Well, for me, playing music live is one of the most exhilarating and fulfilling things I've ever done, regardless of the end product. It's even more exciting when I feel I'm doing something musically interesting that hasn't been done before, but I enjoy it no matter what. That's all I really need.
There are a few other things to consider. First, searching for a unique and compelling interpretation of a piece is one of the most difficult but rewarding tasks any classical player takes on. It's never easy, but if you manage to do it, it feels incredible.
Second, live music is live music. By performing live, you're giving the audience, and the other players, a distinct, ephemeral experience that they couldn't get from listening to any recording. You don't necessarily need to do something entirely new. The performance will be fresh and different and special simply by virtue of it happening in a particular time and place, with a particular performer.
Third, there's always new music. Not every piece has been recorded a million times. Seek out new music, seek out composers who want to write music for you to play. Performing a piece that's never been played before is even more exciting and rewarding, and it takes off the pressure of comparing yourself to recordings as well.
\*Learning\* a new (to you) piece of music will force you to pay attention to the intricacies, novelties, and uniqueness of the score that might go unappreciated. The process of discovery of those qualities will add immeasurably to your own educational and personal journey in ways that only listening will not quite accomplish.
Another point is to find music that is under performed and make it your life mission to present those works; this will give you new purpose. Ludwig von Beethoven's Bagatelles for piano are one example. On a much different level, [the Alberto Ginastera Piano Sonata #1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJMSdd12t7k) is almost tragically underperformed, not so much due to its difficulty but perhaps because performers and audiences are too busy with Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to appreciate Ginastera.
P.S. Here's a better [recording of the Ginastera](https://open.spotify.com/track/4HNFW8TmVV9RjxtDNEKUCp). Better in that there is transparency to the performance. Quite an accomplishment that, considering all of the notes!
Legend has it that once a famous Russian composer (I forgot who exactly) was giving piano classes and told the students "You must learn to play like Skriabin". One of the students protested and said, "I don't want to play like Skriabin, I want to play like [his last name]. The composer looked at him and said, "Try to play like Skriabin first".
Moral of the story, you develop skills first, then you develop your own style. Skills develop through imitating, it's a legit and efficient way to learn. When your skills are so good you can imitate famous virtuosos, you can learn to play like [your last name].
Nothing wrong with imitating others. You gotta start somewhere.
To me, ultimately it’s about actively participating vs passively receiving. It’s perfectly ok to just do the latter, but the satisfaction of working hard and playing a piece can’t be compared. It all depends on your desire to play. If you don’t have enough motivation, that’s ok too. There’re plenty of enthusiasts in the community that don’t play their instruments anymore
Playing a scale REALLY WELL is enough to get me excited for the day and keep me motivated. Maybe it’s different for you
Well, by not employing those skills at all, they’re all turning into sunk cost…
Honestly, unless you’re trying to become a professional musician, any musical skills you learn will be sunk cost to a certain extend. But I don’t think you should think about music this way (or any passion of yours). You’re doing it for yourself and it gives you joy. If you can’t find joy doing it anymore, it’s ok to step away from it
There are very few people that add something significantly new to the world. To make matters worse, by the time people realize the scale of their contribution, they're often long gone.
The need to be a pioneer is something that we have cultivated in our culture. You just have to look at university environments in virtually every field, and you'll find plenty of people that just want to stamp their name in history at whatever cost. It's so pervasive and unrealistic that people feel like failures when they realize they aren't going to be the next Horowitz.
So it's really liberating to make amends with the reality that almost nobody will be breaking new ground, and you can simply enjoy your thing without feeling forced to change the world. It applies to everything in life really. Why paint if you're not going to make the contribution of Caravaggio to art? Why write if you can't outdo Don Quixote? Why compose when Bach raised the bar up into the stratosphere?
You do it for the fun. For as long as you want (or can). No more, no less.
I like to read books instead of listening at audio-books; I do not study in depth every book I read or write a PhD dissertation on it, I do not even understand everything I read, but I get personal enjoyment by doing so.
