When are you able to tell good piano playing from bad piano playing?

[orgarnic]

I don't know why, but some renditions of pieces sort of sound the same to me (if we're not talking about interpretation or the difference in sound between the synthesia videos and real performances).  Also, when someone composes a piece, such as on this platform, observers can detect what emotions or ideas the piece is trying to convey, while all I hear is "good" music. Is it because I'm just a beginner, or can you train your ear to detect such differences?

[thorn]

"Good" and "bad" are in most cases subjective terms. We live in a world of critics, adjudicators, examiners and this can sometimes create a sense that "good" and "bad" are objective terms. Of course if I got a crowd of non-musicians to compare a recording of Cziffra's La Campanella with a recording of an intermediate level pianist trying to sight read it, there'd be an objective difference even they would be able to notice. But when the question becomes "which is the best professional recording of La Campanella", even a crowd of top-level pianists and music critics would give you different answers.

As for composition, that's a different ball game altogether. You can train yourself to tell whether a piece is well constructed by studying professional compositions- not just listening but analysing the score and how they use material- but as for understanding the emotions/ideas the composer is trying to convey that's a subjective thing again. And sometimes it's a taste thing- I recently had a conversation with a non-musician who went to a piano recital of Bach and Rachmaninoff. She said that the Bach had no emotion, it felt like a meditation and the point of his music was to avoid emotion, however the Rachmaninoff was very intense and felt like it was emotionally taxing on the pianist. And this was a non-musician, there are many musicians who also feel more emotional connection to Rachmaninoff than Bach. But is this an objective difference in the music itself, or a matter of taste? (For me, the latter)

[ranjit]

I don't know why, but some renditions of pieces sort of sound the same to me (if we're not talking about interpretation or the difference in sound between the synthesia videos and real performances).  Also, when someone composes a piece, such as on this platform, observers can detect what emotions or ideas the piece is trying to convey, while all I hear is "good" music. Is it because I'm just a beginner, or can you train your ear to detect such differences?

I believe that it can be trained. A lot of listening goes into it though.