This is Seymour Bernstein's 96th New Year. He has some advice for the piano world.

so any New Year's resolutions Seymour is it a special occasion for you when the uh Earth revolves around the Sun well first of all Ben you don't suppose that one day a year namely a New Year's Day that we're going to make resolutions that are going to hold us instead for an entire year sheer nonsense that is nonsense but yes I will make a general resolution and I want to address different categories of pianists but there is a surprise at the end I'm saving that for the end well the first category is going to be the beginning pianist then I have some messages to give to teenage students who are going to audition for contests and so forth and make some suggestions to them and then I'm going to address the advanced pianists in general they can't play by ear I'm not sure that they should even memorize music if they can play by ear then the last category will be the virtuoso pianist who enters major competitions hundreds of thousands of students of all ages and of all abilities around the world this is whom I'm addressing and not only the students but their teachers and not only their teachers but their parents the parents need to get some advice because they very easily can ruin everything so the parents around the world who are listening to this they have to trust me and they have to obey what I'm going to tell them don't you think for one moment that your child is going to be able to have a piano lesson and sit alone for one hour and activate everything that the teacher explained to him at the lesson it ain't going to happen you start your child in piano lessons you have to be prepared to sit one hour every day with your child and supervise the practicing and you have to appear at the lesson with the child with a tape machine and record the lesson so that you prepare the child properly for the next lesson now mind you we're teaching your child to read and write and the child goes every day to school to learn to do that now you're going to expose him to one of the most difficult things in the world and that is interpreting music on a keyboard and he gets one lesson a week he's not going to make progress unless you supervise the practicing I'm so sick and tired of hearing parents tell me oh I I work too hard I don't have time to sit any parent who can to vote one hour a day to his child has to do a great deal of thinking now this is what you're going to hear 75 of the time I hate to practice I want to use I want to play with my video games darling if you really don't love music enough it's all right I don't have to teach you music is that what you're going to tell the people all right his name his name is her name is Lucy she wakes up on a Thursday morning she's five years old Mommy I don't feel like going to school oh honey if you don't like to go to school it's all right just stay in bed sweetheart I'll bring you your juice would you ever say that to your child no your child will never learn to read or write or to have the brain activated to learn other subjects so if you don't believe that the study of music is necessary for your total development and the total development of your child then let's just not talk about this at all but if you do believe that you take this very seriously Mommy I hate it I hate it if I don't want to practice anymore all right Lucy let me tell you this much if you don't sit with me one hour every day there will be no TV for you there will be no going out of your friends take your pick how about that listen I've been all through this with parents what I just said is a magic formula and now this is what is bound to happen but not always what is bound to happen is the child is being forced to go through certain routines on the keyboard properly and in the process becomes so infatuated with it that he wants to do it all by himself the music itself gets to his very soul the ability to do something that he was never able to do before is filling him with all kinds of Courage and a good feeling about himself and this is almost always what happens with my experience so much for children now we're going to go to intermediate students many of you are impassioned about certain pieces in the repertoire pianists have more pieces written for them than any other instrument think of what Beethoven left us think of what Schubert left us in Rachmaninoff it's overwhelming and very often you want to play pieces that were Way Beyond you and if you continue to do this you're not going to develop properly because you're always battling against the pastors that you really can't play as yet so this is what I advise you to do your teacher may not suggest this but I want you to suggest it you should be studying all the time three kinds of pieces one piece that is within your power to play another piece that you can sight read very easily and bring to fruition without too much trouble and a third piece that is a little Beyond you and they all work together you see and at the same time you have to be practicing technical exercises so that you get your physicality is a major thing in order to express the deepest feeling of music you can't do it unless all the parts of your mechanism are functioning properly so you have to divide your practicing very intelligently so if I were you I would devote if you only have one and a half hours to practice I would devote 20 minutes to technical exercises and I have by the way I have warm-up exercises in my book with your own two hands so I don't want to even demonstrate them because they're all written out and I hate to sound commercial by even mentioning my book but it's just a convenient thing for you to have well can I be a commercial too because you also you demonstrated some of these warm-ups in your tone-based course uh keyboard choreography yes so uh oh oh they're there maybe the child maybe the teenager maybe the adult amateur should uh maybe sign up for tone base you can just turn onto your internet and get these exercises all right so that will that's part of your practicing so now I have some advice for teenage students your teacher is going to enter you into a distance they're gruesome old contests and all auditions are gruesome but you know what the best thing about it is that it makes you so nervous that you've never practice better in your life than when you have to play at a contest or you go to an audition you go out on the stage and the judges are sitting there like in the Roman uh what do you call it where the Lions came the Roman what the arena the arena the Roman Arena now they're ready to to launch to set the lions at you this is what it appears to you when you walk across the stage there are dangerous those people out there