When it all just clicks together and you know what you want

[m1469]

Hi peoples of the forum  .  I am wondering if people will be willing to share with me (and consequently others as well) some more personal things about your musical/pianistic/artistic lives...

I have a few questions that perhaps some of you would willingly consider and be inclined to answer (whichever ones and however many you want)



1.   Was there a point in your life when everything has just clicked together and you finally knew for certain that you just "know how to play" and you have all the confidence to do it?

2.   Has this knowing been consistent since then?

3.   Did this clicking together clarify and/or change your career goals as a pianist/musician/artist?

OR

4.  Even just career wise, have you just had this moment of truth where you just know what you want and a way opens up for you to walk on?


(5.  Do these questions make any sense whatsoever?  )

[anda]

1.   Was there a point in your life when everything has just clicked together and you finally knew for certain that you just "know how to play" and you have all the confidence to do it?

no. actually i still think sometimes that perhaps i'm totally pointless both as pianist and as teacher... but then again, i don't get much time to wonder about stuff like that cause i have to practice and i have students awaiting

(5.  Do these questions make any sense whatsoever?  )

yes they do. sorry i can't be more helpful.

[jeff]

1.   Was there a point in your life when everything has just clicked together and you finally knew for certain that you just "know how to play" and you have all the confidence to do it?

2.   Has this knowing been consistent since then?

for the past couple of years, i seem to have been in a pattern where i encounter these moments about every week. i come to a point where it seems i've figured it all out, but keep exploring/searching and gradually get back to a point where i don't seem to be progressing in any major way, then i have another moment where i 'figure it all out' again (in different terms), etc..

a few days ago i had another enlightening moment and so i'm currently on the high from that. i can't really see myself getting in another slump from here, where i don't know what to do next - but this is basically how i've felt every other time too, so i can't be sure of what the future holds.

[lostinidlewonder]

There is no such thing as a moment of truth. Same like there is no such thing as Genius striking u without effort! we never get anywhere without consistent effort that is the life for everyone, and musicians it rings true because if you are not consistent you will go backwards in ur progress and ability.

I think there gets to a point where you have just read so much music and memorised so much, things become routine. But still there is always that effort required to memorised, express, excecute, you just cannot escape that, you get more efficient at it only.

Personally i think that we go though stages in our musical ability. The first stage is when you just learnt, usually when you are a kid or something. But to be fair to those who start music very late, it is usually the period where you are learning about scales, chords, how to play with 2 hands, observing simple patterns, shapes etc etc. This stage has little to do with expression, since the physical side of playing is the focus.

After that you refine the abilities and become more intermediant overall. you learn how to increase your efficiency in many aspects and your expression and interpretation of music has more uniquenss and more of yourself in it.

I think the final stage is when all this has been mastered and the process of memorisation becames so routine that you dont think about it. But this is a life long process and it is not like passing a finish line and say, ok now ive done it i can do anything and change everything now in my musical life.

You should start out playing whatever you want staight away, dont wait, dont say, ill wait till this happens or ill wait till it is easier for me. Do it now, learn from it, experience what you do not know. You have to fill in all the gaps as much as possible, the more you do the more you will know and the closer you get to mastering your instrument.

[Tash]

nothing ever clicks for me. i'll think it does and then change my mind like a week later. like my whole issue of whether i want to focus on music or art, so one day i'll be like 'yep i'm sick of music and i love art we'll stick with art, maybe quit piano at the end of the year' and at the moment i'm like 'why the hell am i doing art i love music so much more' and it goes on like that, and i'll probably end up following art because i have a remote chance of being able to do something with it, i love music so much more but someone tell me, what can i do with a love of music history? be a musicologist or teacher or something, but i dunno....

[ehpianist]

Solo playing rarely clicked for me.  It was  like struggling through thick tar and only once or twice a year did I feel satisfaction from the struggle.  But I had no idea what else to do.  This was what I had been trained for my entire life, my mind was pre-programmed to have a solo career, and while I was working at it, I never stopped to seriously consider that I wasn't happy doing it.

I met Laura, a Spanish pianist, in Dublin while studying for my master's degree with John O'Conor. She was there on a one year master's programme studying with someone else.  We became great friends for a year, the kind of friendships that can only develop in the intensity of a full-time music conservatory.  After we both graduated I moved to Spain on a whim as I had always gotten along well with the Spanish and had made several Spanish musician friends in the past.  I got to Madrid with my boxes and suitcases.  No piano, no real idea of what I was going to do there.  I was 24 and it was my first year outside academia, as a non-student, completely on my own.

