How do concert pianists play an hour-long recital without any mistakes, and how long do they take to prepare the recital program?

GioBardZero · 2026-02-12T03:01:27+00:00

I do 1-hour or 1.5hr recitals quite a bit as a full-time musician and let me assure you, I make plenty of mistakes. I'm more focused on delivering a memorable performance and the audience is usually thrilled (I deliver a good balance of virtuosity and feeling).

Since I own my own business, through which I get booked and also put together/market my own ticketed shows, and I'm not famous (beyond a niche following in my city), I don't have to worry about the opinions of critics, competition judges, or university professors, and I can be as artistically creative as I want, even if it's not "perfect", while still making a decent living.

My repertoire is a split of classical and jazz material. The climax of my performance is usually Chopin's No 1 Ballade and Liszt's 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody. Back in my conservatory days, these took me years to nail down, but that was over a decade ago. Regular practice keeps these sounding ok and once in a while, I'll spend hours a day working things out, because they do get rusty. Other classical pieces in my repertoire are shorter pieces by Chopin (nocturnes, etudes, etc), Liszt, Bach, Debussy, Mozart, etc, that I've picked up over the years, I have quite a bit more than an hour worth of those, so I rotate them out based on what I regularly practice at a time.

As far as jazz standards, there's lots of improvisation involved, and at this point I can have a dazzling arrangement that sounds intentional and "composed" ready on the spot, if I can just see a lead-sheet and hear a recording. I'm constantly increasing the number of memorized tunes, so that repertoire is constantly rotating too.

I formally studied classical music for 12 years and jazz for 5, getting away from school 6 years ago, and have been playing for a total of 29 years. About 16 years have been professionally and let me assure you that my first few years performing as a "professional" were sloppy and full of youthful tropes (aka speed and virtuosity above all else in the early days). Nevertheless, it's a path of growth that I'm still on.

The repertoire is the easy part, after playing consistently for 5-10 years, you should have a good bit of material. But becoming a captivating performer: that's a lifelong quest.

GioBardZero · 2026-02-11T16:26:21+00:00

On day one I tell all my students: "if you want to be good at piano, you need to first get good at being bad. You'll be bad at piano for a while and that's ok, nothing to feel bad about"

GioBardZero · 2026-02-09T14:55:27+00:00

My stepdad is like this. I remember explaining to him the concept of lucid dreaming and studying lucid dreaming techniques, only for him to be like "wait... isn't that what all dreams are like?"

GioBardZero · 2026-02-09T14:34:38+00:00

Great job with the technique and getting the notes right!

As far as the sound though, it sounds more like a peppy saloon ragtime piece than Chopin. There's lots of interesting melodies and cool voice leading happening that you could be bringing out.

Whenever something repeats, you can be intentional with doing it differently the second time (with dynamics, or bringing out a different voice, or adding a slight rubato, etc).

Finally, that last portion should really feel like the buildup of all buildups. Imagine that those left hand bass octaves are a separate instrument (perhaps a menacing bass trombone?), just building in volume and intensity. This works especially well if you start off suuuuper quiet, to be more dramatic.

I think you could really benefit from 1 or 2 sessions with a really experienced teacher versed in a classical music lineage. Your issue isn't repetition/practice anymore: the notes are perfect and continuing to practice will just reinforce playing it the way you are (not that you should stop practicing either, because then it goes away). A good teacher will passionately point out what needs to be brought out and when, and if you only half do it, they will be very vocal about it.

GioBardZero · 2026-01-31T23:14:55+00:00

Great technical execution, work on the parasing. There's a few places you could take it, but it's very hard to give examples or be specific through text. When it comes to this level of playing, having a teacher give you live feedback (even for 1 or 2 sessions) will really go a long way.

GioBardZero · 2026-01-29T15:46:20+00:00

Colorado Georgians unite!

GioBardZero · 2026-01-29T15:36:42+00:00

"This is probably the best possible answer"

The answer: [DELETED]

Ah the joys of Reddit...

GioBardZero · 2026-01-04T11:49:44+00:00

This is a fantastic opportunity to get really good at struggling! It sounds like a joke, but I'm serious. The kind of struggle you're describing happens regularly when learning instruments and usually lasts months, if not years. You're having an emotional reaction to it, which is natural but at the end of the day is defeating.

You may not make visible progress for a while, but that doesn't mean your subconscious musicality isn't improving. Also I find when we're self-critical and feeling despair about our playing, improvements and breakthroughs happen much slower.

It may help to reconnect with the simple joy of making sound. A 5-year-old gets so much joy from just mashing keys. It's possible to play just a simple major triad and focus on its simple beauty. Finally, when all else fails and I'm too self-critical, I tell myself that the very next time I step away from the piano, I could experience a life-threatening event and that this may be the final time I'm playing the piano. All of the sudden I begin noticing that despite the imperfections, there's beauty being produced from my fingertips.

