Just to lighten things up ... and I have greatest respect for Art Tatum. A natural and prodigy.
If Art were a potato, then what would he be called? Hint ..... Art Po ...
But getting back to serious ... Art Tatum is a genius. Remarkable person.
ranjit I would not consider this more difficult than the Gaspard de la Nuit suite, or Mazeppa/Feux Follets from the 1838 Transcendental Etudes, or the Rachmaninoff Second Sonata/Third Concerto, or some of Chopin’s more challenging etudes, etc.
Is this stunningly difficult to play at speed, yes? But, I would not consider it as difficult as the absolute most difficult works in classical music, especially considering how short it is.
Also, keep in mind that a lot of this was improvisation - jazz pianists remembers chords, scales, modes, voicings, and often followed those in their improvisations. Still wildly virtuosic, and stupendously impressive - and played with dexterity most pianists could only dream of - but it’s still improvisation, and so there’s a level of freedom there - mistakes are not mistakes - they become part of the song if the musician is great enough - and Tatum was one in a century.
That’s a bit different from learning a piece note for note and having to replay it back as written with no room for error, especially when the piece is 10 or 20 minutes long, or more.
So, if one’s goal is to be some blinding virtuoso, then classical would probably still be the field to go into, only because it would offer MORE opportunities for blinding virtuosity.
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That said, this is excellent proof that, as I said in my post, one can be a virtuoso pianist and still NEVER touch the classical repertoire, so long as one focuses on technique, theory, and general performance.
Case in point:
One could study pure theory and technique, and then apply it to works by Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, and Thelonious Monk, be a virtuoso/advanced pianist, and yet have never studied classical.
Taushi but it’s still improvisation
It's not 'just' improvisation ..... or even 'still improvisation'. Need to firmly keep that in mind. It's special. And is indeed very remarkable
Taushi especially considering how short it is.
Music doesn't need to be relatively long to be 'good'. Relatively short can be excellent too.
Taushi I would not consider this more difficult than the Gaspard de la Nuit suite, or Mazeppa/Feux Follets from the 1838 Transcendental Etudes, or the Rachmaninoff Second Sonata/Third Concerto, or some of Chopin’s more challenging etudes, etc.
I would think it is about equally difficult. At tempo, I think it is harder than several listed. In my admittedly amateur opinion, it seems like it's similar in difficulty to Gaspard but the much shorter length and having less kinds of technical difficulties to juggle at the same time make it easier to "perform" it. It is harder than any Chopin etude I can think of (plenty of people play the full set -- I think the Grande Douze etudes by Liszt are a much more apt comparison). I think an actual classical pianist playing it (one who could play Gaspard) would sound abominable and still lack the dexterity for the runs and jumps. Some classical concert pianists have unsuccessfully attempted these works. I think it is similar to Cziffra's transcriptions in that some of the idiosyncratic stuff at the original tempo is "Tatum only".
This was the original question, and I do think it competes.
Here's a video of one of the best current jazz pianists trying to play it. He is 5-10% slower at points and seems to lack some of the dexterity. You can see how hard the RH jumps, chordal passages (from what I can tell there are points with fast ascending blocked seventh chords and the like), LH fast stride (often in tenths) are. Getting the runs clean with an almost portato touch would also be incredibly difficult. This is also slower than the original so it seems a bit easier than it probably is to play it at tempo.
I don't really agree with the idea that in order for something to be hard, it should still be hard at 80% tempo. My experience with playing the newer version of Mazeppa, for instance, was that it fell fairly easily under the fingers at 70-80% tempo. It's that last bit which IS the hard part.
Here's Yuja Wang playing Tea for Two:
vs Art Tatum:
The clarity of runs at that tempo is dazzling. It's not just the feel, his technique is absolutely wild. It's an almost detached touch at an incredibly fast pace which somehow still retains clarity and remains perfectly intelligible. IMO just because someone can technically fumble the arpeggios at a similar speed doesn't mean they've done the piece any justice.
This is what I mean - after listening to the above, and had never played the basic melody of tea for two before. And this relates to 'non-classical' (and also 'classical').
I decided to hop on my piano moments ago - and make some tea for all. Simple tea, and could certainly be made far nicer with some 'elbow grease' - by putting some proper thought and forethought into the whole thing - including proper/seamless backing notes, substance --- and all the 'techniques' mentioned in the past - loud/soft, high to low, low to high, dynamics, nuance, holding down notes just for long enough to make certain parts sing and shine, and dashes of notes in some parts for variety, clarity of particular notes coming out at the 'right' time etc.
It's pretty much like painting --- art. You just do what you want to make it sound nice or ok. And ok is a good start.
