Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Why listening to recordings is good when learning a piece

I listen to recordings of music I'm working on quite routinely, but with a caveat - it's important to do it with the score to understand how what's on the page is different from what you're hearing. The fidelity of the recording destroys a lot of detail, as does the lack of scrupulousness on a part of many great pianists.

The one exception is that if I'm playing Chopin, I don't listen to any recordings at all. I play what I see, and the results are often dramatically different from the 'normal' interpretation, but they usually convince me.

That's not the impression I got from what you wrote earlier in this thread :



It appears that now you are saying there is a difference.

I learnt to play several Mozart piano sonatas before I'd heard any of his other music (and before I heard anyone else play them) - and I cringe when I listen to the results from those days. I had no idea how to 'sing' the slow movements. My new teacher at my new school recommended that I listen to a Mozart opera, or at least Mozart arias.

So, one afternoon, I went into the music room after school had finished, and looked through the LP collection there, found one of Mozart operatic arias, and put it on the turntable (students at school who were doing Music at 'O' or 'A' Level were allowed to use that room, and its record collection and music scores).
It changed my understanding of Mozart completely: I realized that I needed to sing and phrase a Mozart melody on the piano like an operatic singer, not like a pianist. (And I also fell in love with opera, which, until then, I'd never heard. And with classical vocal music. I joined the school Chapel Choir soon afterwards....).

Immediately afterwards, I went downstairs into one of the practice rooms, and played the Mozart Sonata I was then learning (K332) - filled with fresh new insight into the music. At my next lesson, my teacher was amazed at the transformation in my understanding, and my playing of the piece. And of course, from then on, whenever opera was on the radio, I'd make it my priority to listen to it - whether it was by Mozart or not.

I'm surprised that even with YouTube easily available to everyone today, there are still pianists playing Mozart who don't listen to his operatic music, concert arias or songs. And don't even know the tune of Dove sono.

Not at all. To me that's like saying that since we now have automobiles no one can conceive of walking a mile if necessary.

The whole use of the word "crutch" in BDB's post sets the wrong tone I think. For many people(I think the huge or even overwhelming majority including the most advanced players)listening to a recording is one of the many ways to learn about music or about a specific piece. No different from taking lessons, and I bet you don't think doing that's a crutch. No different from reading an essay about a piece of music or looking at some excellent editor's ideas about a piece in their edition.

If one decides to play a piece where there's no recording or prior listening experience then one does what's necessary under those circumstances. I don't think that means one should avoid listening to a recording if one's available any more than one should avoid using a car if one has several miles to travel.

Why should they?

I mean, there are a large number of fine piano recordings available of almost any given piano piece of Mozart's, so why would a pianist feel any need at all to hear any of the vocal music, which is not even the same music?

Just because listening to his vocal music improved your understanding (from your POV), doesn't mean that anyone else would have a similar experience. They may already get that aspect of his music, simply from hearing good performances.

Or they may not agree that that sort of transference of vocal to keyboard even matters.

In my second statement I was saying that taking lessons and listening to a recording are both valid ways of learning about music or about a specific piece one is study. In that way there is no significant difference. I think using an edition by a great editor also falls in that category. I was disagreeing with those that said listening to a recording was not valid.

Because listening to a recording requires the student to figure out everything by them self, I do think taking lessons from a good teacher is a more productive and easier way to learn about music. I had learned several Jarrett ballads before learning Be My Love. If I had been taking lessons from a good teacher they might have suggested beginning a phrase more emphatically long before I figured that out by listening to Jarrett's recording.

Why do you choose to not listen for Chopin but listen for other composers?

Really???

Speak to Mitsuko Uchida, Murray Perahia, Alfred Brendel (or even Horowitz....) or any number of great Mozart pianists.
Whenever the subject of Mozart crops up in interviews with great pianists, they bring up the subject of his operas, and how important it is to to at least hear their arias sung by great singers to understand how operatic his instrumental music is. This is probably most evident in his piano concertos, but almost every Mozart slow movement in his piano sonatas is like an aria for piano.

And you don't think it's at all necessary??

If it is necessary, it can't be very good piano music. Take your pick.

And yes, I'm quite aware that many excellent pianists reference his vocal music when they are talking about his piano music. If they have already done that, I shouldn't need to - all I should need is to hear them play.

