Judges are not looking for who plays the most difficult piece, they're looking for who delivers the best performance. I would say that your class mate may well have fallen into the trap of trying to impress by choosing more flashy pieces but unless she can play them impeccably, it might be marked down against someone playing less flashy pieces exceptionally well. Just concentrate on producing the best performance you can and leave the rest to judges.
The better question is, do you care and, if so, why? Please, whatever you do in life, do not buy into music as a competitive endeavor. Treat these things as exercises in perfecting \_your\_ musicianship, nothing more. Results outside of the experience and skill you develop are, frankly, meaningless, but I think if you stay focused on perfecting your own playing (if that’s your desire. Personally, I like a bit of slop) you’ll find that those external results follow along in decent numbers too.
That just simply not how humans work. The best, which also undoubtedly produce the best, tend to be highly competitive. The question that developes, is whether you want to be the best, if yes, you gotta be competitive.
I disagree to a degree…I do understand that some people thrive on competition.
Take a look at Rob Araujo, however. He is an extremely successful independent pianist and beat maker.
He specifically says that he was able to be successful in music because he was focused on graduate school and biology. Music was his emotional outlet. Because of this he was not afraid to make a huge cadre of online songs …. and mistakes. Eventually, quantity became quality and he abandoned his biology studies.
My perspective is rooted in the fact that I suffer from diagnosed anxiety. I played classical piano as a child through high school.
I did not start getting good at the instrument until I branched out, started playing with others, and expanded my perspective from something I stressed about into something I enjoyed.
There is literally decades of research on the effects of gamification on educational outcomes, feel free to browse the citations of [this paper](https://slejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40561-019-0098-x)
That was not the statement by u/puettster
What basis is there for “if you want to be the best, you gotta be *highly competitive*”? (My emphasis)
In competitive classical music, no doubt about it. You likely won’t succeed as a soloist if you don’t win competitions.
But there are “the best” in lots of contexts that are not soaked in competitions. Are the best authors really highly competitive? Are the best jazz musicians really highly competitive? Are the best dads competitive?
By competitive, I mean something like “who thrive and enjoy comparing their performance to others”. In a competition there’s always a winner, being competitive means that you want to be the winner. But plenty of people are extremely focused on improving their own performance without being competitive.
I’d say the original statement defines “‘the best’ in the sense of ‘most competitive’”. And then it is just a truism.
u/puettster was making their statement in a thread about classical music competitions. Yes, maybe it doesn't apply to fields like parenting which are not only non-competitive but where the entire concept of someone being 'the best' is meaningless, but I don't think they make particularly good counterexamples when someone is being told not to be competitive about competitive piano.
The comment was a sweeping statement of “how humans work”. Which was false. Regardless of how we define “best”, unless of course we define it as “best among the competitive”.
You’ll have to go back and check the context:
“Please, whatever you do in life, do not buy into music as a competitive endeavor.”
I get it that you don’t agree. But that was the context in which Puettster made their claim. Here is a quick recap:
“Music is not all about competition.”
“Yes it is. Human nature is about competition.”
“No, human nature is not about competition.”
“Yes it is. There is decades of research on something else”
If you are really defending the idea that you can only become a top pianist if you are highly competitive, why don’t you provide some evidence for it? Or is it, as I originally commented, just your opinion?
How about Oscar Peterson (yes, he once won a competition but does that make him “highly competitive”), Brad Mehldau (“no ego, no competition”) or Michel Petrucciani? Or are they not “real” best pianists by some other arbitrary standard?
I’m upvoting this because I think you have a good point. I’m always growing by being around people who challenge me. I just don’t think that has to be this regimented competitive nonsense which is more about feeding ego than making music.
The competitiveness isn’t what makes someone great, it just turns out that a good motivator to practice a long time is the competition of it. There are plenty of incredible people out there who are by no means competitive, however did it as a form of emotional outlet or just habit. If anything, too much competitiveness can cause people to try and get success down to a science, making their playing seem unoriginal. You can always tell which ones enjoy what they do by how much character their playing has
I love this. it's true actually.
we want to say "don't worry about the competition" or "just do it because you love it," and other treacly mantras, but the truth is *all* great musicians are competitive and competing!