And since we are all in learners lounge, we should keep inspiring ourselves - all of us learners, and just show that if we use workable chords, and just do some of the standard-issue arpegg -- and mix up stuff a little bit, just to not become too repetitive if we can avoid it ... then we're on the way to generating something nice. Some music. Everybody can do it. Or will be able to do it - if they want.
I actually had more ideas to extend the 'tea' part - to present some new bits to it. But thought I would just leave it at that for a bit, and will get around to it later, and get some elegance and shine and flow and continuity into it later. And I do like some arpegg - and some scales etc - but I don't like to over-do it. When it gets over done, then things can start to become you know ... not so interesting. It needs to be done sparingly - and maybe in the spots where it might sound alright.
In any case -- tea anyone? Tea for all. (I can't remember the name of the second bit - so if somebody mentions the name of that bit, then I can fix up the name in the title, and add the credit for that. Tea for all time ---
(above - same audio content - the flac is about 3 times smaller in size)
I chose to use the bosie sound - rounded and muted - to cut down on sharpness on the 'ears'. And of course - thanks to my trusty piano -- we're a team.
ranjit Well, we’ll have to disagree, because I don’t hear anything in the improvisation that makes it sound more challenging than the works I’ve mentioned. I don’t hear anything in it more challenging than Ondine or Scarbo of Gaspard de La Nuit, or more challenging than Mazeppa or Feux Follets of the Transcendental Etudes, or more challenging than the Rachmaninoff Second Sonata or Third Concerto. And while people do play the full set of the Chopin etudes (typically the most advanced pianists in the world play the entire set, not just selections), the amount who play them well is quite small - and when taken as a whole set, I still think they would be more challenging than this improvisation. The only reason “plenty” of top pianists don’t play this improvisation is because there isn’t real sheet music to it (contrary to attempts to transcribe/notate it that people have posted) - it’s an improvisation. I would also very much disagree about Mazeppa being easy under the hands, and I think most who play the entire piece at tempo would agree.
I also think comparing someone improvising to someone attempting to play back someone else’s improvisation is inherently problematic - one person was playing whatever they wanted to play it while loosely following a melody/progression and thus having a level of freedom to play at superb speeds because whatever they played would be “right” since it’s an improvisation…while the others are attempting to play back exactly what that person improvised note for note. Also, I don’t think that Eldar Djangirov or Yuja Wang are in the same league as Tatum, in terms of this type of playing. Wang is not even a jazz pianist. That doesn’t mean this improvisation is overly difficult - it just means they don’t have his touch and personality. Had Horowitz or Cziffra or a few other pianists who had a similar touch and temperament as Tatum tried their hand at playing back his improvisations, then you might find a similar rendition.
And a few challenging pieces by Tatum does not compare to the repertoire of classical music, which is full of exceptionally challenging works as a standard.
I think it’s really important to not let mythos cloud realistic perception of what we’re hearing.
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That said, my goal was not to attempt to create some comparison/showdown between classical and jazz, Tatum and classical pianists, or the Tiger Rag transcription and the works I mentioned. Unfortunately, some seem to have zeroed in on one sentence in my entire post and taken it as some classical versus jazz call-out, which is simply wasn’t.
My overall ideas were that one does not need classical music to be an advanced pianist or even a virtuoso.
I merely only suggested that one might choose to go with classical if one wished to be consistently associated with the heights of virtuosity because the repertoire is more consistently challenging - that is not to say that there isn’t anything challenging in jazz or that there aren’t some jazz improvisations/transcriptions when - if attempted to be replayed as pieces and given a note-for-note retelling would be exceptionally challenging. Nor does that suggest that Tatum wasn’t one of the best pianists to touch the instrument.
Taushi Well, we’ll have to disagree, because I don’t hear anything in the improvisation that makes it sound more challenging than the works I’ve mentioned.
Well, I said I thought it was comparably difficult, which is what you initially asked. Do you agree?
Also, how do you measure difficulty? I maintain that the runs and jumps may look "easy" but are not. And I mean that IMO they are harder than what you would see in e.g. Mazeppa if you are playing it at standard concert tempo (if you play it super fast that is a different matter). The only person I have seen whose left hand jumps are as fast and accurate is Cziffra. And with the runs, it is much like the difference between playing scales at 200 vs 220 bpm. They might "sound" the same, but the former is achievable by many and the latter by very few.
Taushi I would also very much disagree about Mazeppa being easy under the hands, and I think most who play the entire piece at tempo would agree.
My point was that it is easy under the hands at 80% tempo, much like Tatum might seem relatively simple at 80% tempo. But very few concert pianists (basically none) can play Tatum's arrangement at tempo. And I'm sure there are those who have tried.Taushi Had Horowitz or Cziffra or a few other pianists who had a similar touch and temperament as Tatum tried their hand at playing back his improvisations, then you might find a similar rendition.
