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Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition

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Re: Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition

#31

Post by jeremyvisser »

SantalBlush wrote: post #27
jerf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classical music is supposed to be intense, albeit not necessarily in the "techno" sort of way. You really ought to play it fairly loudly (obviously not to the ear-damaging levels), and the recording needs to have a lot of dynamic range on it to capture it correctly. Classical music played and recorded correctly will use some intensity cues rarely used by modern music like dynamic range. Where I think it tends to fall…

Why doesn't baroque seem as repetitive? To me, it seems closer to the modern music format than classical is, despite it being older than classical.

While can't comment on whether it is as repetitive, I would point out that the commonality between baroque and pop music are their simplicity and emphasis on chord changes at their core.

Re: Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition

#32

Post by edejong »

projectileboy wrote: post #26
edejong wrote: post #4

The classical example of expecting another piece is when Maria Joao Pires performed in Amsterdam and only during the orchestra introduction figured out her mistake. See her reaction on Youtube [1]. As opposed to the article above, she hadn't performed this piece in over a year. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS64pb0XnbI

Wow!! Thank you so much for sharing this; I hadn’t seen it before. Do you happen to know if there is video of the entire performance?

I used the power of Google, but to no avail...

Re: Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition

#33

Post by alfiedotwtf »

jerf wrote: post #17
donquichotte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is intense, and I don't listen to classical music regularly.

Classical music is supposed to be intense, albeit not necessarily in the "techno" sort of way. You really ought to play it fairly loudly (obviously not to the ear-damaging levels), and the recording needs to have a lot of dynamic range on it to capture it correctly. Classical music played and recorded correctly will use some intensity cues rarely used by modern music like dynamic range. Where I think it tends to fall…

> For the time, great. No sarcasm. I mean that. Today, a bit tedious, because we don't need our repetition built right into our music, we add it with our playback technology if we want it.

That's a really interesting take. Nice

> Moonlight Sonata...

Funny you say that, it's on my inspiration list that I want to turn into trance.

I think the trouble though with using non-repeating classical piano into trance is that the intensity and syncopation is just so widely different. As an example, check out Chopin's Etude Op. 10 No. 12 "Revolutionary"... one of my favorite pieces, but how the hell do you turn that into dance music? It's just so wild and chaotic.

Re: Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition

#34

Post by Will_Parker »

jerf wrote: post #17
donquichotte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is intense, and I don't listen to classical music regularly.

Classical music is supposed to be intense, albeit not necessarily in the "techno" sort of way. You really ought to play it fairly loudly (obviously not to the ear-damaging levels), and the recording needs to have a lot of dynamic range on it to capture it correctly. Classical music played and recorded correctly will use some intensity cues rarely used by modern music like dynamic range. Where I think it tends to fall…

> Where I think it tends to fall down for a modern listener (assuming good recordings, which is not a good assumption) is that it mostly dates from a pre-recording period, so it tends to draw out all of its ideas because it expects the listener can't just rewind and listen to the last few minutes again, and this is the only such music they may hear this month; in modern times this results in a lot of pieces overstaying their welcome. Sometimes by a lot.

What a great point, I hadn't considered this before though it's completely obvious. A lot of fans of classical music though (like myself) still prefer a live performance, where I certainly don't mind hearing a da capo of Beethoven's Fifth at all!

Re: Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition

#35

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

dorkwood wrote: post #2

The article initially makes it sound like the pianist was caught completely off-guard when the band started playing a different song to what he had rehearsed. If you read further, however, you discover that the pianist had actually prepared to play both songs, but that their order had been switched, which is a significantly less dramatic story.

What makes this so dramatic is the fact that in the concerto they played first, the pianist is supposed to enter dramatically in the second measure.

The pianist had less than a second to figure out that the orchestra was playing Rachmaninoff instead of Tchaikovsky, and make his big entrance. He didn't react quickly enough, and he missed his entrance. This may have cost him the prize. Afterwards, the organizers offered to let the pianist repeat his performance, but he was too upset to do so.

If it had been the other way around, and the pianist had been expecting Rachmaninoff but the orchestra had played Tchaikovsky first, it would not have been as serious. In Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto, there's a long introduction by the orchestra before the piano enters.

Re: Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition

#36

Post by aaron-santos »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #23
edejong wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a long piece, so she's probably afraid she'll forget a passage later on.