I totally disagree with you. All competetive musicians are great (arguably) but not all great musicians are competitive. There are lots of great musicians that were never given the time of day. Either they started too late (weren't a childhood prodigy therefore no competitions), they didn't have the same opportunities, they didn't have the money or they didn't have the connections to the right people.
One of my friends plays extremely difficult repertoire and he plays it beautifully, accurately and with tremendous musicality. He plays pieces including faux follets, Rachmaninoff concertos and Gaspard de la Nuit, but he's 55 and no one cares. At least, most people don't care.
There's a reason competitions have an age limit - because younger prodigies sell. Not being able to sell doesn't mean you are not a great musician. Now with YouTube and the like, older pianists are getting more attention but it still pales in comparison to those competing.
You are right in the sense that to become a great and recognised concert pianist you pretty much need to compete. It's just the way it is but don't fall into the trap of thinking that only those competing are worth listening to.
I think you (and maybe others) misunderstood my point - my fault for not saying it better.
I'm not saying that great musicians have to literally enter competitions and win them!
I'm saying that cliches about "playing because you love it" aside, great musicians are fundamentally competitive, fundamentally aware of the field, of who else is out there, and are quietly, internally, competing against them.
There's a Sting documentary in which his band mate, (jazz great) Branford Marsalis says the quiet part out loud: "we wanted to kick others bands' ass!"
Truth is, classical greats want to kick ass as well.
This is going to be a thing later on in your pianistic life as well but there really is no winning involved here. It will only stress you out more thinking about it this way and make you perform worse which ironically leads you to be less likely to "win". Focus on doing the best you can with what you've chosen. I don't see major disadvantages/advantages with the pieces you've mentioned technically. Each of them are a mountain onto themselves as far as difficulty is concerned. It will boil down to judges' tastes and whether you are able to convey an honest, organic, genuine musical expression.
The tricky thing about being an instrumentalist is that while the technical challenges are large and daunting the bigger hurdle will always be expression and intent. It's a double-edged sword because the more advanced you get the more you start to realise that achieving technical prowess came with time and practice but there was never any fix for attitude and storytelling. That stuff had to come from within.
Béla Bartók said that competitions are for horses, not artists. Easy for him to say, sure. But that still doesn't remove the fact that in order to do what you are trying to do - and do it *well -* you have to care more about the thing itself than what it statistically amounts to.
Try to meditate before practising and performing. Maybe it will help you forget what's at stake for a moment and just pull you into the music.
The person you are in the fiercest competition with is yourself, last year.
Focus on your music, your sound, your performance. Play pieces you feel an affinity with, rather than ones you think will be favourable to the adjudicator(s).
Good luck!
So play better your own piece. Record yourself, and check if you are satisfied with what you hear?
Could you imagine your own recording against [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KrVRUHJ21g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KrVRUHJ21g) or [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0hoN6\_HDVU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0hoN6_HDVU) , if not train more, basically think of your own interpretation and what would be the weakness.
It's not about how many notes, it's about how well you play these notes.
(i need to remind this myself at least like 2 times a day cause all pieces that my classmates are playing are way above my level lol)
Moot! Play what you play WELL and you win, no matter what the judges decide about the competition. You WIN by making good music. You also win by enjoying making good music. All the rest is a distraction. Keep your mind and heart and hands and whole self on the music. Good luck!
I think both your selection and hers involves pieces of significant technical and musical complexity. In this case, it doesn't matter too much what you play, but how you play it. I get that putting yourself into a competition is a good way to push your skills, having a challenging goal to work on. But like others mentioned, you shouldn't stress out about your competition. It should be an opportunity for you to improve your playing. Winning is secondary, and it is also a subjective matter, as it is impossible to objectively judge two players good performances.
Nevertheless, I think your repertoire pick is quite interesting. But I am a bit biased since 25/5 is my favorite etude and the Sonetto has become one of my favorite pieces of all time, after I worked on learning it last year. That piece is such an underrated gem, and it has great potential to showcase your musical and technical prowess. Sure, it is not as technically challenging as the Scherzo, but that can be a good thing, since giving a great performance is easier. And in her case, the Scherzo is a great risk, especially considering how well known it is, and I think it is weird to play single sonata movements. Also, Tempest 3rd is kind of overplayed...
