The Dark Side of Being a Concert Pianist - Anna Khomichko - A Potential Solution
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- Anna Khomichko - a while ago - published a video talking openly about what it is to be a concert pianist today, the education, the organisations, competitions, and how hard it is to gather an audience. All whining or a very brave voice on the internet?
Original video Anna Khomichko:
• THE DARK SIDE OF BEING...
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Our solution to the metronome problem is called the WBMP (Whole Beat Metronome Principle). Many other 19th century metronome marks is to read them in -what we believe - was the old way: in Whole Beat. In this reading, like the pendulum is still used today by physicians, the metronome ticks indicate the subdivision of the note value in the metronome mark. So you end up counting like one AND two AND three AND... That results in a different tempo yes, but a tempo that exactly matches the metronome mark given by the composer. In our current reading of these metronome marks, we are not able to do that for the simple reason most are way too fast. A logical consequence from actually doubling (yes) the intended tempo. New to the WBMP? Start here: • How Fast did Beethoven...
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Thanks a lot for reviewing my video and for such a lovely way to support my little channel! I’m glad the video spoke to you and you found the topic important. I’ve been watching you since a long time! I also agree with the points you’re making in this answer. The diversity is what we should be looking for.
Disclaimer: I just thought it was important to say that I was not talking about myself in the video (even though I can relate to some points I was making) but about the general picture I see in the classical music industry. I’m actually quite happy about a place where I’m at the moment as a performing musician and it would be so unfair from me to complain. Just thought it was important to say this.
I know Your channel Anna thanks to Wim Winters' video. And I think, it's amazing.
@@ep7329 thank you so much! :)
As an adult beginner, I'm quite fortunate to have a very open minded teacher who doesn't care too much about tempo so long as you play well with proper articulation and so on. He is also of the opinion that many classics are played way too fast (although he isn't a believer in wbmp, he just finds modern interpretations ludicrous sometimes). So I took my chance and showed him a couple of historical tempo recording from various sources. Although I am unsure if they really are wbmp, they are much slower than modern interpretations, so at the very least you can discover a whole new flavour to a piece thanks to it. I namely showed him Étude No. 12 Op. 25 (chopin) by Bartosz Bieganowski, because the way he articulates and accents things is like we are used to, and my teacher really loved it because it brings out a whole new flavour to the bottom note/melody (he did say he isn't quite the fan of the metronome feel of the arpegios). After that I showed him a chopin interpretation by you (Etude opus 10 no 9) which I absolutely adore to a point you might call obsession. He did not enjoy that one as much because of the way things are articulated and accented in your works (which is quite different and feels foreign from modern interpretations of any kind, I think that's the part that shook me the most when I discovered you). This different way of articulating and accentuating is quite shocking in your version of Chopin, Étude Op.10, No.12 at first (accentuated notes being also slowed down at the start)
I would love to hear your detailed thoughts on articulation and accentuation choices especially in contrast with modern play. (I suppose the answer has something to do with the piano itself)
I feel like this different way of "giving a flavour" to your works might be a roadblock for some to actually listen and learn to love your works.
I'm sorry if this was already addressed in one of your videos, I was too busy binging your beethoven interpretations to thoroughly check.
Cheers mate and keep going with the great work :)
As one of Ms. Khomichko's 1.8k subs, I have applauded that post, and many posts she's done before and since. From what I can see, her bookings and engagement are going well in and around Germany where she is based, and I can see that she has commented similarly here. I applaud your video here also, and your comments against the cookie cutter system pressuring everyone to play alike, which I think may be partly responsible for the Content ID problems classical musicians have with copyright AIs flagging certain performance uploads. I'm going to share this video with two other pianists whom I follow, Julijana Sarac who is exploring very different ways of interpreting standard repertoire pieces which defy traditional expectations, and Haley Myles who has recently created a course to prepare musicians with needed skills in direct self-marketing as well as online self-branding, which I agree with you, seems woefully unaddressed in many music degree programs.
In undergrad I started dating a woman who was a piano peformance major. I was blown away by how hard she had to work. Countless hours in the basement playing. We got married, and while I was going to professional school, she taught piano to kids. Grinding away at it. I don’t think she ever aspired to be concert pianist, nor does she have the talent (I think). But what I learned is that being a musician is a real grind. I’ve been a subscriber for quite a while, even though I don’t play the piano (beyond the first part of Fur Elise, lol). Keep up the good work. As someone that has my own channel and less than 400 subs after like 5 years, I know how hard it is for the average youtuber to get 40k subs. It’s amazingly hard and almost no one gets there. Kind of like being a concert pianist.
It is a problem for all creatives to make a living, and the performance of classical music has in a way been killed by freely available recordings. In the time before records and mass transport, if you wanted to hear a Bach Partita or a Beethoven sonata you either played them yourself or needed to know someone locally who played them. I play myself, in my ham-fisted way, but you appreciate and experience the music in a far richer sense when you are playing (with all the flaws) rather than just listening. In the past (18th century) the competition for performing excellence was just within your local environment. Now you must compete with the best worldwide and over the last hundred years. It is an increasingly high bar for young people to aim at.
