is anyone here a "concert pianist"

[musical_fingers]

yeah i know its a random question, but im not at all familiar with this site...!

just wondering!!!

[lenny]

yes, some really great artists, but none of your 'big-name' pianists.

you wont find argerich on here becuase she is probably too busy seducing young men

you wont find marc-andre hamelin on here because he practices 24/7

and you wont find horowitz on here because in actual fact - hes dead

[steinwayguy]

yes, some really great artists, but none of your 'big-name' pianists.

you wont find argerich on here becuase she is probably too busy seducing young men

you wont find marc-andre hamelin on here because he practices 24/7

and you wont find horowitz on here because in actual fact - hes dead

This guy's hilarious.

[lostinidlewonder]

Me me Im one. lol Look at me everyone... look at meee.

[lenny]

you must be crap, because i havent heard of you 

[lostinidlewonder]

ahah, im hardly crap or i doubt people would return every year to listen to me. Im just not interested in the international scene, yet... it isn't a requirement to be famous, concert pianists can exist in their own small domain eheh.. Although the West Australia outback is really huge ahah.

[lenny]

lol i was just kidding

so do you have any advice as far as how to 'make it' is concerned?

are you just extremely gifted or can all of us achieve it if we are lucky or hardworking?

and if you dont mind asking, is it your full time occupation, and how comfortable a living do you make?

[lostinidlewonder]

Yeah i knew u where joking Yes it is full time, you can't seriously do another job. Well i cant anyway.

I am not extremely gifted. i have seem extremely gifted pianists and they blow me away in their speed of music absorbtion. I like to take time with each piece and i make them my own. That means play them note wise and expressively at the standard level, but also alter things to my liking, like tempo, added notes etc. I think it is your confidence/presentation of your own interpretation/borrowed ideas which makes you a good concert peformer.

I enjoy speaking to an audience and interacting with people. My concerts are a balance of playing and speaking, so I do rely on my talking on stage as much as my piano to present a peformance. I just cant start playing a peice without explaining it, because i just know there will be someone sitting there who can't make that emotional attachment to the piece because they dont know what it is all about thus miss out on a greater experience (in my opinion). I have had many people burn me to death saying music stands alone and nothing else needs to be said, I just say, that is wrong. lol

I honestly do not think people would be coming back to my concerts if i didnt say anything. It just stunned me the number of times ive had people come up to me and say i was better than all these big concert pianist names they have heard. i even was better than Ashkenazi! Wow! lol, I am very flattered, but of course I find it very hard to believe i play the piano any better. It is just that when people find that they have been empowered with knowledge and find they had listened to music in a more understanding way, they feel like it was more of a enjoyable and memorable moment. After I describing the story being Fur Elise(yes i did play it in concert, shame on me ehehe) I had so many people just say, I never knew, wow Im so happy i know now. Most just thought of it as telephone waiting music, I am sure Beethoven wouldn't have approved.

Empowering people with this observation of music would make anyone happy, because to see images, stories, without hearding one spoken word while the music plays, that is magical, that is why people go to see instrumental concerts, to see magical music being created right in front of their eyes. Concert musicans just must must must open the gates of undertanding the pieces they present, or it is just so STINGY!

The better you do this the better chances you have winning over your audience and getting them to return the next time you play.

It is awesome money if you work hard. I only work about 10-15 concerts a year that can put in pocket between 500-8000AUS each depending on no of tickets sold and price of your tickets etc, usually i get around 3000ish per show. That is solo ones just by myself. You do make good money if you sell most of the tickets. I wrote some stuff about concerts and money a few weeks ago here;

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,6544.msg65639.html#msg65639

I have all my bills paid, i own a house(which isnt that hard in Australia, lots of land here) , I have a grand, what more do i need? But I have very dry periods, where students may all be going on holidays and i am left surviving on about 100 a week. That is tough, but thats the nature of music if you dont work in a school or some institution that pays you a salary. I don't mind it, when i started i had only 3 students a week and 3 concerts a year, making a pittance, like under 10k a year.

As you get better and your repetiore increases, you start getting more students etc, then you have to find how to balance studying repetiore for concerts and students. I find 20 students a week is really my maximum. I probably take home around 600 a week cash in hand (after tax). And probably around 20k a year on concerts. If i am in desperate need of money i could easily get myself organsing not more concerts but larger ones which make more. It is just lots of work organising, promoting etc.

I will not get a manager because I like things to be done a certain way, and i want to keep the money. Besides I know already how to promote myself, ive done it so many times, its easy really, once you get started its just routine.

[krenske]

holy crap that was a long answer

[pianonut]

it may be long, but he's the genuine thing.  it's good to get advice on the forum from someone who's 'been there, done that.'