Gombessa I'm trying to do this more, and it's made me realize that more often than not, I'm not really hearing what I'm playing, but instead what I think I'm playing. Or more accurately, what I think I should be playing.
This is the most egregious when I'm trying to control the volume in my left hand, or bring out the melody, or change tempo. I oftentimes THINK I'm making a 40% change, and when I listen to a recording, it actually sounds more like 10% difference.
Maybe a little OT, but: how do you know that your recording is that accurate in terms of what you, the person playing, hears? Or, for that matter, what someone 10 or 20 feet from your piano would hear?
For some pianos, the sound profile can change significantly as you walk around the piano, and it's affected by the room as well. I've always wondered how different mic set-ups, speakers, etc., would change how a listener hears a piece.
Over the summer I went to a recital for the local Suzuki Institute, where I heard several Rachmaninoff pieces all played by kids in their mid- to late-teens. I was very, very surprised, because even though no one played any of the Rachmaninoff with anything approaching virtuoso levels, I really enjoyed hearing them. And I've always thought that I disliked Rachmaninoff. This has made me wonder: do I dislike Rachmaninoff only when it's played by virtuosos, or do I dislike something about recordings of Rachmaninoff pieces? (Prior to the recital, I had never heard any Rachmaninoff live.) FWIW, the answer to the latter isn't a wholesale "yes" - I very much enjoyed Joseph Fleetwood's recording of the Rach Prelude in B-flat on one of his Bluthners. But I was so entranced by the sound of the piano itself, that I couldn't tell if I was also enjoying the playing or the piece. So it's not a good data point.
