Taking the wind out of my sails.

[iancollett6]

Is there anything more disheartening than jumping on YouTube to check out a piece that you're struggling with and seeing a seven year old Chinese kid belting it out to perfection?..

[thalbergmad]

Perhaps the only thing more disheartening is struggling with a piece all week and then your teacher sight reads it to perfection.

Thal

[hfmadopter]

My adult daughter thinks the same as you, she compares her playing with very young people, wants to play very well but these things bother her. I just look at them as a kind of anomaly. Their culture is different, everything is different about their mind set compared to mine at least. It's like I can shoot a gun, I can go fly fishing and do really well, but a back woods guy can feed his family off the land and survival is a natural occurrence. His ten year old can most definitely near his equal. Doesn't mean he is going to shatter my existence. Different culture, different realities, these guys can stand up in a canoe in the middle of a rushing river I wouldn't take my canoe down in the first place.

[le_poete_mourant]

Whether it's a seven-year-old or a seventy-year-old (Rubinstein, Serkin, Horowitz), asian or not -- there is always going to be somebody who can play your music better. Way better. Faster, cleaner, whatever. This is not what's important. What is important is that you have something to say in your own performance of the piece. If that is the case, it doesn't matter if yours is not the fastest recording. Make it interesting, make it your own.  Also, everybody learns at their own pace. It may take you a while to overcome the challenges in the piece you're struggling with, but eventually you will get there. Patience is difficult, I know. But it's worth it!

[hfmadopter]

Whether it's a seven-year-old or a seventy-year-old (Rubinstein, Serkin, Horowitz), asian or not -- there is always going to be somebody who can play your music better. Way better. Faster, cleaner, whatever. This is not what's important. What is important is that you have something to say in your own performance of the piece. If that is the case, it doesn't matter if yours is not the fastest recording. Make it interesting, make it your own.  Also, everybody learns at their own pace. It may take you a while to overcome the challenges in the piece you're struggling with, but eventually you will get there. Patience is difficult, I know. But it's worth it!

Well said, I agree .

[ted]

Practically anybody can play anything better than I can so no, it wouldn't bother me at all. My purpose in music has nothing to do with comparison or competition. However, if I can learn something from another musician which suits the furtherance of that purpose I shall do so. The age, ability and social standing of the performer is irrelevant.

[chopin2015]

You shouldn't strive to do better than other people. It doesn't matter what they are doing unless you actually liked the musical ideas in their incredible performance. You really should only work to improve on yourself from your own experiences, not someone else's. I know what you mean, don't you wish you could physically do that or thought of that? Well...next time just remember that you like that, don't be mad. Really, just look up and admit that you want to be more creative or your goal is to play as fast as possible and as clean as possible . 

I had to learn to get over myself and accept that I am not going to get praise for my piano skills all the time, and some obvious remarks are going to be harsh. It's just life...in your own mind, remember that other people can piss you off, but  you have the strength to resist that and think positive!

[lighthand045]

Something really discouraging is finding a really obscure work by some virtually unknown composer that was living on your attic, when trying to premiere it, only to found out Hamelin has alerady played it to perfection  .

[j_menz]

belting it out to perfection?..

sight reads it to perfection.

played it to perfection  .

There's no such thing. Better than you, quite possibly. But perfection can't be achieved in any one performance.

[lighthand045]

Maybe not perfection, but simplicity. As Chopin said:

"Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art."

[j_menz]

Maybe not perfection, but simplicity. As Chopin said:

"Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art."

Wise words. (And I usually consider Chopin a bit of a pompous dill when he's not writing music.)

Simplicity is a quality of perfection, but not it's only one. It's also a damn sight harder than the word suggests. And it only "emerges" if one has spent one's time looking for it in that "vast quantity of notes and more notes".

[birba]

I think the dying poet said it well, too.  I NEVER go check up on a piece in youtube until it's finished.  I'm preparing for a concert next month and i'm determined to make the music mine and i don't care a fig about what is considered the correct interpretation.  I may never play again, but it's going to be different  this time.  To hell with the wrong notes.  It's going to mean something.   

[dima_76557]

Is there anything more disheartening than jumping on YouTube to check out a piece that you're struggling with and seeing a seven year old Chinese kid belting it out to perfection?..

On the contrary: this always encourages me. There must be some simple principle for mastering it that I may have missed.

[chopin2015]

I think the dying poet said it well, too.  I NEVER go check up on a piece in youtube until it's finished.  I'm preparing for a concert next month and i'm determined to make the music mine and i don't care a fig about what is considered the correct interpretation.  I may never play again, but it's going to be different  this time.  To hell with the wrong notes.  It's going to mean something.   

That's good! I mean, still record yourself asap to make sure YOU like what you're doing! But you are expressing the composer's music and the music in you that is sympathetic. Other people'music is...it's creepy if you play it just like Richter or whatever. There are general elements that help the music flow that you should pass on from other's previous recordings to your own and on to the next to keep the piece in context. But the music should be phrased according to your own range of technique and feeling, not paraphrased.

[hfmadopter]

That's good! I mean, still record yourself asap to make sure YOU like what you're doing! But you are expressing the composer's music and the music in you that is sympathetic. Other people'music is...it's creepy if you play it just like Richter or whatever. There are general elements that help the music flow that you should pass on from other's previous recordings to your own and on to the next to keep the piece in context. But the music should be phrased according to your own range of technique and feeling, not paraphrased.

In a sense is anything we play really our own ? As pianist/musicians we are a compilation of other peoples works really, from the written score to how we interpret. We pick things up like sponges, a tidbit of this and that and the culmination becomes ours, perhaps. We all started off knowing nothing and so the instruction and self education began, but we don't pick it all up out of the dead air around us. We learn from others.

So I play some pop stuff, I phrase it "my way", I may rearrange it a bit and certainly express it my way. But everything I know I learned along the way, picking up ideas from other people and using them as a whole idea of "my own".  Modulation to a changed key, stretch phrasing, a pass at a section at F or FF that isn't written there, an embellished intro, are all little bits and pieces that I liked when hearing other people do some of these things and I applied to my music but the music already existed ! Maybe each little tidbit not as well done sometimes, maybe even better than those I heard it from originally other times. This is how we grow and it's much like life itself really.

 Taken to it's simplest form, who wrote the C scale that we play ? Not any one of us here today ! If we use the C scale, it's not ours then is it ? If I stretch a measure into three measures, someone did that before me. Modulation I learned in a class I took a long time ago. Building pop music into a greater work I learned from a local entertainer ( who did it much more eloquently I might add) but I liked the ideas and use them.

[iancollett6]

You all know how much practice is needed...A seven year old Chinese Virtuoso would have spent a large percentage of his time alive practising.!
 We all dream of being fantastic, but the question is, would you be prepared to sacrifices what that seven year old kid has missed out on to be fantastic?..