Does honesty have a (quality of) sound?

[p2u_]

A present for m1469 and others who are interested in the subject under discussion: A masterclass the late Gyorgy Sebok gave at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague in 1987. This is not just about playing something "correctly" and in style. Gyorgy Sebok goes deeper and touches upon sincerety in performance, freeing the "self" and the means to make it all work. I hope you have the patience to sit it through till the end.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Paul

[m1469]

Thanks, Paul!  I will view them sometime soon, hopefully.  I'm presently pushing forward with my next round of plans ... many, many plans and things to be doing. I will finally submit my forms for my passport today, for one example (I actually tried to do that last Friday but forgot to bring my birth certificate (and my own town is apparently not big enough to have a post office who does passports, so I wouldn't have made it back home and to the other town's post office before they closed!)).  I've been at a kind of halt and I *think* I'm moving forward past that dam!  Get away from me, dam!  I'm going to blast you down you crazy thing!  

Also, I'm going to hopefully decide on a good time/event for another house recital here, which perhaps I can live broadcast, as well.  Woot!  BUT FIRST, more video recording to be done ...

ALL, hopefully, with a sense of motion from an original source of utterance!  More, soon!

[alessandro]

Again, from m1469, some food for thought.   Thank you for that.   I’m so nicely surprised about the vivid reactions to this topic.   There are intelligent people on this forum.   Let me start by some side-thought, not all linked to this topic, but just to kick off, “I’m looking for (new ways) of tenderness and intimacy between human beings.”
When my cat slips from the deck of my straight piano on to the keys, that sounds straightforward.
“Honesty”  at the piano ? What is honesty ? If there is any honesty, I can feel some underlying meaning to honesty, but I don’t value the word in itself, I could only relate it to the self.  I don’t even think about the substantive form of honesty, I limit it to the adjective ‘honest’, and only towards the self ; one could only be it with (him-) herselve.  That’s the only honesty I come across and it, for me, it is always linked to what some could call consciousness, consciousness as the inner force or capability to deal with what’s wrong or right and that is why I would rather prefer to digress upon the topic ‘can someone sound true at the piano ?'.   So I’m first of all interested in knowing what is meant by “honesty”.  When I’m buying let’s say a loaf of bread and I get, when paying the bread, too much money back for change, I can’t help it, but I give back the money to the baker.  Is this honesty ? Maybe, but I’m quite sure I do this for myself.   It has to do with education.   Is it something valuable.   I don’t think so.   But I’m feeling better.   When I walk out of the shop, I don’t always feel better, sometimes I say to myself ‘you better kept the money’.  But in the end, I feel not more or less serene than when I got in, that is, happy.
I’m glad that someone made a distinction between playing piano and playing piano in public.   There must be a distinction in truth in playing “alone” or playing in public.   But maybe it is good to try to find out, first, in order to find some common grounds of discussion, what “art” is.    And eventually, but more difficult, what is music ? For me, art is a form of truth and it should have no meaning at all.  It is in some way, almost the opposite of honesty.   It is that much bigger than virtue, it is vital.
Honesty needs context, sound and beauty doesn't.  
 What’s the difference between a perfect lie and the truth ? How much” self” do we control ? As you and everyone can notice, I find it very difficult maybe impossible to say something about “honesty in music”.   I do think that even if it would be possible to include honesty in art, I don’t think I would notice it, I’m not sensible for honesty.   There are people that I don’t trust in real life, okay, but that is something else, I don’t ignore them.  
Honesty doesn’t have a sound, I don’t think so.  
The relation between voice and truth is a more interesting and direct one.    But than again, if mezzo soprano, bariton and bass is for me nicer than soprano, would that mean that soprano is less true ?
I stop, I’m thinking of deleting my post because I’m more talking about truth than about honesty.   Sorry.  
And very kind greetings, honestly.                                                              

[pts1]

allesandro

Good points.

I think she is hunting for the piano having an "honest" sound which could be a "true" sound as well, I think.

m1469 said: "a [piano] sound is either honest or its not."

I don't see how this could be determined, even if it is true, which I don't think it is.

"Honesty", IMO, is a human value, not one that is necessarily present in nature in human terms.

For instance, if a woman "honestly" desires to have and raise a child, as this would be the most "honest" thing she could do with her life, and "nature" kills the child during the birth process in an "honest" way due to some undiscernable "natural" complication, how does this make sense in human terms?

And what about machines?

Are they honest?

What if a pianist, the would be mother "failing by due to natural intervention" at child birth, plays an "honest" sound on a piano, a Diskklavier, and then the diskklavier
reproduces the sound it measured by discerning the speed of the back of the key lever with an optical scanner and consequently fires an electronic solenoid positioned beneath the back of that same key, which pushes the back of the key up, thus sending the hammer to hit the string at precisely the same speed as the pianist did -- is this an honest sound made by a cold, uncaring electro-mechanical technically enabled machine?

A birth now of a sound, not stillborn, but greeting the world via highly "unnatural" means, though successfully, it midwife wires, circuits, electronics, computer chips, and such.

Is this a viable yet dishonest sound, or was the silent cry of the dead unborn sound more honest?

I could go on and on, but in short, I do not think there is such a thing as an honest piano sound, and honesty is a perception of human emotion by and large, and as such may well be a quite dishonest discernment.