Well, their technical facility extends far beyond "just" being able to play Chopin and Liszt etudes, though. Cziffra played Chopin's op 10 no 1 pretty much at 1.5x speed, and I'm sure you've seen his Grand Galop Chromatique. I believe Art Tatum is in the same class in terms of natural dexterity, and his arrangements reflect that. I think it is a higher level than Chopin's Etudes -- 12 year olds can play those nowadays!
ranjit I disagree with pretty much everything you’ve said in this post, and your views just seem fundamentally different from mine on the subject. I also think you’re either missing or ignoring key points of what I’ve said. We’ll have to agree to disagree.
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That said, going back to my original post, I think it is very possible to be an advanced pianist and even a virtuoso and never have played classical music.
Taushi That said, going back to my original post, I think it is very possible to be an advanced pianist and even a virtuoso and never have played classical music.
I think this is unlikely, honestly. There is some virtuoso piano music in other genres but it's just a handful of pieces compared to the vast ouevre of classical.
ranjit I addressed the means through which it could be accomplished in my first post on the subject.
Repertoire is not the only means through which to achieve virtuosity.
And there are new methods, schools, conservatories, and teachers who are connecting fundamental theory/technique/performance pedagogy with modern musicality.
The thoughts of someone with real authority on this subject, Jools Holland. Jools could fluently play the piano before he could sight read, and has never played classical piano, He was making a living from it at school age. Of particular relevance to some of the themes of this thread is his comment in the video that good music is a mix of emotion and technique, the player requiring enough technique to perform the piece, but technique beyond that often "just gets in the way".
I found the video, while not short, thoroughly worth watching
Sydney Australia
Retired part-time piano technician
Taushi and thus having a level of freedom to play at superb speeds because whatever they played would be “right” since it’s an improvisation…while the others are attempting to play back exactly what that person improvised note for note.
So you're basically saying that a new frontier of 'classical' music may result ... thanks to Art Tatum etc. Because ... if everybody then focuses on playing the 'script' (accurate transcript - if there is one) version of Art's impro music, and they eventually consistently get it 'right', then that might lead to a new frontier in classical music. And everybody then learns from each other.
Well some say that Mozart was basically the rock star of his time. If he had been born in the 1980s then he might have been part of the hip hop or rap or heavy metal movement for all we know 
Or he might have become an engineer, or scientist or corporate manager, or school teacher etc etc ...... or ... if born in a poverty stricken place ..... who knows. Nobody knows what he would become.
The point is that I see no reason to get overly wound up over this because we're descending into the nitty-gritty of semantics. Today's pop music is the next generation's classical. For example is Strauss music classical or not? Good for hours of "discussion "...
It depends on definition. In general - the 'classical era' pertains to some historical time period - associated with various composers - we know which ones. A general rundown -- just google - 'classical period (music)'. And they say that 'classical' music is scripted music from that era, or music that sounds like from the 'era' even if somebody today composes the style from that era. That 'genre'. I don't reckon it needs to be scripted though. It just needs to 'sound' like it in my opinion.
Sophia Yup, I think you just proved the point I was trying to make
Your point was about wound up or something. And I don't think anybody got 'wound up' as such. They just have their opinions, and you have yours.
And - there is more than one 'Strauss'. Which Strauss were you referring to?
But regarding definitions ... you could have different kinds categories of 'classical music' - under the 'classical music' umbrella. But on the other hand - if you want to stick with the system, which already is working -- as in 'classical', 'pop', 'jazz' etc, then could just stick with it for a while. And of course - semantics can be involved - or grey areas, which happens in life as we know -- such as popular classical music of the classical era is considered as 'pop' for that period too.
Taushi Also, I don’t think that Eldar Djangirov or Yuja Wang are in the same league as Tatum
It's true actually. Art Tatum is in his own amazing 'league'. Those other two cannot 'touch' him when he is in his element. And vice versa of course. Also - it's the same between you and I. And also between you and each person here. Same deal.
JohnCW The thoughts of someone with real authority on this subject, Jools Holland. Jools could fluently play the piano before he could sight read, and has never played classical piano, He was making a living from it at school age. Of particular relevance to some of the themes of this thread is his comment in the video that good music is a mix of emotion and technique, the player requiring enough technique to perform the piece, but technique beyond that often "just gets in the way".
I found the video, while not short, thoroughly worth watching
Great post. I think this offers some good insight. I don't agree with everything he said (you can never have too much technique, in my opinion, so long as you have the creativity to know what to do with it), but the SUBSTANCE Of what he said rings true to me. And I agree on the sentiment that, again, classical music isn't needed to become an advanced pianist or even a virtuoso.
