Peaceful piano

[etudediabolo]

Hi all
So next year I'm going to a piano competition, where I have to play for twenty minutes for a jury, and they will judge. They of course know, but I then have to give them a ranking of my program from easiest to most difficult (why I have to IDK), so maybe someone can do that for me? I have some stormy pieces, some happy pieces and some Bach, but I'm looking for a piece that will convey an air of inner peace. Preferably an Eastern European composer ie Rachmaninow, Tchaikovsky, skrjabin Prokofjew, because I already have a Chopin etude. Below I'll put my other program so you can see cerca what level of difficulty.
Beethoven sonata in f minor, first mvmt.
Bach prelude and fugue in b flat major book 2
Chopin etude in a flat major op.25/1
Béla Bartók alegro barbaro

Cant wait for your feedback

Pete

[lelle]

I feel those Eastern European composers lack inner peace in general but Rachmaninoff does have some peaceful-ish things. Look at the Preludes that are in a major key and slow tempo. The D major prelude is maybe a bit of a cliche at this point, but it is also a beautiful and overall peaceful composition.

[etudediabolo]

I feel those Eastern European composers lack inner peace in general but Rachmaninoff does have some peaceful-ish things. Look at the Preludes that are in a major key and slow tempo. The D major prelude is maybe a bit of a cliche at this point, but it is also a beautiful and overall peaceful composition.

That's true , but I just don't want to overchopin the poor jury (if that's even possible?)

[lostinidlewonder]

You should use ChatGPT for such questions. I was bored enough to plug it in for you:



Difficulty Levels: Piano Pieces


User
Order these pieces in terms of difficulty level: Beethoven sonata in f minor first mvmt,
Bach prelude and fugue in b flat major book 2,
Chopin etude in a flat major op.25/1 and
Béla Bartók alegro barbaro

ChatGPT
Ordering these pieces in terms of difficulty level is subjective and can vary depending on the pianist's individual skills and experiences. However, based on the general consensus among pianists and teachers, a possible ordering from relatively easier to more challenging would be as follows:

Bach Prelude and Fugue in B flat major (Book 2): Bach's preludes and fugues are known for their intricate counterpoint and technical demands, but this particular piece is considered moderately challenging compared to some of his other compositions.

Beethoven Sonata in F minor (First movement): Beethoven's sonatas are renowned for their depth and complexity. While the F minor Sonata (Op. 2, No. 1) is one of his earlier works, it still requires a certain level of technical proficiency and musical interpretation.

Chopin Etude in A flat major, Op. 25, No. 1: Chopin's etudes are famous for their technical challenges and musicality. This particular etude, known as the "Aeolian Harp," requires agility, control, and a delicate touch.

Béla Bartók Allegro barbaro: Bartók's "Allegro barbaro" is a highly demanding and virtuosic composition. It incorporates complex rhythms, large chords, and rapid hand movements. It is often regarded as one of Bartók's most challenging piano pieces.

Please note that the difficulty of a piece can be subjective, and different pianists may find different pieces more or less challenging based on their individual strengths and weaknesses.

[etudediabolo]

Exactly for the reason why ranking such things is so subjective is why I'd prefer asking people than chatGPT. Asking many different people, both online and offline, gives a more accurate answer.

[etudediabolo]

Proof of that fact: alegro barbaro is most decidedly not one of Bartóks most difficult pieces. But nevertheless, THANKYOU for doing me the service of asking chatGPT  :

[brogers70]

This is pretty peaceful.

[etudediabolo]

True dat

[lostinidlewonder]

You're going to get subjective answers from humans with the high risk having people just telling you the difficulty based on nothing about playing the pieces themselves. Do you disagree with the order of ChatGPT? You do realise you can keep asking it questions in a more detailed manner to get better results if you are unsatisfied, I just did a very simplistic question. Since you play all the pieces shouldn't you have a clear understanding as to which is more difficult than the other?

[etudediabolo]

Yes you're right in saying that and Yes, I disagree with the order. I'd put, from easiest to hardest:Beethoven -Bach- Bartók- Chopin. I do have a clear idea of what the difficulty scale is; that is the difficulty scale for me, a just wanted to see what others had to say about it. I don't know whether they want a general or a performer specific ranking. As stated above, I really have no idea why the jury want people to do this, but I just followin' the rules

[bwl_13]

Yes you're right in saying that and Yes, I disagree with the order. I'd put, from easiest to hardest:Beethoven -Bach- Bartók- Chopin. I do have a clear idea of what the difficulty scale is; that is the difficulty scale for me, a just wanted to see what others had to say about it. I don't know whether they want a general or a performer specific ranking. As stated above, I really have no idea why the jury want people to do this, but I just followin' the rules

Perhaps the jury wants to know how YOU found all the pieces, considering you're playing them. Asking it on this forum will only give you others opinions, but I typically know what pieces (especially that I am currently playing) are giving me the most trouble.

