My piano teacher did not believe in practising scales or exercises or doing exams. He believed in selecting a passage from a piece of music to work in to develop certain skills. He was wonderful.
Well the issue with that is that it’s not about one or the other it’s actually both. It’s important to keep in mind that although some concert pianists do not necessarily believe in orthodox technique exercise, they DID have to do it as part of their earlier studies so it’s not like they played their whole life without it. Technique and practice together are recipes for greatness no matter what anyone tells you just practicing technique in some pieces is limited and not encompassing other types of technique. Mozart himself had specific exercises he would do in mind there is a trill exercise he would do religiously that’s printed in the hannon virtuostic piano book by schirmer. The important note is that these pianists such as Ms. Agerich do not practice technique maybe but they have had decades of technique prior so they probably don’t even need it as much anymore considering how long they hav developed. As a player at any level though practice and limitation are important in any genre but mostly classical they allow you to have the facility to play what you want and then bend and warp it to fit the musical context and phrasing with ease and naturalness. Without it it’s just a lot more grunt work, when the nerves come technique is the first fail safe we have to protect us from slip ups. Look at emmanuel axe who is incredibly diligent on technique my teacher went to school with him at Juilliard. He would show up earlier than everyone and not leave the practice rooms all day till late except for a short lunch he would take people said he took on the color of the walls. There’s people like Hamelin Liszt etc. all showing what colors and textures you can get with technique. Of course at the end of the day the technique supports the music but it is not the music itself.
@@andsalomoni Maybe, but depersonalizing scales from works of music can have its backside too, you could always see them as exercise. I think there is no universal truth, Liszt practiced exercises for hours every day. The bottom line is, never copy geniuses thinking their way is the way, they just live in a different dimension with its own physic laws.
I would caution people to be careful taking advice on how to practice from geniuses, as they can do things your average person can't like her playing a piece perfectly by ear with no training at 2 and a half years old just because another kid teased her that she was too young to play piano. In my opinion the biggest benefit of learning scales is to improve your ability to improvise, compose, analyze music and understand harmony as it gives you structure and a starting point to work and create from. If your goal is to perfect a certain piece of music for performance than practicing that piece is probably a better use of your time than working scales. But if you want to improve your technique for future challenges scales are a very effective way of doing that if done correctly but I would recommend once you memorize a scale try to play it differently every time you practice using different sequences, intervals, mixing arpeggios with scales, different rhythms Etc. always challenging yourself because just rote repetition of the same patterns will give very little benefit once you have it down.
I'm sort of a bar band grade lead guitar/bass player and while there are times when I'll sit and work through scales, arpeggios, and the like, I usually practice those things by sitting alone and improvising in a free form manner while making it a point to use those items in the improvisations. I think it helps give me a feel for how and when to use them in a musical setting. It seems to work reasonable well for me.
Today we practice scales only to pass the exam. Lol. Knowing the scales will help you to analyze the score. I think that's the purpose. She's on point. When we can play scales and others exercises, it doesn't mean we can play other pieces. Even if you can play Chopin Etude for Octave, you will - still struggle with Tchaikovsky's Octave Passage from his piano concerto in Bb minor. Me personally. When I face a difficult passage, I will just make "my own etude or exercise" to solve my problems. And it works effectively.
Wow! You are so smart and creative! Perhaps you should have all your “etudes “ written down and published, you would have made a ton of money!!! Seriously, it is a very good idea, my piano teacher at the conservatory used to tell me exactly that I should make exercises out of difficult passages to solve the problem!!!
@@loveispatient0808 I do that too and it would take a whole day to write what I do in half an hour of practice... Plus you have to do what is needed for you - the same passage will show different challenges to different people. It is about identifying the problem and isolating it. Then making exercises with that pattern, such as diatonic sequences, transposition, changing articulation etc. Then put back to context.
@27b 5636, you're wrong. Knowing how to play Chopin's octave etude will actually make it easier for you to learn to play Tchaikovsky's concerto octaves. It will be harder for someone who can't play Chopin octaves to learn to play the Tchaikovsky's octaves than someone who knows the octaves etude because the latter has more experience with octaves than the one who can't play the etude. Let's not simplify technique here.
@@pjbpiano Yea, but it's easier doesn't mean easy, right? It just easy to understand the pattern and what should the fingers do, not what doses the muscles do. You still need "something" when it comes to different pattern. You can't play the octave passage from Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 which more percussive the way you play octave in Chopin's Etude. Vice versa. Same with Chopin and Tchaikovsky. In Chopin Etude, it requires legato, but in Tchaikovsky it's more percussive. Most people said, when you want to play that, play this first. If you pass, you can go with it. And I think it's waste our time. Since learning a new pieces will take some time. But you can make your own etude and exercise, right? And when it comes to your own composition, psychologically your mind is more focus on the problem it self. But if you play exercise or etude from book, psychologically your mind will tell you to do more, example: all notes must be right, the articulation must be right, the dynamic and others things must be correct. And it's exhausting and take so many times before you go to the pieces you want to learn. It's very different when you make our own exercise or "little" etude to solve the problem from the new pieces you want to learn. Because you focus on very very specific problem.
@@loveispatient0808 You have to try your own. It's fun. 😄 And based on my experience, it works effectively. It will gain your technique as well in a short time. Read this: The great composers have they own exercises and etudes so they got virtuoso. They explore they own abilites and force to the (they) limit both the instrument or the person I wrote some of them. But mostly unfinished. Because writing music score is exhausting. So many detail you put on score if you want a good score. I'm not Mozart who can just write score like write a poem. Lol 😂
Why does he find it so very hard to understand that while practising a 'piece' she was improving her technique at the same time? They are not separate things. She was avoiding a mechanical approach to playing the instrument. It's like people who need to put on special clothing and a headband and do something they call 'exercise' rather than look on everyday tasks as an opportunity to exercise - like doing the housework, or the garden. As a culture most people are habituated to 'doing' something as a separate and defined task which they think is somehow different, more effective and more beneficial than 'ordinary' activity. What you do is what you do. Do it with attention and you will improve. Her approach is one of the reasons she is still playing like a thing possessed at the age of 80. She developed her technique while deeply engaged in the music and thus didn't build up years of habitual misuse (habits of deep muscular tension) through boring, tedious mechanical scales and runs. Alexander teacher (retired).
If we showed this audio to many snobby musicians/teachers, without knowing who's speaking, they would tell her she's not even a real musician, that she won't get anywhere and that she's just lazy. I'd love to see their faces when it was revealed to them who is saying this. Every musician should practice what they feel better with, being just as valid as long as it's done conscientiously and helping the music sound better.
Dont know how I got recommended this video but as a guitarist I found the way I most improved was basically what she said. If I force myself to play forever and practice all the time I find myself playing worse, and the way I've most improved is picking a section of a piece I could just barely do and getting that down pretty clean, then find harder and harder sections. Sometimes I'll not play for a week or two and come back seemingly better and more relaxed.
@@deaj8450 i absolutely agree with you! I do the exact same thing with my violin. But I wouldn't not play for over a week cause I miss it too much😄 but if I miss a day I will find myself play better for some reason.
