Comprehensive summary of piano playing

[m1469]

In as few words as you can (or less), please summarize your comprehensive understanding of technically efficient and musically satisfying -brilliant- piano playing, from the infinitesimal to the infinite.

Ready, set ... smoke a cigarette!

Okay, actually, ready, set, GO!

 

[m1469]

_@/  PS - It must also be completely fool proof 

[alessandro]

Wake up and eventually snooze a little further for half an hour or something.  Now really get up and have a shower.   Pay particular attention to the skin between the toes.  The whole body must be clean.   Open the curtains of the living room (notice in the corner of your eye the piano, don't ignore it).  Air the room for at least 15 minutes.   Say good morning to the cats and the rabbit and check that they have enough food and fresh water.   Have a strong cup of coffee, a toast with a little butter and bitter orangejam.  (Roll, if you like to, a small cigarette of shag).  Are your hands clean and well groomed, nicely cut fingernails that don't exceed the fingertips ?  Take place at your instrument.   Have a sip of coffee and light the cigarette.   Feel the freedom.  Feel it.  Feel yourself there sitting on a chair in front of the keys in the Universe.   While you are feeling that, start to aim for a perfect fugue, as warming-up, as a starter, as studying and as a performance at the same time (I'm fully aware that this may not be considered very pedagogic, but hey, we are just starting, we have all of the day and all of the night left no ?).   Now, strike those notes ! ...
 ... Whatever sound you will produce can be satisfying, you feel alive (and maybe kicking).   You can improve (or not).  The piano as a barometer, telling you how you are today.   
Never blame the piano.

In short, the first piano-session of the day is for me the most efficient, never brilliant, but often the most satisfying.  Is it "comprehensive" ? Not for me, no.   I don't get it, the "why ?", the "big picture", I don't get it.   Should I ? I don't know.  Do you ?

Very kind greetings to you all.

[jazzyprof]

Alessandro, such lovely writing!  I could actually smell the coffee.  OK, now I'm ready to practice.

[countrymath]

Get up
breakfast
news
study for exams
theory
blues
accompaniment
lunch
classical
improv.
listen to music
sleep

[m1469]

*sounds the trumpet* (thanks to my General Music class, I know that 6 more kids in the world have a concept of that sound   )

Thanks for your responses!

Here is my summation, which I had in my head when I made this thread, but I wanted to see if my mind would change and/or evolve from it over more time, but it hasn't!  From point a to the mythical point b, I think it goes like this:

"Play what you mean, and mean what you play"

(calls out the move/position:  "Check" ... please, *somebody* make a move or I'ma gonna burst!)

[jazzyprof]

Mate!

[soitainly]

"Play what you mean, and mean what you play" I really like this one.

 From a more technical standpoint I have always liked "relaxed concentration".

[m1469]

Well, I don't exclude technical work by a long shot!  I really mean it from every possible angle.  But, it also assumes that a person has an inner reason to play (at least I think it assumes that).  It means that we are striving for something, and that motivation takes us through whatever work must be done to get to a point of having a match between what we are playing and what our musical purpose is.  That the motivation and technical ability to express it meet in perfect harmony.  

hmmm ...

[keyboardclass]

"Play what you mean, and mean what you play"

Surely it's play what they meaning (meaning the composers) and mean what you play?

[m1469]

Surely it's play what they meaning (meaning the composers) and mean what you play?

Only if that's what you intend/mean to play.

[keyboardclass]

Only if that's what you intend/mean to play.

Then the thoughts of the great and good don't matter?

[m1469]

Then the thoughts of the great and good don't matter?

eh, no, I didn't say that.  But, if you don't care about expressing that, if it's not what you intend to express, if you don't take the time and effort to study those things and explore and such, THEN they don't matter.  So, per my last post, it depends on what you mean and intend to express.

[keyboardclass]

But, if you don't care about expressing that, if it's not what you intend to express, if you don't take the time and effort to study those things and explore and such, THEN they don't matter.

Confused.  Are you saying there is something beyond Mozart's thoughts in music?  That you can get there without going through Mozart's thought?

[m1469]

Confused.  Are you saying there is something beyond Mozart's thoughts in music?  That you can get there without going through Mozart's thought?

Ah, monsieur.  Does it matter to you what I think regarding that?

[keyboardclass]

Ah, monsieur.  Does it matter to you what I think regarding that?

Does what gets posted in a forum matter?

[m1469]

Does what gets posted in a forum matter?

To whom?

[keyboardclass]

Matter ...in the long run.

[pianowolfi]

Matter ...in the long run.

matter, in the long run, is something like condensed energy, as far as I understand modern physics...