mommy made pianists

[scarbo87]

The longer I live the more I am really starting to get pissed by the fact that virtually EVERY SINGLE great pianist
has been a product of their piano-teaher mom. Think about it.
Horowitz, Richter, Arrau, Pogorelich, Pletnev,Browning, Cliburn,Gavrilov,Lang,Watts(just to name a few) are very talented as we see them now, but every one of them had their
musically-educated parents pushing and guiding their every move, cutting up their pianisitc meat for them, and making sure that every little cicumstance was just right for them in order to win their little piano competitions.
As much as I admire those artists, we have to think would they still be as succesful as they were had there parents not
been there all along?? No, they wouldn't. Watts said in an interview once that he knew he wouldn't be a pianist if his mother had not made him practice. knowing this gives me amazing respect for those pianists who had to do everything by themselvs- Brendel, Dichter, Ax, etc. If Mommy teachers were not there...then Brendel, Dichter and Ax would be the greatest 3 pianists alive today becuase we know that they are the only ones that did what they did without any help, (i'm being literal, there are more than those 3, of course).

So now I ask..Is it really fair to people who are normal...to people who had the tradgedy of being born into a non-musical family and not had their ass shoved on the bench at age 2??
no it's not.

I cannot say that I started late or had bad early trainig,but
I certainly did not have my mother obssesive about my success as a concert pianist. So when I have my Julliard auditions in
February and am suffocated by the masses of pianists who did have that benifit.....i will....oh......i guess som ppl are juz lucky...

[faulty_damper]

Sounds like you already have an excuse should you not get into Julliard.

[janice]

You sound very bitter.  And what are your plans if you DON'T get into Juilliard?

[Saturn]

So when I have my Julliard auditions in
February and am suffocated by the masses of pianists who did have that benifit.....i will....oh......i guess som ppl are juz lucky...

You're much more lucky than you realize.

You're lucky enough to have a piano.  Lucky enough to have the skill to audition for Juilliard.  Lucky enough to afford a computer, and an internet connection, so you can visit Piano Forum and bitch to the world about how unlucky you are.

You're going to have to move past the bitterness, unless you want to end up like Salieri in the movie Amadeus.

[rph108]

Once you realize that life is suffering, it ceases to be suffering.  

[scarbo87]

Hey..whoa..okay hold the phone a minute..I did't mean to give
the impression that I was a BITTER pianist, if that is what you precieved then you got the wrong message-I was stating that in today's multitude of classical musicians the majority
simply seem to have reached where they are now becuase they
had support 100% when they were a child, and it is very interesting to compare the ratio's of ppl who were first taught by their parents to those who came from non-musical families-and I wanted to share my awe for those who reached where they are with little or no support.

Also, for those of you who think I was bitching...well..to and extent, maybe I was but it was not "bitching" to a degree of that a bitter person would do. I am stating a simple truth:
that people ARE LUCKY who have that benefit when they were younger. they are LUCKIER than the rest of us. and if we want
to play concerts then we should be aware that there are those
out there like that.

Lastly..(becuase I don't know how to quote) for the person who seemed to have the impression that I was a sour bitter person becuase I was not born to the british throne, that was not my point. My point is that if you had those advantages, you are lucky to an amazing degree  I said nothing about
me being unlucky.

[dreamaurora]

I guess if you try to measure success as a pianist based on how well you play, you will have no chance in the sea of massively talented pianists nowadays. But fortunately, this is not the case today. Good taste in programming, street smartness, knowing the right people, being creative are far more important nowadays.

And by the way, Richter is daddy-made pianist.

[Stolzing]

So now I ask..Is it really fair to people who are normal...to people who had the tradgedy of being born into a non-musical family and not had their ass shoved on the bench at age 2??

I asked this guy, and he agreed with you, he said that's really unfair and he really sympathizes with you.  He wont be getting into Julliard either, here's an article about him:

https://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/08/11/sprj.irq.ali/index.html

[donjuan]

Sounds like you already have an excuse should you not get into Julliard.

hahaahaha!!! I like that!
you are pleading with the board of judges at the audition, "it's no fair!  My mom doesnt play!!"

[Shagdac]

Having overbearing parents that practically force a youngster at 2 or 3 to learn something they may not even be interested in and force them to practice, practice, practice and win competitions and live of to their expectations is hardly my idea of being lucky!
If anything, being foreced to do what parents expect and live up to their dreams just amounts to alot of pressure. No amount of genetics will give someone the ability for talent and emotions necessary to play well.

I think the most important thing one needs to succeed is a desire and will for whatever they want. If one pocesses a strong enough desire for something, and the willingness to work hard towards that goal, anyone can acheive success.

Just my thoughts.