@@Poreckylife Sometimes because of my job (construction work) I am just too tired and hot to want to play much when I get home, so that leads to some of my lapses in playing time.
Got a lot of peeps in this thread that can't understand that the precision in her perspective and the precision in her playing are the same thing. Scales are a peripheral endeavour, unless of course scales are your focus. It's a great shame that she openly gifts away her method and people line up to dispute it.
Her French is excellent for a native South American -- virtually native. I'd like to know more about the context of the interview -- the interviewer is speaking to her in the familiar form, which given her status in the music world is surprising unless they knew each other well and long.
She is a polyglot. Raised within both a family (Catalan and Ashkenazi) and a Country (Argentine) multicultural and multilingual, moved to continue Her musical studies and perform through Europe at age 14, where Her main countries of residence were French-speaking Belgium, Switzerland and France (of which She is Citizen). And about “for a South American”, For any Latin-language speaker moving to a any French-Speaking country, after enough years He/She not only will speak fluent French, but more likely than not pretty much like a native.
Silly remark! The world is full of multi-lingual people, particularly amongst classical musicians, from opera singers to conductors, to soloists. This is not surprising when one knows that the practice of classical music adds many points to the IQs of growing children...
I think this makes sense. I compose my own practise pieces and they usually evolve into more complex songs as my technique gets better. It's way more fun to learn something that sounds nice than just get stuck on playing scales over and over. I enjoy practising my own songs, so I practise a lot more than I would with scales. I like challenging myself to play that music that I want to hear, but can't just yet. I think certain licks are more useful than scales anyway, at least if you're improvising. I'm a guitarist though, but these are interesting thoughts though I have only some skill with piano.
God’s grace, his unmerited reward for His children is manifested in the musical genius Martha Argerich. One minute blessing for such wretched culture. Thank you Good Father for her.
'Lioness' of the piano: Martha Argerich turns 80 "The Argentine-born virtuoso is arguably the best pianist in the world today. At 80, she still exudes passion and power when performing." Author Anastassia Boutsko - Date 04.06.2021 Source - Deutsche Welle
She is on point. She probably already mastered the scales at age 6 or 7. She started playing professionally at 8. From then on is to ‘practice’ them while learning, practicing and mastering the pieces. In any case, that’s what works for Her. And it sure does work.
@@aaocs7042 did you graduate with a degree in music from a very competitive university or conservatory? Did you practice at least 3 hours a day for 10 years?
Si tratta di un genio della tastiera...i geni sono fuori dalle regole, mentre le persone normali invece devono seguire insegnamenti di persone dotate di alto valore didattico .... vallo a sapere!
I think 'difficult' here is relative. Not every pianist can learn Gaspard de la Nuit in 4 days as a teenager, and say: 'I didn't know it was supposed to be difficult.' '
Exactly. This is why people should not take her words as the holy Grail here. She's obviously talking from a point that most people will never experience.
She also said, technical difficulties are very personal. There are pianists who can learn and play Gaspard very fast but don't want to play chopin etude op. 10 no. 2. Or the otherway around. There are great virtuoses who are not practicing that much and great virtuoses who are doing it in a extrem amount
She is one of those rare phenemonons as a musician who only come along in a century or two, like Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin etc. Like the greatest musicians, she is a total genius blessed with God-given talent who began playing at an extremely young age. Her entire brain and body has become a completely unified musical entity. She is into another realm entirely beyond playing scales and technical studies, and that is artistic interpretation of the greatest and most difficult piano works ever written.
it is always true that different people practice differently. Many great pianist practice scale everyday. And it is always difficult to understand how other people practice. Reiner Wehle said he can't understand the practice method of his wife, Sabine Meyer. But they knew each other since young. They studied with the same professor , playing same instrument and now teaching in the same music school!
True. This shows so many things: 1. blind practise for the feeling of working is bullshit 2. Peace of mind, confidence is way more important 3. Martha is outstandingly talented. Only then can you reach this level of music and expression, if you can keep the ease with that difficulty. However, similarily to asking Bill Gates how he got rich, this is survivorship bias and won't lead to success for everyone. This is where Marthas words might sound arrogant, but one could actually say: Some people maybe should actually keep on training basics if that's the level they are still struggling with.
Oh, so glad to hear this. Life's too short to wade through mind-numbing exercises. Much better to work on technique in the context within pieces and being inventive with rhythms and patterns
I look at her and think of how life is so short in our techno world. You can see someone 'live' at twentysomething, starting out, and in the next frame 'live' and approaching eighty! As for her technique, it is phenomenal however she developed it. There is no formula for acquiring that (i.e. drilling exercises or playing challenging music). It is part of the musicianship itself ... innate
Everyone has their way. Backhaus and Rachmaninoff practiced scales every day throughout their lives. Petri didn't and I don't think Gieseking did either. There's no rule about it.
howoritz after he left Russia hardly practiced technical exercises. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli played the entire Hanon book in all keys every morning first thing.
I don’t practice scales. I play scales. Playing scales has taught me melodic improvisation, rhythm and the essence of phrasing. Discipline and unexpected rewards have come from playing scales. Proficiency in playing scales enhances spontaneous creativity. If there is music bursting to emanate from your being playing scales before too long will be of great assistance to go beyond merely interpreting past masters pieces and so express your own unique music. Playing half an hour of scales every day is sufficient as time goes by (no alluding Casablanca) while experimenting with different techniques simultaneously to express the essence of various nuances. Each to their own. I love to alternate major and minor In opposite directions three octaves at a time back and forth along the fretboard of my guitar playing seven notes then returning back to the second note first played then seven again returning back to the third note first played, then returning back to the fourth note 1st played and so on through to the third octave. Having alternated first major then minor then minor and finally major cyclically In this manner I come back to the beginning and repeat the process with six motes then five, four, three (I learnt the timing of a waltz here) 2 And finally 1 which contains no returns just the scale played straight through three octaves. Played statically at any tempo scales becomes monotonous but played expressively with technical nuances music spontaneously emerges ,from here you do nothing more than follow. I sense we do not create a piece of music we discover it and therefore expanding on that discovery becomes composing music.
I love your perspective. When you _initially_ began learning scales you would say you did this through repetition and metronome use? I'm only just beginning theory studies and I'd like more insight on efficient learning before I dive into scales and eventually modes.
Felfri Sund It’s been a busy week earning a living and barely touching my instrument. I didn’t use a Metronome for the first year of returning back to guitar playing rhythm with electric 20 years ago to now classical Guitar.I would suggest a week or two at first with no metronome to familiarise yourself from memory with your scales. Then make use of the metronome at an exaggerated slow tempo gradually increasing tempo as you rid your playing of errors in timing. Do you not be concerned with hitting the wrong note here and there just focus on maintaining the rhythm at any given tempo. See the metronome as your mechanical teacher in timing that you take classes with two or three times a week noting your improvements as the weeks go by. Do not rely overly on the Metronome. When you are confident plary a short piece of music or a few octaves of scales without the metronome. Afterwards replay the piece beginning on the dominant beat of the metronome to see how you have progressed. It’s pretty instinctual from there.