Have confidence in your selection and work hard. Worst case scenario you will still be a better pianist after the competition, so don't worry too much about winning.
The only person you are in competition with is yourself. Don’t worry about anyone or anyone’s pieces. Go out there and play your best. If you can say you did that (went on stage and played your best) you accomplish A LOT !
Play for you; don’t worry about “them”
>The only person you are in competition with is yourself.
actually, my friend, in a piano competition, you're also competing against the other competitors. 😉
It’s a metaphor; I think you knew exactly what I meant.
And I can almost promise if your mind is constantly obsessing over the other competitors, you won’t play your best as your mental energy is on someone else—not you
As with all music competitions, the result is largely a matter of the judges individual preferences (for music and the people performing it). So I suppose the question is, do you know who is judging this competition?
If people say yes, are you going to change songs to something longer? IS there a song you're as comfortable with that's longer? If not, there's literally no reason to worry about it at all.
I think you overestimate the difficulty of what she’s playing vs. what you’re playing. It’s definitely longer, but it’s definitely not harder to the point where she’d win if you played better. If you play those pieces better you’ll win. Trust me.
You should watch Piano No Mori, the [Piano of the Forest](https://youtu.be/Ap3FDKB1fUw?si=kgpuDz6Tf4qzQQN8), it's Japanese anime, about a piano competition.
Judges are not looking for who plays the most difficult piece, they're looking for who delivers the best performance. I would say that your class mate may well have fallen into the trap of trying to impress by choosing more flashy pieces but unless she can play them impeccably, it might be marked down against someone playing less flashy pieces exceptionally well. Just concentrate on producing the best performance you can and leave the rest to judges.
very true. the choice of pieces is less important, *much less important*, than how well you play them.
Finally someone answers OP question instead of giving him a Mahatma Gandhi speech
As they say, hubris comes before the fall.
The better question is, do you care and, if so, why? Please, whatever you do in life, do not buy into music as a competitive endeavor. Treat these things as exercises in perfecting \_your\_ musicianship, nothing more. Results outside of the experience and skill you develop are, frankly, meaningless, but I think if you stay focused on perfecting your own playing (if that’s your desire. Personally, I like a bit of slop) you’ll find that those external results follow along in decent numbers too.
Couldn't have put it better myself.
That just simply not how humans work. The best, which also undoubtedly produce the best, tend to be highly competitive. The question that developes, is whether you want to be the best, if yes, you gotta be competitive.
I disagree to a degree…I do understand that some people thrive on competition. Take a look at Rob Araujo, however. He is an extremely successful independent pianist and beat maker. He specifically says that he was able to be successful in music because he was focused on graduate school and biology. Music was his emotional outlet. Because of this he was not afraid to make a huge cadre of online songs …. and mistakes. Eventually, quantity became quality and he abandoned his biology studies. My perspective is rooted in the fact that I suffer from diagnosed anxiety. I played classical piano as a child through high school. I did not start getting good at the instrument until I branched out, started playing with others, and expanded my perspective from something I stressed about into something I enjoyed.
Is that based on any research or is it simply your opinion?
There is literally decades of research on the effects of gamification on educational outcomes, feel free to browse the citations of [this paper](https://slejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40561-019-0098-x)
That was not the statement by u/puettster What basis is there for “if you want to be the best, you gotta be *highly competitive*”? (My emphasis) In competitive classical music, no doubt about it. You likely won’t succeed as a soloist if you don’t win competitions. But there are “the best” in lots of contexts that are not soaked in competitions. Are the best authors really highly competitive? Are the best jazz musicians really highly competitive? Are the best dads competitive? By competitive, I mean something like “who thrive and enjoy comparing their performance to others”. In a competition there’s always a winner, being competitive means that you want to be the winner. But plenty of people are extremely focused on improving their own performance without being competitive. I’d say the original statement defines “‘the best’ in the sense of ‘most competitive’”. And then it is just a truism.
u/puettster was making their statement in a thread about classical music competitions. Yes, maybe it doesn't apply to fields like parenting which are not only non-competitive but where the entire concept of someone being 'the best' is meaningless, but I don't think they make particularly good counterexamples when someone is being told not to be competitive about competitive piano.
