Classical vs. jazz what is harder

[mc_shas]

this is RAD!

[thierry13]

I personally find jazz much harder to play well...and I've dabbled in both classical and jazz.  With jazz you have to be able to compose on the spot and play what you have composed at that instant.  You have to have ideas in order to improvise well.  You have to have a thorough grasp of harmony and be able to plunk down complicated chords (like altered 13th chords) instantly.  You have to be able to transpose on the fly.  And you have to have some pretty fast fingers for all those runs and rapid-fire solos. 

With classical, on the other hand, the music is all written out for you.  You don't need to know anything about harmony and you certainly don't need any ideas.  As Bach said, all you have to do is press the right key at the right time and the instrument plays itself.  That's why I turned to classical after several years of trying to learn jazz piano.

Completly ridiculous post. Ho yeah you can TRY playing classical pieces with no knowledge of harmony and with no ideas. In Bach's time, music was viewed in a much more practical way than today. Music had to be composed regularly and be played well with minimal practice, and for most of his (even if they are genius works) works, it CAN work this way. But to be a real classical pianist you need to understand and grasp the very essence of the most subtle harmonic nuances, you need inspiration(ideas) to make works come to life, and if you don't think so, or do not see the difference between a midi player and Richter playing, then there's something very important and basic that is lacking in your musical intelligence. In jazz there are no true mistakes since anyways you're making things up on the spot. Classical requires perfection in every aspect, physically as well as mentally or spiritually or whatever you can come up with.

[jazzyprof]

Completly ridiculous post. Ho yeah you can TRY playing classical pieces with no knowledge of harmony and with no ideas.

What melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, or dynamic ideas do you need in order to play a piece like the Revolutionary Etude?  Chopin and some able editors have written in the dynamic markings, the slurs, the phrase marks, the tempo indication, and sometimes even the fingering.  A classical pianist can recreate the composer's creation by playing exactly what has been written down in the score.  He has no decisions to make as to what note to play next, how to voice a particular chord, whether to change the left hand accompaniment from stride to a walking bass line, whether to change the rhythm to double-time.  Of course different classical pianists will interpret the Revolutionary Etude slightly differently partly because of their physical limitations (not all can play it at 160 bpm, for example) and partly because of the way they feel the music.  But it is preposterous to claim that they come to the piece armed with a wealth of original ideas.

[thierry13]

What melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, or dynamic ideas do you need in order to play a piece like the Revolutionary Etude?  Chopin and some able editors have written in the dynamic markings, the slurs, the phrase marks, the tempo indication, and sometimes even the fingering.  A classical pianist can recreate the composer's creation by playing exactly what has been written down in the score.  He has no decisions to make as to what note to play next, how to voice a particular chord, whether to change the left hand accompaniment from stride to a walking bass line, whether to change the rhythm to double-time.  Of course different classical pianists will interpret the Revolutionary Etude slightly differently partly because of their physical limitations (not all can play it at 160 bpm, for example) and partly because of the way they feel the music.  But it is preposterous to claim that they come to the piece armed with a wealth of original ideas.

Well your post is so stunningly devoid of arguments/meaning, that all I could do would be to repeat exactly my last post, but whatever. Let's leave it this way since you clearly do not have what it takes to understand what music is all about.

[indutrial]

In jazz there are no true mistakes since anyways you're making things up on the spot. Classical requires perfection in every aspect, physically as well as mentally or spiritually or whatever you can come up with.

Indeed classical music requires more discipline, but nothing about that validates your unacceptably stupid comments about jazz/improvised music, which are always abusive in a way that makes you sound like a spiritual zero (who, ironically, calls upon some bulls**t faux 'spiritualism' that's only existent in the most disciplined classical players). Jazz and classical are both difficult styles to pull off, and there's no real yardstick that will put one ahead of the other - just one's opinion or preference. One could argue that playing pieces by composers like Xenakis and Carter is about as difficult as a performance can get...and that's probably close to being correct. However, one might also argue that improvising in a convincing and successful manner could be just as hard. Some of my favorite players (Marc Ducret - guitar; Tim Berne - alto-sax; Paul Dunmall - saxes, bagpipes; Paul Rogers - 7-string upright bass; Georg Grawe - piano; plenty of other musicians you probably don't know from your a**hole) can sit down with no music whatsoever and create spontaneous music on their instruments that rivals much of the classical work composers and performers approach so formally. Where the music obviously lacks the structural architecture and numerous road-posts of a classical piece, there are other important hard-to-define standards (ability to communicate with other musicians, ability to expound on ideas in an inspired way, ability to compose on the spot) It's not all dusty standards, blues noodling, and Art Tatum anymore, though I'm certain your troubled ego is far from willing to admit that.

