Is it ok to play piano if...

[faa2010]

Is it ok to play piano if:
- You feel angry with someone?
- Someone hurt you emotionally?
- You feel sad?
- You want to cry?
- You feel tired?

[cabbynum]

Yeah, I play piano all the time when I'm those things.

[cabbynum]

Yeah, I play piano all the time when I'm those things.
Was rachmaninoff a happy guy?

[gregh]

It's also okay to play the piano with a blood alcohol level of up to .08%. More than that, though, and you start to become a public hazard...

[outin]

Is it ok to play piano if:
- You feel angry with someone?
- Someone hurt you emotionally?
- You feel sad?
- You want to cry?
- You feel tired?

Sure, as long as it's ok with the piano.

[j_menz]

as long as it's ok with the piano.

If I needed my piano's consent before playing it, I fear I'd need to resort to bribery. 

[outin]

If I needed my piano's consent before playing it, I fear I'd need to resort to bribery. 

So you just exploit the poor thing? 

[j_menz]

So you just exploit the poor thing? 

Exploit would be a good day.

On a bad day, I believe it's called "murder".

[Bob]

Sure.   Practice regardless of how you feel.  Just keep the practicing consistent.

[outin]

Exploit would be a good day.

On a bad day, I believe it's called "murder".

Your's probably have a sweet and patient charachter. Mine gets back at me if I don't treat it well...the keys hurt my fingers  

[ted]

I don't know about anybody else, but for me, ignoring such feelings is an essential part of my musical discipline. I work on my music regardless of how I feel. How on earth would one learn and grow if one were dependent on emotional vicissitudes ? My music remains, and everything else can sort itself out around it.

[j_menz]

I don't know about anybody else, but for me, ignoring such feelings is an essential part of my musical discipline. I work on my music regardless of how I feel. How on earth would one learn and grow if one were dependent on emotional vicissitudes ? My music remains, and everything else can sort itself out around it.

I actually found that surprising, Ted. For parroters of other's woks (such as myself, squark  )  it makes sense. But I would have guessed that for improvisers, one's emotional state would be part of the well upon which one drew. Shows what I know about it. 

[ted]

I actually found that surprising, Ted. For parroters of other's woks (such as myself, squark   )  it makes sense. But I would have guessed that for improvisers, one's emotional state would be part of the well upon which one drew. Shows what I know about it.  

That is a fair observation. I find it very difficult to explain what goes on with me, because I do not fully understand it myself ;but I shall try. Of course what follows may or may not apply to other improvisers; I am not acquainted with sufficient of them to have ever discussed the subject in any depth.

I have always been very inept at capturing a live mental state, a current emotion or impression, directly at the instrument. This is the sort of mechanism popularised in films about musicians and I cannot do it. Now if the mental state is one step removed, that is to say thinking about the emotion rather than experiencing it, Wordsworth's "emotion recollected in tranquillity", then yes, I have done that in my earlier compositions and some improvisations, though far fewer of the latter.

In all sincerity, I do not think what I feel during improvisation can correctly be called emotion at all. Just exactly what it is I am still unable to define, but emotion falls a long way short of it. It is an absolute bonding with a dynamic, abstract process, in itself completely free of any external association or image. If such occur while I am playing, and they occasionally do, I do not reject them though, I just allow them to come and go, while I remain a disinterested observing spirit, floating above it, as it were.

This personal mechanism means I can easily work on improvisation, practise new means of transition and so on, regardless of prevailing mood. In life generally, mood is something I appear to acquire far less than most people, remaining for the most part in a relatively placid, though mentally highly active state. This may be lucky or unlucky according to opinion, but possibly has some bearing on the issue. I have come, over the years, to disagree with Jarrett's assertion that improvisation cannot be practised. Or, put more fairly, I know for certain mine can be, i.e. conscious, dispassionate work on its objective components, principally developing new ways of dynamic transition from one idea to another.

While listening to recordings of my own playing, as with any music, I allow my mind to impose whatever emotions and images it pleases, and these may wildly differ from time to time or settle on some more or less consistent response.

Yours was a good question and deserves some sort of serious response, although I find such next to impossible.

[gmori]

When i feel tired i prefer to simply not play. I usually annoy myself more, because of silly mistakes and general bad concentration, then I enjoy the playing. Of course, I never quite sleep enough anymore so this happens a bit too often these days..

With alcohol it's even worse..

But any other state OP mentions can have a positive effect i suppose.

[timothy42b]

Is it ok to play piano if:
- You feel angry with someone?
- Someone hurt you emotionally?
- You feel sad?
- You want to cry?
- You feel tired?

Someone needs a hug.

[gregh]

I don't know about anybody else, but for me, ignoring such feelings is an essential part of my musical discipline. I work on my music regardless of how I feel. How on earth would one learn and grow if one were dependent on emotional vicissitudes ? My music remains, and everything else can sort itself out around it.

The difference between an amateur and a professional is that a professional does it even when he doesn't feel like it.

[ted]

The difference between an amateur and a professional is that a professional does it even when he doesn't feel like it.

I suppose so, but it doesn't apply to me, because I'm not a professional's backside, I'm just mad and driven. I saw what the world of professional music is like through my teacher, who wanted me to be one; competition, comparison, envy, a battle for breath among massive egos all wanting to be Big Daddy O'Reilly, drowning their musical essence to please an external magisterium. Thanks but no thanks.  

[kakeithewolf]

Those are usually the ONLY times I end up playing piano.

[j_menz]

Yours was a good question and deserves some sort of serious response, although I find such next to impossible.

Thanks Ted - that was thought provoking.