I don't even I think they don't even like me all right and the chances are they they have all of your repertoire that you're going to play and the chances are they'll say Lucy you may start with whatever you like this is what usually happens they're considerate and they know that you you don't know anything about that instrument that you're about to play and you are to say may I just play something to warm up to find to get used to the piano the judges will be so impressed with you because listen I've been a judge so many times I can tell you no judge will ever say no they'll they'll congratulate you wonderful that you want to do this we understand there they've been all through this you see so this is what you do I'm warning you now that if you play a perfect scale at 144 on the metronome from the beginning to the end Forte and you never miss a note you're going to make the worst impression the judge is going to say oh this is an unmusical person he's just making a stick but if you play a scale and you store it like this [Music] louder and louder you impregnate it with feeling and then diminuendo on the way down and then you play a series of chords [Music] foreign [Music] to see if the Soft petal works now all of that took 30 seconds the judges are very impressed with you they're already on your side is that clear all students now in the intermediate grade for every audition that you're going to have now here's something very important are you listening now carefully not only teenagers Advance pianists especially also I hope you're listening music enters our ear and guess what the majority of pianists who are listening to me right now can't play by ear I'm not speaking about Perfect Pitch if you have perfect pitch this doesn't apply to you if you have a good relative pitch it's possible that you can survive and play for memory but if you don't have good relative pitch and you're already playing Advanced repertoire this is what you have to do now trust me and do it and don't ask any questions because I have put this to the test until my great satisfaction it works with everyone your teacher has just given you for a reason [Music] you can play it perfectly at two o'clock in the morning for a memory now I want you to take the index finger of your left hand and play me for release what you heard me just play the tune of Fur Elise oh oh okay [Music] foreign [Music] now when that happens that means that you have no intervallic relationship in your ear how about this statement is today Thursday yes all right if you start this of your favorite pieces you're going to spend 15 minutes doing this by the way every day start this tomorrow in six months you'll develop your relative and you'll actually be able to play Pieces by with your ear how about that so what they should start is trying to play melodies of their pieces with the left head left hand and six finger see you're breaking up the reflex the automatic pilot and you're just you have nothing to help you accept your ear and it's a hunting PEC system see until you get the right pitch so this is a very important thing to do now we're going to the virtuoso pianists there has never been a level of piano playing as there is today do you agree Ben uh I have to agree because I know a lot of them and there's got to be more amazing virtuosa pianists today than ever before nobody seems to know why do you know why I think it might be because there's more people on the earth oh really you think that's why that's that's just my hunch that's my hunch yeah so now the major ones are the ones who enter the big competitions right like the van Clyburn the Rubinstein competition the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium is that still on also oh yeah yeah sure okay and now what happens they get to the finals in all cases that I have read there are six finalists and guess what happens the best pianist in the world practically are sitting there all six of them all potential winners the judges are just they're beside themselves they don't even know which one to choose they're so good they choose one winner no I hope my message is going around the world to every crevice so that every piano teacher is going to hear what I'm about to say I have written year after year letter after letter telling them to stop this archaic practice there has to be six winners not one winner oh there isn't enough money to go around isn't that too bad oh there aren't enough concerts to go around how terrible those six pianists are going to be the winners they'll fend for themselves if they're if necessary they don't need your filthy money you just make them the winner and stop this nonsense and now it's even worse for the winner himself guess why because a lot of attention is given to him the best kinds of concerts major orchestral performances and on series going for about two years and now the third year comes he's replaced by the next winner and all of his concerts vanished it is so inhuman this has got to stop now listen in our country there is the national Federation of Music clubs do you know what that is that means that every state in the country has a music Club attached to the National one every teacher in the United States has to band together and write a letter that is going to declare this practice archaic and they're not going to tolerate it one more year it has got to stop the heads of these juries have got to stop this nonsense they're causing harm to the most gifted people in the world what do you think of this it sounds like you're calling for the end of competitions as we know it I am not I mean what makes you say that well it might not be a bad thing well at least you're challenging the structure of how winners are selected and how we promote their career the contrary I I've I'm incur I encourage competitions because you've entered them haven't you yes but not so successfully haven't you practiced your head off harder than of course of course but I haven't I of course so in that sense they're wonderful they elevate your playing what's wrong with being one of six winners what's wrong with it so are you calling for a kind of tie for first place because that that sort of happened at the last Tchaikovsky competition at least there were many ties there were multiple second prizes six ties I'm not talking about two guys however whatever number of students make the finals in some competitions there are three in the Gina Buck hour which I auditioned several times there were three finalists at the end in my what I'm suggesting is that's the end of the competition those three students are the winners and are you going to to support it I will I will write letters of protest I will pick it uh the next competition that dares to choose a