I never considered ChatGPT for questions like this but I think lostinidlewonder might be on to something with that, because it complies data from real people and spits it out. I generally have avoided ChatGPT but this might be the one instance in which I'm interested in using it.

As for peaceful pieces, add me to the vote for Schubert Op. 90 No. 3 (although it is a little stormy at times, it's very dreamy). You can also look at Rachmaninoff Op. 32 No. 5, which would be shorter and would fit your time requirements better. Another option is Lilacs Op. 21 No. 5.

[bwl_13]

I messed around with ChatGPT for difficulty rankings and I realized this definitely will not rid forums of these questions. The AI messed up the keys of the pieces and gave different answers depending what other pieces surrounded two particular pieces. It even messed up the names of the pieces even after I'd just entered them.

It's still a cool concept and the information generally makes some degree of sense, asking further questions or correcting it did correct them, but then the ordering would also change just by my correcting what key a particular piece was in. It's not surprising since it's a ChatBot and not an AI that's been trained on musical materials and pedagogy.

I guess what I'm getting at is that ChatGPT is no better than any random person online, but it's still an interesting thing to mess around with.

[lostinidlewonder]

It will eventually take over all these questions, I only used the free version, version 4 is like 10x stronger and within a small period of time it will become exponentially more powerful. There is no avoiding that AI will certainly replace the need for human opinions on a vast majority of issues including piano.

Asking humans here is just going to give random results too, you are going to be hard pressed finding someone who has studied all of these works. So that's why I thought it a peculiar question from someone who has already studied them all. Providing a list from gpt that was good enough since the op just wanted suggestions, I was more interested to see if they knew themselves what to agree with and since they do it sort of makes their question ultimately unnecessary.

[etudediabolo]

Yes, ultimately, you're correct, lostinidlewonder

[etudediabolo]

Perhaps the jury wants to know how YOU found all the pieces, considering you're playing them. Asking it on this forum will only give you others opinions, but I typically know what pieces (especially that I am currently playing) are giving me the most trouble.

I never considered ChatGPT for questions like this but I think lostinidlewonder might be on to something with that, because it complies data from real people and spits it out. I generally have avoided ChatGPT but this might be the one instance in which I'm interested in using it.

As for peaceful pieces, add me to the vote for Schubert Op. 90 No. 3 (although it is a little stormy at times, it's very dreamy). You can also look at Rachmaninoff Op. 32 No. 5, which would be shorter and would fit your time requirements better. Another option is Lilacs Op. 21 No. 5.

Noted. Thanks for your suggestions

[bwl_13]

It will eventually take over all these questions, I only used the free version, version 4 is like 10x stronger and within a small period of time it will become exponentially more powerful. There is no avoiding that AI will certainly replace the need for human opinions on a vast majority of issues including piano.

Asking humans here is just going to give random results too, you are going to be hard pressed finding someone who has studied all of these works. So that's why I thought it a peculiar question from someone who has already studied them all. Providing a list from gpt that was good enough since the op just wanted suggestions, I was more interested to see if they knew themselves what to agree with and since they do it sort of makes their question ultimately unnecessary.

Good point.

That is what I was getting at, that human answers are general 'random' or inconsistent. I can imagine ChatGPT 4 is much stronger.

It does kind of scare me that humans can just be replaced for matters like this. I am not a huge fan of AI

[brogers70]

Good point.

That is what I was getting at, that human answers are general 'random' or inconsistent. I can imagine ChatGPT 4 is much stronger.

It does kind of scare me that humans can just be replaced for matters like this. I am not a huge fan of AI

One difference (an advantage of humans) is that random humans have actual reasons for what they say - you can ask about those reasons. And here, the humans might not be so random - you might have enjoyed their playing in the audition room, you might have other independent reasons to trust them. An AI, like ChatGPT, is using a neural network to maximize the similarity of the text it generates to text generated by humans on the internet in response to a given question - you have no access at all to all the parameter fiddling that goes on to optimize the similarity, and even if you did, it would not consist of reasons you could follow. ChatGPT is a sort of weighted average of what random people on the internet said in response to a given question - that might make it more accurate than a single randomly chosen person's answer, but you don't have access to how the weighting works, and it has no perspective you can understand or take into account.

[lostinidlewonder]

It does kind of scare me that humans can just be replaced for matters like this. I am not a huge fan of AI

We all are being thrown into this and will have to adapt or be utterly left behind, most likely for the better and worse. Not sure how ethical this all is though, bo obe asked us if we want this and many will have to start new jobs altogether.