I played several recitals that first year but let me tell you it was not an easy time.  I was still attached to my student mentality, to keep me practicing I needed someone to tell me what to do in lessons and yet I also began noticing that when I would take the pieces I was working on to local teachers (Joaquín Soriano and Aqiles Delle Vigne) I found myself musically disagreeing with most of their ideas.  I no longer was willing to mold my playing into what the teachers wanted.  This was my first sign that a transformation was taking place.

A year into my residence in Spain, Laura came over for dinner once and we decided to sit down and sightread Schubert´s Fantasy in Fminor.  Well she sightread as I had played it in Ireland with someone else. Anyhow, my roommate had a friend staying with us that night and she heard us and asked us if we would be interested to perform as a duo in one of the major concert halls in Spain (in the Canary Islands), that she knew the concert organizer there.  We didn´t think twice about it, said yes and began working on our first duo recital on 1 piano.  From that moment on everything fell in its place.  I loved playing again, I enjoyed the moment of performance for the first time in my life.  Everything clicks.  Laura and I are musically and professionally compatible, we never argue (she´s very patient with me!), we have simmilar practice styles and performance needs.  I suddenly became inspired to go out and shamelessly promote our duo as much as possible and over time that work is paying off.  We love what we do, we love the audience´s reaction to what we do, and we just want to do more and more of it.  I only wish the duo piano repertoire were as extensive and as full of quality as that for solo piano but we try to make up for it by finding new and interesting pieces and composers.

Now when I look back, I see that every step I took from the time I met John O'Conor in Holland was leading to that first performance that Laura and I did together 4 years later.  Like fate was leading us without our knwoledge into the right path. 

I have no idea how long the duo will last, there are many circumstances that could bring it to an end (marriage, kids, boredom) but for now Laura and I are trying to make it last as long as we can.

For a very few people, the transition from student to professional happens seamlessly, their concertizing while in conservatories transfers effortlessly into concertizing professionally. I had to make a conscious effort to leave my self-perception as a perpetual student behind.  With that there comes a recognition that, as artists, we will be students for the rest of our lives, this is the beauty of recreating art, our performances will never be perfect, that pieces will never reach a point where they can no longer grow.  In that sense Murray Perahia is as much a student as you are.  But at the same time, I also noticed that over the years I eventually developed something to say in music which was my own, which was a product of all the  training and thinking and analyzing of the past.  And those ideas now flowed out with little effort on my part. 

The reality is that you don´t become a professional because other people begin seeing you as a professional.  Rather, it is the exact oposite: people will only see you as a professional if you perceive yourself as one as well.  The phrase of prime importance at that turning point is "Screw what they think, this is *my* performance and I will play this *my* way".  It is actually a very liberating feeling.

Laura and I will very occasionally take our repertoire to a teacher maybe once a year.  They serve to add new life and ideas to our own but we take what we like from the lessons and leave the rest.

Elena
https://www.pianofourhands.com

[m1469]

WOW thank you very much for being willing to share your experiences with us Elena.  I appreciate very much what you have said here and your post inspires me a great deal.   This makes me want to put into action some recent thoughts I have been having about performing.

Thank you all who have written in as well!

(more comments are of course welcome)

m1469   

[ehpianist]

I figured that's why you asked.  I've been there too, that's why I was happy to comment.

Elena
https://www.pianofourhands.com

[chopinguy]

There was definitely a point in my piano playing "career", actually just last year, where I really discovered the true reasons why I play the piano.  It used to be "because my parents signed me up for it", then it was "so I could show off to my friends", but slowly and gradually, music especially of the Romantic era began to show their inner beauty.  The Chopin Nocturne 20a in c# minor was really the turning point for me as a pianist, because that was the first piece where I actually truly became one with the music.

During my performances, I'm usually a little nervous, if not a lot more, but the Nocturne was the first piece where I actually totally forgot about the audience until the very end.  It was actually also the very first performance where I received a "double clapping" (when people clap for you, you walk out, they clap more so that you walk back in and bow again).  Even so, I was so wrapped up in the piece that I didn't notice they wanted me to come back in and bow again until other people told me.  It really defined myself as a musician last year, so now I see music in a totally different light, one that defines music for what it represents and means in the heart.

[ehpianist]

 Chopinguy,  Those moments in performance where everything comes together so that there is no difference between you, the instrument, the composer and the sound, are so special.  They don't happen often but when they do it reminds us why we do this. Remember what that felt like and use it to feel that way about every upcoming performance you will ever have, it will help get rid of future nerves.