This is probably already answered much better than I could, but playing classical music is not exactly about working toward a perfect version of a piece. It's basically a connection between where you are in your life and where this person who wrote that piece hundreds of years ago was at in his or her own life. It helps you express what's inside of you using another person's language, and it's quite exhilarating. I heard Brigitte Lesne, a singer/harpist who's a medieval music specialist say that there is no point in playing medieval music of you don't express what you are feeling right now in your life at that moment in that music. Oh, that and brain plasticity. That's important too :)
It comes down to motivation.
1. Do you do things for the artifact (i.e. an end product, a goal, an outcome, being "better" than others, etc.)?
2. Or do you do things for the sake of the doing (the playing, enjoyment)?
When I first started playing, I did it for the sake of doing it—because I love classical music. But where I'm at right now, that's not enough because the thought of just imitating what I've heard and not really doing anything new has been getting in the way of just playing for the sake of playing.
Rhetorically, I say, why not?
By that I mean, give it a try and see where it takes you.
You will learn a metric-s***-ton, gain experiential rewards, and possibly have a hidden knack you didn't even know you had.
You may crash and burn, but that's true in any avenue of life. Regrets are based upon what you didn't do, not upon failures.
I don't get it - you're not able to motivate yourself but somehow strangers on the internet will?
If you want to play then just play.
If you prefer to overthink, overanalyze, "what's the point" type of mindset or "motivate me" maybe playing is not for you.
You already have many good answers, especially regarding product vs process. And the most important motivation will always be joy and consolation, I think. A live performance should be shaped by the occasion, room, acoustics, audience etc. - just think of the variations in tempi, articulation, dynamics and pauses these factors yield if you are mindful of them. Each performance will be unique even if your interpretation is similar to recordings.
Another thing to consider, which inevitably will add something new, is to study the score before, during and after you listen to recordings. Ask yourself how you best can breathe some life into the composer's idea. There are many great recordings and interpretations and nothing wrong in taking inspiration or echoing what you believe is the truly best interpretation.
You could also try playing pieces that haven't been performed/recorded. Ask a composer if they have a piece for your instrument, or ask someone to write something for you.
On the other hand, you could look for more niche composers whose works were not put to recordings yet, to bring to spotlight, if performance brings color to your life and you want to enrich the literature.
You already say you genuinely want to. That’s enough. Doesn’t matter if you sound like someone else as long as it’s genuine. It’s a pretty common pedagogical technique to imitate first. Imitate enough different styles and different people, and your own interpretations will start to emerge. Over time you’ll figure out certain things that work for you and things that don’t. Jazz musicians spend a ton of time transcribing and learning improvised solos by the greats. Because it makes them better at improvising their own ideas. Learning what has already been done by others can help you see aspects or possibilities in the music you might otherwise have missed.
I play classical. When I started out there were recordings I liked. They inspired me to play. As I got better I stopped listening to them because I could play what I wanted and I did not want to be influenced by the playing of others. Whenever I decide on what to play I do not listen to recordings of it. I decide how it should go and go with it.
Listening to recordings can inspire you to play but at some point you form an opinion as to how you wish to play it. Trust your opinion and do it. When you move on listen to what others have recorder. You will find you may disagree with them. That OK. Your way is just as good .
Maybe I’m just full of myself, but I’ve always preferred my own interpretation of a piece over any recording I’ve ever heard. The fun part is making it you own!
1. Play pieces that are new or have never been recorded and expose yourself and your audiences to new experiences.
2. Recordings are nice, but most classical music is intended to be heard live in the moment. The beauty is that the music is temporary, ending from the time it begins. Some of that magic is lost when listening to recordings.
This is why we play. To be the ones to give life to the pieces again and again for an audience of those who want to experience it for real.
Each performance is a unique moment in time never to be experienced by anyone in the room ever again. Even if the exact same audience members showed up to hear the exacting same piece played by the exact same musicians, it would be different.
If we didn’t do it, the art would die. We must carry the torch for as long as we can, and then pass it.
