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There has been a running debate on whether it is harmful to listen to recordings of a piece one is working on. I happen to believe that it is a good thing and that it does no harm to one's "creativity". Today I stumbled upon an interview in which Rachmaninoff describes ten important attributes of beautiful pianoforte playing.

Rachmaninoff: You ask me, “How can the student form the proper conception of the work as a whole?" Doubtless the best way is to hear it performed by some pianist whose authority as an interpreter cannot be questioned.
(From interview published in Etude Magazine, March 1910)

So now I can listen without worry, knowing that Rach himself would approve!

Your thoughts?

My thoughts? They haven't changed much over the number of times this question has come up.

I don't usually listen to recordings when I'm studying a work; I enjoy the artistic challenge of finding out what I can from the score. Don't tell me that this is time not well spent and that listening to recordings can shorten the learning process. Listening to recordings will tell me what others think of the work. I believe that continuing to first get what I can from the score makes me more aware of and more attentive to detail that I might otherwise overlook. I like to believe that I have become a better reader because of that.

That said, I do, eventually, listen to a few recordings after I have learned the work. We each have our own learning methods, but I rather doubt that many who do listen to recordings are "worrying" about doing so as if they were committing an artistic breach of some sort.

My teacher often asks me which recordings of a work in progress I have listened to, but that question usually comes up at a point in the study where I have to reply that I haven't listened to any yet.

Regards,

Well, it's been a very long time since I last learnt a piece that I've never heard before on a recording, a radio broadcast or in concert. (Probably when I was playing through some polkas by Smetana some 10 years ago, and found one I really liked, and wanted to learn it properly).

But I don't go out of my way to listen (again) to a recording of something I'm working on, though if it comes up on the radio, I'd listen to it. But I wouldn't buy a ticket to a concert just because it's on the program, and I don't look at YouTube videos. I'd almost certainly have had the 'baggage' of remembering all the recordings or performances of it that I've heard before anyway, even if it was years ago. Even for the most recent work that I've learnt, Carl Vine's Piano Sonata No.1, I'd already heard two different pianists play it before I decided to learn it myself.

I may listen to a piece once before deciding whether or not to work on it. But I try not to listen too much, lest that pianist's ideas taint my own concepts. So while I'm learning it I wont' listen, then I may go back and listen to several renditions to get some ideas on places where I'm undecided musically.

To which I would ask, "Whose authority as an interpreter cannot be questioned?"

You made a mistake - Rachmaninoff was not talking about recordings.

And therein lies a world of difference in what the discussion is about.

But another world of difference is that Rachmaninoff's idea of what he meant, at the time when he said it, comes out in a completely different way in our own time. There's also a bit of salesmanship going on in what he says, i.e., hint, hint, nudge, nudge - "come to my concerts to hear a pianist whose authority cannot be questioned".

If you have a strong musical personality, do whatever you want. If you don't, stay away from recordings -- you WILL wind up trying to copy most if not all of your favorite recording of a piece.

I absolutely do listen to anything I'm working on, because my reading skills are poor, especially dissecting rhythmic content. Once I've learned how to play something, I WILL play it my own way, whether I want to or not. It's inevitable.

But everyone is different. My goal in learning to sight read is primarily for acquiring technical and theoretical competence, and anything I can do to fast-track the process is a good thing. I don't believe that personal "artistic interpretation" is particularly fragile, or subject to being damaged by bad influences. Anyone who feels the impulse to interpret a piece of music will, for better or worse, interpret it from whatever awareness and perspective we choose to bring to bear, within the constraints imposed by any technical limitations we may have.

So I listen to both mechanical, lifeless MIDI and a variety of recorded performances if I can.

Having a strong musical personality does not necessarily mean one has great or even adequate musical understanding. Those who are very independent minded but less than musically superb would probably benefit from listening to recordings by great pianists.

What about the overwhelming majority of those who are somewhere in the middle in terms of how independent they can be?
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There is no significant difference between listening to a recording, or taking a lesson, or using a heavily edited edition by a great pianist or excellent editor(assuming the composer's marking and the editor's can be distinguished). All are ways to increase one's musical understanding of either a specific piece or music in general. Yet few of those who think listening to recordings is bad would also say taking lessons is bad.

I think those who are against listening assume that the person doing this will mindlessly copy another performance. Of course, that is possible but not at all necessarily the case. I also think that some(definitely not all)those who say they would never listen to a recording a piece they were learning do so out of an inflated opinion of their own musical understanding.

The entire discussion, I think, has to be divided based on the level of the pianist. What's appropriate for one level of student is not necessarily right for a different level.

