The best music advice you ever received

[mcdiddy1]

Simply put im just curious what is the best advice about making music you ever received or hear for me this quote was by Issac Stern in a documentary of him doing master classes in China.....

Unless you feel that you must live with music..that music can say more than words... that music can mean more...that without music we are not alive...if you don't feel all that ..than don't be a musician

[communist]

"practice, practice practice!"

[ted]

My teacher, about the music of the old masters:

"They're all dead and now it's our turn."

[perfect_pitch]

No matter what you play - always aim for beautiful music.

[artsyalchemist]

I got these two when I was auditioning and competing:

Give them hell and spare no one. 

[edwardweiss]

One of my best teachers was a well-known organist. He had been a pupil of the English organist G.D. Cunningham. He told me that Cunningham said 'Practice a piece until you cannot get it wrong' and also 'A performance is not the place to find out that there is something about a piece that you never even knew might be problematic.'

[thalbergmad]

Don't give up your day job.

That was the best advice i ever had.

Thal

[ahinton]

One of my best teachers was a well-known organist. He had been a pupil of the English organist G.D. Cunningham. He told me that Cunningham said 'Practice a piece until you cannot get it wrong' and also 'A performance is not the place to find out that there is something about a piece that you never even knew might be problematic.'

Wise words indeed from a truly splendid organist.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Don't give up your day job.

That was the best advice i ever had.

That's all very well, but when it is your day job, what could you possibly do except try to find an additional one in some other field (always assuming that you're qualified to do such a thing in the first place and that there is in any case one available in a market where burgeoning economic woes make that ever-increasingly unlikely); Busoni apparently advised his friend van Dieren to do just that, in order that he (van Dieren) could continue to write just as he wanted to (i.e. not during his working hours in that "day job"), but then van Dieren died before he was 50 (mind you, Busoni himself died before he reached 60, not least, perhaps, because he maintained all his other "day jobs" - pianist, conductor, teacher, scholar, lecturer, researcher, writer, editor and whatever else it was that he managed to cram into those few years that he had on this planet - and look at how the similarly gifted Erik Chisholm catapulted himself to an early grave at the age of 60 by persistently continuing to do at least all of those things at which Busoni had earlier excelled).

Best,

Alistair

[lontano]

"Bang on a can, if that's all you can,
and if you can, do all that you can,
as best you can."


anon

[rasteen]

As a young student I met John Ardoin, music critic and author of a biography on Callas.  He told me and several other young students, " If music is not your oxygen, find something else to do. The price is too high."

I may have not quoted him word for word after all these years, but I was challenged in my thinking by that; I personally still think it is good advice.

Ron

[thalbergmad]

and look at how the similarly gifted Erik Chisholm catapulted himself to an early grave at the age of 60 by persistently continuing to do at least all of those things at which Busoni had earlier excelled).

You had better be carefull you don't end up the same way by the sounds of it.

A Hinton: Director, Archivist, Composer, Editor, Concert Arranger, Online Wit

Perhaps you ought to drop one??

Thal

[retrouvailles]

"Bang on a can, if that's all you can,
and if you can, do all that you can,
as best you can."


anon

I wonder if that is where Bang on a Can's name came from?

[ahinton]

You had better be carefull you don't end up the same way by the sounds of it.

A Hinton: Director, Archivist, Composer, Editor, Concert Arranger, Online Wit

Perhaps you ought to drop one??

And you didn't even mention "spelling bee"! Thank you very much for your concern, Thal - it is genuinely appreciated - but let me assure you that there are big differences. I only rarely organise concerts. My work with The Sorabji Archive was at one time considerably more labour intensive than it is these days (i.e. when it was in its infancy and I had to assemble every known score and piece of published literature by the composer and prepare master-copies in order to make all that material publicly available, etc.) and my functions as the archive's director, archivist and editor (not that I have in any case done anything like as much editing as have others over the years, such as Kevin Bowyer, David Carter, Chris Rice, Donna Amato, les Marc-Andrés Hamelin et Roberge, Jonathan Powell and last but by no means least Alexander Abercrombie) are in any case all part of the one duty, really. I have never conducted anything and my piano playing days (such as they were) are long since over, so I think that, all being well, I might manage a few more years yet, with abit of luck...

Best,

Alistair

[m]

"practice, practice practice!"

Indeed, an excellent advice, however, practice what?

Best, M 

[communist]

Indeed, an excellent advice, however, practice what?

Best, M 

Chopin selected etudes (3-4 a day, invariably getting back to the Op.10/2), then Feux Follets, followed by Mendelssohn-Rachmaninov Scherzo, and (maybe) a few passages from Rachmaninov Concerto No.3.

[edwardweiss]

Practice what? Why-Hanon, of course!

[redragon]

Don't read the note names. Look at where they are, what they are, and what the octave is. EASY AS THAT!!!

[kay3087]

"Stop playing."

[tds]

be true to self

[invictious]

everything you play must be played as fast as your technique permits.

[tds]

everything you play must be played as fast as your technique permits.

divinity 

[stringoverstrung]

"listen very carefully, a good piano will tell you what to do."

[communist]

"Try to find out how little effort you need."