@@ewhyte8059 ah, thanks so much. Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you, busy here as well. Thanks again for the tips though, I'll put them to practice.
the obessions of the guy is priceless haha. I got this red pillll unfortunely late, but still got it. I practise improvisation and focus on what i need for most of the piano pieces. But i am not a concert pianist anymore, the world needs composers
Such an inspiration! Beautiful and strong personality! We listen to her very often, but I won’t let my non-genius child (although he plays very well for 8/9 yr, 1/16 note scale at any key b/t 120-145 bpm for now) see this video until he is more mature in understanding the context. I do wish scale was not necessary, our neighbor hates us for it. :(
I study classical guitar. Of corse. Marta is not piano, is music, in fact being from Buenos Aires I remember a concert in the theater colon Of corse was fantastic In a master class by David Russell, a student ask him for a “good” book for technical studies and the answer was “you have to find the answers to your technical problems “ And I think is a brilliant answer
When I undertake the study of a piece new to me, I begin by working with the scale the piece is written in ; and of course in larger pieces there will shifts in the keys used. I search them all out, do the scales for each key as a way of getting some of the geography "into my hands". Perhaps it is pointless technically, but psychologically is has a postive effect. I also never use the term "practice the piano"; I study it. This holds true with my students: I ask them "how much did you study this week?", not "how much did you practice?". They seem to get the point. Practice connotes repeated drudgery: study signals discovery and enlightenment.
You can become very good practicing songs and learning as much as you can from the phrases, and you can also become very good from learning scales and conventional harmony. The best path is somewhere in the middle I believe but I've seen both methods work in my students. I adapt to my students needs and ways of learning or I at least try my best too.
There must be something to this - Schiff says practically the same thing in an interview on Bach, that young students may need to learn their scales to "have them in their fingers", but that such exercises are ultimately boring and mechanical, and that he finds all the "exercise" he needs in playing Bach. Starting around 5m30s: ua-cam.com/video/0SclAUqaj2Q/v-deo.html
Yes, he was actually the worst teacher who even criticised some of his students from practising for more than 3 hours a day. His point was clear : Talent is something you either have or haven't.
She is a great thinker ! She knows so much but doesn't walk around terribly serious . What she makes sense. Music comes first and you might play an excellent legato scale or very even thirds but then in the music something else happens. Scaramuzza got what she had and trained it. A lot must come natural for her and evrey pianist has a remarkable ear or they dont go far. i'm amaed at what she says but it shows her mind and constitution !
It is exactly like asking a top scorer student how much do you study to achieve these results. Very often, they will answer "I don't study, I pay attention at classes". Exercises definitely have a role to play, besides for someone known to be exceptional. On the other hand, many people don't know the point of doing exercises thinking practising their 'real music' will achieve the same results. That's partially true. However, exercises are about efficiency rather than mandatory. Works like Hanon and Czerny, if being practised properly, provide a shortcut for building up fingering skills. You don't need to spend too much time on them. Believe me, spend about 5 minutes a day on Hanon 21-30. You will feel so much different in your fingers in a month, which helps you conquer difficult pieces a lot faster.
On the other hand we have Franz Liszt who devoted 4-5 hours daily of just technical exercises. One time he devoted all his piano practice to technical exercises . We also have Chopin that recommended daily scales and arpeggios in parallel , contrary motions and in different accentuations …. We also have Lang Lang follows the same recommendation of Chopin’s .
I teach my students that scales are like multiplication tables, you need to know them in order to understand how pieces are built. However I don't practice scales regularly and I don't require them to do so once they know all of them. Same with arpeggios. I know some professional musicians practice scales regularly, some don't. I find that if I try to practice scales regularly I become self-critical, and it feels detached from the music making. Either that or my mind begins to wander. Depending on context, a Bb major scale for instance could sound and feel 100 different ways for 100 different pieces...
@@luisenriquezapataarellano7591 of course, it's an analogy. In mathematics you can't progress to higher math without knowing multiplication tables. In music theory, without knowing your major and minor scales it's very difficult to understand so many concepts like chords, harmony, counterpoint, structure, modulations, etc etc. Scales are the building blocks of most tonal music.
PIANIST Martha Argerich June 5, 1941 Buenos Aires "With her broad and varied repertoire, carefully chosen and never conformist, Martha Argerich has dominated the piano world since the 1960s. 1955: After studies in Argentina, Argerich 'embarks' for Europe to study with Friedrich Gulda, Madeleine Lipatti and Nikita Magaloff." Source - Medici tv
Despite the title of the video, she actually said she does *_not_* practice scales (as exercises) at all! She said she practices technique by working on her current repertoire, and had been doing so since childhood. But she admitted she practiced some technical exercises 'for a few days' when she was 11... :-) As someone already said, she is a genius, and geniuses usually are not good examples. Although her achievements as a pianist should be a model or at least an inspiration for all of us, her ways to have got such skills might not be. She just turned 80, and is still working, still playing concertos, always with amazing technique and musicality.
Claudia Arrau says the same. But if you aren't a classical pianist, you won't have much solid repertoire to work on your technical side. Jazz musicians definitely need to practice and improvise on scales
OK, from now on, no more scales or exercises. As an experiment. But if you play jazz, you have to be able to play whatever comes through your head. It's a different problem.
Why people thinks that the experience of Martha argerich related to piano it has to be the same for another person with less talent. For my its mindblowing. You cannot learn really from her his "way" to achieve virtuosity. You have to find your own path.
So what do we do with Malcolm Gladwells “ Outliers”, concept of 10,000 hours? Tiffany Poon on UA-cam never does scales ( to the horror of my piano teacher). So the question is, what is taking place instead?
The love of music and mindful practice. Tiffany hears a piece or phrase that she likes and figures out how to play it. Before even touching the piano she studies the sheet music, she learns the context of the piece, maybe listens to Horowitz to understand another interpretation. In this way the technical skills form. My teacher never encouraged me to warm up with scales, we always warmed up with pieces.
the amount of talent she has (at her age then) did not maker her realize how important it would be for an average person to still practice scales and exercises
@@notmissunity8240 well, it's the same as one who gets a perfect body shape and then not having to go to the gym? i dont think so. Even agter u get them, u have to maintain them
@@MarginB I think maintaining them just comes with playing, you don't loose it because you don't just practice a specific skill, but if you stopped playing piano for a while then, you most likely would have to practice the scales again.
@@notmissunity8240 certain pieces may contain scale passages; however, a mere scale and the acale practice itself is a totally different discipline. Same as earing vegetables exclusively and eating a pizza that contains broccoli.. not the same
She's absolutely correct , but there's something irritating about learning a piece that gives you skills but none the less , for one reason or another you just can't stand the piece . So what do you do , invest in something that gives you a little time to reflect on why and subsequently , provide yourself with the courage to still play the piece but accept that it has either a culmination of notes you don't like or simply a sound ( additionally you then get an skill in " practical analysis " ) . This to me is the freedom of technical practice alone , for some it's more vital . I would say particularly if you like to try or play different genre , but for others it may well seem like time spent in the wrong place .
It’s because it is, in a sense. The guy is Maestro Charles Dutoit. They were once married and have a daughter together. They also continue to perform together.