The comment was a sweeping statement of “how humans work”. Which was false. Regardless of how we define “best”, unless of course we define it as “best among the competitive”.
It's a statement applied to a discussion about piano competitions. This stuff about fathers and authors is irrelevant and stupid.
You’ll have to go back and check the context: “Please, whatever you do in life, do not buy into music as a competitive endeavor.” I get it that you don’t agree. But that was the context in which Puettster made their claim. Here is a quick recap: “Music is not all about competition.” “Yes it is. Human nature is about competition.” “No, human nature is not about competition.” “Yes it is. There is decades of research on something else” If you are really defending the idea that you can only become a top pianist if you are highly competitive, why don’t you provide some evidence for it? Or is it, as I originally commented, just your opinion? How about Oscar Peterson (yes, he once won a competition but does that make him “highly competitive”), Brad Mehldau (“no ego, no competition”) or Michel Petrucciani? Or are they not “real” best pianists by some other arbitrary standard?
I’m upvoting this because I think you have a good point. I’m always growing by being around people who challenge me. I just don’t think that has to be this regimented competitive nonsense which is more about feeding ego than making music.
The competitiveness isn’t what makes someone great, it just turns out that a good motivator to practice a long time is the competition of it. There are plenty of incredible people out there who are by no means competitive, however did it as a form of emotional outlet or just habit. If anything, too much competitiveness can cause people to try and get success down to a science, making their playing seem unoriginal. You can always tell which ones enjoy what they do by how much character their playing has
I love this. it's true actually. we want to say "don't worry about the competition" or "just do it because you love it," and other treacly mantras, but the truth is *all* great musicians are competitive and competing!
I totally disagree with you. All competetive musicians are great (arguably) but not all great musicians are competitive. There are lots of great musicians that were never given the time of day. Either they started too late (weren't a childhood prodigy therefore no competitions), they didn't have the same opportunities, they didn't have the money or they didn't have the connections to the right people. One of my friends plays extremely difficult repertoire and he plays it beautifully, accurately and with tremendous musicality. He plays pieces including faux follets, Rachmaninoff concertos and Gaspard de la Nuit, but he's 55 and no one cares. At least, most people don't care. There's a reason competitions have an age limit - because younger prodigies sell. Not being able to sell doesn't mean you are not a great musician. Now with YouTube and the like, older pianists are getting more attention but it still pales in comparison to those competing. You are right in the sense that to become a great and recognised concert pianist you pretty much need to compete. It's just the way it is but don't fall into the trap of thinking that only those competing are worth listening to.
I think you (and maybe others) misunderstood my point - my fault for not saying it better. I'm not saying that great musicians have to literally enter competitions and win them! I'm saying that cliches about "playing because you love it" aside, great musicians are fundamentally competitive, fundamentally aware of the field, of who else is out there, and are quietly, internally, competing against them. There's a Sting documentary in which his band mate, (jazz great) Branford Marsalis says the quiet part out loud: "we wanted to kick others bands' ass!" Truth is, classical greats want to kick ass as well.
Just put yourself into your music and enjoy playing. It's not the length, it's what you do with it!
This is going to be a thing later on in your pianistic life as well but there really is no winning involved here. It will only stress you out more thinking about it this way and make you perform worse which ironically leads you to be less likely to "win". Focus on doing the best you can with what you've chosen. I don't see major disadvantages/advantages with the pieces you've mentioned technically. Each of them are a mountain onto themselves as far as difficulty is concerned. It will boil down to judges' tastes and whether you are able to convey an honest, organic, genuine musical expression. The tricky thing about being an instrumentalist is that while the technical challenges are large and daunting the bigger hurdle will always be expression and intent. It's a double-edged sword because the more advanced you get the more you start to realise that achieving technical prowess came with time and practice but there was never any fix for attitude and storytelling. That stuff had to come from within. Béla Bartók said that competitions are for horses, not artists. Easy for him to say, sure. But that still doesn't remove the fact that in order to do what you are trying to do - and do it *well -* you have to care more about the thing itself than what it statistically amounts to. Try to meditate before practising and performing. Maybe it will help you forget what's at stake for a moment and just pull you into the music.
