The questions today is, "Do performers make mistakes?" I am referring specifically to Classical performers. You see them on stage playing and it seems effortless and perfect, but do they make mistakes?
Oh hell yes. I’m a church organist and pianist. I have been at it a long time and I have learned to fake it. Sometimes ur attention wanders. Sometimes your hymnal page blows shut. But the rule is always “never stop””.
There are really two types of performances: One for the recording studio and one for the live audience. The studio is really about achieving that perfect sound, performance, timing and with the recording devices and software perfection is close to achievable. The live performance is all about the experience and I think audiences (even critical audiences) are more forgiving to a performer during a live concert than they are a studio recording.
All I know is my piano teacher told me before my first recital: "if you make a mistake, just keep playing, and pretend it didn't happen. ESPECIALLY don't make a nasty face, throw down the piano lid and run off stage!" Almost as if it had happened before or something, LOL. The commentary on the availability of performance recordings through the internet "homogenizing" things was very interesting and was something I had never considered. Now I'll have to go and find old recordings and listen to some old masters again.
Interesting. I think this ( way too ) high performance expectative is one of the causes of unpopularity of live music today. What would be the point of learning something if there will also be someone better than you? It's not about enjoyability of music anymore...it's about competition.
One of my former teachers (Harris Goldsmith - former music critic of High Fidelity Magazine) told me the story of his recording of the Waldstein Sonata. He did 3 takes in the studio. One was near perfect and one had a number of mistakes. Yet, he chose the one with the mistakes to put on the album (a Musical Heritage Society recording sadly out of print today) because it was the most exciting. I will still say it's one of my favorite recordings of Opus 53. I wonder how many pianists would make that same choice today.
Spending a great deal of my life performing, helping with concerts, turning pages, and of course attending concerts, it seems as though I have been part of a secret world with professionals and mistake-making. Yes, it's all about how well the performer hides those mistakes. I've seen large portions of concerts where the performer fakes an entire hand while making the other hand recognizable, sort of like pianist-sleight-of-hand. I have heard performers play something astonishingly difficult with ease, just to mess up an exposed, simple, "easy" note or two. The latter example reminds us that everyone, even super stars, are human. Myself, I have only played one concert where I did the whole performance without making a single "mistake". It happened to be the most difficult music I had ever played, too. I think perhaps it worked out that way because it required me to concentrate, and not once did my mind wander nor was I distracted by anything because of my tunnel of concentration. But was the performance still musical? :)
I've been taking piano lessons as an adult in my 40's, and now I'm about at an intermediate level. I knew the day of my 2nd recital, when I woke up, that it was not going to be a good recital day. I couldn't call it quits because one song I played accompaniment for a singer. I would have if it was just me. Of course, I froze, lost my place, and just did not play at least well enough for myself to call it satisfactory even with mistakes. I thought I was prepared, but on the day of, it was like something was lost. I also kind of bombed my solo performance. As a perfectionist, it hurts me to my core, but because "I knew" it was not going to be a good day for a recital, I went without eating, drank a 200mg coffee, then on to the performance. Of course, when my hands started shaking, I lost my focus and concentration. The singer gave me a small queue to get me back on track. However, I tried not to make it so obvious, which has been hard for me. I was told that it still sounded good, although I was so distraught inside. I need much practice for playing in front of an audience, but my instructor has been teaching me how to play through the mistakes and not freak out. Overall, I'm getting some thicker performance skin through each of these experiences.
As somebody who is reaching the end of being a beginner (ABRSM Grade 7 working on 8), I recently played some quite difficult pieces at a wedding, gulp! There were two "moments" but nobody noticed so I guess I managed to fake it. As somebody else here said DON'T STOP!
Great video, yet again, Robert! Believe it or not I do once in a while hear some very subtle playing mishap blips by some of the contemporary greats, the Marc Andre Hamelins and so forth. One thing that's troubling me about today's classical piano scene is the extent to which the young blood is using the internet to sort of standardize interpretations of pieces. For instance, it seems most people want to play Chopin the way Horowitz interpreted it (boy, sounding "too much like Horowitz" is a 'problem' I'd be happy to have!). What room will that give for modern day Glenn Gould's, Glenn having been a pianist who interpreted music in such an unorthodox, but riveting manner? Then there's a flip side to that...narcissistic players who stray from the standard in an uninteresting way; there's a guy on RU-vid who calls himself "BachScholar" who does that, and he plays everything slower, and with virtually no dynamics. The internet is busting the opportunities to play repertoire wide open, which is awesome, but we're also losing some sense of magic and mystery to it, and I don't know how we'll find that middle ground.
