If you are aiming to become a concert pianist

Rubens · 2024-07-26T19:14:17+00:00

This is a video about a student who is preparing for his graduating recital, and decides just a few days before the recital to fly to another city for one le...

Animisha

Joseph-Fleetwood With the girls he would shout at them until they cried and then he'd comfort them after. Creep.

This is actually typical behaviour of abusive men towards their women. 😡

Nightowl

Joseph-Fleetwood Thank you for your detailed insight, it's very interesting to hear this in depth analysis from someone who has in depth knowledge of the system.
From the title of the video I was expecting to see the student being shouted at, bullied or belittled in some way, but I saw no such behaviour from the professor. I think that because the lesson was delayed for an hour, and Sean was already tired from practising for 3 hours after a long journey the previous day, these factors meant that the lesson did not go as well as he'd hoped, but he still got something from it.
I see nothing wrong in having a well paid teaching position at a university - that's an impressive achievement for any musician. Being a concert pianist may be a dream for some people, but the pressure and hard work involved to achieve that goal seems like a nightmare to me. I have utmost respect for anyone who manages it, but zero envy.

Rubens

Yes, Joseph has the best insight here because he went all the way and suffered all the hardships.

Maybe this is for another thread, but I just don't see the point in pursuing such a career nowadays. Back then, I just wanted to be heard. Nowadays, everybody and their grandma can be heard on social media. I can practice one piece at the time and then record it and post it and voila, I'm happy that it's being heard by a large number of listeners, even if people don't post feedback, even if the feedback is bad. If I want to play live in front of people then I invite them over. And I have the ultimate advantage over the pros which is not having to maintain an immense repertoire, which means I have much more time polish each piece than they do, so I can bring each piece to the highest level that I can possibly achieve with my abilities , which is immensely satisfying, and is not something the pros can do, because of the size of their repertoire. Of course with their immensely superior talent they still present an end product that is vastly superior to mine, but it is usually still far from what THEY could have done if they had as much time as I did to focus on each piece. This is something that all the pros that I've spoken with have confirmed.

No, I don't get to play in front of hundreds/thousands of people, but it's not something I desire anyway, and I do wonder if that really is a motivation for aspiring soloists. So it's a career aspiration that doesn't make sense to me anymore, but I sure am glad there are still people who have such a desire.

Pallas

Rubens What a wonderful post. ❤️

Joseph-Fleetwood

Rubens I sent you a message about how very few pursue a career in this and how most are actually chosen. Unfortunately I can't tell you it without dropping some names so I'm keeping it private, but just for the others on the forum - they select the students they want to be successful at a very young age and it's all to do with funding and who studies with whom. It's not on merit. Although these pianists are excellent, it's not on merit. There's a thousand students in Russia who can play as well as, say, Malofeev. What about Lang Lang? He's great but there are thousands more who can play as well as or better than him. Yuja is probably a different case, I'll give her that. I do think she has this phenomenal capacity in terms of the amount of notes she can learn in a short space of time, and with a level of polish and technique that's quite rare. Is she my favourite musician? Well, that doesn't really matter because even if I don't like what she does at times I cannot argue with her ability. Like she's watching my videos and being bowled over LMAO I doubt it.

Rubens

Joseph-Fleetwood
Thanks for your reply. I agree with everything you said. It makes sense that one would agree to doing this profession if one was chosen by it.
And yet even if I had the skills from an early age and were one of the chosen ones I don't think I would enjoy it. But of course one can say the grapes are too sour 🤣.

Simonb

I can cite an example of high quality, professional teaching that happened to me today. My regular teacher isn't that well qualified as she's only a grade 8 Pianist, and a diploma level Viola player. However she is a perfect fit for me as my deficiencies are very obvious from my decades of non-classical playing. Last year I passed my ABRSM grade 7 with distinction, so clearly whatever she's doing is working.

Her husband though is on a different level. He's played major works with Orchestras and although not very active over the last few years, he has played at concert Pianist level.

Today, I had a lesson with him, with my regular teacher watching on from the wings.

It was a revelation for me in many ways. Aside from some obvious technical things for the specific piece we worked on (a Scarlatti sonata for my grade 8), it was the more general aspects of playing that made me realise how much I still have to learn.

The lesson though, was all done with a smile, and good humour. I didn't feel intimidated and I wasn't made to feel like I was an inferior person. So at some point in the future I will certainly have another lesson with him. When I got home from the lesson I wrote out a whole page of notes based on what he told me. A wonderful experience.

Now admittedly I'd known him for 18 months prior to today's lesson, and talked to him at some length about music, so I wasn't surprised that he had a lovely attitude when teaching. And of course if he'd been unpleasant, his wife would have lost a student!

Cheers

Nightowl

Simonb It sounds like you had a great time and you have a good teacher, despite her being "only grade 8". 😁 That phrase made me smile, as grade 8 is a high standard in the eyes of a beginner like me. I'm sure you didn't mean it in a disrespectful way though - I know there are many higher qualifications and it's all relative. How high do you intend to go? Grade 7 with distinction must be very close to grade 8 - what next?