They seem to come from very different, almost opposite, ways of learning, practicing and having evolved their musical talent. And sometimes intense, passionate debates/exchange of opinions could seem like a fight, even if they aren’t at all.
Arguing about practicing scales and exercises versus practicing directly on the pieces you intend to play is a bit of a red herring. If you learned the basic moves very young, and were skilled enough to progress quickly to playing difficult music - then by practicing your repertory you ARE practicing "scales and exercises," because they all come up somewhere or other. It doesn't mean you got by without doing something the mere mortals have to do, it just means your talent allowed you to do it sooner, and to choose your own way of organizing your practice going forward.
never practice scales either much. I play as many pieces as possible that require new skills. mechanical work is not musical. now i do lightly run through most the scales just because i like to keep all the keys familiar for improvisation. (you gotta know the scales even if you don’t practice em) at the end of the day you should train to have a good ear and play beautifully. you only can practice playing beautifully if you have beautiful music. say if you wanna never forget the E flat major scale and be forced to play it evenly flowing or it will sound bad, play Schubert’s op 90 no 2.
I am not sure they were honest about this. My dad was a musician and had colleagues who practiced their hands to stumps but told others they did not practice at all.
I remember feeling relief the first time I saw this video because I thought the same as Martha (although I have much less genius than her) and I felt like quite the weirdo in my music class (although I got the most appreciation for my playing).
"technical skills don't fly away"? i don't think technical skills ever landed on me in the first place. i don't think these folks with super-human talent can even understand what life as a normal person is like.
Her. Obviously she is proof that it works. Perlman doesn't know, since he has not tried (I mean spending his whole life without practicing exercices, not trying every now and then, which might involve psicological aspects to it).
Whatever you feel inside yourself. If you get to know yourself than you will know exactly how and what to do. I have been playing violin for a year now. I studied piece of music by ear from UA-cam. I played it in front of a professional violinist two months ago and she wouldn't believe me that I played that piece so well. Without knowing how to play scales or read music. I did Everything on my own. Trusting my instincts and attentively listening to every detail.
What an incredibly talented woman. On top of that: beautiful, sexy voice. One thing I miss about smoking and only one thing. Is a beautiful talented woman with a sexy voice smoking a cigarette. Martha and I are from the same generation. Diffinetly a different time.. . She's still gorgeous as ever to me. She has aged so beautifully and plays as well as ever!!! What an incredible artist. Pianist. Woman. I love her❤🙏❤
She's not saying she didn't know scales or ever play them, she's saying she didn't mindlessly practice them over and over to achieve her technical skills. She spent her time practicing songs over and over until her technique was good enough to play it. She even says at the end every new song was a challenge to her at first even with all her supposed skill.
@@nightrain50 That's what I've always done and it seems to work well enough. Practicing scales over and over again makes playing piano very un-enjoyable.
Story goes that at age 2, challenged by a 5 year old friend, she perfectly played, by ear, a little piano piece a teacher just had played, teacher immediately told Martha’s mother and then She started taking piano lessons. Probably too young for ‘classical education’, and probably more ‘fun’ and definitely healthier for a then 3 year old, with seemingly perfect ear, to simply learn how to play certain pieces. She says in this video that She ‘tried it’ when She was about 11 years ‘for a few days’. I am guessing She decided it wasn’t for Her. That may also explain the fact that She usually performs every piece without score, knowing them by memory. And Heart.
She had lung cancer and almost half of one lung removed in 1995 and almost died and does not smoke anymore. Don't be obtuse. Smoking kills. It's poison.
It's rather dishonest to say "This person who smokes every day has lived to the age of 90". It doesn't account of the massive amounts of health issues they face. I know many people who have lived to a very old age despite smoking every day, however they spent the last 20 years of their lives in absolute agony from enormous amounts of health complications related to smoking.
Ahhh..more Argerich hagiography. Here’s an extremely competent woman so let’s blow it all out of proportion. Did she program outside the standard repertoire ever? Never tackled Godowsky, Scriabin, Alkan, Grainger, Sorabji, Horowitz variations ....what a waste. Composition? Even some Variations? Complete Chopin Etudes recording?
@@chriss6733 nice job you can kiss ass and attack someone personally simultaneously. That is such a rare talent that you might want to go on America’s got talent with it.
For geniuses practice is overrated. Among the pianists who practiced a lot, I don't think it was essential. Argerich at age 8 had scales better than many university students. Nature vs Nurture -- Nature wins!
My piano teacher did not believe in practising scales or exercises or doing exams. He believed in selecting a passage from a piece of music to work in to develop certain skills. He was wonderful.
I think that way too.
I think this is the essence of this (very French) style documentary.
Well the issue with that is that it’s not about one or the other it’s actually both. It’s important to keep in mind that although some concert pianists do not necessarily believe in orthodox technique exercise, they DID have to do it as part of their earlier studies so it’s not like they played their whole life without it. Technique and practice together are recipes for greatness no matter what anyone tells you just practicing technique in some pieces is limited and not encompassing other types of technique. Mozart himself had specific exercises he would do in mind there is a trill exercise he would do religiously that’s printed in the hannon virtuostic piano book by schirmer. The important note is that these pianists such as Ms. Agerich do not practice technique maybe but they have had decades of technique prior so they probably don’t even need it as much anymore considering how long they hav developed. As a player at any level though practice and limitation are important in any genre but mostly classical they allow you to have the facility to play what you want and then bend and warp it to fit the musical context and phrasing with ease and naturalness. Without it it’s just a lot more grunt work, when the nerves come technique is the first fail safe we have to protect us from slip ups. Look at emmanuel axe who is incredibly diligent on technique my teacher went to school with him at Juilliard. He would show up earlier than everyone and not leave the practice rooms all day till late except for a short lunch he would take people said he took on the color of the walls. There’s people like Hamelin Liszt etc. all showing what colors and textures you can get with technique. Of course at the end of the day the technique supports the music but it is not the music itself.
She makes a lot of sense. Horowitz, Hoffman and Rubinstein said the same thing.
Practice difficulties in the pieces as they occur.
And Gilles practiced scales every day
I agree. My idea is to practice exercises that are MUSIC in themselves, i.e. practice music! Purely technical exercises are not very useful.
@@andsalomoni Maybe, but depersonalizing scales from works of music can have its backside too, you could always see them as exercise. I think there is no universal truth, Liszt practiced exercises for hours every day. The bottom line is, never copy geniuses thinking their way is the way, they just live in a different dimension with its own physic laws.
David Russell says the same as Martha does. I listen to people like them. They know what they're talking about.
As Barenboim as well...
I would caution people to be careful taking advice on how to practice from geniuses, as they can do things your average person can't like her playing a piece perfectly by ear with no training at 2 and a half years old just because another kid teased her that she was too young to play piano. In my opinion the biggest benefit of learning scales is to improve your ability to improvise, compose, analyze music and understand harmony as it gives you structure and a starting point to work and create from. If your goal is to perfect a certain piece of music for performance than practicing that piece is probably a better use of your time than working scales. But if you want to improve your technique for future challenges scales are a very effective way of doing that if done correctly but I would recommend once you memorize a scale try to play it differently every time you practice using different sequences, intervals, mixing arpeggios with scales, different rhythms Etc. always challenging yourself because just rote repetition of the same patterns will give very little benefit once you have it down.