It's super impressive that people can play music like that form memory, I mean there's got to be thousands or tens of thousands of notes in there.

It is! Music is particularly amenable to chunking. The structure of measures, phrases, sections, forms, and pieces lends itself to efficient memorization or perhaps musicians/composers select/write more memorizable music with this structure in mind.

Re: Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition

#37

Post by thenewwazoo »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #33
jerf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classical music is supposed to be intense, albeit not necessarily in the "techno" sort of way. You really ought to play it fairly loudly (obviously not to the ear-damaging levels), and the recording needs to have a lot of dynamic range on it to capture it correctly. Classical music played and recorded correctly will use some intensity cues rarely used by modern music like dynamic range. Where I think it tends to fall…

> For the time, great. No sarcasm. I mean that. Today, a bit tedious, because we don't need our repetition built right into our music, we add it with our playback technology if we want it. That's a really interesting take. Nice > Moonlight Sonata... Funny you say that, it's on my inspiration list that I want to turn into trance. I think the trouble though with using non-repeating classical piano into trance is that t…

I just took a listen (specifically spotify:track:0Z1vYjhlHvomaTl2VWGLrd), and I think there's something there you should pursue. Truly. The first 15 seconds could be stripped down and the scale part (sorry, I lack the terminology) to only the parts needed to agree with the second voice that comes in, and repeated a few times. The syncopation of that second voice would work great when laid over the beat. Then the mood gets darker and the theme is re-asserted. This would be the "meat" of the track. The entire time, all of the fluttery scale stuff gets stripped only to those spare notes which are needed to harmonize with the higher "voice" and carry the theme. I obviously don't have the chops, but this is a great, great idea.

It's wild and chaotic, but it doesn't need to be. Chopin has these wild scales to drive the piece along, but you've got a beat.

Re: Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition

#38

Post by komali2 »

jerf wrote: post #17
donquichotte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is intense, and I don't listen to classical music regularly.

Classical music is supposed to be intense, albeit not necessarily in the "techno" sort of way. You really ought to play it fairly loudly (obviously not to the ear-damaging levels), and the recording needs to have a lot of dynamic range on it to capture it correctly. Classical music played and recorded correctly will use some intensity cues rarely used by modern music like dynamic range. Where I think it tends to fall…

Do you have any recommendations for modern, classically trained musicians?

Re: Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition

#39

Post by aeorgnoieang »

jerf wrote: post #17
donquichotte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is intense, and I don't listen to classical music regularly.

Classical music is supposed to be intense, albeit not necessarily in the "techno" sort of way. You really ought to play it fairly loudly (obviously not to the ear-damaging levels), and the recording needs to have a lot of dynamic range on it to capture it correctly. Classical music played and recorded correctly will use some intensity cues rarely used by modern music like dynamic range. Where I think it tends to fall…

I think this describes a lot of reasons why 'classical classical' music 'sounds' very flat, emotionally, to me, compared to modern music. I do generally enjoy a lot of 'neo-classical' music tho, so I think you're probably very much right about why.

Re: Anxiety nightmare comes true for pianist at competition

#40

Post by bcatanzaro »

jerf wrote: post #17
donquichotte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is intense, and I don't listen to classical music regularly.

Classical music is supposed to be intense, albeit not necessarily in the "techno" sort of way. You really ought to play it fairly loudly (obviously not to the ear-damaging levels), and the recording needs to have a lot of dynamic range on it to capture it correctly. Classical music played and recorded correctly will use some intensity cues rarely used by modern music like dynamic range. Where I think it tends to fall…

I agree with a lot of this, but I can't let the comment that chamber music is "designed to be flat and unobtrusive" stand. Of course there is a lot of boring chamber music, as there is of any kind of music. But chamber music is vast and contains some of the purest and most passionate music ever written.

A very few examples of some great chamber music (I've linked to some fun parts): Beethoven String Quartet #10 (The Harp) - take a listen to a minute of the coda from the first movement. This music is exalted! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exMaWKVcCEs&t=490s

Schubert String Quartet #14 (Death and the Maiden). So tuneful and heartfelt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otdayisyIiM

Shostakovich String Quartet #8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tby5aMrMu6Q&t=316s

Mendelssohn String Quartet #4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4cankQnobU&t=1180s

I wish I had more time to link more here, but everyone should know that the best chamber music is thrilling, concentrated, joyful, ecstatic, anguished - just the best! Certainly not written as boring background music!

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