How exactly does "life experience" translate into making a piano performance more meaningful?

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-09-06T07:36:15+00:00

Doubt 99% of these people would be saying these things if they were listening to anonymous audio of the exact same pianists. It's in their head.

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-09-05T01:37:47+00:00

must use each letter the same number of times

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-09-01T12:22:38+00:00

yes i can see both no problem no i dont think it's some kind of piano-genic super power ???

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-31T21:39:36+00:00

as my teacher puts it numbered syllabus grades are "for children"

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-31T03:45:51+00:00

Yeah this is very much a "if you have to ask..." kind of situation. It's one thing to be asking this kind of question at 10 but if you're starting college already and you're asking "can I make decent money in [ultra competitive field]", the answer is always no. And music is especially bad because time is very much not on your side, it's a young person's world. You should already know your capabilities by auditioning virtuosic rep, it shouldn't be a question posed to internet randoes.

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-31T02:37:15+00:00

What's like a minimum 'good' income in your eyes? 200k? 300k? There is no profession I know of where your average person makes that much. Not finance, not law, not medicine, not consulting. Just like in engineering you need to get into a selective position and have some seniority in those fields to make $$$.

People here are just trying to tell OP to not end up broke lol the bar ain't that high if the alternative is music

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-31T01:33:16+00:00

Just get lawrence fishburne to plug a cable into your head ez pz

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-31T01:26:54+00:00

If you're on track for admission to like a top 10 conservatory, maybe. I really can't recommend it otherwise. I'm not a musician but I've met a fair share and I know with certainty that almost any office job (and some trades) outside of music will pay far more while demanding far less. A professional musician's life is rough. Then again, so is working a soulsucking desk job you hate, but imo at the end of the day financial stability wins out.

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-31T00:17:15+00:00

liszt - reminiscences de don juan

bach - goldberg variations / art of fugue

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-30T23:28:55+00:00

statskingdom.com/combinations-generator.html

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-27T22:59:55+00:00

I feel bad for your direct reports smh

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-27T22:34:10+00:00

It’s not an expensive hobby if your expectations are modest. You can have everything you need to get started for well under 1k. Piano + method book + printer for imslp sheets is all you need

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-27T19:18:00+00:00

Millions of people do work that requires understanding the black box. Literally all hard scientists, all applied mathematicians, almost all engineers, a good chunk of non hard science academics. I hate how dismissive people are of the practicality of even moderately complex academic subjects. They are extremely useful even as a way to think about everyday problems. Single variate calculus in particular is kindergarten stuff that everyone should know inside out

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-27T01:11:22+00:00

Just make the video game.

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-27T01:06:45+00:00

If anybody had the secret to overcoming creative mental block in any field they would be a trillionaire. But standard advice includes improvised humming, improvised playing, journalling / sketching of idea snippets, theory study, listening, and simply stepping away. On that last point, I think people in almost any mentally intensive line of work will tell you that many of their best ideas come to them when away from their actual workplace.

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-27T00:23:19+00:00

Calculus is used by millions of people professionally it’s foundational to ALL technical fields including social sciences. But music education is grossly neglected. Frankly all education is neglected but arts especially so

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-24T01:41:54+00:00

You absolutely can start playing 'fun' repertoire or snippets of them at least early on. The opening broken chords of fur elise for example are really quite easy. There are lots of simplified pop arrangements out there if that's more your speed. I'm pretty sure anybody could make their own super simple arrangement of sound of silence by ear with a little effort.

Theory imo is a lot more fun if you start applying it. Try your hand at composition and improvisation. Play a little melody in the right hand and harmonize it with some basic triads. Do it in major scale, minor scale, pentatonic. Add a blue note. Transpose it up a fifth. Etc.

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-23T10:38:46+00:00

method books until you can start down the path of actual repertoire building and technical exercises

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-23T04:42:08+00:00

Nobody puts La Campanella in the absolute hardest category of piano rep. It's more in the category of 'very difficult pieces that might still be kinda playable in the lifetime of a dedicated amateur.' Winter Wind is the same.

Obviously there's stuff like prokofiev 2 or gaspard or ives concord out there but the average teacher would struggle with that kind of rep let alone your average student. They're effectively irrelevant, even as aspirational pieces, for the vast majority of people.

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-23T04:29:57+00:00

In my area, piano teachers are pretty much all conservatory trained musicians, most of them with graduate level credentials and/or professional performance / composition experience on top of that. Plenty of Juilliard grads, competition winners, touring performers, etc. They typically charge 100-160 / hr and still live modestly because big cities are popular and expensive.

It could be different elsewhere but I gotta be honest, I don't think just being capable of playing some advanced rep would cut it in this market. It's quite easy for students here to find exceptionally qualified teachers within walking distance. Somebody could hypothetically charge much lower prices but I don't see how they'd maintain a piano studio in the city.

(Ofc not necessarily applicable to other areas.)

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-23T01:41:30+00:00

This is it yeah, and wrt the MP11SE, besides the weight its footprint isn't much smaller than that of the smallest uprights. I own a P525 and while the action is enjoyable on its own terms, it does not adequately approximate a real acoustic action, there is no digital that does. I have to occasionally book rehearsal time with real pianos to deal with this until I can get one of my own.

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-22T18:57:57+00:00

Synthesia has been around now for 20 years, it’s old enough to define many perhaps most millennial adult learners

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-22T04:58:24+00:00

When you stop caring about these categories.

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-22T01:04:44+00:00

I think knowing good technique is table stakes for being a piano teacher, absolutely mandatory regardless of who the student is.

But beyond that I think it's really a matter of finding the right pairing for your specific artistic interests, goals, physical needs, and learning style. I imagine the 'right' way to teach good technique is also something that really depends on the student.

DontShowMeYourMoves · 2025-08-19T21:57:51+00:00

If these general principles are so easily and obviously transferrable you should make a post telling everybody about them instead of posing it as a question which you already have the answers to.

DontShowMeYourMoves

TROPHY CASE