Everything you say does nothing more than betray the fact that you're lousy at appreciating music. You can't make generalizations about things with no proof. You'd think that someone who requires such haughty levels of 'perfectionism' in music would know how to approach an argument with even a fraction of that standard.

[jazzyprof]

Well your post is so stunningly devoid of arguments/meaning, that all I could do would be to repeat exactly my last post, but whatever. Let's leave it this way since you clearly do not have what it takes to understand what music is all about.

And I refuse to be drawn into a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

[m]

What melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, or dynamic ideas do you need in order to play a piece like the Revolutionary Etude? 

You might be surprised to one day to find those out...

Message to Thierry13:

Common, your signature looks little bit ridiculous and judgemental, clearly without knowing what you are talking about, whatsoever. May I take a liberty to suggest removing it just for sheer reason not to show yourself as a fool.
You must be young and very proud of your ideas, however, before judging something, esp. in this rigid and uneducated way, you might consider to learn a thing or two about the topic... at least to gain the right to judge. 
As a side note, calling "trash" something what people like Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Horowitz, Ansermet, Previn, Debussy, Dvorack, and thousands others were fond of doesn't make you look smarter, even if you are...

Best, M

[richard black]

Don't worry, Marik, Thierry only does it to wind us up. He's secretly studying recordings of Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller and Art Tatum to try to improve his chops!

[jazzyprof]

You might be surprised to one day to find those out...

Marik, in response to my question "What melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, or dynamic ideas do you need in order to play a piece like the Revolutionary Etude?" you say I might be surprised to find those out.  Well I am currently working on the piece and am curious to know what ideas I need other than the ones indicated by the composer and editor.  This is a sincere question. 

[m]

Marik, in response to my question "What melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, or dynamic ideas do you need in order to play a piece like the Revolutionary Etude?" you say I might be surprised to find those out.  Well I am currently working on the piece and am curious to know what ideas I need other than the ones indicated by the composer and editor.  This is a sincere question. 

Composer and editor do not indicate ideas (at least directly). They give hints, merely putting on paper some signs (notation, rhythm, dynamics, etc.) which help the performer to transcribe and reach for those ideas. In music the ideas are "between the lines" and personal connection with music content is one of the most important parts in art of performance. Unfortunately, it is impossible to teach it over internet, without knowing you, without having worked with you for awhile, and knowing your strengths and weaknesses.

Best, M

[richard black]

What melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, or dynamic ideas do you need in order to play a piece like the Revolutionary Etude

Apart from anything else, if you didn't already have some ideas the directions given by Chopin wouldn't really mean much to you. I've been through this 'all you need to know is what the composer put on the page' argument a few times in my life with various people, but at some point it always founders on the simple fact that anyone with enough experience and technique to do anything at all with a piece will already be 'interpreting' it, like it or not, as a function of pre-existing knowledge.

[indutrial]

As a side note, calling "trash" something what people like Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Horowitz, Ansermet, Previn, Debussy, Dvorack, and thousands others were fond of doesn't make you look smarter, even if you are...

Best, M

Seriously... The list goes on with composers who clearly saw creative value in jazz/improvisation. Jazz and improvisation are pretty much synonymous by my watch, and lord knows how many f**king classical pieces are titled 'Improvisation in whatever' or 'impromptu this or that.' Most of the most industrious and talented composers of the twentieth century that I've studied (Martinu, Tansman, Kapustin, Milhaud, Villa Lobos, Kabelevsky, Bolcom, Denisov, Absil, Albright, Carter, Wuorinen, Holmboe, Norgard etc...) considered themselves heavily indebted to the jazz music world, and rightfully so. By the logic that jazz music is street-level trash, what's to stop an idiot from extending the same stupid logic to folk musics, without which classical music would completely suck. Milhaud incorporating elements of Brazilian jazziness into his polytonal string quartets and Tansman writing his second sonatine based on the blues doesn't seem that different from Sibelius basing works on Finnish folk songs or Chopin writing any number of 3/4 pieces based on peasant dances.