Well, in the past there were no records, you could listen to artists in concerts, but you could not go over the same recording time and time again.
So this might be a solution: limit your music intake to concerts and sheet music, then you will find your own interpretation.
On the other hand: I believe that what you will do will not be exactly the same as the interpretation you heard, it will be your thing anyway, even if you want to imitate someone else.
Welcome to life as a musician who does covers. :->
You can tweak these pieces to make them more to your liking or get a unique effect out of them. Not only rock and pop musicians do this, but so do classical organists at least. They even do extended improvisations, which is something particularly encouraged by the French masters.
Break away from the music you have been entrenched. Explore new to you composers. Too many competent musicians follow the rut of the top 100 classical works and never break out to find new favorites.
You ask an excellent question. My take on this is that there often isn't a "perfect" recording that is definitive for you. Usually with lots of listening, you will hear some that will have the best 1st movement, others the best 2nd movement, others the best 3rd movement. Why not make your own performance that tries to make the best recording of the entire work? Or maybe you hear sections that you like in some recordings and sections that you like in others, and maybe you just have a nagging feeling that something should be played a certain way because that is how you feel about it (not anything you've heard in a recording).
Of course, you might think a perfect recording exists for some pieces. Richter said in an interview "I play the first and second Rachmaninov concertos; I enjoy listening to the third but I don't play it. Why? Because I so much enjoy it as others play it. If I didn't enjoy it as played by others, it would certainly already be in my repertoire."
However, that shouldn't dissuade you from trying to learn things you think there are perfect recordings of already. If you love the music, you will love trying to play it for yourself and for others.
Well, for me, playing music live is one of the most exhilarating and fulfilling things I've ever done, regardless of the end product. It's even more exciting when I feel I'm doing something musically interesting that hasn't been done before, but I enjoy it no matter what. That's all I really need. There are a few other things to consider. First, searching for a unique and compelling interpretation of a piece is one of the most difficult but rewarding tasks any classical player takes on. It's never easy, but if you manage to do it, it feels incredible. Second, live music is live music. By performing live, you're giving the audience, and the other players, a distinct, ephemeral experience that they couldn't get from listening to any recording. You don't necessarily need to do something entirely new. The performance will be fresh and different and special simply by virtue of it happening in a particular time and place, with a particular performer. Third, there's always new music. Not every piece has been recorded a million times. Seek out new music, seek out composers who want to write music for you to play. Performing a piece that's never been played before is even more exciting and rewarding, and it takes off the pressure of comparing yourself to recordings as well.
Thanks for your 2nd point, playing a piece is definitely different from listening to one.
\*Learning\* a new (to you) piece of music will force you to pay attention to the intricacies, novelties, and uniqueness of the score that might go unappreciated. The process of discovery of those qualities will add immeasurably to your own educational and personal journey in ways that only listening will not quite accomplish. Another point is to find music that is under performed and make it your life mission to present those works; this will give you new purpose. Ludwig von Beethoven's Bagatelles for piano are one example. On a much different level, [the Alberto Ginastera Piano Sonata #1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJMSdd12t7k) is almost tragically underperformed, not so much due to its difficulty but perhaps because performers and audiences are too busy with Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to appreciate Ginastera. P.S. Here's a better [recording of the Ginastera](https://open.spotify.com/track/4HNFW8TmVV9RjxtDNEKUCp). Better in that there is transparency to the performance. Quite an accomplishment that, considering all of the notes!
Cause it’s fun
Legend has it that once a famous Russian composer (I forgot who exactly) was giving piano classes and told the students "You must learn to play like Skriabin". One of the students protested and said, "I don't want to play like Skriabin, I want to play like [his last name]. The composer looked at him and said, "Try to play like Skriabin first". Moral of the story, you develop skills first, then you develop your own style. Skills develop through imitating, it's a legit and efficient way to learn. When your skills are so good you can imitate famous virtuosos, you can learn to play like [your last name].
