Hearing your playing, not the music in your head

[ShiroKuro]

Comments about listening another thread (the one about what people wished they'd known as beginners) got me thinking about listening.

I am very careful to keep my piano in tune (I get it tuned once every 6 months, if not more often) and I think it's very important to play a good instrument in order to develop/maintain my sense of proper sound. I also have always tried to improve my tone. I think this is one element of listening/hearing, the part that requires you to have at least some sense of relative pitch and know what is in tune and what is not, and also what is a good tone etc.

Another element that I have a much more difficult time with is listening to myself when I play. Instead of listening to the music I'm making, a lot of the time I think I'm listening to the music I have playing in my head. That music in my head is my ideal, the sound and the music I'm aiming for. But I think my ability to have that "inner music," maybe it's that I have a very complex aural-imagination? Anyway, this ability (liability?) sometimes prevents me from hearing myself, my playing as it's coming from my fingers.

I periodically record my playing, so I am familiar with using that as a tool... 

I guess I was just wondering how other people hear themselves? What do you do to develop the ability to truly hear your own playing? Can you hear music in your head? Can you really hear the music coming from your fingers?

[pianomann1984]

I think it's very important to play a good instrument in order to develop/maintain my sense of proper sound.

Do you ever play less well-maintained instruments to ensure that you can play any instrument presented to you?  It will happen and I think it is the mark of a good pianist to make a bad piano sound good (maybe not in pitch - you can't do anything about that; but certainly in tone).

The only thing you can do besides recording is to get used to listening while you play.  simply sit back from the keyboard, detatch yourself from your playing and enjoy!  If you find you cannot do this, it is more than likey you do not know the repertoire you are practicing well enough - practice more and try again.  Hearing the music in your head should be done away from your piano - not when you are playing it.

[Egghead]

Hearing the music in your head should be done away from your piano - not when you are playing it.

This comment startles me - please can you give more detail? How do you play what you want to play without hearing it in your head just before/while playing?

As far as I am aware, when I know the music I hear it just before it physically happens and then compare what actually happens to what I wanted. Not completely sure about this: what I am writing implies two separate hearing processes to take place at the same time... A third consciousness observing these two to report on them in piano forum is asking a bit much ...

Any schizophrenic thoughts on this?
Kind regards,
Egghead

[ShiroKuro]

Egghead, I am bilingual and I also teach English as a second language. I think what you're talking about is kind of like the speaking/communication process. We are thinking about and choosing our words before we actually speak them. How long the time lag is depends on whether it's our native language or not. If it's our native language, we don't notice the time lag (although it surely is there, even if it's in nanoseconds!) If it's a second language, then the length of the time lag is determined by our ability.

Sight-reading is also the ability to look ahead in the music, granted different from playing an already-known piece.

On the one hand, I think there is something to pianoman's comment that hearing music in your head should be done away from the piano... Obviously this would apply if the music in your head prevented you from hearing your actual playing.

But on the other hand, I agree with what Egghead is getting at, we need to have an image of the music we want to create, and I think that image has to be as fluid as the real music, not some static still-life. That image, of the music we want to be making, should be going through our heads just seconds (nanoseconds?)  before we play it, just the way we are choosing our words before we say them (however unconsciously or not)

Egghead, I'm sure your schizophrenic comment was tongue-in-cheek, but (sorry to drag the language example on) imagine what simultaneous interpreters do. They have listen to the speaker in language A, then after enough is said, they begin translating into language B, while *still* listening the speaker in language A for the next bit they have to translate. They are listening to one thing and saying another at the same time (because their translating is necessarily several sentences behind the speaker)

How about a conductor, who is listening to the music as a whole, listening to different sections/parts, and individual musicians, all at once!

Given all these examples, I think most would agree that focused listening does not necessarily mean listening to only one thing...

[pianomann1984]

Sorry, I didn't mean in my comments that one shouldn't have a clear vision of the msuci before playing - it's just that I myself have a clear idea long before I get anywhere near the piano, that I continue to develop and reform between playing.  That way I can spand more of my time at the piano realising that vision, but this doesn't mean that I have to hear it as I'm playing - I feel that when your playing all your attention should be firmly focused on what is happening, rather than what could be happening - that can be the subject of thought when you finish playing when you are away from the piano again.  You don't have to sit at a desk in a scholarly fashion to do this - I often find myself running a piece and evaluating a practice session hours after it has occured, whilst simultaniously doing washing/shopping/sleeping(!) and planning for the next practice session and what I can do differently.  This ultimately, for me results in more focused playing and more efficient practicing.  I don't think there is a moment in my life when there isn't some piece of music wandering through my head!

[whynot]

I don't have any suggestions of how to do this better, but wanted to throw in my support for the interpreter and conductor examples.  We have to keep a lot of plates spinning in the air while we're playing.  I guess there are three levels of listening going on for me:  imagining what I'm about to play, imagining what I am playing, and actually hearing what I'm playing... if that makes ANY sense.  Plus all the extra stuff I hear, like voices of teachers, people who said I couldn't play, people who said I could, when can I eat, blah blah blah (it's noisy in there).   

Well, maybe I have a suggestion:  Could you listen for some aspect of your playing that you tend to do automatically?  I mean, find something to listen for that you don't normally listen for, in order to better keep your attention on the sounds you're making?  For a lot of people, that could be pedaling, or maybe the balancing of chords.  Not to accuse you of not paying attention to these things!  Just thinking of some things that we don't worry about so much after having played a long time, that you could try to listen for now to "shake" your attention awake.

[ShiroKuro]

Whynot, your comments about finding something to "shake" my attention awake kind of hit home. I think that's what I'm worrying about, that I have been playing long enough that I'm kind of in a certain habit of how I listen, and I suspect I could be listening in a different way.

Pianomann said something to the effect that we shouldn't be listening to what could be happening, rather we should be listening to what is happening.

I think this is what I am feeling, that I am not listening enough to what is, and am listening more to what I want to be. Of course this is good in a way, it's important to have an image of how I want my playing to sound, but it's equally important to be able to judge how close or far from that ideal I am.  So it's all about balance, what whynot said and what pianomann said. (and maybe what I said! did I say anything good? 

But this is helpful, thanks for all the comments everyone. Now I have to go listen to myself...