Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Musicality in relation to the quality of the piano

I tested 4 practice pianos (they're not even half as good as the locked up Steinway) using the first section of Chopin nocturne 19

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnrd13DbIJezDJ8-S3LnmgiabRxwgraNJ

As you can hear... "musicality" is also largely dependent on the quality of the piano itself
It is far easier to work on and perform at a higher quality the better the piano

so...check your privilege lol

Yes, I know (get a teacher/learn sheets/pray to the Gods) but I just wanted to prove a point (imagine if I had access to that Steinway)

They journey to musicianship is unique as the musician. Yours is too. And this journey (if you stay on it) will grow and grow.

Try to polish up your Nocturne in E minor as much as you want to, make a recording of it. And then set a calendar date 2 years from now, and revisit your recording. I guarantee you will be surprised!

Here is a nice tutorial : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6do2wSJDj3Y

Best of luck!

Hi James,

Each piano model has different characteristics. Even across different decent piano models, the characteristics are different.

Even the same piano in different concert halls would sound different.

Good piano players normally are able to adjust the musical approach in different environment / with different pianos.

Not every one is lucky to own a decent piano to practice on everyday.

I also wish I have a decent Steinway to practice everyday.

When I was in college, I practice on poorly regulated upright pianos at school’s practice room. It’s not a big deal for me as I enjoy playing the piano. If you don’t enjoy playing piano, you should probably stop playing.

At school, I took some music courses and made some friends who have decent pianos at home so I had chances to play decent pianos from time to time. But that did’t stop me from keeping practicing on practice room piano.

I finally saved up money to buy myself a piano at my 40s. It’s not a decent piano but I’m happy with it.

You are a smart young guy, you can figure out algorithm / formulas to double your income in no time.

Please come back in few years and let us know you have bought a decent Steinway.


Work hard, play hard .... and that’s life!

Musicality for me is a quality we as musicians possess to varying degrees.

Musicality: "sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music" or "the quality or state of being musical". (Thank you Wikipedia. A good start.)

Thus, musicality is not dependent upon the instrument being played. You've either got it or you haven't.

Having said that, having regular access to a good instrument is essential for the development of any pianist.

But a good or great instrument in itself will not guarantee musicality.

Try to keep your piano in tune. Most of the time one string of the three string unisons goes out of tune. Have a tuning hammer ready and correct the unisons as needed.

Nice.

Piano 1 sounded nice.

What pianos did you try out ? Where did u get access to them all ?

You can learn to control the piano so I still don’t think you can use the piano excuse for musicality.

A bad workman blames his tools !

James i think you are making a mistake with the rhythm - I told you last time

Rh End of Bar 3, can you read the score ?

https://youtu.be/WQhmkly0hbE

But good effort

https://www.reddit.com/r/piano/comments/b7il9g/me_playing_chopins_barcarolle_in_f_major_i_would/

Here's a good example of someone musicality shining through, despite playing on an out-of-tune upright with a poor phone audio quality.

These are the practice pianos in the music building but I mostly only get to use piano 2

Oh come on, piano 2/3 are clearly the worst since "p" isn't even possible thus a limited dynamic range whereas piano 4 allows for "p" but has a very slow return mechanism so limits speed of repeated notes.

a good workman has excellent tools!

Bar 3 RH ~ [3 ... 2 ... 1] vs [3 ... 2 . 1] preference? maybe i'll change it next time?

You missed the point of this experiment since it clearly showed the difference in end quality (dependent variable) with the independent variable being the piano.

Most of the comments said that the Chopin nocturne 19 recording was played without dynamics and was robotic.
This was to show that the piano I used for the recording doesn't allow for much dynamic range thus it doesn't matter how much musicality I pour into it when the instrument is so poor.

The end quality would be far better if I had access to a Steinway since I could then properly practice and control for dynamics / pedal / touch.

It's really easy to say that the piano doesn't matter but this experiment shows otherwise.

Morse code? Please learn to read the score. It is the language of music.
You are asking for help but it is hard for us or anybody to help you properly. It is like you're speaking a foreign language.

4 against 3. The 1/16 note in the RH comes after the triplet in the LH.

I like the first piano: if they souped-up the action a bit, I bet pianissimo would come more easily.

Music school likes to think it teaches students to deal with adverse pianos (but there simply isn't much money for regulation and voicing beyond tuning).

What is your definition of "musicality"?

Is it something that comes out of the piano?
Something you put into it?

You might find some useful information here.
https://youtu.be/vXsCoKtSJ3k

You mention in another thread your goal is to play gigs. If that's your intention you might want to stop blaming your pianos for how bad you sound and start figuring out how make them sound good because you're not going to get a lot of choice as to what you play when you show up for a gig.

A combination of

pedal / dynamics / touch / tempo

based on the composer's marking, "theory", and/or subjective ideal
*however they are all heavily limited by a poor instrument

The end quality is subjective beyond the threshold of "acceptability"
Chopin etude 10.12 with (no-pedal / pianissimo / staccato / half-tempo) would not be an acceptable "standard" performance.

The standard would be competition winners judged by an "authority" while anything above that would be natural selection by the public (Horowitz's use of dynamics / touch + his modified Steinway)

It's funny that you claim that there is a difference in the 4 piano videos you recorded, yet I hear the same musical problems in all 4 of them. For instance, in the right hand, the thirds in the melody are not voiced properly towards the top note. Most of the time, the your balance is about 50/50, or 60/40, when really it should be roughly around 75/25, to really emphasize the melody note. In fact, you could even choose to emphasize the bottom third note with this proportion, if you subjectively felt that was appropriate.

In all of your recordings, the proportions are inconsistently applied so I could not tell what you were trying to emphasize with your voicing, or if you were even properly listening to this balance. In fact, the balance was probably most acceptable on piano 3, which you claimed was one of the worst pianos. If you played on the Steinway in the same manner as these 4 recordings without listening carefully, the balance would be equally as
problematic.

I don't think you can claim that those 4 pianos are so bad that you can't vary the dynamics between 2 notes that are 3 half-steps apart.

Where do you get this standard from?

Why does it have to go further than "subjectivity"? Are you trying to win a popularity contest?

Or, are you saying that you don't have a definition of musicality, but the "authority" can recognize it when they see it, so you're going to pass the buck to them?

I would rank best to worst 4 > 1 > 3 > 2

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/moving-the-goal-posts_dilbert_9498.png lol

James I have no idea what you are talking about .

Code again !

And lots of sillies !

Did you understand the error or not ?

Since you have done the error now 5 times I want u to listen for once.

Please it’ll make me very happy

🏆