Ivory tower classical idiots who are sour towards jazz music should listen to some recent works like Henry Martin's 24 preludes and fugues and see if they can really make their crap attitude float. Mr. Martin is a brilliant composer and theorist who works with some of the best classical musicians in the NYC area and somehow also manages to be the associate editor for the Annual Review of Jazz Music. He also incidently wrote a book called Enjoying Jazz and a book that applies Schenker's counterpoint theories to a study of Charlie Parker's saxophone music. Doesn't quite sound like McDonald's to me...

[thierry13]

Common, your signature looks little bit ridiculous and judgemental, clearly without knowing what you are talking about, whatsoever. May I take a liberty to suggest removing it just for sheer reason not to show yourself as a fool.

Haha, it is indeed getting old, and I think people got the point.

To everybody else, I never really put jazz on the same level as pop, but I don't think I could rationally quite put it at the same level of classical. I don't think it's trash, far from it, from an objective point of view, but from a subjective one, I really quite hate most of it, and not the improvisatory side of it, simply the ''jazzy'' style (I don't have much more to say on the topic, that's just me). Tough, the long, mean messages were quite a lot of fun  ! Something that is, and will allways stay a fact tough, is that all the jazz musicians who played classical stuff were barely decent at it. Nobody's going to tell me keith jarrett can be compared to richter, michelangeli or somebody like that. NEVER. Jazz is another world that can be great I guess but jazz musicians can't touch classical music. Not in the way a classical musician can anyways. To jazzyprof, revolutionnary etude is an easy piece and quite simple musically. I am talking about the technical/theorical side of it. Does it end there? It seems like it does for you. It actually begins there, and that's what makes the difference between a classical and jazz musician (I am generalising of course). As Marik pointed out, you might be surprised to find out things about music you couldn't see before. If you have to ask the question you asked about the revolutionnary study, and then restate it seriously to Marik, then it shows it is not me but you that is ignorant. That is not meant as an insult, but if you have to ask it is clearly because you do not know the answer, which is quite evident to classical musicians. I will have to add (to indutrial) that I am myself fond of some popular music bands, but I don't think that makes them comparable to classical music. As I have allready stated, I put jazz higher (objectively) than pop, but not quite up there with classical, I am sorry to say. Of course, art is a vast subject and there is much inspiration that can be taken in the jazz musical world, as there is in everything in life. But if the "list of composers who clearly saw creative value in jazz/improvisation" would have tought it was at the same level, they would simply have written many things in that idiom or for pianists have played some of it and dedicate some of their time to it. True, there is much creativity in jazz, but it can't be compared to writting/interpreting classical music (and not in the meaning that it is too different).

[Petter]

The hostile attitude Thierry has against jazz music is equally true among many jazz apprentices unfortunately. I think what Indutrial was aiming at is that the boundaries beetwen jazz/improvised music and classical music is starting to blend togheter so eventually we can except more advanced writing for improvised music and more improvised elements in classical art music which I think is a great thing. Nice to see you've heard of Sten Sandell.

[jazzyprof]

If you have to ask the question you asked about the revolutionnary study, and then restate it seriously to Marik, then it shows it is not me but you that is ignorant. That is not meant as an insult, but if you have to ask it is clearly because you do not know the answer, which is quite evident to classical musicians.

You clearly lack the intellect to understand the question I posed to Marik.  It has to do with what creative ideas a classical pianist brings to a piece above and beyond what is written in the score.  To that end let me quote you Richter, one of my favorite pianists:
   "The interpreter is really an executant, carrying out the composer's intentions to the letter. He doesn't add anything that isn't already in the work. If he is talented, he allows us to glimpse the truth of the work that is in itself a thing of genius and that is reflected in him. He shouldn't dominate the music, but should dissolve into it." So there is nothing personal in an interpretation (or there shouldn't be) apart from the players skills. And I do believe Richter knew better than you.