It is the recordings and to some extent, the score, which drives the conformity of performance practice (if we don't question the current tempo orthodoxy).
The only solution long term is innovation. We need new performer-composers to expand the catalogue (like P Glass, S Reich). In a way, this is the contemporary music (pop, jazz, etc) route. It's just that so much contemporary music is ephemeral in comparison with the golden age from Bach to Mahler. Unfortunately, classical music development last century went down a blind alley with atonal logic (championed by many who should have known better) over beauty. Yet hope remains with the likes of Górecki, Arvo Pärt and others.
Thanks a lot for this wonderful channel, it points out many important and valuable things. This case is no exception, indeed an essential point for all musicians. Very brave observation from Anna, and from Wim too. Now let's give brainstorming a chance and see what comes of these observations. Maybe we won't come to THE exact solution, but a bunch of several useful solutions to make our musical lives very fulfilling for ourselves. Thanks a lot, cheers from Costa Rica!
Isn't that Wim's point? A freedom to consider a variety of interpretations!
@@Rollinglenn Yes, indeed, in his videos we have seen how he questions traditional tempi widely used in certain music, His points of views are pertinent for taking away "nocive" interpretations of certain key works.
Just a quick comment. One can review a lot of pianists at this level and they are many many fine and expressive pianists certainly. Anna is a brilliant and highly expressive pianist. She may not loudly and quickly play the popular repertoire on her channel. She plays music in a way and with a sonority that even other professionals envy and in their heart of hearts all of us who play piano at all levels wish we could all play. I hope beyond this video that you all will actually listen to her playing.
Thank you for this. Anna is indeed seeking her own path in the musical wilderness, and she is a very fine musician. You might especially enjoy her playing of C. P. E. Bach. That is a good example, because hardly anyone plays his music, but she does. As you can tell, I love her TH-cam channel. But I have also noticed that she supports others on TH-cam - every now and then I will be listening to someone else, and there she is in the comments, saying something positive and encouraging. As you said, we must all support one another.
Last night t listened to a fine TH-cam of a live performance by Charles Owen, a British pianist, who has some marvelous and meticulously prepared videos (in terms of video and production values as well as musically). All that work, and his channel has fifteen subscribers. It should be fifteen thousand, but how does someone get there?
You and Anna are speaking truth, along with some others. All good wishes to you!
I was studying piano at university, and one public performance I had a huge nervous attack due to the pressure of not letting my teacher down.
Well the next lesson he says, You didnt represent the school, you didnt represent the department, you didnt represent the ME!! I dont know if he even cared how I felt!!
I left my studies shortly after that.
No, I am currently not playing, but I still have my books, wondering if I ever will play again.
Play for yourself and enjoy the pleasure and peace that music brings to you. It doesn't matter what the school thinks and wants and that shouldn't matter now.
Saying that, it appears there's definitely wrong with the picture these days. I have played the piano since I was about 5 years old and started lessons when I was around 7 years old. My studies were with all conservatory-level teachers and continued studying at that level ever since including a time as a music major when I returned to college at 48 years old. My teachers always pushed for accuracy and musicality and never what represented THE school.
Is it that music schools are getting so desperate they need to create clones and bots?
I know that I was hired by an orchestra to set up concert pieces in a comical style (a la Anna Russell)...and was told that they will cover any unpaid bill from the hospitals I've been in over the past year and a half as part of a charity they ran once they found out why I wasn't performing the comic lectures in the afternoons before the concert started... My last one in early August of 2020 was sending up The Phantom Of the Opera...and trust me the one I was salivating over for three years just to do this one...
I will return to work in March in just enough time to recover from all that hospital food...😹😹😹
The dark side of truth, of reality. The 'robotical' boring way of playing the same all over the world, vs. diversity, "which will lead again to more opportunities". Brava Anna! Bravo Wim and thanks for this important upload with your precious advices and encouragement for the future young musicians. I'm sharing.
Listening to this I fall in love with your channel over again. I could tell so many stories, but the point is, it's true what you're saying. Thank you!
The problem is that there a few voices of authority with a lot of power. We need to respect all musicians. Not just the very top players. Many people are way too judgemental and claim to know the "truth".
Grazie Wim per avermi fatto conoscere questa pianista .
Most of the musicians I went to school with who were regular performers worked as church organists and choir masters or those who played in jazz bands. The rest of us were teachers. I love teaching but it's nothing I was trained to do, I had to learn most of that myself. I always tell my students that they should major in music only if they are very good and if they can't imagine doing anything else. I went to American universities, not conservatories so that might have a lot to do with that.
Thank you for this!
Im not gonna be the guy teaaching those conservatories their business models, but i think they should teach more than reading sheets and memorizing them. I have commented here on other videos on how jazz and pianists who are not classical can create music on the spot aand sound good while classic pianists cant. and how many times i have seen pianists asked to play something while near the instrument and they say "oh i dont have anything ready right now". i mean no one is asking for perfection. In my opinion, composing should be a must, and also perhaps more aspects of music production and technology should be taught, instead of having the goal of graduating a lot of teachers that wont have students to teach it to. Sry if this offends anyone.