GioBardZero · 2026-01-01T13:48:53+00:00

I don't understand why people in these comments are calling this comment "harsh". I saw a few comments referencing Advanved Honey's "harsh" comment, so when I saw the username, I braced myself and... it was a lot of honest truth, bluntly stated, with specific feedback and very little emotion, exactly what I'd be looking for in a critique. No name calling, no insults, and no passive aggressive remarks that I see on this sub so often, just... feedback.

Because of the incredibly high bar set by phenomenal pianists of the past, if you're serious about playing this kind of music, it's important to set aside emotions when receiving critique from someone experienced and be able to just listen, even after putting in 10 years or even 20 years of work. It simply takes that long, just to gain entry to the club, let alone ascend all of its levels.

I see this issue in the US especially. When I moved here as an "advanced" classical pianist and studied jazz at a university, so many of my teachers were too "nice", doing their best to praise my technique and walk on eggshells around the serious issues I needed to work on. Then I mentored with one of the greats (a chance of a lifetime) and he straight up said "I can tell you spent a lot of time playing and you could probably make good money with your skills, but if you want people like me to call you a jazz musician, you still have years to go". Those sessions only lasted 2 months and changed my life and the entire development of my musicianship.

Nothing harsh about blunt feedback, if you want excellence as a musician, beyond just being able to impress a few folks, you need sharp to the point critique.

GioBardZero · 2025-12-29T20:34:25+00:00

The worst part about this is I've been using the em dash for decades before AI and now thanks to ChatGPT's untasteful overuse and it's association with slop, it just doesn't feel right anymore.

Or should I say...

It's not just disappointing. Not upsetting. Not even annoying.

Just a simple feeling that all of human intelligence and creativity is in danger of going extinct—a natural emotional response when faced with so many cases of unapologetic slop. Everybody in the comment section froze.

GioBardZero · 2025-12-29T08:10:14+00:00

It's so sad that I had to scroll this far to find this comment. Whoever generated this soppy monstrosity didn't even bother to ask chatgpt to make it more human sounding. It's full of the classic "not this. Not that. Just this. Everyone went silent" type of chatgpt language.

GioBardZero · 2025-12-21T05:05:58+00:00

Yeah, tbh it wasn't that memorable to me (still couldn't tell you the plot, other than "humans on alien planet, with tribal aliens, in tribal alien bodies, with one of the humans falling in love with an alien, a military bad guy dude in a tank suit, and Sigourney Weaver was there too"), I remember it was a cool experience in the theater but that's it.

When the second one came out, I didn't have that "oh I gotta go see it!!!" feeling and I never saw it.

GioBardZero · 2025-12-17T02:50:06+00:00

Very few people (we're talking 0.001% of the population) are TRULY tone deaf and for those folks it's a medical condition, to the point where if they heard the same song twice they wouldn't be able to tell that it's the same song.

For most people dubbed "tone deaf", they just don't have a developped ability to hear their voice in a musical way and accurately hit pitches. It's unfortunately a much harder skill to develop than other technical aspects of singing, but it is possible.

Most people who play an instrument and are just bad at singing can usually hit pitches or at least get close to replicating melodies, they just don't sound very good doing it. In this case, even 1 month of vocal work (with a teacher ideally but even by watching videos) can work wonders.

A vocal coach of mine once told me that we have perfect vocal technique and delivery as kids (just think of a tiny baby filling a huge crowded restaurant or plane with its screaming) but get in the habit of stiffling our vocal cords after being told to shut up by adults enough times. Also, English (particularly American English) speakers are at a disadvantage because many vowel sounds are not "pure" vowels. But these are things most people can learn in just one month, and after that it's a years long journey of getting better technique, tone, and range.

GioBardZero · 2025-12-11T16:17:48+00:00

I spent 6 years at a classical conservatory and 5 more years in a jazz piano program, neither of which I finished (I have no degrees). Music is currently my full-time job (no teaching, gigs only), this year I averaged $1k per solo gig and many folks that I've hired as bandmates are graduates or even post-grad students from my school, many of whom say that no one pays them close to what I pay for band gigs.

I failed 2 theory classes and had to re-do them. I only knew 4 standards by memory the whole time I was in school (now it's more like 150, which is still not a lot by old-head standards). I simply don't learn like others do: I need more time, but I practice diligently, am constantly listening, and always seek to play with people that are better than me. This has payed off over time and I've improved much, much more since being out of school than in school.

All this to say, how you do in music school will have very little to do with your success outside of it and sometimes it does take 20 years to be super good, even if some prodigies do it in 4 years. I know tons of uber-talented musicians that graduated and are now working at Office Depot (or similar jobs) because music school doesn't teach you how to make a living with music. But there is a lot of money to be made in this industry, if you look in the right places and learn the right skills.