[thierry13]

You clearly lack the intellect to understand the question I posed to Marik.  It has to do with what creative ideas a classical pianist brings to a piece above and beyond what is written in the score.  To that end let me quote you Richter, one of my favorite pianists:
   "The interpreter is really an executant, carrying out the composer's intentions to the letter. He doesn't add anything that isn't already in the work. If he is talented, he allows us to glimpse the truth of the work that is in itself a thing of genius and that is reflected in him. He shouldn't dominate the music, but should dissolve into it." So there is nothing personal in an interpretation (or there shouldn't be) apart from the players skills. And I do believe Richter knew better than you.

Playing exactly the composer's intention requires much more than the written text wich is only, as marik stated, a suggestion. Richter is one of my favorite pianists also and agree 100% with him and there is nothing contradictory in that quotation in anything me and marik stated. You simply don't seem to get the point. I perfectly understood the question you asked.

[thierry13]

The hostile attitude Thierry has against jazz music is equally true among many jazz apprentices unfortunately. I think what Indutrial was aiming at is that the boundaries beetwen jazz/improvised music and classical music is starting to blend togheter so eventually we can except more advanced writing for improvised music and more improvised elements in classical art music which I think is a great thing. Nice to see you've heard of Sten Sandell.

I have nothing against improvisatory elements in classical music. I think it can be great actually, and Beethoven was a great improviser and every other great composer was, too.

[jazzyprof]

Richter is one of my favorite pianists also and agree 100% with him and there is nothing contradictory in that quotation in anything me and marik stated. You simply don't seem to get the point. I perfectly understood the question you asked.

If you agree with Richter then you must agree with my point that the interpreter adds nothing to what is written in the score.  That is exactly what I said and that is exactly what Richter says.  Here, let me quote Richter again:  "He doesn't add anything that isn't already in the work."  Or you don't understand English?

[m]

... I don't think I could rationally quite put it at the same level of classical...

Why people like so much to compare apple and oranges, while having no any idea what oranges are and taste like?

It has to do with what creative ideas a classical pianist brings to a piece above and beyond what is written in the score.  To that end let me quote you Richter, one of my favorite pianists:
   "The interpreter is really an executant, carrying out the composer's intentions to the letter. He doesn't add anything that isn't already in the work. If he is talented, he allows us to glimpse the truth of the work that is in itself a thing of genius and that is reflected in him. He shouldn't dominate the music, but should dissolve into it." So there is nothing personal in an interpretation (or there shouldn't be) apart from the players skills.

Only a genius like Richter could write something like this.
Ironically, despite the fact what he was saying, only a Genius like Richter could actually dominate the music the way only he could, while in fact, creating illusion being dissolved into it...

Ironically, despite his words, he was the last to follow the letter...

Ironically, only with his naivity of a genius he could sincerely think "he does not add anything that isn't already in the work"...

Ironically, in fact, whatever he'd ever add to the letter, to the score, and the music is very simple thing, which is called "Genius".

Ironically, that "Genius" in fact is a very personal thing, which reflects in every single note...

It's like, you always can tell Richter from Rachmaninov, or Horowitz from Gould, or Gilels from Feinberg.

Best, M

[thierry13]

If you agree with Richter then you must agree with my point that the interpreter adds nothing to what is written in the score.  That is exactly what I said and that is exactly what Richter says.  Here, let me quote Richter again:  "He doesn't add anything that isn't already in the work."  Or you don't understand English?

There is a big difference between adding nothing and understanding more than only what is written. I suggest that you read Marik's post too before saying for a third time that I didn't understand what you meant. You see music with the eyes of a jazz player, it is obvious. While in jazz adding something to the music would be concrete (changing notes, chords, improvising new dynamics etc.), in classical it is much more subtle and "adding something" is not something concrete at all. Can't you tell the difference between Richter, wich is perfect 99% of the time and respects the markings of the score, and a midi player wich is perfect 100% of the time and does EXACTLY what the score tells it? A midi is empty and has nothing to do with music really. Richter's quotation is simply an ideal of interpretation that would respect the ->composer's intention<-. If the composer could write every single thing he wanted in the score, then music wouldn't be anymore. A "piano" marking can be done in a thousand (and more) ways and still be a "piano". Same thing for every other note in the score. Choosing the right way is what classical interpretation is (can be)/(among other things).