@Joseph-Fleetwood That's interesting to learn about the way that students are chosen to progress further through the system. It's all a bit elitist by the sound of it, with a few exceptions - just enough to give the impression that the system is open and fair to all - or am I being overly cynical? (It seems to me that much of the private/further education system is designed so that wealthy people can preserve the status quo and look after their own).

Sophia

That's the way it should be Simon. Teachers do NOT have to be bullies to bring a point across! 🙂 And a belated congratulations on passing with distinction - that's so awesome!

Joseph-Fleetwood

Congrats Simon! Yes, and also when you're learning because you want to and not because you have to, it's a different experience.

Simonb

Hi Nightowl

Yes it was great and inspiring to hear what he had to say, and to have him demonstrate particular aspects of technique which would never have occurred to me.

No, absolutely no disrespect meant at all. My teacher is naturally a very musical person and having studied Viola to a high level (LTCL Trinity diploma), in addition to her grade 8 in Piano, she is the perfect Teacher for me. I don't need to have a virtuoso Pianist teaching me, it would be a waste of their talents. I may have the occasional lesson with her husband, but she will remain my main teacher.

If I get through my grade 8, I plan to carry on and try to do either the ABRSM's ARSM diploma, or Trinity's ATCL diploma. But all this is dependent on me continuing to enjoy the process. As soon as I'm not, I'll stop. I'm only doing it for fun. I've really only had 2 phases of serious Classical playing, most recently starting with my current teacher in Dec 2022, which amounts to about 4 years of lessons, in the 55 years I've been playing.

Most of my life has been spent playing non-classical (Jazz, Rock & Blues) and my current Teacher has spent much time during lessons undoing lots of bad habits I've picked up over the decades!

Cheers

Nightowl

twocats Yikes indeed! 😬 This is another world to me, I knew it was hard to become a concert pianist but I had no idea about the other stuff involved.
Simonb Good grief, I thought you were a young ambitious student, forging a career, now I realise you already have an established career and you are probably of an age where some people retire, yet you are still pushing yourself through all the exams - respect sir! It's inspiring and shows that being older need not be a barrier to achieving great things. 🙂
@Joseph-Fleetwood Please don't risk getting into hot water with anyone in your professional circle, but thank you for giving such insight into the world you inhabit.

Joseph-Fleetwood

Nightowl, the thing is that anyone can go to a college if they have the ability to pass the audition. That's not the hard part. I'm talking more about once you're in the college, certain students are picked for certain performances and competitions over the others. In the past it has even gone as far as external competition juries for internal college competitions being paid to lose the original adjudication sheet in favor of one that meets the head of keyboard's expectations. You see, that internal competition might be necessary to proceed to an external competition - where another back-hander is often given to the jury. I'm talking about 20-25 years ago now. The stories I could tell....

twocats

Joseph-Fleetwood that is so nuts, kind-of not surprised if it happens in Russia but is it everywhere??

Rubens

twocats
Please allow me to step in and answer even though you were not asking me, because Joseph works in that academic field and I don't think he can answer that question without potentially compromising himself professionally. My short answer is, it is certainly NOT unique to Russia, far from that.

twocats

Rubens yikes 😬

Simonb

Hi Nightowl

Yes I'm a young retiree (now 63), having stopped work a month before the pandemic hit in February 2020.
As Joseph said, if you're doing things because you want to, and not because it's required of you (such as at school or work) it makes a huge difference. I'm not ambitious, in fact I'm very lazy!

Cheers

Joseph-Fleetwood

I'm not sure what happens in Russia but from a friend I know who studied in Moscow (who is an incredible pianist, far better than I am) I heard that Bashkirov was very political when it came to promoting students. I'm sure it happens all over. The students often become pawns in a game of chess between the professors, jury, colleges, etc.

twocats

Joseph-Fleetwood of course by "like" I mean thank you for sharing. Much dislike the content 😳

Joseph-Fleetwood

There are people who can transcend it, but it really is very rare. Most of the time they've been placed. The closest I can think of to a left-field career being made is Valentina Lisitsa, and I heard she paid a lot of money on promotion. But rumors are rumors and I don't know the full story. She definitely paid a lot of money to hire the Albert Hall for her recital there, she definitely paid a lot of money for the recording of the Rachmaninoff concertos but Decca bought them from her for more than she paid to do them so it paid off. I respect her playing, she has a great facility for sure and a huge amount of repertoire. I don't know if there's more behind her career or not. I suspect that as time went on she was helped more by those higher up because of certain things that have happened in the past 10 years regarding comments she has made. That brings me to another point - it's very wise for artists to stay out of politics and to keep their political opinions to themselves. It's just too risky to take sides at times when your fan base is small and all over the spectrum. It's different if you're a rock star selling millions of albums. I do wonder when artists make political statements if they're operating completely under their own free will or if they're being asked to comment by funders. It actually cost Lisitsa a lot of concerts to say the things she said, so there has been no real-terms benefit to her career in the long run.

But it was, back in the 2007-2010 period, a meteoric rise to stardom. Those videos being leaked onto YouTube, and then the views just kept coming in. Some say she paid for views, some say she had a computer doing it, but I really do think that many of the views are legit. It was quite incredible and it showed the power of harnessing social media. It's very difficult these days to get the same attention. Of course she has a huge ability, that's not in doubt, and that is really what people tuned in to see with her.

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