2:03
Amen
I'm sort of a bar band grade lead guitar/bass player and while there are times when I'll sit and work through scales, arpeggios, and the like, I usually practice those things by sitting alone and improvising in a free form manner while making it a point to use those items in the improvisations. I think it helps give me a feel for how and when to use them in a musical setting. It seems to work reasonable well for me.
Wing clipper.
Today we practice scales only to pass the exam. Lol.
Knowing the scales will help you to analyze the score. I think that's the purpose.
She's on point. When we can play scales and others exercises, it doesn't mean we can play other pieces. Even if you can play Chopin Etude for Octave, you will - still struggle with Tchaikovsky's Octave Passage from his piano concerto in Bb minor.
Me personally. When I face a difficult passage, I will just make "my own etude or exercise" to solve my problems. And it works effectively.
Wow! You are so smart and creative! Perhaps you should have all your “etudes “ written down and published, you would have made a ton of money!!! Seriously, it is a very good idea, my piano teacher at the conservatory used to tell me exactly that I should make exercises out of difficult passages to solve the problem!!!
@@loveispatient0808 I do that too and it would take a whole day to write what I do in half an hour of practice... Plus you have to do what is needed for you - the same passage will show different challenges to different people. It is about identifying the problem and isolating it. Then making exercises with that pattern, such as diatonic sequences, transposition, changing articulation etc. Then put back to context.
@27b 5636, you're wrong. Knowing how to play Chopin's octave etude will actually make it easier for you to learn to play Tchaikovsky's concerto octaves. It will be harder for someone who can't play Chopin octaves to learn to play the Tchaikovsky's octaves than someone who knows the octaves etude because the latter has more experience with octaves than the one who can't play the etude. Let's not simplify technique here.
@@pjbpiano Yea, but it's easier doesn't mean easy, right? It just easy to understand the pattern and what should the fingers do, not what doses the muscles do. You still need "something" when it comes to different pattern. You can't play the octave passage from Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 which more percussive the way you play octave in Chopin's Etude. Vice versa. Same with Chopin and Tchaikovsky. In Chopin Etude, it requires legato, but in Tchaikovsky it's more percussive. Most people said, when you want to play that, play this first. If you pass, you can go with it. And I think it's waste our time. Since learning a new pieces will take some time. But you can make your own etude and exercise, right? And when it comes to your own composition, psychologically your mind is more focus on the problem it self. But if you play exercise or etude from book, psychologically your mind will tell you to do more, example: all notes must be right, the articulation must be right, the dynamic and others things must be correct. And it's exhausting and take so many times before you go to the pieces you want to learn. It's very different when you make our own exercise or "little" etude to solve the problem from the new pieces you want to learn. Because you focus on very very specific problem.
@@loveispatient0808 You have to try your own. It's fun. 😄 And based on my experience, it works effectively. It will gain your technique as well in a short time. Read this:
The great composers have they own exercises and etudes so they got virtuoso. They explore they own abilites and force to the (they) limit both the instrument or the person
I wrote some of them. But mostly unfinished. Because writing music score is exhausting. So many detail you put on score if you want a good score. I'm not Mozart who can just write score like write a poem. Lol 😂
Why does he find it so very hard to understand that while practising a 'piece' she was improving her technique at the same time? They are not separate things. She was avoiding a mechanical approach to playing the instrument. It's like people who need to put on special clothing and a headband and do something they call 'exercise' rather than look on everyday tasks as an opportunity to exercise - like doing the housework, or the garden. As a culture most people are habituated to 'doing' something as a separate and defined task which they think is somehow different, more effective and more beneficial than 'ordinary' activity. What you do is what you do. Do it with attention and you will improve. Her approach is one of the reasons she is still playing like a thing possessed at the age of 80. She developed her technique while deeply engaged in the music and thus didn't build up years of habitual misuse (habits of deep muscular tension) through boring, tedious mechanical scales and runs.
Alexander teacher (retired).
An incredible talent! And her words stand the test of time, considering she's still going strong at 80!
I love this woman!!!
If we showed this audio to many snobby musicians/teachers, without knowing who's speaking, they would tell her she's not even a real musician, that she won't get anywhere and that she's just lazy. I'd love to see their faces when it was revealed to them who is saying this. Every musician should practice what they feel better with, being just as valid as long as it's done conscientiously and helping the music sound better.
AMEN!!
@@williamshakemilk2192 wuh?
Dont know how I got recommended this video but as a guitarist I found the way I most improved was basically what she said. If I force myself to play forever and practice all the time I find myself playing worse, and the way I've most improved is picking a section of a piece I could just barely do and getting that down pretty clean, then find harder and harder sections. Sometimes I'll not play for a week or two and come back seemingly better and more relaxed.
@@deaj8450 i absolutely agree with you! I do the exact same thing with my violin. But I wouldn't not play for over a week cause I miss it too much😄 but if I miss a day I will find myself play better for some reason.
@@Poreckylife Sometimes because of my job (construction work) I am just too tired and hot to want to play much when I get home, so that leads to some of my lapses in playing time.
Got a lot of peeps in this thread that can't understand that the precision in her perspective and the precision in her playing are the same thing. Scales are a peripheral endeavour, unless of course scales are your focus. It's a great shame that she openly gifts away her method and people line up to dispute it.
Her French is excellent for a native South American -- virtually native. I'd like to know more about the context of the interview -- the interviewer is speaking to her in the familiar form, which given her status in the music world is surprising unless they knew each other well and long.
I think it's her husband at that time - Charles Dutoit.
@@classicaloracle Thank you!
She is a polyglot. Raised within both a family (Catalan and Ashkenazi) and a Country (Argentine) multicultural and multilingual, moved to continue Her musical studies and perform through Europe at age 14, where Her main countries of residence were French-speaking Belgium, Switzerland and France (of which She is Citizen).
And about “for a South American”, For any Latin-language speaker moving to a any French-Speaking country, after enough years He/She not only will speak fluent French, but more likely than not pretty much like a native.
Silly remark! The world is full of multi-lingual people, particularly amongst classical musicians, from opera singers to conductors, to soloists. This is not surprising when one knows that the practice of classical music adds many points to the IQs of growing children...
Here's the full interview:
ua-cam.com/video/daP2N1JPv3s/v-deo.html
I think this makes sense. I compose my own practise pieces and they usually evolve into more complex songs as my technique gets better. It's way more fun to learn something that sounds nice than just get stuck on playing scales over and over. I enjoy practising my own songs, so I practise a lot more than I would with scales. I like challenging myself to play that music that I want to hear, but can't just yet. I think certain licks are more useful than scales anyway, at least if you're improvising. I'm a guitarist though, but these are interesting thoughts though I have only some skill with piano.
I wish they made music trading cards, I’d like nothing more than a Martha Argerich rookie card
God’s grace, his unmerited reward for His children is manifested in the musical genius Martha Argerich. One minute blessing for such wretched culture. Thank you Good Father for her.
'Lioness' of the piano: Martha Argerich turns 80
"The Argentine-born virtuoso is arguably the best pianist in the world today. At 80, she still exudes passion and power when performing."