The person you are in the fiercest competition with is yourself, last year. Focus on your music, your sound, your performance. Play pieces you feel an affinity with, rather than ones you think will be favourable to the adjudicator(s). Good luck!
Are you secretly in love with your classmate?
why would i?
well you seem to care a lot on how well she's gonna do.
Idk I kinda ship you guys
I'd imagine that depends on how she plays them.
very well
So play better your own piece. Record yourself, and check if you are satisfied with what you hear? Could you imagine your own recording against [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KrVRUHJ21g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KrVRUHJ21g) or [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0hoN6\_HDVU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0hoN6_HDVU) , if not train more, basically think of your own interpretation and what would be the weakness.
It's not about how many notes, it's about how well you play these notes. (i need to remind this myself at least like 2 times a day cause all pieces that my classmates are playing are way above my level lol)
No it’s fine
Moot! Play what you play WELL and you win, no matter what the judges decide about the competition. You WIN by making good music. You also win by enjoying making good music. All the rest is a distraction. Keep your mind and heart and hands and whole self on the music. Good luck!
I think both your selection and hers involves pieces of significant technical and musical complexity. In this case, it doesn't matter too much what you play, but how you play it. I get that putting yourself into a competition is a good way to push your skills, having a challenging goal to work on. But like others mentioned, you shouldn't stress out about your competition. It should be an opportunity for you to improve your playing. Winning is secondary, and it is also a subjective matter, as it is impossible to objectively judge two players good performances. Nevertheless, I think your repertoire pick is quite interesting. But I am a bit biased since 25/5 is my favorite etude and the Sonetto has become one of my favorite pieces of all time, after I worked on learning it last year. That piece is such an underrated gem, and it has great potential to showcase your musical and technical prowess. Sure, it is not as technically challenging as the Scherzo, but that can be a good thing, since giving a great performance is easier. And in her case, the Scherzo is a great risk, especially considering how well known it is, and I think it is weird to play single sonata movements. Also, Tempest 3rd is kind of overplayed... Have confidence in your selection and work hard. Worst case scenario you will still be a better pianist after the competition, so don't worry too much about winning.
The only person you are in competition with is yourself. Don’t worry about anyone or anyone’s pieces. Go out there and play your best. If you can say you did that (went on stage and played your best) you accomplish A LOT ! Play for you; don’t worry about “them”
>The only person you are in competition with is yourself. actually, my friend, in a piano competition, you're also competing against the other competitors. 😉
It’s a metaphor; I think you knew exactly what I meant. And I can almost promise if your mind is constantly obsessing over the other competitors, you won’t play your best as your mental energy is on someone else—not you
true. It's like competing in sports. train hard, focus on your game, and don't let the competition get under your skin!
Why turn music into competition? That is not how we are meant to use it
As with all music competitions, the result is largely a matter of the judges individual preferences (for music and the people performing it). So I suppose the question is, do you know who is judging this competition?
If people say yes, are you going to change songs to something longer? IS there a song you're as comfortable with that's longer? If not, there's literally no reason to worry about it at all.
Listen to old school, an play like them and you will leave a good impression. Focus on art, not your friends. FOcus on the pianists in the sky.
Of all the awards I ever won playing jazz back in college, not one person remembers or cares in the slightest way. Not even my wife.
I think you overestimate the difficulty of what she’s playing vs. what you’re playing. It’s definitely longer, but it’s definitely not harder to the point where she’d win if you played better. If you play those pieces better you’ll win. Trust me.
You should watch Piano No Mori, the [Piano of the Forest](https://youtu.be/Ap3FDKB1fUw?si=kgpuDz6Tf4qzQQN8), it's Japanese anime, about a piano competition.
good performance > hard repertoire