A lot of good (and familiar} points brought up in this video. One point I would like to make is that so much depends on timing. Things "take off" if they strike a chord within the context of the cultural trends of the time. In the case of the early music industry growth in the 1960's and 70's, I was caught up in it as well even though there were absolutely no teachers available at the time here in Toronto. It was a time when, apart from pop music, there was widespread interest in acoustic folk and ethnic music and recordings by the pioneers of the time (David Munrow and the London Consort etc.) and the sounds of crumhorns, rackets, shawms, recorders, kortholts, gitterns, sackbuts. harpsichords etc. fit right in to this sphere while virtuosos such as Gustav Leonhardt and Frans Brueggen provided a totally new and unique approach to baroque music. Record companies recognized this and developed a whole new market for themselves. For amateur musicians (both folk and classical backgrounds), demands were light. Just being able to obtain and play these exotic instruments (thank you Moeck) at an elementary level was already "nifty" and fun and led to lots of at home group music making by the enthused. Granted it took 50 years from the time of Arnold Dolmetsch to get to that stage but it started off in terms of popularity as something fresh where you could get in "on the ground floor" as it were. I came very close to trying to become a medieval/renaissance instruments musician/musicologist and entered university with this in mind before life and finances (current and future) got in the way and I realized that opportunities to make a living from it were really not there in Canada. Right now we are living in an era where instant gratification is key and the social media technology supports a level of easily accessed variety in terms of available music which is totally unprecedented. Musicians now compete directly via TH-cam against literally thousands and thousands of individuals who can attempt to get a following (and a career) via self-promotion alone as well as practically every musician ever recorded. Serious music appreciation, with such a wealth of talent at one's fingertips through social media, has also largely morphed from being centered on mostly sound alone (popularized through records and radio ) to an environment where the visual aspects of showmanship, sex appeal and celebrity status are paramount. It is no accident that excellent classical musicians on TH-cam such as Lola Astanova, Katia Bunyatishvili, Yuja Wang, Hauser etc. get millions of views and hundreds of thousands of subscibers while others have adapted to playing pop/rock music with often similar emphasis on visual appeal geared toward their target audience (Gamazda, Yuval Salomon, VKgoeswild etc.) . It seems like it is no longer enough to be a brilliant musician and one must compete against not only other musicians but against other entertainment content providers of all types where the siloed audience often initially chooses what to watch based on the thumbnail or a keyword/name in the title. Sad. It's a rough world out there compared to past times I think while at the same time providing at least the faint opportunity to build one's own career on ones own.
Amen!
For business entities the goal is to produce profit, so that is what they work hard for, for profit. The problems with classical music are that it was largely sustained by Christianity, and with the decline of Christianity in this world classical music declined too. Another problem with classical music is that the study of music at normal schools (not music schools), at least in my country, is poor, so people are not educated to music and it is difficult that many people can appreciate classical music. Your work is at the highest level so you still can achieve a good level of audience among the most educated people, and people who love the truth.
Good points made, thank you!!!
Can you talk about Asian domination of classical music ?
" Schooling Effect " : they practise more and longer ( very simpel ) !!!
It is hard to make a name for yourself yes. I think part of it is knowing this first and not setting your expectations so high. Stay humble. And if you end up teaching, think of it as contributing to society in a way that only a small percentage of us can contribute. I agree, even in smaller universities there is this elitist environment between the performance majors. But when they realize they cannot all be Horowitz, and that they may have to teach, they find themselves in a life crisis. In my opinion this is just a part of realizing the unfortunate realities of life.
I feel for her. I'll pay her to play slow....But probably not enough of us to make her a living.
Does Rachmaninoff play his own compositions too fast and if yes : why ?
I’ve wondered about this too. If double beat is the answer to stress, injuries, burnout, etc… do we just cancel the works of all the composers who we know for a fact wrote fast and difficult music? Or play them at half speed, because obviously they were demented psychopaths? Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Ravel, Bartók, on through Copland, Messiaen, Elliott Carter… etc etc.
Doesn't the audience expect him to play fast? I love music played slow (Whole Beat Method) But even I'd want him to give me a slam bang crazy up-tempo spectacle!
Very simple answer: Because he liked it that way
@@user-fu7zf4ck9z : Very simple answer, indeed !
@@awfulgoodmovies : To show how fast he can play ?!?
maybe she should provide a product, service, or videos that more people want to watch. that simple. if there’s no demand for the content you are producing then either accept that and continue following your passion, or change your content to attract more viewers.
The demand is there, technically. The problem is it’s very centralised on very few people and very limited repertoire. TH-cam helps a lot, but it‘s not easy to transcend that solution into concert halls. Classical music in a cultural sense isn’t local anymore, but concert hall recital culture hasn’t adapted to that yet.
Before I found Wim's channel.....I only subscribed to pianists who played fast and astonished me.....If they didn't SLAM BANG...I'm not wasting my time. I can't imagine trying to impress a demanding public like I used to be part!
its sad that its true
first