S

[nick]

So now I ask..Is it really fair to people who are normal...to people who had the tradgedy of being born into a non-musical family and not had their ass shoved on the bench at age 2??
no it's not.

Can't imagine why so many of us got the WRONG impression that you were bitter.

You need to be more honest with yourself or you will not be a happy camper.

Nick

[Saturn]

Having overbearing parents that practically force a youngster at 2 or 3 to learn something they may not even be interested in and force them to practice, practice, practice and win competitions and live of to their expectations is hardly my idea of being lucky!
If anything, being foreced to do what parents expect and live up to their dreams just amounts to alot of pressure. No amount of genetics will give someone the ability for talent and emotions necessary to play well.

Very true.

Growing up, I had a good friend who I envied quite a bit, though not to the point of bitterness.  She was a year older than me, and had grown up around the piano.  She had always had a piano in the house.  Her mom was a wonderful pianist, and therefore taught her how to play from when she was still very young.  The mother had good intentions, at least, and wasn't a dictator when it came to the piano.

As a kid, her mother signed her up for lessons with one of the big name piano teachers here.  She took lessons for years, and to me, she had it all.  What more could you want?  I would often compare her with my own humble upbringings.  Our family couldn't afford a piano.  My parents didn't encourage the study of music, nor were they remotely musical themselves.  I used to say to myself, would that I had been so lucky!  Imagine what a great pianist I could have been!

At the time, she appeared to me to be such a good pianist, and so talented.  Naturally I attributed all of this to her "lucky" upbringing and being pushed into the piano from a young age.

Yet now that I look back on it, for the amount of years she had been playing, she should have been MUCH better than she was.  She was still only at the level of such pieces as the Mozart K545.  In reality, she was actually lazy and rarely practiced.  She only made as much progress as she had to, and the only things that kept her going was the accountability of the competitions which she was forced to participate in (by studio policy) every so often.

Her mother would tell us later that though she had tried her best to get her daughter involved in something productive like the piano, the girl simply did not like it.  And so despite being so "lucky", she still couldn't progress.  Because she didn't want to.  The girl herself wasn't afraid to admit this, and often told people that she just played the piano because she'd been raised on it, but didn't really enjoy it very much.

What more could the mother have done?  Nothing really.  If the mother wanted to see more progress, she would have to have become a dictator and FORCED the girl to practice for hours a day.  Fortunately, she decided not to do that.  The girl no longer plays the piano.

The point of all of this is that while someone may seem "lucky" from a musical standpoint, they may be "unlucky" in every other aspect of life.  Who is to say that they are better off than the rest of us on account of pianistic skill alone?  And for every Horowitz, Richter, Arrau, etc., there are thousands of people like the girl I grew up with.

- Saturn

[scarbo87]

I don't know how to quote, so i'm gonna do it by hand :

"for every Horowiz,Richter,Arrau,there are   thousands of
          people like the girl I grew up with"


Well, of course that's true. Look at the case of Ruth Slenczyska, of San Fransisco, who's father would beat her and
make her practice 9 hours a day, and ended up having a nervous breakdown at the age of 15. I know many mothers who have good intenions and whose children are not piano geniuses.

Despite all that, you cannot simply ignore the fact that virtually every major pianist on the concert circut has been
a product of a frustrated music teacher, a musical parent, or,at very least, a pushy mother. So shouldn't this information provide itself as kind of a rude-awakening to
"the rest of us"..If you look at it in a strictly mathematical sense, it appears to be almost impossible to make a career without it, but,as I stated in my first post, there are still those who did and provide hope for us (Brended,Dichter,Paderewski,etc)-and them I worship almost as demigods. Then look at the fact at how many pianists would not be performing today if they had not had those parents-
not a single person on this board would know the name Arrau,
Horowitz,Kissin,Watts and Lang Lang. Not a single one.  

So I do say that if it were not for those parents, we would be at a major shortage of great artists today. And what I was trying to say is how can anyone, not just juries, but the public, employers, fellow pianists, and fellow humans expect
two people, who have the exact same amount of talent, play at the same level when one had a 10 mile head-start??

I remember when I was 13 I went to a musical seminar, and I was shocked at how many people were playing at a higher level than I was, and I remember,as Saturn said, not bitter, but
envious. I was envious and hurt that, seemingly, at that age,
for someone who loved music as much as I did and devoted every onunce of energy to it's creation, I seemed to be born
with such a lack of talent compared to the rest of them.
Now, Years later, I see the real reason behind that. Now I know that even though some people had advantages that others did not, the best fruit of insurance is love. I have had many professional pianists tell me that despite everythihg else, love and passion for you instrument is enough to carry you.