[Petter]

I have nothing against improvisatory elements in classical music. I think it can be great actually, and Beethoven was a great improviser and every other great composer was, too.

Except that was 150-200 years ago. Im almost certain the creative forces that romantic composers such as Schubert, Chopin, Beethoven, Mendelsohn and Liszt was inspired by when they heard Bel Canto opera, read Goethe, watched plays of Shakespear, looked at art of Caspar David Friedrich, reminisced music they heard in their youth or the urge to display virtuosity etc etc, is the same creative force for improvisation today regardless of genre, even though the source of inspiration might differ. Hell, it could be the joy of being drunk or winning the lottery, its still the same desire to express something.

[youjean88]

i play both and i wouldnt say one is harder than the other.  they are different styles of music and you just play what you like. if you like jazz focus on jazz, if you like classical go classical

here are a few things ive observed.

jazz is pretty much putting a few simple things together very well.  jazz isnt nearly as complex as poeple make it out to be (although it is extremely complex).  for example: in one recording by oscar peterson of his tune 'oscars boogie' (this is just one example of one recording) he has only 3 different bass figures the ENTIRE tune.  he has 2 very basic 12 bar blues left hand bass pattern for the majority of the tune, then in the solo he goes into a very fast stride figure near the climax.  (im sure that he plays and adds different things in different performances as that is the improvisational nature of jazz).  people who dont understand jazz see what he does and thinks that it would be impossible to do unless you are born with the gift to randomly play whatever you want to play on command. this is not so.

alot of jazz that is performed live or recorded has a good portion of the tune (or at least the shell) precomposed.  its a myth that you just pull a godlike tune out of your rear end any time you want.  i dont remember the exact quote but duke ellington once said that there isnt any tune worth listening to that didnt have premeditated practice put into it.

the complexity in jazz comes in the improvisation of notes and ideas and incorporating them into the music you are playing and making it sound GOOD. this takes years and years and hours and hours of practice

classical music also has improvisation but its most in interpretation and technique.  the technique i have encountered in classical music is far more intricate than the technique ive seen in jazz.  classical music requires incredibly delicate touch in many pieces of the advanced repertoire that is not easy in any way shape or form. this takes years and years and hours and hours of practices to obtain. 

the ability to read music and understand what is written properly requires an incredible amount of theory knowledge to do properly.  for example: in rachmaninoffs g minor prelude, if you know how to read and memorize music you would see that a good portion of the measures are nothing more than a simple g minor chord in different inversions. there are barely any non-chord tones added! its just a simple gminor chord and it sounds masterful.  in another example of the revolutionary etude. im not exactly sure because i dont have the music with me and ive only looked at it for a few minutes. i believe the first 5-6 measures are nothing more than the notes of the gminor7 chord with 1-2 non-chord tones added as passing tones.

knowing theory and applying it properly allows you to understand, improvise, and easily memorize the music that you are playing (in classical). i can memorize most pieces in just a few days (like the revolutionary, clair de lune, etc etc etc). but it takes me weeks and weeks to learn to play it properly (im not a professional or anything and my technique is not that good, however, this applys to the majority of the people)

just my 2 cents

[youjean88]

oh, and also. classical compositions are basically improvisations of the composer that are written down and elaborated into full compositions. 

pulling a masterful composition out of your butt is myth.  improvisations are based on preplayed or premeditated chord progressions, tunes, pieces/compositions, or a compilation of patterns and are drawn from things you have previously experienced or have played. new ideas you get in the middle of a performance spawn from past experience.

[indutrial]

pulling a masterful composition out of your butt is myth.  improvisations are based on preplayed or premeditated chord progressions, tunes, pieces/compositions, or a compilation of patterns and are drawn from things you have previously experienced or have played. new ideas you get in the middle of a performance spawn from past experience.