Robert, I love watching your videos man. To answer your question: I'd much rather watch something with more expression it's just more entertaining to watch and listen to from the viewer perspective even if a couple notes are missed.
I don't know if this is the widely correct way to think, but for me as a performer it doesn't matter if there is a wrong note or if the pianissimo at the 33rd measure, for example, is to loud or whatever it is. For me the only thing that matters is the complete experience in the performance. Even if you play everything like it is intended to be, there will be at least one person to critizise you because they didn't like your performance. It makes me sad that we live in a time where free interpretation of sheet music is somewhat infamous.
I agree with your thoughts on this video. My piano teacher always tells me that no matter what happens, just move forward and keep making music. If you mess up, do your best to conceal it and just move forward in the piece.
The great performers of years ago reached tremendous levels of expression and personality which are sometimes lacking today. One part of the equation is that modern recordings are often patched and re-recorded until they are technically perfect. Some are even electronically altered to fix pitch, ensemble and tone discrepancies. We then hear these perfect recordings and are forced to play at that bullet proof level of technique, sometimes at the expense of expression. Technical abilities have risen to meet the demand of that expectation. There are some young performers at the very top who can still turn a beautiful phrase and create an emotional experience in addition to having super human accuracy. However, the emphasis on technical perfection seems to draw success to the dry sounding robot over the musical player who misses a note or two in auditions and competitions.
If you know a piece well then you'll probably spot the differences when you hear a new performance. In my case I end up wondering which version was correct, since I don't read music well enough. I do notice differences and too many wrong notes would affect my enjoyment. Having said that, I like performances to experiment with tempo and expression, which has an overriding influence on my enjoyment of a piece. I remember being startled at the speed with which Gustav Host conducted his own performance of The Planets in 1923 with the London Symphony Orchestra. It's probably the fastest version ever recorded; the nearest modern performance is Steinberg's 1971 recording with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
I recently performed an Impromptu i composed myself at a school concert and in the last few bars i messed something up so much that i had to jump back half a bar... Although nobody had heard this piece before the Mistake was so incredibly obvious that i thought a lot of People might notice... and yet I wonder how everybody said they didn't notice when i asked them....
DerSibbe that’s not uncommon from my experience. I’ve played (or sang) pieces where I know we messed up badly, and everyone else playing/singing cringed from the mistake. Yet you ask audience members (not the ones who would tell you good things regardless lol) and often they wouldn’t know the difference. I think that probably goes for a large chunk of people in a live audience.
I think it's expressiveness coupled with accuracy that makes for a great listening experience. A mistake here or there does not matter. A perfectly accurate playing that is souless is boring. A highly expressive playing with lots of mistake is very distracting. Expressiveness and accuracy therefore go together.
I played in front of the school once when I was suckered into a “talent competition”. I was so nervous I ended up playing in the wrong key. Fortunately, no one noticed that I’m aware of.
A good discussion, Robert. Personally, I'd rather hear the alleged missed notes, than someone who habitually splices / sequences digital waveforms with ProTools. Irregularity is the basis of all art. If you can't tolerate imperfection, you have no business being a musician...
Yes, one will very, very rarely catch mistakes on recordings nowadays but in live performances, mistakes are quite common, though well-disguised. These sometimes are mistakes of omission rather than wrong notes. Also, memory lapses play a part. One can catch a few of these on RU-vid in fact - without mentioning any names. Musicians practice the same things over and over - things which they have played dozens of times - precisely simply to keep notes fresh in their memory.