By the when people read my passage - "what about the tradgedy of being into a non-musical family"..they seem not to have
grasped the implied :  "tradgedy"

.....god i wish i knew how to quote

[bernhard]

It is very simply to quote.

Put this before you quote:

[quote*]

Then write your quote.

Then put this:

[/quote *]

But without the *. I put it there to stop it from being "quoted".

In other words: [quote*] Text to be quoted [/quote*]

Text to be quoted

(without the asterisk)

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[DarkWind]

Richter started out really late, I believe. And Arturo Beneditti Michelangeli was largely self taught, starting around the age of 10.

[Egghead]

It is very simply to quote.

Put this before you quote:

(without the asterisk)

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

off-topic again: one of the most concise, didactic and yet strictly logical of your almost 2000 posts, Bernhard!  

on-topic, scarbo87:
I start off using the QUOTE button next to the post I want to quote (and delete within the [ quote]"TEXT"[ /quote]" the text that I do not need). By highlighting, and copying, you can even import the quote into a different thread that way. And you can copy the quotation words...

[IllBeBach]

My family background is much like Saturn's.  I started teaching myself on a toy when I was 13 using a music theory manual I found in my local public library.  I worked like that for 2 years until my parents decided I was serious, bought a piano, and sent me to lessons with a local teacher--who incidentally didn't want to take me at first because "adolescents who start that late have so many problems."

I've stuck with it through thick and thin for all these years, and now at age 31 I'm working on a master's in piano performance.  I suppose I could have done something else and be making much more money (my grandmother urged me to do something real like medicine or law...)  than I am now, but I wonder if I would have been happy?  I had the desire, and I've found the way (and still working on it) through many technical issues of music making.  I'm by no means "a shining star of Julliard" but I think I play the piano well, people in my community that have heard me seem to enjoy it, and I have something to share with my students.  

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can mourn "what might-have-been's" forever and it will never do you any good.  If you truly have the desire you will find a way to accomplish what you want.  It must be an absolute obsession--you must eat, drink and sleep the piano to get anywhere (and even then you might never be a "great pianist")  You'll be happier if you stop worrying about it and do what YOU can do to the best of your ability and leave the future in God's hands.  Don't waste time wishing things could be different; use the time you have left in this world to be the best you can be, and hopefully leave the world a better place when you leave it.

[scarbo87]

thank you ppl....for those of you that said something useful.

...Thanx Berhnard..now I can quote!!

[chopinsetude]

Richter , not too late, about 9 years old....

And it was his Dad, not mom, who played piano... and later got executed with a pistol by the Russian Govt.

Slava Richter was soooo lucky....(and homosexual, not that there is anything wrong with that.  (yes he was married but most believe it a coverup))

[felia]

I have had many professional pianists tell me that despite everythihg else, love and passion for you instrument is enough to carry you.

Scarbo really agree with you, what the matter most is the passion to the piano.You might not as good as one of them ...but you got the passion which is not own by everyone. ;)music is a life long matter:)

Do your best and let the rest to God

[Spatula]

The longer I live the more I am really starting to get pissed by the fact that virtually EVERY SINGLE great pianist
has been a product of their piano-teaher mom. Think about it.
Horowitz, Richter, Arrau, Pogorelich, Pletnev,Browning, Cliburn,Gavrilov,Lang,Watts(just to name a few) are very talented as we see them now, but every one of them had their
musically-educated parents pushing and guiding their every move, cutting up their pianisitc meat for them, and making sure that every little cicumstance was just right for them in order to win their little piano competitions.
As much as I admire those artists, we have to think would they still be as succesful as they were had there parents not
been there all along?? No, they wouldn't. Watts said in an interview once that he knew he wouldn't be a pianist if his mother had not made him practice. knowing this gives me amazing respect for those pianists who had to do everything by themselvs- Brendel, Dichter, Ax, etc. If Mommy teachers were not there...then Brendel, Dichter and Ax would be the greatest 3 pianists alive today becuase we know that they are the only ones that did what they did without any help, (i'm being literal, there are more than those 3, of course).

So now I ask..Is it really fair to people who are normal...to people who had the tradgedy of being born into a non-musical family and not had their ass shoved on the bench at age 2??
no it's not.

I cannot say that I started late or had bad early trainig,but
I certainly did not have my mother obssesive about my success as a concert pianist. So when I have my Julliard auditions in
February and am suffocated by the masses of pianists who did have that benifit.....i will....oh......i guess som ppl are juz lucky...

Would you be happy and prepared with hell parents with a hell schedule for piano practice?  

[Clare]

hahaahaha!!! I like that!
you are pleading with the board of judges at the audition, "it's no fair!  My mom doesnt play!!"