As many of you are aware(since I've mentioned it many times before), there is a huge pedagogy project going on now where literally thousands of typical student pieces are being recorded by outstanding university piano teachers so that students learning these pieces can listen to a good performance. I certainly think that for that level of student these recordings are an excellent idea.

Those who adamantly think students at all levels should learn completely independently of a recording I think miss the point that most students don't have the tools to do this very well. In even a relatively straightforward area like fingering(i.e. not something as complex as interpretation) student editions of works for intermediate level pianists usually have fingering suggestions. But even far more advanced works almost always have often have suggestions in this area. Godowsky's incredibly difficult pieces are fingered in extreme detail.

I think most pianists have seen some fingering suggestion and thought "Boy, I would have never thought of that." One of the main ways one learns good fingering is by studying/trying out fingering in an edition or by fingering suggestions from a teacher. The next time the student has to finger a similar passage, they may have learned enough from the suggestions in another piece to find the best fingering for a similar passage. But few pianists are capable of figuring everything out themselves with a good result.

In summary, I think for the overwhelming majority of pianists who are not ready to enter a conservatory, there is great benefit to listening to recordings. For the less than 1% who are ready to enter a conservatory, I'm not as sure about the pluses and minuses of the whole listening thing.

I think your assumption is incorrect - at least where I am concerned it is. It's not about mindlessly doing something, nor is it about not having an opinion of your own, as JoelW suggests. For me, there are some recordings I have loved over the years - Brendel's rendition Waldstein, Entremont's version of Pour le Piano, for instance. Since I've listened to them so much, it is difficult for me to separate in my mind the recordings I've heard from my own mental vision of the piece. Not impossible to do, but harder.

Usually when I'm doing mental practice of a piece I work out the musical things for myself like "What am I going to do with this passage?" It's like a puzzle for me to complete for myself until I find the right fit. But since I've memorized the sound of these pieces with another artist's interpretation, it's tough not to have that sound come instead, so I have to question everything.

Conversely, when in the course of learning a new piece I try to arrive at my own musical decisions solely based on what is written on the page. Once I've made most of my choices, then I go back to listening to a few interpretations and see what they did. This is always very interesting because sometimes I like what I did better, and other times I like what they did better. Whatever I like the most becomes a part of how I play it.

Listening to past performances of the new piece you are learning is certainly not a bad idea.

However, you have to develop the ability to read the score and form the sound in your brain. What will you do if nobody performed the new piece before?

My son's teacher was quite clear to him that she strongly preferred that he not study recordings while he was just getting to know a work. She wanted him to pull it apart for himself and form some ideas of his own before confronting all the interpretations on YouTube. She felt that that was part of his musical education. For a student at his level, that seemed like very good advice.

Studying recordings wouldn't have quickened the learning. Like most advanced students, the mere notes came quickly enough. And pondering the "greats" wouldn't have helped on that score (pun intended). His lessons were the vehicle for thinking about the musical qualities in the work, and what choices one might make in expressing them. After he had some ideas, he was free to listen to others, however tame or outlandish they might be.

Of course, we all have heard most of the pieces from the standard repertoire. That's not the same as carefully studying recordings for their detail. That was what he was advised against.

If you would rather learn from recordings, go ahead. This isn't a straight and narrow path to heaven.

I didn't read every comment here, but a few points -

listening to recordings - in a general sense - is worth tons for any musician, IMO. Had there been recording devices from when Chopin was alive, would anyone have considered it unwise to have a listen to his interpretations? But it's generally wise to listen to recordings not specifically to the very pieces you are playing, but just as much different music as possible. For instance, I was studying Szymanowski's "Metopes", of which I think there are almost no recordings that are completely satisfactory - first of all, there are much fewer recordings of a piece like that comparing to, say, Gaspard de la nuit, but also, the music leaves many things to the performer, and I didn't always like what other performers did. However, listening to songs by Szymanowski, symphonies, chamber music, choral pieces - THIS really helped me understand the man better and shape the music better, too.

know the score already, when you start listening to pieces that you are studying yourself. have a general understanding of what's written there, so that you can understand what aspects of the music that the performer tries to bring out.

just my opinions.

I think what people do when they listen is so variable it's almost impossible to say "listening to recordings" is either categorically good OR bad. If you're the kind of learner that "imprints" like a duckling on the first recording you hear, then I would stay far away from recordings. Same goes for those who use a recording to AVOID the score. And for those who feel they get benefit out of wrestling a score to the floor before getting any influence from others. Or those who have the predisposition to hear recordings as if they were "answer keys."

