Do pros/advanced pianists "hear" what they're playing differently?

Gombessa · 2024-09-20T00:52:34+00:00

You know the common advice "Listen to a recording of your playing in order to improve"? I'm trying to do this more, and it's made me realize that more ofte...

ranjit

Gombessa But it has me wondering, whether professional players have an ear to hear past what they think they're playing, and are able to hear what they're actually playing?

I think so. At least, they get very close, proportional to how good they are. What makes it harder is that you have to imagine how the piano sounds to the audience, and not just yourself. It sounds very different at the keyboard than it sounds in the hall.

Edit: Professional pianists would still miss subtle things, such as notes being held for a bit too long, or pedaling certain notes which aren't intentional.

BKN1964

This is probably generalizing, but my understanding over the years for most undertakings is that it's very difficult to effectively evaluate your own performance, which is why so many professionals have a coach, whether it be golf, tennis, or piano playing. I'm sure the more advanced you get, the better you get at self-evaluation, but those at the top are trying to chase down the most minute details, which still likely requires an impartial observer.

ranjit

BKN1964 I'm sure the more advanced you get, the better you get at self-evaluation, but those at the top are trying to chase down the most minute details, which still likely requires an impartial observer.

To some extent, this is true. Unlike sports, however, there ceases to be an objective marker at some point for most things except technique (and even that can be subjective). If there's someone who knows exactly what you're aiming for and can teach you how to do it better, that tends to work in your favor. But if they try to project their artistic vision or idea of how it should sound onto you, that can lead to trouble even if they are independently top notch.

Gombessa

BKN1964 Very good point.

pseudonym58

I guess another factor involved is a sort of confirmation bias, a sort of selective attention while playing. Listening to your own recording (with any kind of auto-leveling switched off, of course) can help provide a more accurate sense of how you're actually playing.

Sgisela

Ithaca I’m sure this is true, that whatever is captured by the microphone is not fully faithful to what someone would hear in the room. But I still think there are ‘truths’ that a recording will reveal — unevenness, that your dynamic contrasts are not as dramatic as you think they are, whether voicing is clear or not. One thing I have found is that I really do not need to worry about overdoing my dynamic contrasts. They are not nearly as dramatic as I sense them, so more is more! I shouldn’t try to restrain myself.

I do find that listening to recordings can help me better hear things, and this can help guide my practice.

iternabe

Do professional pianists really hear better while they are playing, or do they learned to recalibrate their hearing to account for the difference between what they hear while playing and what the audience hear?

When I mentioned MIDI, I was specifically thinking about how it seemed to help me recalibrate my perception of dynamics. I too find my recording sound louder than what I remembered doing. By looking at the velocity graph during playback, I can see how much I am off dynamic wise. Then, when I am playing I need to remind myself how much to tone it down, and to associate the new sound with the intended dynamics as well as the feel of the touch.

ranjit

Ithaca At high enough levels, an impartial observer (often a good trainer or colleague) isn't there to project their idea of what they want to see onto the performer/artist/athlete/scientist, and they don't necessarily have to know what you're aiming for or have any experience on teaching you how to do it better. Their role is to convey their thoughts about what they see and hear and, perhaps, what you might want to think about, or where you might want to go.

I have yet to meet a person who would not benefit from these types of insights from other people, with the caveat that it has to happen at the right time; too early in the creative process and it can have a derailing effect. The trick is to find the right observers/advisors for where you are in your development.

I don't think it's that simple when it comes to very high levels in creative domains. Tiffany Poon quit her Masters program at Yale and went her own way, for instance. It gets very subjective after a point. The difference from athletes and scientists at high levels is this subjectivity imo. The strategies that work for sports and even academics are more objective, because they are not "art".

TheBoringPianist

Gombessa Oh yeah. I never thought that I was incapable of playing a basic 1-3-5 chord with all keys striking at the same moment, until I saw the MIDI "piano roll."

Haha this came up in my lesson today — I hadn't noticed it myself but my teacher called it out and noted that it doesn't get mentioned often enough as feedback (maybe because "actually play the notes together in time" seems too obvious to mention) but is one thing that differentiates a "professional's" sound. And after listening more closely to myself, he was right — and now I can't unhear how uncoordinated my fingers are.

At the end of the day, you need to notice a problem to solve it, and it is easier to improve once you know what "good" sounds like, so developing your ears is key to developing your musicianship. In the absence of that, someone with a good ear is invaluable in pointing out the obvious but overlooked.

Josephine

TheBoringPianist

Was it the Cesar Franck piece? I'm trying to learn the variation (I'm not going to learn the prelude and fugue right now, it's too long for me to learn it completely) and I noticed how hard it is to play some notes that are both in the right hand exactly at the same time in this piece.

I also have the same problem Gombessa mentioned. I made a recording of the first 6 measures and I heard I was rushing the melody in bar 3-6. I didn't realize that at all when I was playing it. So it's hard to improve it when you don't hear it while you are playing. I think I have to record my playing more often to see if it's improving or not. I will try to record it again today to see if it improved a lot, a little, or not at all.

TheBoringPianist

Josephine Was it the Cesar Franck piece? I'm trying to learn the variation (I'm not going to learn the prelude and fugue right now, it's too long for me to learn it completely) and I noticed how hard it is to play some notes that are both in the right hand exactly at the same time in this piece.

Was working on the Scriabin Fantaisie. Chords like the circled one were particularly bad at sounding in unison and without any inner notes poking out, but even the octaves at the beginning weren't entirely together.

But yeah thinking back to the Franck stuff like this was/is giving me trouble playing together:

ranjit

TheBoringPianist Well, those examples are quite difficult! The diminished chord with the octave note on top is a pretty stretched-out position.

Josephine

For me these two are the hardest. I just noticed I'm using fingers no 3 and 5 for both. I just tried to play it exactly at the same time, and it's indeed more important than I thought, so I'm glad you mentioned it. I have to practice this more often.

danno858

Gombessa One interesting rule of thumb I heard was to have someone play the piano, and walk around it. If you find a spot that sounds particularly good, put your mics there, and that's what they'll capture.

I tried this but it sounded nothing like the live performance. I might need different mics for farther away?

Gombessa

danno858 I think you definitely want different types of mics for different distances and directions. This was more about mic'ing close to the case, rather than at audience position.

And I really don't know the black art of proper mic'ing to sound like a live performance, but rather, in relative terms, putting mics in a spot that sounds the sweetest to your ears, may result in a better sounding recording than if your mics were placed in a different spot 6-24" away. TBH, I have a hard enough time telling whether one position is even better than another. They really just sound "different" to me.

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