Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner If you could improve only one of these

This is a theoretical question...not one that would normally occur in reality. Given the way you play right now if you were given a choice between only improving your technique or only improving your musicality which would you choose and why?

Twenty five years ago I remember thinking that I would choose technique. My reasoning was that even though I understood my understanding of music was not so high when I played I wasn't so aware of what I didn't understand. In other words one could argue that in the area of musicality "ignorance is bliss". OTOH if one can't play the notes of piece up to tempo(some technical weakness), it is far more obvious.

At this point in my life I would probably choose musicality. Perhaps because of the availability of YouTube I've become more interested in being able to understand what the best pianists are doing musically that makes their playing of even less technically demanding pieces so much better than mine.

Which would you choose and why?

I would choose technique, because I find that to be more limiting to me right now than my musicality.

Musicality, without a doubt. I have been told all my life that my playing is extraordinarily musical, but when I listen to other performers, I am amazed and moved by the fresh and varied interpretations I hear and wonder, "Where did they come with that?"

I always understood "musicality" to be the ability to play musically, and was limited from full expression by limited technique.

So to me, at least how I understand it, an improvement in musicality would automatically include a corresponding improvement in technique.

I'm using musicality perhpas slightly differently i.e. to mean one's understanding of music...what one wants to be able to do with the music. It's definitely true that in practice one's technique can limit the expression of that musical understanding, which is why most would choose improvement in both areas if they were given that choice.

I thought that might be what you meant. Thanks.

I think this is an interesting question, but in reality it would be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to bring one to a very high level without the other tagging along also, as they both involve a similar improvement process: experimentation, analysis, and diligence. The first two have a somewhat fluid ordering: one could experiment freely with different musical or technical ideas and then analyze what makes each idea more or less useful, or one might start by analyzing what you currently are doing musically or technically and then experiment with various approaches. I suppose that analysis (which can be objective and qualitative or intuitive) will always be the last step before getting waist-deep in the work, but the beginning of the improvement process can begin with either analysis or experimentation.

All this is purely theoretical, I suppose: if one is less inclined to work on technical problems, then it will not develop at the same rate as one's musical toolbox. At the same time, however, one's ability to improve these two bedfellows will improve at the same rate regardless of which you work on - it is merely your choice of which to refine that determines which will improve the most. Additionally, some musical questions can be answered with skills from our technical toolbox, and vice versa (a particular gesture requiring zip and sparkle for musical effect might be improved by "throwing" the wrist; a difficult leap might be made more technically feasible through a musically effective use of "reaching" rubato).

For me it's difficult to imagine really being able to do exactly what you want musically without the technique to be able to do it. It seems to me that they are destined to be intertwined and it's not really possible to develop musicality without technique? Though perhaps it's possible to develop "technique" without musicality (if by "technique" we only mean being able to play so-and-so passage or arpeggio or whatever at a mechanical 180bpm).

Technique. To make the music, you must have the technique to do it.

Yes, technique. My teacher is now helping me develop my own musicality and I'm having so much fun, I'm happy to keep working on it. Second wish would be: fingers that are only slightly longer.

Any automaton can play the piano. Midi files are goods examples of just that. Any one can learn the technique to play 90% of the piano music written, as fast as they want to, given enough time to practice. Musicality doesn't tag along with technique. Some of the greatest musicians can play a simple Haydn piano sonata in a manner that will bring tears to the eyes. All they needed to do that was a very low level of technique. Most other piano players will never play that simple Haydn sonata as musically, no matter how much technique they develop over a lifetime of practice.

Technique, fer sure. Nothing more frustrating than trying to pour your soul into the music, but being distracted by fumbly fingers. (Thank you, Czerny, for helping me play Chopin's nocturnes!)

I think, in this light, if I were going for composition, I might select musicality. But I'm pretty sure every performer will pick technique.

Obviously, I am in the minority. Not unusual for me. Most of you seem to look at learning technique as if it was akin to learning to colour inside the lines. Once you have achieved that goal, you can now be an artist.

Most of us learn to write in our native language with considerable technical proficiency, to the extent, for example, of publishing peer reviewed papers. We have developed sufficient technique to handle the most difficult grammatical conundrums. The better among us learn just when and where to place the all important comma, in order to further elucidate our point. Yet, how many of us are renowned authors whose books will be read throughout the world for hundreds of years?

That, unfortunately, is more a matter of luck than skill. There are many fabulous writers who will never be published in the first place, much like many outstanding pianists will never play a major concert venue.

Easily, technique. It is a crushing fact that I'll probably never unlearn all of my bad habits, no matter how many teachers I study with, to play pieces I'm really passionate about like Rachmaninoff's etude op.39 no.5 in e-flat minor or Scriabin's third piano sonata in f-sharp minor.

Besides, I think even the driest technical playing can't help but be a little musical. After all, the reason technique is important is that it enables us to make varied, interesting, complicated sounds on the piano: polyphonic, interlocking Rachmaninoff textures require good technique. They also sound very different from simple one-note melodies of Yann Tiersen. So, many of the rich sounds that technique enables on the piano form a subset of musicality, but musicality doesn't necessarily require huge technique.

I think the original question posits a false dichotomy, and even considering it reinforces some unhelpful views on the relationship between technique and musicality.


-J

That was my first thought, but upon deeper reflection, I understood the possibility that one of the two may advance more quickly than the other. Of course, in that case, it might be equally ponderous to ask which of the two one feels they have mastered better. In that case, we can get a pretty good idea of which answer they would provide.

Easy. Musicality. 100% Final answer. Next question plz...

Which you are able to achieve without technique? I suspect that you started to learn to play the piano in childhood and probably had some good teachers along the way. Put yourself in the shoes of any musical person who does not have the ability to control loud and soft, articulations, and other things you have in your fingertips, because they never learned. How musical will it sound? I think that maybe "technique" should be defined, because I have a feeling different things are being imagined by different people.