Author Anastassia Boutsko - Date 04.06.2021
Source - Deutsche Welle
She is on point. She probably already mastered the scales at age 6 or 7. She started playing professionally at 8. From then on is to ‘practice’ them while learning, practicing and mastering the pieces.
In any case, that’s what works for Her. And it sure does work.
There is no need to master scales, just practise the piece.
@@aaocs7042 did you graduate with a degree in music from a very competitive university or conservatory? Did you practice at least 3 hours a day for 10 years?
she didn't practice scales, did you watch the video? For a few days at 11 she did scales. She only practiced pieces.
Si tratta di un genio della tastiera...i geni sono fuori dalle regole, mentre le persone normali invece devono seguire insegnamenti di persone dotate di alto valore didattico .... vallo a sapere!
I think 'difficult' here is relative. Not every pianist can learn Gaspard de la Nuit in 4 days as a teenager, and say: 'I didn't know it was supposed to be difficult.' '
Exactly. This is why people should not take her words as the holy Grail here. She's obviously talking from a point that most people will never experience.
She also said, technical difficulties are very personal. There are pianists who can learn and play Gaspard very fast but don't want to play chopin etude op. 10 no. 2. Or the otherway around.
There are great virtuoses who are not practicing that much and great virtuoses who are doing it in a extrem amount
What a beauty
She is one of those rare phenemonons as a musician who only come along in a century or two, like Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin etc. Like the greatest musicians, she is a total genius blessed with God-given talent who began playing at an extremely young age. Her entire brain and body has become a completely unified musical entity. She is into another realm entirely beyond playing scales and technical studies, and that is artistic interpretation of the greatest and most difficult piano works ever written.
it is always true that different people practice differently. Many great pianist practice scale everyday. And it is always difficult to understand how other people practice. Reiner Wehle said he can't understand the practice method of his wife, Sabine Meyer. But they knew each other since young. They studied with the same professor , playing same instrument and now teaching in the same music school!
True. This shows so many things:
1. blind practise for the feeling of working is bullshit
2. Peace of mind, confidence is way more important
3. Martha is outstandingly talented. Only then can you reach this level of music and expression, if you can keep the ease with that difficulty.
However, similarily to asking Bill Gates how he got rich, this is survivorship bias and won't lead to success for everyone. This is where Marthas words might sound arrogant, but one could actually say: Some people maybe should actually keep on training basics if that's the level they are still struggling with.
Oh, so glad to hear this. Life's too short to wade through mind-numbing exercises. Much better to work on technique in the context within pieces and being inventive with rhythms and patterns
It depends. By creating your own exercises, you have only reinvented the wheel but the value is still the same.
I look at her and think of how life is so short in our techno world. You can see someone 'live' at twentysomething, starting out, and in the next frame 'live' and approaching eighty! As for her technique, it is phenomenal however she developed it. There is no formula for acquiring that (i.e. drilling exercises or playing challenging music). It is part of the musicianship itself ... innate
Everyone has their way. Backhaus and Rachmaninoff practiced scales every day throughout their lives. Petri didn't and I don't think Gieseking did either. There's no rule about it.
howoritz after he left Russia hardly practiced technical exercises. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli played the entire Hanon book in all keys every morning first thing.
To be good at playing, you have to practice everyday. What to practice and in which way, depends on the musician.
@@andream.464 without wanting to antagonise, you realise this would take 6 hours even if all exercises were played at double speed?
I think it’s important to ‘know’ how to play scales rather than doing it obsessively every day. That’s the key
absurd, if you can get to the same level as someone by avoiding doing something superfluous there is no reason to persevere in choosing the longer way
Such an inspiration 😍
I don’t practice scales. I play scales. Playing scales has taught me melodic improvisation, rhythm and the essence of phrasing. Discipline and unexpected rewards have come from playing scales. Proficiency in playing scales enhances spontaneous creativity. If there is music bursting to emanate from your being playing scales before too long will be of great assistance to go beyond merely interpreting past masters pieces and so express your own unique music. Playing half an hour of scales every day is sufficient as time goes by (no alluding Casablanca) while experimenting with different techniques simultaneously to express the essence of various nuances.
Each to their own. I love to alternate major and minor In opposite directions three octaves at a time back and forth along the fretboard of my guitar playing seven notes then returning back to the second note first played then seven again returning back to the third note first played, then returning back to the fourth note 1st played and so on through to the third octave. Having alternated first major then minor then minor and finally major cyclically In this manner I come back to the beginning and repeat the process with six motes then five, four, three (I learnt the timing of a waltz here) 2 And finally 1 which contains no returns just the scale played straight through three octaves. Played statically at any tempo scales becomes monotonous but played expressively with technical nuances music spontaneously emerges ,from here you do nothing more than follow. I sense we do not create a piece of music we discover it and therefore expanding on that discovery becomes composing music.
I love your perspective. When you _initially_ began learning scales you would say you did this through repetition and metronome use? I'm only just beginning theory studies and I'd like more insight on efficient learning before I dive into scales and eventually modes.
Felfri Sund It’s been a busy week earning a living and barely touching my instrument.
I didn’t use a Metronome for the first year of returning back to guitar playing rhythm with electric 20 years ago to now classical Guitar.I would suggest a week or two at first with no metronome to familiarise yourself from memory with your scales. Then make use of the metronome at an exaggerated slow tempo gradually increasing tempo as you rid your playing of errors in timing. Do you not be concerned with hitting the wrong note here and there just focus on maintaining the rhythm at any given tempo. See the metronome as your mechanical teacher in timing that you take classes with two or three times a week noting your improvements as the weeks go by. Do not rely overly on the Metronome. When you are confident plary a short piece of music or a few octaves of scales without the metronome. Afterwards replay the piece beginning on the dominant beat of the metronome to see how you have progressed. It’s pretty instinctual from there.
@@ewhyte8059 ah, thanks so much. Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you, busy here as well. Thanks again for the tips though, I'll put them to practice.
@@tournesol-e7q 👀🙏🏽
the obessions of the guy is priceless haha. I got this red pillll unfortunely late, but still got it. I practise improvisation and focus on what i need for most of the piano pieces. But i am not a concert pianist anymore, the world needs composers
beautiful
Such an inspiration! Beautiful and strong personality! We listen to her very often, but I won’t let my non-genius child (although he plays very well for 8/9 yr, 1/16 note scale at any key b/t 120-145 bpm for now) see this video until he is more mature in understanding the context. I do wish scale was not necessary, our neighbor hates us for it. :(
I study classical guitar. Of corse. Marta is not piano, is music, in fact being from Buenos Aires I remember a concert in the theater colon
Of corse was fantastic
In a master class by David Russell, a student ask him for a “good” book for technical studies and the answer was “you have to find the answers to your technical problems “
And I think is a brilliant answer
When I undertake the study of a piece new to me, I begin by working with the scale the
piece is written in ; and of course in larger pieces there will shifts in the keys used. I search them all out, do the scales for each key as a way of getting some of the geography "into my hands". Perhaps it is pointless technically, but psychologically is has a postive effect. I also never use the term "practice the piano"; I study it. This holds true with my students: I ask them "how much did you study this week?", not "how much did you practice?". They seem to get the point. Practice connotes repeated drudgery: study signals discovery and enlightenment.