This is certainly true, and a work such as the Oscar Petersen piece you mentioned definitely demands a strong knowledge of past patterns, harmonies, licks... Sometimes the musical environment's boundaries are not as set in place, though, and that's what I was getting at throwing around terms like 'instant composition.' In recent years, especially, I've seen more and more jazz musicians and free improvisers who command musical vocabularies on par with what might be expected from a contemporary classical composer, and vice versa. The lines are blurred when you think about composers like Scelsi, who would sometimes record himself improvising on the piano and then have the piece transcribed into notation straight from the recording. A lot of my favorite improv players are currently putting out records that don't even sound like jazz, though the players may have come up in that scene. Often, there are written sections that bookend the individual performances, but the middle sections are left entirely up to the band's improvisational vicissitudes.

[thierry13]

oh, and also. classical compositions are basically improvisations of the composer that are written down and elaborated into full compositions.

This is a dangerous affirmation, and this certainly does not work in the majority of cases.

[youjean88]

i dont think many people understand how broad of a term the word 'improvisation' is. most people just take the very narrow definition which says that improvisation is composition on the spot. improvisation can basically mean anything that isnt prescripted.  i dont know how else you would come up with a melody unless you improvise with either an instrument or in your head.

[jabbz]

Speaking as a professional composer, I can say that by the time you go near the manuscript you have the piece already written. It's instantaneous, the only thing you have to do is work out the details really. The composer knows already what he wants -  texture, mood, colour, form. Everything which makes the composition is there, really there are just some dots to join.

[thierry13]

Exactly, that's why I said it is a dangerous affirmation. Improvisation is (I think) just sitting down and playing as it comes to you on the moment, nothing that is prepared before you play. Well composing is much more than that and the melody depends on much more than improvisation, it depends on harmony counterpoint and a ton of other rules wich are most of the time broken but still, in a composition things blend together and make sense by themselves as well as with other elements. And that, is not improvisation.

[chopinmozart7]

HEEEEY!!! stop fighting !!! everybody has their own opinions, You dont need to argue about it.

[vongoldschmitz]

For someone who's apparently figured out the entire jazz world, you are completely atrocious at citing any examples beyond the same handful of jazz namedrops, mostly big, popular easy targets that, even in the jazz music world, are well worth criticizing. What's obvious to me is that you still DON'T KNOW S**T about 99% of the people who play improvised music. You have no clue what that scene's been doing and completely rely on a frail set of introverted conservatory stereotypes. You look at other genres in music the way the Nazis looked at Slavic people and homosexuals during the Third Reich. Getting the word "inferior" out of your big stupid mouth is about as easy as getting a white supremacist to utter the 'n' word. I've noticed you puffing out the same stale hot air and tired arguments about jazz for over a year and you still haven't got a leg to stand on.

Why don't you surprise us all and actually cite some musicians that aren't so easy to generalize about. Or at least spare us your worn-out classical posturing and admit that you hate jazz because you're a joyless, hollowed-out failed musician who doesn't know when to give up on a losing argument.

As a matter of perspective, I've met many insanely talented classical musicians and a few excellent composers, and NONE of them ever had a stitch of negative garbage or bile towards the jazz scene or other music scenes. The ones who talk the most trash are always the failures who are angry that they went to conservatory for four years and are still teaching private lessons, always the washouts who couldn't think outside the box and listen to recordings/musicians/genres that weren't shoved down their throats by their a-hole college professors, always the losers who should have never become musicians because they are just using music as an excuse to convince themselves that they're more intelligent than others. Give me a break...

Should classical musicians consider someone like cellist Matt Haimovitz to be some kind of traitor because he's recorded cello arrangements of Jimi Hendrix's 'National Anthem' and played improv gigs with DJ Olive and jazz guitarist John McLaughlin? To put it into more perspective, Haimovitz is a complete genius musician and has recorded almost every important piece in his instrument's repertoire (ranging from the six Bach suites to modern sonatas by Barber, Hindemith, Carter, Ligeti, etc...). When I met the Prism Saxophone Quartet, they told me about some of the amazing jazz composers and improvisers they worked with on a regular basis, and went on to play a stunning set of modern 'classical' pieces by Glazunov, Denisov, Gubaidulina, and Smirnov. Let's be sure that it's damned clear that, in the REAL music world, where musicians actually perform and do meaningful things, any perceived rift between jazz musicians and classical musicians is not even a remote concern. Good, established musicians wouldn't be caught dead indulging in puerile debates about which genre is "harder" or what style is "inferior." Anyone of you who actually feel the need to wave one flag or the other need to get your musical priorities straight.