I think one of the reasons people have such a hard time divorcing piano excellence from classical music is because, for so long, the two have been tandem. Dare I say, the piano was the first "new" instrument built specifically for what we now generally consider "Classical" music - invented and developed in the 1700s during the Gallant, Rococo, and Viennese Classical/Classical proper periods, perfected during the Romantic and Late Romantic eras, finalized in the Impressionistic era.
And it's with this instrument and during these eras that keyboard technique reached it's zenith. And I maintain there's
no other genre where advanced keyboard virtuosity is the standard, and with vaunted amounts of repertoire to support it, like as with Classical music.
So that sealed the concept of piano excellence to classical music.
And then, of course, even with the advent of genres like jazz, where there was the presence of virtuosity - both technical and harmonic - was similar or equivalent to the Classical genre, there were, unfortunately, social, cultural, nationalistic, classist, elitist, and/or Ivory-tower ideologies that exhorted that Classical still be seen as the "superior" art form - the "one, true Art".
And, so the "conventional wisdom" - really rote ideological repetition - has always held that classical music is a necessary component to become a great pianist. But it simply isn't true. Demonstrably so.
When Art Tatum was introduced to the conversation earlier, things somewhat got lost in the weeds on semantics and comparisons- but I thought his introduction to the conversation was, most importantly, a superb support to the idea that advanced pianism is capable, sans classical training. Art Tatum - a jazz pianist who never studied classical and yet who was able to play with the same level of brilliance and éclat as his classical contemporaries - proves that case. And there were many other jazz pianists, modern pianists, and avant-garde pianists of similar ability who achieved superb musicality and technique but never studied classical.
And if the methods continue changing, as they are, we'll see more and more of this.
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There's also logical support to the idea.
We just toss all these music from the 1600s to the early 1900s together under the completely-minimizing and ill-informed brute-force generalization term "Classical", because it's easier to parse things that way. But the reality is, the "Baroque" people saw the "Gallant/Rococo" people as something new, alien, unusual, and frankly wrong. And then those people felt the same way about the "Classical proper" people. And the Classical people felt the same way about the Romantics. And the Romantics felt the same way about the Impressionists, and so on. We're able to group it all together in 200 years hindsight, because our ears, harmonic language, and mind have been programmed to all as chronological artistic evolution. But, at the time, all of these were considered distinct, separate, eras of music. And yet, the fundamentals worked for each distinct genre/style/era.
Also, keyboard technique didn't start with the piano or classical proper. It started with the organ and harpsichord and clavichord. It was adapted to the piano which had the same seven-plus-five layout, but there were still minor adjustments that had to be made because the piano plays and responds differently than the previous keyboard instruments. And yet keyboard technique adapted through these distinct instruments.
So we already see, even in what we now unfairly generalize as "Classical", how keyboard technique & performance was constantly adapting and developing, and not married to any particular instrument or any particular style, as Gallant was different from Baroque and Classical was different from Gallant/Rococo, and Romantic was different from those, and so forth.
Added to those facts, during the Romantic era, we saw keyboard technique truly standardized and divorced from the music of any particular style. Again, Liszt began working on the fundamentals as pure drills to develop piano technique, and it took him further than anything he'd done before that. He began working on a series of exercises, ultimately published much later and rather poorly (with some contention) by his pupil. However, Liszt's work spurred on Hanon (whose exercises become the greatest purely technical development tool), and later Isidor Philipp continued the method of divorcing pure piano technique from any genre. And I don't consider the Hanon or the Liszt exercises to be classical music - it's not music at all - it's pure isolated technique drills following the scales. Same can be said of the Philipp, which follow a particular harmonic/chordal progression.
Sheet music notation and learning to read it is another standardized system, divorced from any particular genre/era.
And, music theory itself is yet another standardized system, also divorced from any particular genre/era.
So, now, there exists very standardized methods by which to achieve advanced pianism, without ever studying any particular classical. A simple method could be:
Through a method like this, one never has to ever actually play classical music, and yet can still become an advanced and even virtuoso pianist.
And that's to say nothing of what might be possible for those musicians with natural aptitude (like the aforementioned Art Tatum), who never even had to do all that to achieve highest advanced levels.
Thus, I think it's very possible (having already been demonstrated by numerous successful advanced non-classical pianists) to become an advanced and even virtuoso pianist, and yet never touch the classical repertoire. And, with more schools and conservatories embracing modern music, and applying the pure fundamentals without restricting students to pure "Classical", we're seeing it more and more.