I think she may be fine
You can become very good practicing songs and learning as much as you can from the phrases, and you can also become very good from learning scales and conventional harmony. The best path is somewhere in the middle I believe but I've seen both methods work in my students. I adapt to my students needs and ways of learning or I at least try my best too.
Extraordinaria pianista. La mejor que ha dado la Argentina.
El Planeta Tierra.
argentina no te da nada... el mundo nos dio ella, y ella nos dio su musica... corrupcion, pobreza y divisiones tiene la argentina nomas
I completely understand her way of thinking... The practice should already be the playing once you get past a certain point of your musicianship.
practice in a way that is fun and sounds good to you. Also, don't over-extend your muscles!
Haha! Relax!! Dont practice much…dont help! Haha!! Just go for a walk…..
Yes!
There must be something to this - Schiff says practically the same thing in an interview on Bach, that young students may need to learn their scales to "have them in their fingers", but that such exercises are ultimately boring and mechanical, and that he finds all the "exercise" he needs in playing Bach. Starting around 5m30s: ua-cam.com/video/0SclAUqaj2Q/v-deo.html
Everything is easy to her..OMG...She s an alien..yesss!!.she is ..
Happy birthday Argerich.
Rubinstein said exactly the same things about practising and "technique" in an extensive interview for "Clavier" many years ago
Yes, he was actually the worst teacher who even criticised some of his students from practising for more than 3 hours a day.
His point was clear : Talent is something you either have or haven't.
She is a great thinker ! She knows so much but doesn't walk around terribly serious . What she makes sense. Music comes first and you might play an excellent legato scale or very even thirds but then in the music something else happens. Scaramuzza got what she had and trained it. A lot must come natural for her and evrey pianist has a remarkable ear or they dont go far. i'm amaed at what she says but it shows her mind and constitution !
It is exactly like asking a top scorer student how much do you study to achieve these results.
Very often, they will answer "I don't study, I pay attention at classes".
Exercises definitely have a role to play, besides for someone known to be exceptional.
On the other hand, many people don't know the point of doing exercises thinking practising their 'real music' will achieve the same results.
That's partially true. However, exercises are about efficiency rather than mandatory.
Works like Hanon and Czerny, if being practised properly, provide a shortcut for building up fingering skills.
You don't need to spend too much time on them. Believe me, spend about 5 minutes a day on Hanon 21-30. You will feel so much different in your fingers in a month, which helps you conquer difficult pieces a lot faster.
She really was beautiful when she was young.
She is still beautiful. Just met her
On the other hand we have Franz Liszt who devoted 4-5 hours daily of just technical exercises. One time he devoted all his piano practice to technical exercises . We also have Chopin that recommended daily scales and arpeggios in parallel , contrary motions and in different accentuations …. We also have Lang Lang follows the same recommendation of Chopin’s .
Yes, but not major and minor scales dude xd
@@luisenriquezapataarellano7591So what OTHER scales then?😊😊😊😊 chromatic ?…
Para resumir.. Estudien improsivando escuchando lo que tocan y sienten en el.momento presente... No importa que escala o lo q sea fin.. 2023!!
EXACTLY!
I teach my students that scales are like multiplication tables, you need to know them in order to understand how pieces are built. However I don't practice scales regularly and I don't require them to do so once they know all of them. Same with arpeggios. I know some professional musicians practice scales regularly, some don't. I find that if I try to practice scales regularly I become self-critical, and it feels detached from the music making. Either that or my mind begins to wander. Depending on context, a Bb major scale for instance could sound and feel 100 different ways for 100 different pieces...
Scales aren't "multiplication tables" in so many ways
@@luisenriquezapataarellano7591 of course, it's an analogy. In mathematics you can't progress to higher math without knowing multiplication tables. In music theory, without knowing your major and minor scales it's very difficult to understand so many concepts like chords, harmony, counterpoint, structure, modulations, etc etc. Scales are the building blocks of most tonal music.
PIANIST Martha Argerich
June 5, 1941 Buenos Aires
"With her broad and varied repertoire, carefully chosen and never conformist, Martha Argerich has dominated the piano world since the 1960s.
1955: After studies in Argentina, Argerich 'embarks' for Europe to study with Friedrich Gulda, Madeleine Lipatti and Nikita Magaloff."
Source - Medici tv
1:16
Brilliant thinking!
Despite the title of the video, she actually said she does *_not_* practice scales (as exercises) at all! She said she practices technique by working on her current repertoire, and had been doing so since childhood. But she admitted she practiced some technical exercises 'for a few days' when she was 11... :-)
As someone already said, she is a genius, and geniuses usually are not good examples. Although her achievements as a pianist should be a model or at least an inspiration for all of us, her ways to have got such skills might not be.
She just turned 80, and is still working, still playing concertos, always with amazing technique and musicality.
Claudia Arrau says the same. But if you aren't a classical pianist, you won't have much solid repertoire to work on your technical side. Jazz musicians definitely need to practice and improvise on scales
Wonderful interview
She definitely needs some czerny...
(Sarcasm)
Bellísima.....un genio!!!!!!!
OK, from now on, no more scales or exercises. As an experiment.
But if you play jazz, you have to be able to play whatever comes through your head. It's a different problem.
Why people thinks that the experience of Martha argerich related to piano it has to be the same for another person with less talent. For my its mindblowing. You cannot learn really from her his "way" to achieve virtuosity. You have to find your own path.
true bro
2:52 so true
So much style...
Practice techniques > learn a piece ❎
Learn a piece > practice the techniques ✅
Perhaps she is good because she has this more precisely nuanced understanding of technique.
So what do we do with Malcolm Gladwells “ Outliers”, concept of 10,000 hours? Tiffany Poon on UA-cam never does scales ( to the horror of my piano teacher). So the question is, what is taking place instead?
The love of music and mindful practice. Tiffany hears a piece or phrase that she likes and figures out how to play it. Before even touching the piano she studies the sheet music, she learns the context of the piece, maybe listens to Horowitz to understand another interpretation. In this way the technical skills form. My teacher never encouraged me to warm up with scales, we always warmed up with pieces.
the amount of talent she has (at her age then) did not maker her realize how important it would be for an average person to still practice scales and exercises
I just don't get why people practice scales either, one they get the scale down
@@notmissunity8240 well, it's the same as one who gets a perfect body shape and then not having to go to the gym? i dont think so. Even agter u get them, u have to maintain them
@@MarginB I think maintaining them just comes with playing, you don't loose it because you don't just practice a specific skill, but if you stopped playing piano for a while then, you most likely would have to practice the scales again.
@@notmissunity8240 certain pieces may contain scale passages; however, a mere scale and the acale practice itself is a totally different discipline. Same as earing vegetables exclusively and eating a pizza that contains broccoli.. not the same
@@MarginB That comparison is a fallacy but I get what you mean
She was such a fox!!!
She still is!
