Indeed, piano be a tremendous force in making the earth a safer place. From the youngsters to the elderly piano can unite all and bring happiness and bliss to this world. And by pressing its breathtaking keys we can all raise the flag of love and compassion amongst our fellow men.

I’m only kidding of course. Piano itself cannot improve the world, regrettably. Well, I am a pianist and a teacher, what did you expected me to write. I had to be a little melodramatic. Piano itself can’t do the job. Except of course if a soldier got distracted from a bad performance of a Chopin waltz and missed his target. Then yes you can say piano can make a difference.

Here’s why your playing the piano cannot directly make this world better:

• By playing the “Appassionata” you won’t feed the starving children in many parts of the world.
• You cannot find the cure for cancer by going to piano masterclasses.
• You won’t fight illiteracy by spending three months learning Liszt’s “Feux Follets”.
• No, you won’t stop domestic violence by learning “Heal the world” by Michael Jackson.

Now, here’s a few ways that a piano itself can directly make this world better.

• It can provide heat by burning in a bonfire.
• Sitting on top of it to avoid being drenched by a flood.
• Throwing it from the sky to the head of a dictator.
• Using its strings as a barbeque grill on a Sunday afternoon.
• Converting  it into a table for social gatherings.
• Using its soundboard as a hiding place when playing hide and seek.
• For young couples to lay down on its lid and romantically admire the stars.(don’t forget the candles).

Here’s how by actually playing the piano you can directly make the world better. You can:

• By making more noise in order to cover the voice of a bad singer.
• By accompanying a fast piece slowly in order to annoy a pompous violinist.
• By playing slow and sleepy music when your children want to go to bed.
• By playing badly so your fellow classmates can feel that they are better pianists than you.
• By playing extremely loudly in a battlefield so that you distract soldiers from fighting each other.

However, fun aside, here’s how piano can indirectly help this world:

• It can inspire.

And perhaps inspiration is the only thing we need in really changing this world. Because piano and its music can make a man or a woman appreciate the beauty of life. It can make an evil person reconsider their actions. It can make a sad person find meaning in life. It can bring a smile to a child’s face. It can feed the poor, find cure for diseases, take us to the starts. It can do everything if it inspire us.

So, let’s get inspired and start practising. Because, even if you don’t know it, you are making this world better.

Playing with others is always a good idea! And I don’t mean cricket or Chess on a Sunday morning (Even though that would have been a wise choice for some of my fellow pianists). Yes you guessed it; I meant performing with other instrumentalists and singers! Ok, you knew I was kidding and didn’t need to clarify.

Pianists tend to be, if I could say, a little egocentric. Part of it is piano’s fault, since it is such a fully autonomous instrument. Thus, they often tend to neglect the rest of the instruments and lose themselves in the pianistic abyss. However, by playing with others you can change that, since you would have to, for once, care about the other instruments as well.

Learning to appreciate other instruments helps to naturally coexist with other musicians. Because, when performing with others you will acquire a special talent; the talent to appreciate others. So, stop being a pianist and start becoming a musician. In a way, break your ego and you will excel in the musicians’ world.

Piano need not be a lonely cactus in the desert. It wonderfully survives with other instruments for many reasons:

First, piano is a polyphonic instrument. Polyphonic instruments provide a sense of orchestral presence since they simply can play many notes at the same time. Musicians believe that piano can satisfactorily cover the music “gap” other instruments often leave behind. No surprise piano is naturally the instrument of choice to accompany concertos for most instrumentalists. It can roughly provide an orchestral illusion of a concerto, an operatic aria or even a song from the radio. In a way, the piano is even more successful in accompanying than the guitar or the harp.

Now, tempo perception is an important aspect that you can develop when playing with others. And yes, your own vision of how the various tempi flow in a piece cannot always be right. Other musicians’ views of a particular tempo might also be valid.