Elena
https://www.pianofourhands.com

[earthward]

no. actually i still think sometimes that perhaps i'm totally pointless both as pianist and as teacher... but then again, i don't get much time to wonder about stuff like that cause i have to practice and i have students awaiting

What you said there is really interesting to me.  I bet there's a lot of people out there that just go from day to day and just do things and don't think of the big picture too much. I'm not saying it's wrong or anything but it's just kind of sobering because I'm a pretty philosophical person, always looking for meaning in things that perhaps just isn't there a lot of the time.  For the past few years I've been hopelessly confused and anxious thinking that there had to be one right thing that I'm supposed to be doing and piano might not be that thing, but if I don't explore something else how will I know, but if I switch to something else I might discover that piano was the right thing for me to be doing all along etc. etc.

It's kinda depressing but now I have this feeling that looking for an overall purpose to things is pointless because each day is like a unit unto itself and you have to start again everyday.  So therefore the process, the experience of doing it,  is the important thing and if you like that than it's worth doing. I never know what's the right path.  I'm not sure that there is one.  For me it's just: I'll keep doing this because it's what I've been doing all along and there seems to be a lot of merit in keeping your eggs in one basket and making the most of this one thing.  There's tons of things I hate about it, there's tons of things I wish I could do instead, but I have to at least achieve something that will define my life's work, no matter what that is or what endeavor I achieve it in.  That's my direction right at this moment but I constantly have moments where I get a strong urge to break away and do something else. 

Oh dear, I've written a philosphical speal. Hope it doesn't embarass me too much.

Very interesting topic though. Thanks for bringing it up!

[ted]

I did not find my own musical voice until I was about fifty. However, it was not a sudden "eureka" occasion but a gradual organic process, the roots of which go back to very early childhood. Listening to tapes of my improvisation from thirty or more years ago I can see that the process was indeed continuous - ideas were replicated and transformed like fractals.

These days I seem to be able to produce those special moments of musical "oneness" more or less as I want to. Whether this is because I have improved in some way, or simply need lower artistic standards than most people to enter a transported state is, of course, a question which I cannot answer objectively. I know I feel very happy about it and that's about the best I can say.

I never had and never desired a career in the music business, but interpreting the word "career" to mean general musical direction, I am now absolutely sure of where I am going and what I have to do, provided I last long enough to do it.

[anda]

earthward:

what i said is true, i do sometimes think this is pointless - since i'm no martha argerich or neuhaus. however, i keep doing this:

- not because "that's all i know how to do" - i have more than one degree (or major?), i could easily get a job doing something completely different (i have had before, and i made more money )

- not because i would find some merit in "keeping my eggs in one basket and making the most of this one thing"

much simpler:

- i already tried giving up piano, and i always ended up coming back - it's the only thing i love doing

- having a "carreer" or "making it big" - yes, it would be great, but that's not the most important thing! i guess, pointless or not, i'm happy playing & teaching.

(sorry for digressing, mayla, i'll just shut up now  )

[m1469]

The reality is that you don´t become a professional because other people begin seeing you as a professional.  Rather, it is the exact oposite: people will only see you as a professional if you perceive yourself as one as well.  The phrase of prime importance at that turning point is "Screw what they think, this is *my* performance and I will play this *my* way".  It is actually a very liberating feeling.

Elena, I just wish to let you know that I have been thinking about this, what you have said here (and your entire post, really).  I very much appreciate this and as I have been letting it find it's meaning to me, it has been giving me a new idea of strength in what it is that I am trying to do.  Just in thinking on it, my attitude has been changing, slowly, and my thoughts are moving into actions.

I just wanted to thank you again for having shared this and let you know it is continuing to have influence in my life.

m1469

[dolce cantabile]

what i said is true, i do sometimes think this is pointless - since i'm no martha argerich or - i already tried giving up piano, and i always ended up coming back - it's the only thing i love doing

oh that sounds like me.... gave up once and came back for more eventually...however, I don't have the "clicks"...I wish I have....many a times my teacher said something I just wish I could do it immediately with perfection but always ended up struggling even that's some simple notation etc....

[puma]

Funny I was just thinking the other day (before you posted this) if that moment even existed for me - I played since I was a kid, and I'm pretty sure it was gradual.  Like Elena said, sometimes I do have those defining moments, however, and they reward all your effort.