copy someone's phrasing

Josephine

I never tried it, but I was wondering, if you would try to copy the phrasing and articulation of a concert pianist, would you learn anything from that?

twocats

Josephine I do it all the time! If I like something, I try to copy it. Sometimes after a while I go back to the recording and it turns out that my playing has morphed into something of its own, partly my take on it and partly what I liked from theirs. Sometimes during this process you figure out how you have to move your fingers or wrists to produce that phrasing or tone. I think you have a very good ear and that doing this will be very beneficial 🙂

pianoloverus

Josephine I never tried it, but I was wondering, if you would try to copy the phrasing and articulation of a concert pianist, would you learn anything from that?

I think it's perfectly OK to learn from another pianist's performance, copy some of their ideas, or listen to a recording of a piece before starting to learn it. But in terms of articulation and phasing don't many or most of the pieces you learn have that already marked in the score?

ShiroKuro

This is an interesting question.... I suspect what would be learned would depend on the piece, the person, the pianist selected as a model..... But I suspect that absolutely you would learn something.

I don't set out to try to copy someone's phrasing or articulation, but often when I've been working on a piece, I'll go back and listen to the original* and then I notice things that I didn't notice when I first started working on it.

*I most often play contemporary pieces, so the "original" means, the recording performed by the composer, something not available for most classical music.

With pieces by pianists like Einaudi, Sakamoto, and Hisaishi (among others), they often have released live versions and then there's the original release, so hearing and comparing those live versions is also instructive....

Josephine

ShiroKuro

When you opened that topic about Miracles and I tried to play a little bit by ear after listening a short section multiple times, I noticed it sounded better than when I learn a piece from sheet music. I think I don't have enough experience yet to come up with a good interpretation myself. I still like that piece by the way, I would like to play it one day.

Josephine

twocats

Thanks, that's good to hear! I will give it a try, it also sounds like a fun process to figure out how to produce a certain tone.

ShiroKuro

Josephine I can't play by ear, and even when I was a complete beginner, I always felt it sounded better when I had a score to play from.

Re Miracles, I'm not working on that right now, I put it aside to prep some pieces to perform. And of course, now my practice menu is full with other pieces. But I'll return to it, probably over the summer. It's a beautiful piece!

twocats

Josephine I hope you do have fun! 🙂

Josephine

pianoloverus I think it's perfectly OK to learn from another pianist's performance, copy some of their ideas, or listen to a recording of a piece before starting to learn it. But in terms of articulation and phasing don't many or most of the pieces you learn have that already marked in the score?

Yes, they have, but take for instance the rondo a la mazur played by Trifonov that I posted recently. I can't play that piece of course so it's a bad example, but I think you liked that piece as well. When you listen to multiple pianists playing the same piece they all sound different. And Trifonov is playing that piece in such a sensitive way, it makes me smile every time no matter how often I listen to it. So I love his interpretation of the piece. So then I would like to learn from his musical choices, his rubato, timing, how he makes individual notes sound.
And I was wondering if you learn things by doing that.
The rondo a la mazur has for instance repeated notes in the melody, so I would think that would be a difficult thing, to voice those notes in the most beautiful way. Will you get better at that after a while by imitating the interpretation of a very good concert pianist?

thepianoplayer416

Not a problem as long as you think his/her interpretation you're trying to copy is acceptable to your ears.

A few years ago I met a man who had little or no experience playing. He got into playing Debussy "Clair de Lune" that his father used to play at home. Not sure if his father taught him anything before. In 6 months he learned the piece slow tempo bit by bit following YouTube demos without any inclination to learn to read or count beats. He copied their hand gestures. He couldn't the same fingerings all the time when it's awkward.

Josephine

thepianoplayer416

I do want to learn the piece from the sheet music first, so not by ear. I made it a bit confusing by mentioning that. 😄
So I would have figured out the fingerings already before I start listening. But I think the fingerings might change when I would try to play a phrase exactly like a concert pianist, because maybe my way of playing it doesn't work to create that exact tone for instance.

pianoloverus

Josephine pianoloverus I think it's perfectly OK to learn from another pianist's performance, copy some of their ideas, or listen to a recording of a piece before starting to learn it. But in terms of articulation and phasing don't many or most of the pieces you learn have that already marked in the score?