A trap that most musicians fall into, even genius ones like myself, is that they often believe that they are mostly right about their musical instincts when rehearsing with others. For instance I have often played with violinists or singers that they force you to follow their own view of a tempo or a climactic sequence of a piece. And then, I have often felt that my own view of tempo is right and not theirs. I could have been right or wrong it doesn’t really matter. However, here’s what to do when confronted with a situation where you feel that your partner’s instincts are wrong about a particular tempo:

First, just stick to your guns. Don’t change your tempo even if your partner “musically” forces you to. If you are elegant enough try to change the tempo towards your partner’s direction but not more than 5% faster or slower from your desired one. Now, the second part is the most important. When at the end of the rehearsal you are confronted by a tedious remark from your partner to perhaps adjust your tempo, you are to say to him the following: “Yes, you are absolutely right, I think your speed was the correct one, I hope I managed to follow you”. Therefore your partner will feel that HE was in charge and not you, and this can always work with musicians and other primates when you want them to do what you want them to do. Now, for the third and final part, the next time you rehearse that piece, again, stand firm with your own tempo, and at the end praise your partner for wisely providing you with the correct insight. That’s it. They will start following you even more. Because, to be honest, you can’t always tell who is right or wrong when it comes to musical interpretation.

There are many reasons why music partners want to establish their own views of a piece. Here’s some:

1. They know what they are doing and they possess a deep knowledge of a composer’s desires. (Now, that is mostly unlikely for the majority of musicians- sorry to the big-headed ones).
2. They don’t know what they are doing and they don’t possess a deep knowledge of a composer’s desires. (This is the norm).
3. They want to show-off their musical abilities. (This is the most possible scenario, particularly when frantic passages are involved).

I’m absolutely convinced that when Darwin famously said adapt or die, he was thinking of pianists. You need to adapt to the needs and musts of the other instruments as well, if you want your playing and consequently your career to prosper.

And your career will prosper. Or your money back. Oh, sorry, I was thinking of the piano method I bought yesterday just then…

At the same time, I understand that many pianists find it irritating when having to accompany sight-reading infants like most singers or having to put up with violinists who sound like they are cutting a tuba with an unsharpened saw. But please, don’t get angry. Music is hard. Working with experienced and inexperienced musicians alike will give you the tools to face the musician’s professional life with confidence.

And don’t think that all musicians are capricious, self-centered and have the intellectual capacities of a piano hammer. Somewhere there are musicians who are not that pompous and self-important and care about music-making too; like yourself, right?

You are going to learn a lot from accompany musicians from all strands of music. So please enjoy it and be thankful to all your music partners that they assisted you in becoming a better musician. And you never know, you might even become a better person too!

Have you ever been a show-offy pianist? No? Are you sure? Well, let’s see below. In this article we shall look at the show-offy pianist in classical music.

The show-offy pianist thinks he is not everyday riffraff. He knows deep inside that he must act snobbishly at all times except of course in the presence of more important pianists than him. Before them, he will strive to be modest and sincere. His acting superiorly to the rest of the pianistic “infants” has taken on so much that he is even show-offing when tanning on a holiday island beach.

While in concert a show-offy pianist naturally sustains a horrifying face which he labels artistic. When he bows at the end of a piece he looks as if he just lifted 40 kilos of tomatoes from the local street market.

When entering stage he expresses an innate disgust at the “lower” people surrounding him. When performing, he pretends to be so serious as if he was about to solve famine in a third world country together with bringing peace in the world.

His artificially empathetic expression only when confronted by worst pianists than him, takes a form of altruism and consideration. Common expressions when discussing with them would usually end with, “you may be right, I can’t decide” or when asked if he ever played a piece that he hasn’t, he would reply “not as such”.

Of course his inner “magnitude” and pompous last for acceptance increases the more he massacres a piece, and his self esteem reaches its zenith swiftly when people enthusiastically applaud a scandalous performance.