On point.
Nothing more to add here and to the entire debate.
And it's sad to see that thierry is still wandering around this board like a lost soul.
I told you before thierry, please seek help. 

[goldentone]

So there is nothing personal in an interpretation (or there shouldn't be) apart from the players skills.

As soon as a pianist's fingertips descend upon the keys, the piece becomes personal.  Perhaps
music is bigger than you think, and bigger than the composer.

[winterwind888]

I'm not really into jazz but here's my opinion. Jazz has a sense of rhythm.. It merely focuses on the beating though and improvisation too. I would say it really is hard. Hard to compose and improvise.

Classical music has sense of all dynamic qualities. If your gonna merge classical and romantic period pieces somewhere between them, just like beethoven and brahms, the complexity of music has reached to its highest point. The conformity of the rules of classical music + the musical expression in romantic music is a delicate and very hard to expand in terms of dynamic qualities.
Classical music is also with techniques used. If your gonna play an etude, you cannot simply do it with jazz since the techniques relinquish as classical.

[nanabush]

I was speaking to a guitar teacher where I also teach about our musical preferences.  He teaches mostly jazz music, and I was looking at some of his notes and books; alot of it looks like code, all of the chord symbols and little adds to chords; he reads it like a book and is just playing without even thinking.  He looks at my stuff and is like "how in the hell can you sight read that".  He's studying jazz guitar at university, and I'm starting classical piano at university in the fall; we both have 'some' understanding of our own respective music.  I can't really knock either genre, because I look like a fool trying to play jazz;  if I ask a jazz pianist to sight read a passage of something by Rachmaninoff that I'd be able to play at first glance, they may find it tougher than reading a passage of what they are more used to.

Look at Kapustin's stuff; I feel like a beginner counting out the strange rhythms and figuring out all the new chords and tonalities that I'm not familiar with.  His stuff is simply beyond me at this point.

[indutrial]

Look at Kapustin's stuff; I feel like a beginner counting out the strange rhythms and figuring out all the new chords and tonalities that I'm not familiar with.  His stuff is simply beyond me at this point.

I could only imagine that trying to learn Kapustin's music without being as good an improviser as the composer himself would make it fairly staggering to get the music to sound authentic. The same must be true for learning William Bolcom's modern rag pieces. Of course, I feel the same difficulty can be found in Scriabin, Sorabji, Debussy, etc... A jazz pianist I knew was looking through one of my Sorabji scores recently and told me that, more than anything else he'd seen in classical literature, Sorabji's scores read like jazz piano solo transcriptions (which often include just as many odd tuples, runs, and trills). The major concession he conceded was obviously the harmony, which in Sorabji's work bears little similarity to what you'd ever expect to hear. Not to mention, he was only playing around with the right hand parts.

[jcabraham]

It's silly to  say that classical is harder than jazz (or vice versa). Classical is of course more technically difficult, because it was composed at leisure for pianists to study before performance. Jazz must necessarily be easier technically because it is produced extempore. If jazz were not improvised by convention, it could easily be as technically difficult as classical. And let's face it, if Bach or Beethoven were alive today, they'd be jazz musicians. Where else would you go if you wanted to create (not execute) serious music in an environment as dynamic and part-of-the-culture as classical music was centuries ago?

Anyway, in Miles Davis' autobiography he talks about when they had classical musicians in the studio for Sketches of Spain. He said the jazz guys all envied the classicals' techniques, but the classical guys needed EVERYTHING written out for them. It's just different. Is football or baseball more difficult?

[Petter]

Is football or baseball more difficult?

As a european I have to say baseball.

[vivies]

Hi esplayer..

Difficulty has nothing to do with music styles. You should know that every instrument is difficult, whatever style is.
For sure, classical piano gives you the basics but a good classical pianist is not automatically a good jazz pianist.
Piano technique is independent from styles.