Piano facts or mere opinions?

I have come to the conclusion that if you put 2 pianists in the same room, you’ll get 3 opinions!  Even on topics as ‘fundamental’ as what is piano technique and how to develop it.  We often see things declared as ‘facts’ (such as ‘all great pianists do scales’ or ‘technique must be built using exercises’).  This is despite lots of evidence to the contrary.  Therefore, I think one has to question whether these are piano facts or mere opinions.

I recently wrote a post on learning music that is ‘too difficult’.  A commentator (on Reddit) said that for her (or him), the article lost all credibility because I had used the examples of great pianists and their approach to learning.  The inference being that we ‘mere mortals’ must learn differently if we want to be any good?

As a result of or in spite of …

For me, there is a sort of ‘chicken and egg’ situation here.  Did a pianist become great ‘because’ of the way they learned or ‘in spite of‘ it?  Did a diet of Hanon and Scales make a pianist great or did those activities contribute little or nothing to their greatness?  Is the fact that a pianist did not do scales or exercises one of the reasons they became so great or are they simply an exception that proves the rule? I’m not proposing to try to answer that question as I seriously don’t think anybody can.  However, it is a topic worth some open minded consideration.

Who doesn’t really enjoy watching interviews with great pianists?  I certainly do.  I came across a real gem on YouTube where Martha Argerich was being interviewed (with Charles Dutoit) at their home.  The video is in black and white so clearly it dates back some time. At one point, the subject meandered onto Piano Technique.  Interestingly, even Charles Dutoit seemed surprised by Martha Argerich’s view on the topic.

The interview is in French and the YouTube generated sub titles aren’t so good.  So, I thought it would be worthwhile translating it for you.  I’ve linked the video below so you can watch for yourself.

The Interview

Interviewer: Can you afford not touch your piano for a while – even for a few weeks?

Martha: Yes. I’ve done that

Charles: Because there are those who must put in the work

Martha: That depends what you need to do. To be on top form, it’s best to practice a little – or at least to be on form. It’s very psychological also.

Charles: What do you mean by that?

Martha: It doesn’t always follow that constantly working at the piano means you’ll play better. Myself, sometimes, I’ve been working constantly yet not playing well. Then other times, working less but playing better. It depends on many things. It depends how long you’ve been working, whether you’ve been working calmly or more hysterically.  Where you’re thinking “I absolutely must do ‘that’ within 4 days” and then you don’t have the time. At that point it’s a different challenge

Interviewer: Isn’t there an element, let’s say of ‘technical maintenance’, that means you need to practice regularly?

Martha: No, it doesn’t work like that. Your technique doesn’t disappear in that way – and thank goodness.

Interviewer: For example, people who do their scales every day

Martha: No. That I’ve never done.

Interviewer: Never?

Martha: Never.

Charles: So what did you do then?

Martha: Not scales, never. Exercises, never.

Charles: So how do you work?

Martha: You know how I work. I work on my pieces [note, they lived together in this period so he would hear her practice daily]

Charles: Yes, that’s now. What you do now doesn’t tell me what you did when you were two and a half years old

Martha: But I’ve never done scales

Charles: So what did you do then?

Martha: Other things. I worked on pieces. Then if that didn’t work, I’d work on individual passages

Charles: So you worked on technique from within the music?

Martha: Yes

Charles: You never did any exercises at all?

Martha: No. Well, a little, when I was 11 or something like that. It’s not because you worked on an exercise book that is aimed at a specific difficulty that you’re going to be able to accomplish that same thing within a piece, as it will appear differently quite often. Just because you can play double thirds doesn’t mean you can play Chopin’s double thirds [Etude]. You see what I mean?

Charles: But surely there is an amount of purely mechanical practice required …

Martha: It doesn’t mean because you’ve practiced octaves that you can play the octaves in this or that piece of music.

Charles: Yes, but purely mechanical work. How to isolate the fingers. There are surely methods to work on finger independence and certain physical problems [at the piano] … so how do you do that?

Martha: So when you’re very young or when you’re older? That depends

Charles: No, but I’m talking about you

Martha: What, when I was a child?

Charles: Yes

Martha: My fingers became independent because I played the pieces I was learning. At six or seven I practiced how I was taught – working on actual pieces.

Charles: Hm

Interviewer: Does that mean that you didn’t have any real technical difficulties?

Martha: We always have technical problems. But that doesn’t mean …. Technique is not a separate thing. I can’t say ‘I have my technique, it’s there’. So, now I can play whatever … I don’t think like that. I believe that every piece has its problems, which are very personal to that particular piece. And you can’t … any way in my case, I’ve always said it like that. I can’t say that I have good technique … there are people who say to me ‘you have incredible technique’ … but when I start working on something I still find it difficult.

Watch the interview for yourself here.

Other opinions

There’s also a documentary about Richter where he says he never did scales or exercises.  He learned totally through playing music.  It appears that Evgenny Kissin learned in pretty much the same way (saying he rarely did any ‘work’ before entering conservatory, simply played music).  Arthur Rubinstein in several interviews said that he did not spend time on ‘mechanical work’.  He even went as far as to say (paraphrasing) ‘better work on the music away from the piano than the mechanics at the piano’!  Neuhaus (The Art of Piano Playing) said his own teacher found no benefit in practising scales.  Neuhaus himself said that everything must start with music.

Yet, in terms of scales, Josef Lhevinne on the contrary clearly believed that no pianist will ever progress without scales (see his book The Basic Principles of Pianoforte Playing on Amazon).  Hanon clearly believed that you could become a virtuoso through a set of exercises (available again on Amazon).  I could probably go on ad infinitum quoting experts calmly espousing one or the other opinion.

So what to do …..?

So, what is the amateur learner to do?  Are Argerich, Richter, Kissin et. al. simply the ‘exceptions that prove the rule’ or would more of us benefit from following their approach?  For me, I’ve decided to take the risk and concentrate on music rather than mechanics.  Only time will tell if that was a sensible decision and maybe one day I’ll regret not having spent hours on Scales and Exercises.  For now though, I find that working my way through technical niggles from within the music I’m trying to learn is rewarding.  I equally find that I am making progress!

What do you think?