However, if you're the kind of learner whose mind starts to race with ideas and makes you want to dig into the score yourself to see what you can see, or WHY someone has done something one way, then seek out as many as possible. If you find yourself analyzing the score MORE closely when you hear recordings, then you should listen to recordings. If you are more compelled to find your own voice in it by listening to others' voices, then by all means, you should listen to recordings.

And you can be any of these things at any time. I have a tendency to "imprint" if it's a recording I heard when young. I also have a tendency to lean on recordings if the piece is on the hard side for me. If the piece is firmly within my grasp, recordings often inspire me to find my way. If a piece is almost too easy for me, I can struggle to find anything to say until I hear that something CAN be done with it, at which point I often quickly find something to say.

I always listen to many recordings, too.

I'll tell you why I don't do it. In all honesty, I have done it before - as we all have, obsessively listening to a piece that we want to play or that we are currently learning. What used to happen to me is that I would have this ONE tempo in my mind, and would not physically be able to play it any other way, just because I'd heard it that way so many times. And sometimes it would be a tempo that completely did not work for me, and it sounded like crap.

Or, certain expression. You subconsciously - or consciously! - copy certain way of phrasing something and cannot do it any other way. And you have no idea why you're doing it, except that you've heard it that way. Another example - I was listening to a slow movement of something, and the person was playing it sooooooooo distorted, the pulse was almost cosmic. So of course, in my young stupidity, after listening to it so many times it got engraved into my head and I started distorting it as well. It made no sense, people told me they found it hard to follow and couldn't tell where the beats were, and it didn't sound natural. Why? Because it wasn't MINE. It wasn't MY way of doing it - I had to break it down after and find the expression for myself. And THEN it made sense, and THEN it was conductable.

I prefer to be in charge of how I play something, and not rely on someone else to learn it - because, for me, it actually does me a lot more harm than good. And creates habits that are really hard to break.

And it's the same for everybody. It's NOT because we should be weary of sounding "like" that person, but because we'll do things that we often don't even understand, instead of building the skeleton work ourselves and then working on constructing the whole picture.

I just had a coaching with someone (amazing musician!) and he agrees with me that - yes, it's fine to listen to a piece you're working on sometimes (though NOT obsessively), but it's WAY more important to get into the world of the composer - listening to other genres of his, like symphonic works, operas, chamber music, etc. It opens up a whole new perspective, and it's very interesting.

No, it's NOT the same for everybody.

Up until my late teens, the only recording of the Beethoven piano sonatas I knew was Wilhelm Backhaus's (because I had the full set on cassette tape). Yet, when I started learning a Beethoven sonata for the first time at aged 14 (by myself, without my teacher's knowledge), I already knew there were some things I didn't like about Backhaus's recording (which I almost knew by heart, measure by measure), and had no intention of copying him in any way.

And I didn't. No, I wasn't a headstrong kid. I just knew what I liked. (Otherwise, I'd have taken up smoking and under-aged drinking, like most of my peers in boarding school).

I hope you're not implying that I have no brain and don't know what I like

But that wasn't my point. For sure, we will even subconsciously pick up various things after obsessive listening. Even small things, like a wrong rhythm, a crazy tempo, wrongly learned notes. Of course these things can be fixed, but sometimes it's very annoying and difficult.....

Recordings are my primary inspiration for picking up a piece in the first place. My musical universe has grown exponentially since YouTube, and I am thankful for this--much more efficient than buying and cycling through CDs. I cannot sight read like Valentina did that concerto in one of her recent videos. What a gift!

Also, with very difficult passages, recordings help me gauge how wide of the mark I am. As for mirroring the artist's interpretation, some of this is probably inevitable, but it doesn't really bother me. Usually, I cannot play a piece up to tempo for quite a while after picking it up, depending on the difficulty of course. By this time, I have developed my own rendition, though likely still incorporating elements from the various performances I most enjoy. Just as often, though, I have reworked the elements not to my taste. So the result is a blend.

Yes, but what about all the parts you did like?

Anyway, having no intention of copying doesn't necessarily equate to having your own fully-formed vision of the piece, IMO. Nor does it mean that you are aware of unconscious influences (obviously, since they are not conscious).

How do you know he wasn't talking about recordings? Wss this statement made before recordings were possible?

Even if he was talking about live performances, I see no difference between live and recorded in terms of learning by listening to a great performance. What difference do you see?

I certainly don't think Rachmaninov needed to advertise his recitals by hinting that this was a good way to learn how to play a piece. He was one of the most popular and highly thought of pianists on the planet at a time when classical music was quite popular.