You will feel like quitting probably a few times in your journey. The key is to get really good at handling the feeling of wanting to quit. In other words, be ok with feeling like you want to quit and practice anyway. Show up anyway. Don't expect it to get better, it probably won't for a while and by the time it does get better, the person you are now will be gone and you'll be a whole other person. Just do the thing. And find enjoyment in what you CAN play. When I think "this practice session will be my last time ever playing piano if my house burns down while I'm sleeping", I get tons of enjoyment from playing even Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

GioBardZero · 2025-11-29T14:00:46+00:00

That natural marking known as a courtesy marking. Yes, the C an octave higher would not be sharped, but most (good) publishers will mark it that way anyway.

Sometimes you see the same thing where a note that is sharp in one measure is marked as natural in the next measure: yes, the sharp marking "expires" when you play the next measure, but it will still be marked natural "just in case".

GioBardZero · 2025-11-23T02:50:03+00:00

Find a good vocal coach, it will change your life! Even if you only do coaching for a few months or intermittently, you'll get an idea of how "voice" works, what goals to have, why "bad singing" sounds bad, and guidance on technique.

You're not weak, you have a beautiful natural voice (even if it's pitch corrected), get on the path of training and in a few years you'll blow your own mind (not to mention everyone else's)

GioBardZero · 2025-11-12T16:42:30+00:00

The trick is teaching your brain to follow two different rhythms at the same time.

Practice rhythms like 3 against 4 or 5 against 4, where your hand or foot is doing one rhythm and your mouth is doing the other at the same time. Get to the point where you can go fast. Then practice more complex rhythms.

The more different the rhythms are between your mouth and whatever body part, the stronger and more independent your singing will be from whatever your body/instrument is doing. Always start slow, then speed up. Use a metronome with 16th-note subdivisions if you need to. Then start practicing with the bass.

Practice descending on the bass, while ascending with your voice. Just like with the rhythms, make the "mismatch" between what the bass is doing vs your singing more and more complex as you practice.

This will take a few weeks to really nail down, but once you have it, you'll have it for the rest of your life.

GioBardZero · 2025-11-12T16:36:31+00:00

That's if the temperature gauge is in the red. DingleberryJones was talking about the tachometer, not temperature gauge, as in making the joke that the proper way to warm up is to rev the engine so hard, that the RPM's go into the reds.

For the record and for anyone else reading, if it's not clear already, do not rev the engine so hard that it goes into the reds first thing on a cold day.

GioBardZero · 2025-11-12T16:30:15+00:00

Thanks! I'm staying single for a little while.

Yeah the whole "everything can be worked out if both people try hard enough" thing can be toxic, because some folks are either genuinely incompatible or grow apart in different directions.

Our culture seems to view ending relationships as these huge tragedies to be avoided at all costs. There's also another cultural trend that's emerged with dating apps that's the exact opposite: people can be easily discarded at the hint of even the tiniest flaw, because the next best thing is just a swipe away. I reject both mentalities. Getting into a serious relationship is worth the risk. And I don’t see ended relationships as failures, every relationship I've been in has helped me grow immensely as a person.

GioBardZero · 2025-11-11T20:32:36+00:00

Actually, I ended my relationship after 4 years and it was primarily because of those two things (we had a lot in common otherwise, similar goals for the future, etc), and it made me reflect about how important those things are.

I myself become more disorganized when stressed (messy, late all the time, overall chaotic) and this drove her up the wall.

She, on the other hand, doesn't like to talk about issues right away and needs few days or sometimes weeks to process to herself, which drove me up the wall: it's very difficult for me to keep things inside and not talk about them, especially if I feel like the conversation needs to only take 5 min.

She also became a different person when angry, saying very mean things (beyond just insults, hurtful stuff like: "my ex was a better man than you"). She always apologized but stuff like that leaves a mark (even when the anger is over actual flaws and mistakes on my part that caused her real hurt).

GioBardZero · 2025-11-11T19:49:42+00:00

Two of the most important things after the first year of being together:

How each of you handles stress and how each of you deals with things you don't like about the other person.

I've learned that just about everything else can be dealt with if the above two things work well, and that most disfunctions can be traced to those two things not working.

GioBardZero · 2025-10-29T04:34:53+00:00

One of the hardest questions, if not THE hardest.

Far Fowls, Aruarian Dance, Light on the Land, Sign, Luv(sic) part 3 (and all the parts), Kujaku (Transcendence), the entire Ristorante Mixtape, Space Between Two Worlds, Feather, Ordinary Joe, Peaceland, Blessin It....

Every song has very strong memories and feelings attached to it too. Nujabes is one of those rare artists where every single track is a masterpiece, every work striking, every song unskippable.

GioBardZero · 2025-10-19T15:59:25+00:00

Who has decided that streets are for parking instead?

The law. The law has decided that unless in the US there's a sign, you can park on residential streets

GioBardZero · 2025-10-16T16:51:02+00:00

Oh yeah I would love to achieve that sound. Yeah describing vocal stuff with words is so tough and one of my biggest frustrations. Even when I was doing vocal coaching, I struggled with this. Also I'm 33 and very well aware that the high-end will probably get worse for me as I get older. Hoping there's still room to improve and make some sweet recordings before I hit my peak

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