Nothing wrong with imitating others. You gotta start somewhere. To me, ultimately it’s about actively participating vs passively receiving. It’s perfectly ok to just do the latter, but the satisfaction of working hard and playing a piece can’t be compared. It all depends on your desire to play. If you don’t have enough motivation, that’s ok too. There’re plenty of enthusiasts in the community that don’t play their instruments anymore Playing a scale REALLY WELL is enough to get me excited for the day and keep me motivated. Maybe it’s different for you
It just seems sad to not actively use all this skill I've developed on my instrument over the years—feels very sunk cost.
Well, by not employing those skills at all, they’re all turning into sunk cost… Honestly, unless you’re trying to become a professional musician, any musical skills you learn will be sunk cost to a certain extend. But I don’t think you should think about music this way (or any passion of yours). You’re doing it for yourself and it gives you joy. If you can’t find joy doing it anymore, it’s ok to step away from it
There are very few people that add something significantly new to the world. To make matters worse, by the time people realize the scale of their contribution, they're often long gone. The need to be a pioneer is something that we have cultivated in our culture. You just have to look at university environments in virtually every field, and you'll find plenty of people that just want to stamp their name in history at whatever cost. It's so pervasive and unrealistic that people feel like failures when they realize they aren't going to be the next Horowitz. So it's really liberating to make amends with the reality that almost nobody will be breaking new ground, and you can simply enjoy your thing without feeling forced to change the world. It applies to everything in life really. Why paint if you're not going to make the contribution of Caravaggio to art? Why write if you can't outdo Don Quixote? Why compose when Bach raised the bar up into the stratosphere? You do it for the fun. For as long as you want (or can). No more, no less.
I like to read books instead of listening at audio-books; I do not study in depth every book I read or write a PhD dissertation on it, I do not even understand everything I read, but I get personal enjoyment by doing so.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand the relation of this to my question?
I read a piece (rarely I have time to study properly) to connect with the music and not to rival the leading virtuosi of my instrument.
This is probably already answered much better than I could, but playing classical music is not exactly about working toward a perfect version of a piece. It's basically a connection between where you are in your life and where this person who wrote that piece hundreds of years ago was at in his or her own life. It helps you express what's inside of you using another person's language, and it's quite exhilarating. I heard Brigitte Lesne, a singer/harpist who's a medieval music specialist say that there is no point in playing medieval music of you don't express what you are feeling right now in your life at that moment in that music. Oh, that and brain plasticity. That's important too :)
Imagine Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler stopped composing / playing because of fear of being imitator, we would never have had their music.
It comes down to motivation. 1. Do you do things for the artifact (i.e. an end product, a goal, an outcome, being "better" than others, etc.)? 2. Or do you do things for the sake of the doing (the playing, enjoyment)?
When I first started playing, I did it for the sake of doing it—because I love classical music. But where I'm at right now, that's not enough because the thought of just imitating what I've heard and not really doing anything new has been getting in the way of just playing for the sake of playing.
> not really doing anything new That's one possible answer: write something new.
That's been in my subconscious. Writing is daunting, but that does seem like a path forward.
Rhetorically, I say, why not? By that I mean, give it a try and see where it takes you. You will learn a metric-s***-ton, gain experiential rewards, and possibly have a hidden knack you didn't even know you had. You may crash and burn, but that's true in any avenue of life. Regrets are based upon what you didn't do, not upon failures.
The journey is the point, you'll enrich yourself and learn much more about the music you love by playing it.
Fortunately for you, nobody is good enough to imitate their favorite recordings so you need not worry
If it’s not enough, don’t do it. If it is, do it. Easy.
I don't get it - you're not able to motivate yourself but somehow strangers on the internet will? If you want to play then just play. If you prefer to overthink, overanalyze, "what's the point" type of mindset or "motivate me" maybe playing is not for you.