Uhhhhhhmmmmm............ I must admit, I actually did that............. and it worked for me! I told a whole sob story about how my parents always told me to get off the piano because they wanted to watch TV (actually true) and the judges said, "Awww! Poor thing!" and then admired my tenacity or something. They lapped it up.

[Spatula]

Uhhhhhhmmmmm............ I must admit, I actually did that............. and it worked for me! I told a whole sob story about how my parents always told me to get off the piano because they wanted to watch TV (actually true) and the judges said, "Awww! Poor thing!" and then admired my tenacity or something. They lapped it up.

W00T! All your marks are belong to Clare

[nick]

Uhhhhhhmmmmm............ I must admit, I actually did that............. and it worked for me! I told a whole sob story about how my parents always told me to get off the piano because they wanted to watch TV (actually true) and the judges said, "Awww! Poor thing!" and then admired my tenacity or something. They lapped it up.

You must be proud!
Nick

[nick]

If one thinks that one can play extremely well only if starting at a very young age, and one didn't have a pushy parent or teacher making you practice, then you will feel cheated. If you think that it takes a certain amount of correct practice to play extremely well, not dependent on starting at a certain age, then you can reach your goal. I am of the later opinion.

Nick

[Motrax]

Indeed, the greatest obstacle to one's own developement in piano is the denial of being able to be good. I didn't take piano seriously until this March, and the amount I've improved since then is simply tremendous. I went from sporadically practicing an hour a day (skipping around none-too-infrequently) to putting in at least 4 hours a day with little trouble.

Patience is important too. A year of impatience isn't worth a day of careful deliberation.

[amo]

I actually think that you don't know what you are talking about. No offense. I had the theacher mother  . And even a violin teacher father  . And i had a nightmare that lasted for like...12-14 years or so. Of course, i think getting beatten and yelled at every single day, and not being let to get a real relationship with music and piano should have made me a great pianist .And i should mention that, absolutely every way i'd practised was always bad. They didn't even tell me what should i do to improve it. They didn't let me read or do my homeworks decently. Of course that didn't meaned that they allowed me to get bad marks or anything...
Competitions? When i succided, it was because of them. When not, i was the shame of my family. For years i've felt like a puppet that should attract clients for their studio...
And, best of all, i wasn't allowed to listen to music , or to analise it. You know why? 'Cause they didn't hear the piano from the next room. And their expectances where to allways hear it. I wasn't allowed to think. Or ask something. And know, that i realise that they never played their instruments, or practice it, they just get their theachig diploma and made a child and decided to make him what they warren't.
So, here i am, at age 22, in my last year of university.A music university. Should i say that i loved very much maths, and i had the gift for it, but they didn't let me do it? You know what? And i'm just feeling amazingly lucky that i've survived, that i didn't become a lunatic. And i'm so glad that the university is so, so far away from "home". Only in the past years i've been able to understand that what they've did was wrong. Before, i thought that it was all my fault.
I'm know tring to get a real relationship with my piano, and with music.And i love it. But i still have days when i am unexplainably sad, and i just cannot sit around the piano... I must understand that it wasn't tje music or the piano's fault, but their's. And i think that my start with them hurted my, and not helped my.
And i sometimes dare to imagine... how good it would have been to be born in a non-musical family

[min@m]

wow thats a lot to read...

[one_wing3d_ang3l]

omg amo thats real slack... and they tried to make u a vilolinist!! go chop em!

[april]

Motrax, I really like your reply. I came back to piano after having a pushy mom when I was young - I started at 4, everybody told her never to let me quit yada yada yada. Well I rebelled big-time!
I actually had a life for many years, and when I came back to the piano it was because I wanted it - not my mom. My progress has been amazing over the last 3 1/2 years since I came back to it. And I even did my competition today (after my horrible stage-fright experience) and played the absolute hell out of my Rachmaninoff prelude!!
So scarbo - quit whining and appreciate what you can do - and maybe realize that even though all those people were highly successful - they may not have been happy. Maybe if you put more time into yourself, you would exceed even your own expectations.

[Krai]

I grew up in a family where both my mom and dad were/are musicians.  I was the 2 year old proped up on the bench, crying because I hated it so much.  I watched as all my friends took skating lessons and dance lessons and I told myself that if only my parents were figure skaters, then I could be just like that!  The more they pushed the less I loved it.  And eventually I quit.....well for one year, and then I realized why I had to go back, and that changed my entire prespective.  It became my passion and not theirs.

You are in a great position.  You chose this, it was your choice, your love, your passion, not your mom's.  Sure maybe having connections is nice as a kid, but going out and doing it all on your own is so much more (as corny as it sounds) rewarding.  You have nothing to live up to, it is all a clear slate.