will hardly leave an impression these days.