All posts tagged YouTube

My Favorite Online Master Classes

I love browsing the piano master class videos on YouTube and I have a few favorites that I return to time after time. These are the great pianists and teachers who speak in more general terms about the music, concepts that can be applied to all music. Below are links to a few who have inspired me…

  1. Here is a two-part video of Rubinstein working with a student on Chopin’s g minor Ballade. Near the end of this clip he talks about nobility in music. “Music is an art of emotion, of nobility, of dignity, of greatness, of love, of tenderness….but never show-off pompousness…Liszt liked to show what he can do but there is always music behind it.”
  2. In the first part of a two-part video filmed at her former farmhouse in Portugal, pianist Maria Joao Pires talks about the bar line and how we should never hear it because it has “zero to do with the phrase.” She talks about time and space and breathing in music. Later she talks about how we must believe that “miracles can happen” because in music, they do.
  3. In this first part of a six-part video master class with Gyorgy Sebok we learn about the distinction between music told from the first person point of view and music that is an illustration of something… “when you don’t resonate but you understand.” Later he talks about how some pianists control by tension, but how he prefers controlling by freedom. Using the example of a Parisian waiter carrying a tray of soup he talks about how we can control things better in mobility. He also spends time explaining how to create the illusion of a glissando on the piano.
  4. Finally, there is the Barenboim master class six-part video series on the Beethoven Sonatas. (A complete list of the videos can be found here.) Barenboim talks about rubato, legato, how content determines speed, the sense of well-being that comes from tensionless playing, and how the performer should always go from the standpoint of the ear because the ear knows everything and remembers everything. Six hours of video and fifty years insight from Daniel Barenboim, priceless.

Happy listening!

1 Comment
by C.S. on April 29, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Piano Playing
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Posted by C.S. on April 29, 2012

http://goplayproject.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/my-favorite-online-master-classes/

The Pianist’s Sketchbook

Cover of "An Illustrated Life: Drawing In...

Cover via Amazon

The other day I was browsing through An Illustrated Life – drawing inspiration from the private sketchbooks of artists, illustrators and designers, by Danny Gregory. it’s the type of book that when you flip through the pages, I can guarantee you’ll want to run out and get a sketchbook and a set of pens and start doodling and sketching.

It got me thinking. Why should visual artists have all the fun? Why don’t classical musicians seem to want to pull back the curtain and show the world what inspires them and all the hard work that leads up to the final polished performance. What would be the musical equivalent of the artist’s sketchbook? The musician’s doodlings? The pianist’s process?

Well, I think I found it…. on Twitter. I’m lucky to have found some of the most creative and friendly musicians on Twitter. A tweet about a piece of music sends me right to IMSLP to download the score. Another tweet about a concert and I’m off to read reviews and find clips on YouTube. And a tweet about a productive practice session sends me right to the piano bench.

Here are just a few of the pianists on Twitter who have inspired me to take the leap and start my own musical sketchbook of pieces that are still a bit raw, the collection I call my “Go Play Project.”

Erica Sipes (@ericasipes) has recently been blogging and posting a video diary of her preparation of Beethoven’s 3rd piano concerto for an upcoming concerto competition. Her careful methodical practice has convinced me to pull in the reigns and take the time to check fingering and details and practice slowly in a way that no piano teacher or coach ever seemed to be able to do.

Jocelyn Swigger (@jocelynswigger) is keeping an audio practice diary as she learns ALL the Chopin Etudes, an goal many pianists probably have, but how many of us ever follow through? Hats off to Jocelyn and thank you for sharing the invaluable details of your practice.

The most popular pianist on YouTube, Valentina Lisitsa (@ValLisitsa) pulled back the curtain last summer when she live streamed her daily 14-hour practice sessions. Now if that wasn’t enough to inspire you to go running to the piano I don’t know what would.

And as far as tweets go, I find that James Rhodes (@JRhodesPianist) shares his love of piano with his Twitter followers in the most authentic and genuine way. In my opinion, his twitter feed comes very close to being the musical equivalent of an artist’s sketchbook.  How can any pianist not want to move away from his or her computer screen and head for the nearest piano after reading tweets like this and this and this?

Take a listen to this week’s addition to my “sketchbook” – Chopin’s Fantasy Impromptu, Op. 66.

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by C.S. on March 18, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Piano Playing
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Posted by C.S. on March 18, 2012

http://goplayproject.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/the-pianists-sketchbook/

Out From Under The Burden

A heavy burden

This morning I listened to Greg Sandow’s 2010 Commencement Speech at the Eastman School of Music. He speaks about the future of classical music and how classical musicians can find new audiences, reach people their own age, and share their love of classical music and others people who don’t listen to classical music. I was struck when he said classical musicians must:

“Get rid of the heavy burden of ART.”

I’m not surprised that he and I are on the same wavelength once again. I agree that it’s time for classical musicians to stop thinking that classical music is somehow a higher art-form and we have to educate our audiences in order for them to “understand it.” There’s no reason to keep classical music on a pedestal. Why not just play, and let the music speak for itself?

When we let go of that burden and stop playing music we think we should be playing; stop thinking we aren’t ready or that a piece isn’t polished enough, or difficult enough, or is overplayed, or underplayed; stop waiting to read more performance notes, or listen to yet another interpretation of a piece, or to get another (expensive) coaching on a piece with this or that master teacher; stop relying on judges and juries for feedback about our music; and by all means stop thinking that our audience isn’t going to appreciate what we have to offer because they won’t understand it …then maybe we’ll find what it was that drew us to our instruments (and favorite composers) in the first place.

Maybe that’s when we’ll find that our enthusiasm is so infectious that we’re able to draw audiences to us (for example him and her) no matter if we choose to perform on stage in tuxes and gowns, in a restaurant in jeans and sneakers, in a private home for a house concert (or even by recording and uploading to YouTube and Soundcloud.).

And, by the way, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is also a path to finding the elusive feeling of musical spontaneity that keeps audiences coming to hear jazz and improv but is often missing in classical performances.

***Listen to Debussy’s Sarabande from Pour le Piano – Week #10 of the Go Play Project.“

1 Comment
by C.S. on March 5, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Classical Music
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Posted by C.S. on March 5, 2012

http://goplayproject.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/out-from-under-the-burden/

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