Watching a live performance makes me nervous for the player(s). I feel like if I knew they were having a good time and didnt make too many mistakes id enjoy it.
an obvious comment would be that all humans make mistakes, especially live as recordings can have as many takes to fix a problem; however, I think the point is the artistry of interpretation and the pianist's unique sound and expression that touches and inspires another human being in a manner that perhaps another playing the same piece may not. If a person is in a position of a concert pianist, the audience expects that that a person on that level is well-prepared . . . and I believe as in every professional situation, such preparation is quite evident regardless of the fact that the artist may hit a wrong note. It is the communication and the touching of the heart that only that individual may bring in a performance that the audience takes home. Criticism is part and parcel of the profession, and I suspect that if a pianist didn't hit one wrong note, there would be someone who would still be giving a critique regardless. One must be true to one's own convictions in performance, bring one's best, and for those who are genuinely uplifted and emotionally exalted . . . then the performance has done what it was intended for both the performer and the audience, and both ae better off for that very personal experience, which no one else can take away. Thank you, Mr. Estrin, for your grand artistry and the sharing of so much in your videos. You are indeed an outstanding musician of which I know your father and mother were most proud.
No it's not all about accuracy I don't listen to music and especially classical piano with the intent on finding a mistake. I have a wonderful collection of Chopin played by Arthur Rubinstein and in it he plays some of my favorite Chopin which is his ballads. Absolutely beautiful tasteful and emotional performances. In Chopin's fourth Ballade there is a place somewhat the middle of the piece where he's playing these huge monstrous chords in fortissimo and one finger slips on to the wrong key. Now does that in any way diminish this absolutely brilliant and beautiful performance of his fourth Ballade? Absolutely not. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to all four of the ballads and I pay absolutely no attention to that minor mistake. People make mistakes and pianist are no exception. Pianist can certainly try to cover them up but Rubinstein made no attempt to cover this one up given the speed and power that he was playing. One of my loves is classical piano and we are so lucky in this digital age to have access to the brilliant performances of the past and the present.
It is obvious that classical performers make mistakes, especially while playing extremely difficult piano pieces from composers such as Liszt, Alkan, Rachmaninoff, Chopin and so on. But it also depends on the mentality of the performer. Perhaps if they have stage fright or not. It is only human to make mistakes. Isn't it?
I think mistakes have not only to do with note accuracy, as you were hinting at near the end. There are also personal-interpretational mistakes. A performer can practice a piece to be just how they like it and then not play, for example, the dynamics as extremely as they would have liked to. No one listening, even a lot of musicians listening, would know that this was not intended, but the performer always regards any missed opportunity (not just missed notes) as a personal mistake. Great video! I know Evgeny Kissin has a blatant missed note in his Liszt B Minor Sonata, but it's still a very good recording because he has a very nice interpretation!
Thank God we make mistakes; it shows that we are humans. Musicality though we enjoy the most instead of 100% technical perfect performances. That is right, isn't it?
this sort of meaningless questions are always made by non-musicians, or by complete beginners who wish to remain beginners and will never take music seriously, since the rest doesn't waste their time with questions like these: there's a zillion better questions to ask. The piano is the hardest instrument of all, and the repertory for the piano is the most insanely difficult of all, on any instrument. There's just too much stuff to do at the same time, it would test anyone. Even great musicians like Beethoven or Anton Rubinstein (the composer) were known for making some mistakes.....so what. It's almost impossible not to make any at the piano, the music is just so difficult. Liszt, Beethoven, Chopin....their pieces will make mincemeat out of anyone. Liszt was known for turning a mistake into an improvisation, but he was probably the only one who could do that. Bach's music? Insane. His music requires two brains at once, not one. I hear every little mistake, because I am a musician, but the little mistake is insignificant to me when I hear a concert pianist. If I hear faults in technique, tempo or clarity, that's another matter, but the little mistake is irrelevant, the art of the piano is an art, it's not like being an accountant or a lawyer. And classical musicians are the most prepared of all. When I make a video, and I made a little mistake, I leave it there. I don't care, and it's not a reflection on my ability and experience. Classical musicians are more paranoid about these, but in my opinion they should not be. The performer is doing a favour to others, never the other way around. The musician is the host of their own show, not the guest. Especially 'critics', should lighten up a lot more when they attend a classical piano performance. As one pianist said: 'Critics don't make the wheel go round. Musicians do.'
I rather want a performance with much expression rather than a perfect performance. If the performance is too flawless it becomes too flat in my ears. But I know not all agree with me.