Repertoire of a show-offy pianist includes, but not excludes, Rachmaninov’s 3rd piano concerto, (typically only the cadenza from the1st movement), Chopin’s study no 4 op 10, Liszt’s Liebesträume, Beethoven’s Für Elise and generally composers that have a ghastly face while posing for a publicity photo or portrait. He would rarely play slow pieces, except for necessary and unavoidable second movements to sonatas with frantic last movements.

He hardly ever plays Haydn, Frescobaldi, Scarlatti or other non show-offy, “light”, composers.  However, when asked, he will bend over backwards to praise them as true masters of classical music, although pretentiously. He would almost definitely have a Richard Clayderman piece in his party repertoire.

Yes, play to others. I know that you might think: “oh, how am I going to do this”, but playing to others is essentially what music is all about. Of course, you can perform in the privacy of your own room to an audience of one (yourself) and feel complete and fulfilled. That’s absolutely great. However, we should always consider offering our music to others to enjoy as well.

Don’t be frightened. Go for it. Try your new pieces to your small audience every now and then. Start by playing to your friends and let them tell you that you are great. Let them boost up your confidence. This way you will get used to the idea of playing in public and when your concert date comes you will not feel as intimidated by the presence of a larger audience.

One more reason for performing in front of an audience is that we often get some useful feedback by doing so. It is crucial to listen to what other people have to say about our playing. For instance:  Did they like our performance? Which parts did they enjoy the most and which parts they felt needed improvement. Take criticism lightheartedly and not as a thing to put your aspirations on hold.

Allow me to tell you a little story. I remember when I was at college, one of my fellow classmates used to ask me about his performance in his various concerts. After the end of a performance, he would come to me and be particularly firm in asking my absolute honest opinion about his playing. As you would, I always started by pointing out the positive elements of his playing. At the end, following his insistence, I would tactfully mention what I thought could have been delivered better, followed by an: ”if you had more time to prepare of course, this passage would have been perfected”. However, what I had been noticing was that even though at first he insisted on me criticizing his performance, he subconsciously didn’t really like me doing so and he was trying to deny the “allegations”. As a result, he was hostile to me for the following couple of weeks. This scenario continued for a while, until someday I decided to change my approach. So, one evening I went to his concert and even though it was not as near as good as his previous ones, at the end I refused to let myself go through his inner condemnation again. When he came after and asked about my criticism I said that everything was fantastically and greatly played. No matter how strongly he insisted on me finding any mishaps, I didn’t fall for that and continued the exaltation. It was a success. I managed to avoid his not talking to me for the subsequent weeks and everything turned out normal. Following that concert I continued to praise his amazing future performances.

However you don’t have to be like my friend. Be brave when it comes to criticism and use it to benefit from it. Criticism is great. It is what makes successful musicians. Receiving other people’s positive or negative comments is a blessing and needs to be treasured rather than thrown away.

If you are a student at a music college, other ways to get feedback is to play to performance classes. Play to as many as possible; this way you may have the chance to play to different teachers and listen and weigh their different views on your pieces.   Maybe you will realize that their different approaches are also correct. Grasp the opportunity to acquire some fresh analysis of your performance and be thankful that some people took the time to evaluate your musical interpretations. Two opinions (yours and your teacher’s) about your development as a pianist are never enough.

In our quest for being considered serious pianists we need to explore other fields in music that are related to each other.

Studying theory of music for example will help us to better understand what is really happening in the core of the music that we play and listen. Among other things, we learn how the notes interact together and why everything that is written on the paper is written like that.

Thus, besides the musical we may want to establish a theoretical background of what we perform. Theory of music is perhaps the elementary sister of performance, so after we have studied some basic theory of music, perhaps it would be also good to start possessing knowledge of tonal harmony.

Tonal harmony makes us feel and explain how the various harmonic sequences tell the story of our piece step by step. Identifying the harmonic progression of our pieces can also assist us in memorizing them quicker and more solidly. As a practice we should try to identify and play the various harmonic chords hidden in our pieces.

Thus, music is not only performance. Academic understanding of it will help us develop faster as musicians.