-Egon Petri

[antichrist]

WRong post im srry

[sashaco]

I heard Perlman on the radio telling students to listen to their own playing, which he said is not as obvious as it seems.  When my practicing is going poorly it's almost always because I am not really listening.  The comment about listening to the piano itself is also very valuable.  I was working on the Beethoven Opus  110, years ago, and on a long soft chord near the end of the 1st movement my teacher remarked, "You're counting like mad, aren't you?"  She was exactly right, and she told me to listen to the decay of the chord, and it would tell me when to go on. I tried it, and could hear the changing voices in the chord indicating the exact time to move. It was a marvelous moment, although I have not acted on the experience as much as I should.  I suspect that the most experienced players do this almost without thinking, and even when the movement of notes does not seem to give pauses long enough for most of us to listen so closely.

[mad_tom]

My work with The Sorabji Archive was at one time considerably more labour intensive than it is these days ... and my functions as the archive's director, archivist and editor (not that I have in any case done anything like as much editing as have others over the years ... last but by no means least Alexander Abercrombie)

Alex was my teacher from 1980 to 1984.  What a wonderful musician and a great man.  He turned me from a no-hoper into someone with a fighting chance of one day being a proper pianist.

[gorucan]

The best advice I think was from Aleksandar Madzar when I was playing solo version of La Valse (Ravel) and I asked him how he played some really really complicated part.
He played it and said: It's really easy you see, but it takes a looot of practising

[nikolasideris]

(I'm a composer).

When you compose make sure you have something to say. If you don't have to say, simply don't "speak".

[tds]

(I'm a composer).

When you compose make sure you have something to say. If you don't have to say, simply don't "speak".

good!

[jmanpno]

fl-arti bħal fil-omosesswalità

[jollisg]

"Music is about time and no-time"

This was good for me to hear, because I was always rushing through. I didn't take enough time, because I was so afraid that the audience was going to applaud to early if I took the time.. I was wrong

[pianist1976]

"Don't lose precious practice time arguing with know-it-alls on Internet forums"

[stringoverstrung]

"listen very very very carefully to yourself."

[Bob]

Probably, "Why would you want to do that?  Don't go into music."

[falala]

"The secret of effective practising is easy. Just make sure that you only play the right notes."

Strangely enough that was from a well-known british jazz pianist (so not "close enough for jazz" then!).

[jlskiles]

Give them hell and spare no one. 

Damn straight.

[richardb]

Wish I could remember where I heard Jean-Pierre Rampal (I think it was him)  say in some documentary:

"If you have good taste, you will play well."

Not really advice but for some reason that quote has always stuck with me.

[Bob]

Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.  (You won't actually have a job doing what you love, so you won't be working.)

[pianoman53]

The best might be a little over the top on this one, but it was very helpful anyway.

I watched a friends lesson, and he screwed up something rather simple, as 2 vs 3 or something similar. Then my teacher said "a problem, no matter big or small, will remain a problem until it's   completely solved". It got me thinking of all those half learned pieces,that remained half learned simply because the small problems never got completely solved.

[002517]

"Artists do not apologise" - Alfred de Musset

[lontano]

I recently discovered British pianist & artist on Youtube named Paul Barton.
He has a wonderful series on teaching and technique that is far more simple to
master than anything I ever had in all my years of study. I just wish I knew him then.
Check him out on youtube & see what you think.

[chopinlover01]

Paul Barton is an excellent pianist and teacher, I love what he does (and I love his piano, too!).
Isn't he part Thai, though? Or maybe he just moved there to work with the elephants?
He has quite a funny accent

[adodd81802]

Paul Barton is an excellent pianist and teacher, I love what he does (and I love his piano, too!).
Isn't he part Thai, though? Or maybe he just moved there to work with the elephants?
He has quite a funny accent

Lol Part Thai! No he's very very English. He has a Thai wife and lives over there. His 'accent' that you refer too is actually just because (and I remember reading it from himself) that as a lot of his audience is not English, he tries to speak more clearly, which is why you noticed the strange pauses and unusual emphasis of certain words.

It's also rare that people play at his level and don't have a few social hiccups here and there let's be honest.

[adodd81802]

Also Arhur Rubinstein summarises some good advice in a Polish Phrase Nie dam sie effectively meaning to never give up, never give in, never quit.

Hard results only come from hard work.

[keitokyun]

"Why do you not listen to yourself play?"
~ My Piano Teacher's Teacher
                 &
"You trying to write a classical piece right now is like you writing a story using Shakespeare's iambic contaminator. You live right now, write music for those right now"
~ D.S. Lefkowitz (UCLA Prof.)

[xdjuicebox]

"There are three types of pianists. Jewish, gay, and bad."

LOL jk

"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...I am not a complete idiot, but whether from weakness or laziness have no talent for thinking. I know only how to reflect: I am a mirror . . . Logic does not exist for me. I float on the waves of art and life and never really know how to distinguish what belongs to the one or the other or what is common to both. Life unfolds for me like a theatre presenting a sequence of somewhat unreal sentiments; while the things of art are real to me and go straight to my heart."

-Sviatoslav Richter