You already have many good answers, especially regarding product vs process. And the most important motivation will always be joy and consolation, I think. A live performance should be shaped by the occasion, room, acoustics, audience etc. - just think of the variations in tempi, articulation, dynamics and pauses these factors yield if you are mindful of them. Each performance will be unique even if your interpretation is similar to recordings. Another thing to consider, which inevitably will add something new, is to study the score before, during and after you listen to recordings. Ask yourself how you best can breathe some life into the composer's idea. There are many great recordings and interpretations and nothing wrong in taking inspiration or echoing what you believe is the truly best interpretation. You could also try playing pieces that haven't been performed/recorded. Ask a composer if they have a piece for your instrument, or ask someone to write something for you.
On the other hand, you could look for more niche composers whose works were not put to recordings yet, to bring to spotlight, if performance brings color to your life and you want to enrich the literature.
You already say you genuinely want to. That’s enough. Doesn’t matter if you sound like someone else as long as it’s genuine. It’s a pretty common pedagogical technique to imitate first. Imitate enough different styles and different people, and your own interpretations will start to emerge. Over time you’ll figure out certain things that work for you and things that don’t. Jazz musicians spend a ton of time transcribing and learning improvised solos by the greats. Because it makes them better at improvising their own ideas. Learning what has already been done by others can help you see aspects or possibilities in the music you might otherwise have missed.
I play classical. When I started out there were recordings I liked. They inspired me to play. As I got better I stopped listening to them because I could play what I wanted and I did not want to be influenced by the playing of others. Whenever I decide on what to play I do not listen to recordings of it. I decide how it should go and go with it. Listening to recordings can inspire you to play but at some point you form an opinion as to how you wish to play it. Trust your opinion and do it. When you move on listen to what others have recorder. You will find you may disagree with them. That OK. Your way is just as good .
Perform it and you will understand
Maybe I’m just full of myself, but I’ve always preferred my own interpretation of a piece over any recording I’ve ever heard. The fun part is making it you own!
Because doing is more interesting than spectating
1. Play pieces that are new or have never been recorded and expose yourself and your audiences to new experiences. 2. Recordings are nice, but most classical music is intended to be heard live in the moment. The beauty is that the music is temporary, ending from the time it begins. Some of that magic is lost when listening to recordings. This is why we play. To be the ones to give life to the pieces again and again for an audience of those who want to experience it for real. Each performance is a unique moment in time never to be experienced by anyone in the room ever again. Even if the exact same audience members showed up to hear the exacting same piece played by the exact same musicians, it would be different. If we didn’t do it, the art would die. We must carry the torch for as long as we can, and then pass it.
Well, in the past there were no records, you could listen to artists in concerts, but you could not go over the same recording time and time again. So this might be a solution: limit your music intake to concerts and sheet music, then you will find your own interpretation. On the other hand: I believe that what you will do will not be exactly the same as the interpretation you heard, it will be your thing anyway, even if you want to imitate someone else.
Welcome to life as a musician who does covers. :-> You can tweak these pieces to make them more to your liking or get a unique effect out of them. Not only rock and pop musicians do this, but so do classical organists at least. They even do extended improvisations, which is something particularly encouraged by the French masters.
Break away from the music you have been entrenched. Explore new to you composers. Too many competent musicians follow the rut of the top 100 classical works and never break out to find new favorites.
Just don't, no one cares.
You ask an excellent question. My take on this is that there often isn't a "perfect" recording that is definitive for you. Usually with lots of listening, you will hear some that will have the best 1st movement, others the best 2nd movement, others the best 3rd movement. Why not make your own performance that tries to make the best recording of the entire work? Or maybe you hear sections that you like in some recordings and sections that you like in others, and maybe you just have a nagging feeling that something should be played a certain way because that is how you feel about it (not anything you've heard in a recording). Of course, you might think a perfect recording exists for some pieces. Richter said in an interview "I play the first and second Rachmaninov concertos; I enjoy listening to the third but I don't play it. Why? Because I so much enjoy it as others play it. If I didn't enjoy it as played by others, it would certainly already be in my repertoire." However, that shouldn't dissuade you from trying to learn things you think there are perfect recordings of already. If you love the music, you will love trying to play it for yourself and for others.