One difference (an advantage of humans) is that random humans have actual reasons for what they say - you can ask about those reasons. And here, the humans might not be so random - you might have enjoyed their playing in the audition room, you might have other independent reasons to trust them. An AI, like ChatGPT, is using a neural network to maximize the similarity of the text it generates to text generated by humans on the internet in response to a given question - you have no access at all to all the parameter fiddling that goes on to optimize the similarity, and even if you did, it would not consist of reasons you could follow. ChatGPT is a sort of weighted average of what random people on the internet said in response to a given question - that might make it more accurate than a single randomly chosen person's answer, but you don't have access to how the weighting works, and it has no perspective you can understand or take into account.

You can peel back the AIs intelligence like an onion if you have the right prompts to ask it. I'd say it is much more thorough than the majority of human and even more so on the paid versions if you ask the right requests. Wait a few years and it will be most likely millions/billions of time more intelligent than the average human. Will we be hiding in caves from these robots soon? Lol

[brogers70]

We all are being thrown into this and will have to adapt or be utterly left behind, most likely for the better and worse. Not sure how ethical this all is though, bo obe asked us if we want this and many will have to start new jobs altogether.
You can peel back the AIs intelligence like an onion if you have the right prompts to ask it. I'd say it is much more thorough than the majority of human and even more so on the paid versions if you ask the right requests. Wait a few years and it will be most likely millions/billions of time more intelligent than the average human. Will we be hiding in caves from these robots soon? Lol

It is much more thorough in the sense that it takes an average of human responses. However, everything depends on the data set that it is trained on (which is decided by a human) and comes back to mining human responses on the internet. AI's can make spectacular errors if they are trained on a database that does not reflect the situation in which they are working. And when you peel back the onion, there is no reasoning going on that you can relate to. Only a weighting of different inputs. That is one reason that medical diagnostic AI is still a bit suspect. Here's a very clear explanation of the math behind neural networks

&t=1023s

Neural networks and chatbots are impressive, but they can also be impressively wrong in unpredictable ways, whereas people are generally wrong in relatively predictable ways.

[lostinidlewonder]

Certainly there is error but it can be trained away. I'm actually programming AI in my professional work currently for compsition, analysing how well someone plays and many more. Much of the training has to do with restricting and directing the AIs attention in a specific way.

I don't believe AI merely has read all forums online and averaged the results, in many cases it has been specifically trained on less scattergun information, well in the realms of piano education and programming language at least I see it like that and I have seen how it has come to novel conclusions of its own, in quite a surreal way.

[brogers70]

Certainly there is error but it can be trained away. I'm actually programming AI in my professional work currently for compsition, analysing how well someone plays and many more. Much of the training has to do with restricting and directing the AIs attention in a specific way.

I don't believe AI merely has read all forums online and averaged the results, in many cases it has been specifically trained on less scattergun information, well in the realms of piano education and programming language at least I see it like that and I have seen how it has come to novel conclusions of its own, in quite a surreal way.

It is certainly possible to program AI for a specific task, something like evaluating a piano performance, I suppose. ChatGPT, though, is simply trained on massive amounts of internet text, not just forums, but wikipedia, PhD theses that end up on line, concert notes, whatever can be scooped in. It then tries to reproduce responses to prompts based on predicting likely next words in texts it generates. Like all machine learning programs its output depends on the training data set. AI can do phenomenal things in some situations, predicting protein structure, mimicking human conversation, image analysis. It's not magic, though. It is more of a black box than traditional computer programs because the logic is not transparent, so that if you get odd errors you cannot just troubleshoot the program, you have to figure out what there was in the training data set that might have lead the neural network astray. If there are biases or skews or missing controls the programmer had not thought of in the training data, then systematic errors will show up in the outputs.

Because the outputs are somewhat unpredictable and because they mimic human speech well and because we have highly sensitive and not so specific "agency detection" circuits in our brain, it is easy to overestimate the thoughtfulness of some AI programs, and to forget that humans generated and chose the data used for training. It's helpful to understand what the training data set was and roughly how neural nets "learn" from them. That's why I like that video I linked, a very clear explanation of the basic mechanics.

You might train an AI to judge piano competitions by training it on recordings of the performances and the corresponding scores from the judges. There'd be a lot of work to do to isolate characteristics be be weighted in the neural net,  but eventually it could probably be done. You could then use it to judge random piano performances, perhaps. It might do well a lot of the time; it might give weird results if there were pieces, composers, or styles that had been underrepresented in the training data, and at best, it will faithfully reproduce the average taste of the set of judges whose scores were used as training targets.

I'm not trying to put down AI; it works very well for lots of things, and does some things that would take humans forever, but it's no more accurate and objective than the data set its human programmers train it on.

[brogers70]

Since this thread diverged a bit into the usefulness of large language models, I thought I'd post a link to an interesting article by Douglas Hofstadter, the author of "Godel, Escher, Bach; An Eternal Golden Braid," critiquing a LLM's attempt to explain why he, Hofstadter, wrote the book. The article is in the Atlantic, so in principle you need a subscription, but I think they may let you read a small number of articles per month without one.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/godel-escher-bach-geb-ai/674589/