It seems to me that you are missing the point!

Regards,

Pianoloverus, I'm just extremely confused why you think there is no significant difference between listening to a recording and a lesson. That is just not true. A recording would have never taught me how to produce a big, rich and effortless sound or how to practice specific passages etc etc etc.

Could this be sarcasm at its best?

There is no significant difference in the sense one can learn a great deal from each. That is how I have used "significant difference" throughout this thread. I even gave a very specific example from my own playing.

Well, I don't know. I certainly have learned a lot from orchestral recordings or watching concerts, but it's a very different kind of learning.

If I had the choice, I would much rather have a lesson with my teacher..

Okay, now the Aspy is going to weigh in.

First, my late teacher taught all of his students to listen to multiple recordings of every piece they were working on. He did this because, unlike Dr. Mark C., not every person has the Rachmaninoff luxury of being able to listen to a ton of great pianists in concert. (It really wasn't a luxury, it was the only way they had prior to recordings)

Second, when my teacher instructed us to listen to recordings, and also films of Rubinstein, Horowitz, and Arrau, he always said to look for any little trick of the trade they we could pick up from these great artists.

Accordingly, the first thing I noticed was that, as different as these gentleman were in terms of style, they all sat very still, and were very body-centered with little or not facial emotion. They were all zoned-in to their music.

If I had not been taught how to critically listen, and sometimes watch, I would have never picked up on the arpeggiation, et al, of the old recordings. This in turn led me to the discovery of the original style of 19th century performance, which I recently have been able to prove started in the 17th century, even before the classical period. (Mark C.!)

When I listen to Radu Lupu play the the Brahms Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2, I listen for what he does that I like that I could possible adapt to my performance. The complete performance of whatever I listen to, and now watch on You Tube, is very rarely the totality of my experience.

No, it's not sarcasm - I just haven't got that vocal fetish thing going that so many pianists do. Although I love listening to classical music that doesn't involve the piano, it's rarely going to be vocal music. I've got many hundreds of classical LPs and CDs, but I would guess that less than 1% of my collection is vocal. And of that, much is choral, not solo.

I've got several fetishes, but vocal music isn't one of them .

For instance, Verdi operas are mostly a closed book to me. And Wagnerian Heldentenors shouting out inconsequentials, and sopranos screeching at indeterminate pitch with their wobbly vibratos do nothing for me - give me the 'bleeding chunks' or Maazel's "The Ring without Words" any time.

But the sublimity of Soave sia il vento, the nobility of O, Isis und Osiris, the beauty & simplicity of O mio babbino caro, the sincerity and latent tragedy of Un bel di, vedremo - in fact, the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas and Die Zauberflöte, and the big operas of Puccini are all essential parts of my musical diet, and give me certain aspects of music that aren't to be found in any piano music. Not to mention the Lieder of Schubert which encapsulates his humanity in all his glory (and how can anyone claim to know Schubert without having heard Winterreise and Die schöne Mullerin?), and the profundity of predominantly choral religious works like Palestrina's masses, Handel's Messiah, Mendelssohn's Elijah, and Mozart's, Verdi's and Fauré's Requiems. And so much else.

No doubt, my musical tastes are colored my my having spent some of my happiest music-making times singing as a chorister in my school choir. There is something about the human voice that transcends mere music-making....

I get what you're saying (although we can learn a great deal from singers...........), but I would really suggest if you are playing Mozart to listen to his operas.. different world than the art song, for sure =)

I can understand both sides here. If a painter wants to become good at landscapes, he could greatly benefit from actually going to beautiful places, but at the same time, he could learn everything he needs to by being educated and by studying the works of other painters. So, the real thing isn't a necessity but it could definitely benefit the painter to experience it.

I'll have to disagree with you on this analogy. A great artist painting a scene is not only copying what he sees at a given moment, he is absorbing into his artistic persona the mood, the atmosphere and even the sounds he hears as he paints. His painting is an amalgam of all that has touched his senses and the result is not a "photograph" of what he saw at a given moment in time but an impression of all that he saw, felt, lived and reacted to during the creative experience.

Studying and copying works of artists is removing oneself from the total experience and can only result in poorer art, accurately rendered, perhaps, but without feeling.

Regards,