most important aspects of piano playing

[Kapellmeister27]

what would you lisy to be the top 5 or 10 components of good piano playing?  (please nothing too obvious or general like interpretation or having the music mean something.

things like tone, dynamics, phrasing, pedaling, technique, memory, sight-reading, rhythm, etc.....

if this is too hard, just think if you were able to improve some of these prefectly, which would you choose?

[Brian Healey]

To me, the things you listed like tone, dynamics, phrasing, rhythm and pedaling all fall under the technique category. Plus, I don't think interpretation is any more general than anything else you listed. I think having a clear idea about how you want the music to sound is the most important thing. My list might look something like this:

1. Interpretation
2. Technique
3. Memorization
4. Theoretical Knowledge
5. Sight Reading



Google me,
Bri

[allchopin]

I would categorize tone and phrasing more under interpretation.. however you need a tecnique to achieve this.  So here's my semi-ambiguous list:
1) Aspiration/Motivation
2) Technique
3) Interpretation
4) Sight reading
5) Theory
6) Improvisation
7) Memorization

[Dikai]

i would put rhythm first...
a lot of people don't appreciate how power rhythm can bring to a piece.  of course the rhythm corresponds to that of the specific style of music.  take a beethoven sonata or a mozart concerto or pretty much anything else, rhythm is like the foundation of the music

second, crispness of the notes, don't blur things.  not exactly the correctness of the notes.  often when you attend a competition, you'll find that the first place person may not always have the "perfect" performance in terms of the correct notes.  however, the interpretation of the music aside, crispness of the notes shows your technical ability to play that music.

third, pedalling... very important.  good pedalling is more difficult than most people think, especially for the classical period (romantec periods and after, pedalling is kind of natural, you can pretty much just "follow the flow" of music...  but for the classical period, good pedalling brings life to the music.

technically, you should have the above 3 down before you should worry about how to shape the music to your liking musically.  if a piece lacks any of the 3, no matter how you interpret the music, how you put in any musicality into it, it will not be very convincing.

[steinwayguy]

Technique is rubbish. To me, there are ONLY three elements of music making, much less piano playing:

1. Rhythm
2. An aural image
3. Experience

[Motrax]

To me, technique is simply the ability to express whatever one wants to express. Musicality is the internal vision of that expression. So perfect technique and poor musicality amounts to the expression of nothing, but wonderful musicality and poor technique amounts to the inability of expressing what one wants to express. (if that makes any sense...)

So hitting wrong notes is alright, if what needs to be expressed is still succefully presented through the piano - but if wrong notes blur the music, then problems arise.

To address the topic at hand, I feel that from a technical standpoint, relaxation is the most important espect of playing. Aside from technique, I agree that experience is a requirement for music. But it's difficult to describe what comprises musicality, since there are so many exceptions whatever rules one can come up with.

[anda]

passion
imagination
complete technique (meaning the ability to do anything you thing of)

[anda]

like tone, dynamics, phrasing, pedaling, technique, memory, sight-reading, rhythm, etc.....

all the above - these are just components of a pianist's technique. all important, but only if put in the service of anobler cause.

[anda]

Technique is rubbish.

technique is not rubbish - just think of all the works you couldn't touch if your technique wasn't good enough.

if you meant that technique cannot be a purpose in itself, but only a tool necessary (and not sufficient), i totally agree with you.

[richard w]

what would you lisy to be the top 5 or 10 components of good piano playing? (please nothing too obvious or general like interpretation or having the music mean something.

things like tone, dynamics, phrasing, pedaling, technique, memory, sight-reading, rhythm, etc.....

if this is too hard, just think if you were able to improve some of these prefectly, which would you choose?

What would you list as the top 5 components of a car? Things like:

Engine
Gear box
Road wheels
Steering wheel
Seats
Chassis
Suspension
Brakes
Clutch
Fuel tank


To paraphrase a BMW advert I recall, a car is worth somewhat more than the sum of its components. Each component, or for that matter each incomplete collection of components is somewhat worthless on its own, unless of course you happen to be an installation artist. If you have them all, then you have something of considerably greater value.




Now, I appreciate I'm somewhat missing the point of the original question here, but to my mind each aspect of music should be 'ingested' right from the start, along with all the other aspects. So what if you can only play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, you might as well learn to play it musically and with correct phrasing. By all means learn the notes and the rhythm first, but don't neglect the other aspects even with such a simple piece. Then, in your next piece, Minuet in G say, you will have a head start on your musical understanding. And when you come to the Fantaisie-Impromptu your playing will be all the better right from the start. Your interpretation, or your dynamics, or your phrasing will not be an afterthought you tack on once you've got the notes working.

That's my opinion, anyway. What a shame music isn't always taught like this.



Richard.

[puma]

   It's funny how you mention interpretation and musicality, because I find I work backwards than most people - I usually think of the piece as a whole, the dynamics, how it's going to sound, before I even think of technique.  Then I go through the long process of building/acquiring the technique to play the piece to how I think it should sound.  I've always played pieces this way.

[steinwayguy]

if you meant that technique cannot be a purpose in itself, but only a tool necessary (and not sufficient), i totally agree with you.

Then we are totally in agreement.