She's absolutely correct , but there's something irritating about learning a piece that gives you skills but none the less , for one reason or another you just can't stand the piece . So what do you do , invest in something that gives you a little time to reflect on why and subsequently , provide yourself with the courage to still play the piece but accept that it has either a culmination of notes you don't like or simply a sound ( additionally you then get an skill in " practical analysis " ) . This to me is the freedom of technical practice alone , for some it's more vital . I would say particularly if you like to try or play different genre , but for others it may well seem like time spent in the wrong place .
She is a genius.
Si tocas Haydn Mozart y Beethoven seguro las escalas vendrán bien
Omg why does this sound like a couple fighting?
It’s because it is, in a sense. The guy is Maestro Charles Dutoit. They were once married and have a daughter together. They also continue to perform together.
They seem to come from very different, almost opposite, ways of learning, practicing and having evolved their musical talent. And sometimes intense, passionate debates/exchange of opinions could seem like a fight, even if they aren’t at all.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Arguing about practicing scales and exercises versus practicing directly on the pieces you intend to play is a bit of a red herring. If you learned the basic moves very young, and were skilled enough to progress quickly to playing difficult music - then by practicing your repertory you ARE practicing "scales and exercises," because they all come up somewhere or other. It doesn't mean you got by without doing something the mere mortals have to do, it just means your talent allowed you to do it sooner, and to choose your own way of organizing your practice going forward.
Indeed
I cannot read the red subtitles.
it's engraved into old vhs video
I tried. I now need to learn braille. btw, I got someone else to write this 😎
Easier to learn French than to read them.
Brilliant AND hot!
Hmmm
Suggestion: play it back at .75
Yea
never practice scales either much. I play as many pieces as possible that require new skills. mechanical work is not musical. now i do lightly run through most the scales just because i like to keep all the keys familiar for improvisation. (you gotta know the scales even if you don’t practice em) at the end of the day you should train to have a good ear and play beautifully. you only can practice playing beautifully if you have beautiful music. say if you wanna never forget the E flat major scale and be forced to play it evenly flowing or it will sound bad, play Schubert’s op 90 no 2.
Exactly!
I am not sure they were honest about this. My dad was a musician and had colleagues who practiced their hands to stumps but told others they did not practice at all.
She didn't practice scales. She practiced pieces
This video should be renamed Martha Argerich performs scales for the first 2 seconds.
Alkan is a nice substitute for scales. At least you don’t think you’re playing them.
I remember feeling relief the first time I saw this video because I thought the same as Martha (although I have much less genius than her) and I felt like quite the weirdo in my music class (although I got the most appreciation for my playing).
Genial
I had to paused the video just to read the horrible subtitles that bleeding my eyes 🤦🏻♂️
I hope my students never see this video lolol
"technical skills don't fly away"? i don't think technical skills ever landed on me in the first place. i don't think these folks with super-human talent can even understand what life as a normal person is like.
😮
But Itzhak Perlman says exactly the opposite thing. So, with whom do I stay?
Her. Obviously she is proof that it works. Perlman doesn't know, since he has not tried (I mean spending his whole life without practicing exercices, not trying every now and then, which might involve psicological aspects to it).
Whatever you feel inside yourself. If you get to know yourself than you will know exactly how and what to do. I have been playing violin for a year now. I studied piece of music by ear from UA-cam.
I played it in front of a professional violinist two months ago and she wouldn't believe me that I played that piece so well. Without knowing how to play scales or read music. I did Everything on my own. Trusting my instincts and attentively listening to every detail.
That is why they hate each other!
Perlman plays the violin it's a different story.
Je ne savais pas qu'elle parlait français.
Now I can show this to my teacher!
Cant read the subtitles, who did this?!
What an incredibly talented woman. On top of that: beautiful, sexy voice. One thing I miss about smoking and only one thing. Is a beautiful talented woman with a sexy voice smoking a cigarette. Martha and I are from the same generation. Diffinetly a different time.. . She's still gorgeous as ever to me. She has aged so beautifully and plays as well as ever!!! What an incredible artist. Pianist. Woman. I love her❤🙏❤
sinple as
She is wrong and must stop playing. She should practice exercises for 5 years. LOL
I don't quite believe her. Did her teachers attest to her never being given scales or studies to do?
She was a prodigy: playing concertos by 6 years old. They didn't have time to dampen her progress with scales.
She's not saying she didn't know scales or ever play them, she's saying she didn't mindlessly practice them over and over to achieve her technical skills. She spent her time practicing songs over and over until her technique was good enough to play it. She even says at the end every new song was a challenge to her at first even with all her supposed skill.
@@nightrain50 That's what I've always done and it seems to work well enough. Practicing scales over and over again makes playing piano very un-enjoyable.
Story goes that at age 2, challenged by a 5 year old friend, she perfectly played, by ear, a little piano piece a teacher just had played, teacher immediately told Martha’s mother and then She started taking piano lessons. Probably too young for ‘classical education’, and probably more ‘fun’ and definitely healthier for a then 3 year old, with seemingly perfect ear, to simply learn how to play certain pieces. She says in this video that She ‘tried it’ when She was about 11 years ‘for a few days’. I am guessing She decided it wasn’t for Her.
That may also explain the fact that She usually performs every piece without score, knowing them by memory. And Heart.
She's 80. Her teachers are dead.
And her “birth language”was Spanish. She has married 3X.
I thing she has married 3 men, no 3 X
if you dont count the piano hahaha
i am from Argentina, kind of proud of she
I've seen videos of her speaking Spanish, French, German, and English.
It looks like this annoying interviewer is trying to mansplain her
Se podria subtitular en español?
Buscalo en traductor, es bastante simple de hacer, un saludo desde argentina.
1:16
Eighty in afew weeks and puffing away. Shows that smoking is ott as regards health scares
She had lung cancer and almost half of one lung removed in 1995 and almost died and does not smoke anymore. Don't be obtuse. Smoking kills. It's poison.
It's rather dishonest to say "This person who smokes every day has lived to the age of 90". It doesn't account of the massive amounts of health issues they face. I know many people who have lived to a very old age despite smoking every day, however they spent the last 20 years of their lives in absolute agony from enormous amounts of health complications related to smoking.
Ahhh..more Argerich hagiography. Here’s an extremely competent woman so let’s blow it all out of proportion. Did she program outside the standard repertoire ever? Never tackled Godowsky, Scriabin, Alkan, Grainger, Sorabji, Horowitz variations ....what a waste. Composition? Even some Variations? Complete Chopin Etudes recording?
Ahhh.. Marshall Harrison,who apparently is a guitarist.
And we all know what a challenge that instrument is.
😂.
What a profoundly ignorant comment.
@@chriss6733 demands you bow to The Argerich or else!
Btw Ever try to play Moto Perpetuo or improvise over Giant Steps on guitar? Didn’t think so.
@@chriss6733 nice job you can kiss ass and attack someone personally simultaneously. That is such a rare talent that you might want to go on America’s got talent with it.
But she plays an enormous variety of músic when she Performs chamber músic!!
Big clickbait title :D
Elle a toujours parlé comme si elle avait le nez constamment bouché.
For geniuses practice is overrated. Among the pianists who practiced a lot, I don't think it was essential. Argerich at age 8 had scales better than many university students. Nature vs Nurture -- Nature wins!
Nature and nurture together; not one or the other.