Yes, they have, but take for instance the rondo a la mazur played by Trifonov that I posted recently. I can't play that piece of course so it's a bad example, but I think you liked that piece as well. When you listen to multiple pianists playing the same piece they all sound different. And Trifonov is playing that piece in such a sensitive way, it makes me smile every time no matter how often I listen to it. So I love his interpretation of the piece. So then I would like to learn from his musical choices, his rubato, timing, how he makes individual notes sound.
And I was wondering if you learn things by doing that.
The rondo a la mazur has for instance repeated notes in the melody, so I would think that would be a difficult thing, to voice those notes in the most beautiful way. Will you get better at that after a while by imitating the interpretation of a very good concert pianist?

You're talking about interpretation which is a different from phrasing and articulation which is usually indicated in the score so there is much less choice about those assuming one wants to follow the composer's instructions. So normally one would follow the phrasing and articulation marked in the score unless the score is a heavily edited edition of Chopin which might contain a lot of markings that are not by Chopin and thus only suggestions. Some composers, Bach being the primary example, have very little marked in the score other than the notes and rhythms so that getting ideas about things like phrasing and articulation from great recordings makes more sense . None of the above means that listening to great recordings is not a good idea because one can get many ideas about many other things that are open to interpretation and thus open to choices like the ones you mention in your next to last sentence in your first paragraph.

thepianoplayer416

Josephine
People like us who took / are taking music lessons would always start with the score. Sound recordings would help with the phrasing & interpretation.

Some people who never had music lessons and think notation symbols are too difficult to learn. Yet they still want to learn a Chopin Nocturne so people turn to Synthesia (falling blocks). People who decided to learn from a teacher would be asked to read music eventually. Those who decided to self-learn have a choice. And some people would start with pieces considered too advance for a beginner. Nothing would convince them they need to start from the bottom with pieces like "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

A few years ago I learned an arrangement of Bach "Little Fugue" BWV578 for piano off the sheet. I couldn't convince the man reading music is easy since he already decided it wasn't. At least it'd take too long to learn to read before he would get into the piece he wanted... Debussy "Clair de Lune".

Personally I enjoy pieces not originally written for piano. Baroque keyboard pieces by Bach, Handel, Rameau and others fit the category. A few years ago I found a piano arrangement of the Shoskovich Waltz #2. It's originally for a small orchestra with strings & horns. I get very conscious when people are critical of my interpretation of piano pieces. I have more freedom to express a piece in my own way when it's an arrangement of something for other instruments.

MRC

I think you can learn a great deal by consciously copying an interpretation that inspires you.

Firstly, it's an exercise in listening, trying to work out what's really going on. Does the pianist keep an even tempo in this passage, or do they speed up? How short are the staccati? Are they all the same? What's going on exactly with the rubato? With the pedal? and so on and so on...

Secondly, are you able to reproduce the effects you hear? How near can you get?

Thirdly, what feeling does this give you? I find it gives me a sense of connection with the pianist. I've often tried this when a passage played by somebody with a strong personality (Richter, Rubinstein, Pollini...) and I get the feeling of being drawn into their world. And I've always learnt something from the experience.

pianoloverus

MRC I think you can learn a great deal by consciously copying an interpretation that inspires you.

Just one small example showing I agree with you. I have played many note for note transcriptions of performances by Keith Jarrett that are available for free or nominal cost online. So naturally I've listened to many of his performances many times. I think he plays particularly beautifully and after a while I noticed that when he begins a phrase he often begins more loudly then I normally would. So to some extent I adopted that approach. Then at one point sometier later I was listening to a classical piano master class at Mannes and the teacher said something that was basically the same thing I noticed in Jarrett's performances. Apparently, the student began a phrase a bit too quietly/tentatively and the teacher said something like(paraphrasing) "In Russia we have a saying that when you begin a passage make sure to begin it".

Josephine

MRC

Thank you, this was exactly the idea, and what I hoped for! I really would like to learn from Rubinstein for instance. It might be a little bit like a masterclass but without the explanation of how and why. That's what you would have to figure out on your own.

pseudonym58

I don't try to copy anyone consciously, but I don't make an attempt not to, either. I might enjoy a particular recorded performance of a piece, and then if I attempt to work on that piece myself, there might be some similarities. In any case, I don't worry about it.

pseudonym58

pianoloverus As a very green cellist, playing in the orchestra in the initial performance of "Der Freischütz", a singer waited slightly longer than ususal before her entrance, and your's truly was the only one not to catch the conductor's slight hesitation before the next downbeat. I played a ff double stop on my own. After the performance, the conductor smiled and said "If you're going to make a mistake, you might as well make a big one!" 😁