single gold medalist um let's have a universal petition throughout the United States every teacher in the in the music the music organization every teacher is going to lend their signature to it we have to contact the president of the National Association of Music clubs so I'm wondering do you have any advice for those virtuoso pianists besides to become activists for this cause um because a lot of them are sweating it out practicing eight or ten hours a day injuring themselves probably wondering what it's all meant to be why you know what is this all for what is the purpose of all of this so maybe some yeah do you have any spiritual guidance for this kind of uh lost virtuoso who perhaps only makes it to the competition and doesn't Advance or even the ones who make the finals and become so jaded from from the labor that it took to to you know put put into the effort to put into this competition and for what I'm going to take it philosophically and I'm aware that this is New Year's and I'm aware that I'm a person that has a certain degree of experience I'm certainly old enough to have had experience aren't I in April I'm going to be 96 you know so suppose then that I begin to answer your question by asking you a question if I gave you a real reason why you're going to benefit from practicing would you rethink it I believe so do you know why you're practicing I feel some kind of compulsion to practice I can't really put my finger on it no pun intended first of all are we all in music I hope because we love music let's just assume so no one is putting a gun to our heads at least and we're certainly not making any money doing it well that's for sure all right so no let's discuss weddings and what's entailed in practicing and why we should do it you know in Plato's time they have it they had in their educational system something that they call the quadrivium you know quad means for right so the word quadrivium pertains to four subjects without which the ancient Greeks thought we could never develop properly would you like to guess what one of the subjects was I believe it was was music it was music oh what do I win do you know how important that is look here there are a 20 000 pages of educational requirements going to all the schools the word music never appears once that's what where this the civilization in which we're living now so now we're going back to learn from the ancient Greeks why have they chosen music I'm going to explain to you why they knew that the study and performance of music entails everything about you with the UTS which other subjects don't entail it entails your intellectual world your emotional world and you want to give me the Third your physical world yeah you're perfect then then you know did you did you know that in advance that I was going to ask that question well I've seen a Seymour Bernstein video or two in my time so so you know about this I know a little bit about it but you know the fact that we inhabit a physical world is probably the bane of every pianist's existence if only we didn't have to use our crummy bodies to make such beautiful music you know what I mean well you might as well say that to a dancer if only I didn't have to know how to hold my hand and my knee at the same time I wouldn't I would have much less difficulties to dance don't be so silly every gesture that a dancer makes and practices is to express the feeling of the music that they're dancing to so I use the same terminology I use the word Quarry choreography we have to make choreographic attitudes in order to translate our feelings into the piano so now you want to have music as a language of feeling now you want to express your feeling on an inanimate object it ain't gonna do it unless you make certain physical attitudes exactly as dancers do serious practicing and the experience of performing leads towards the integration of the personality you're integrating thinking feeling and physical coordination in this is going to shock you what I'm about to say no psychiatrist agrees that that can happen every psychiatrist that I interviewed in writing my book with your own two handset you can never think and feel at the same time it's not possible but you not only do that and you're playing the piano but you're old so coordinating your body all three at the same time how about that so you see it has to affect your life I know for certain my pupils almost all of them have told me see more I can tell you studying with you I I it has affected my life they've told me that so it's very important now this is what I wanted to save for the end foreign is not creative at all it's recreative I didn't write that Beethoven Sonata but what I'm trying to do is to recreate it so that I can become one with one of the greatest Minds That Ever Walked the face of this Earth what a privilege for me but I didn't write that Sonata so up until the time of Rachmaninoff he was the last great virtuoso composer after that period the composer and the performer parted company enter Juilliard and all the conservatories you audition as an instrumentalist or you audition as a so-called Theory major which means composition actually do you do both of course not enter evgeny kissing into this picture Seymour was invited by the Sony Corporation in their box in Corny Carnegie Hall to hear him give an old Chopin program oh I almost fell out of the box I can't tell you I can't I was just so amazed that I it was in possible I went back to see him he was standing against a white wall Mr Kissin there's no way that I can tell you what your playing means to me and to the world you were one of the greatest that ever lived but there's something that you have to do the Sony people by the way are all listening to this kiss and says what what do I have to do this what I said you must never give another concert unless you include an original piece this is what kissing did he threw his head against the wall and turned as white as the wall I can't that's how he screamed he didn't say I can't yes I can't you can just tell that he was toying with this but he just couldn't do it I said what do you mean you can't you have to do it you have to be another List look what list did I can't and I I said I walked away from him the Sony people said what did you say to him that you disturbed him so much do you know the end of the story I think so but why don't you tell it he's composing and he's being published and he's including his pieces in his program I didn't realize that you were the one who inspired him to uh to come to come out as a composer but I may not have I'm always telling you this story and it's going to be the same with this YouTube video because it's the same with it with Ethan exactly because you uh you just gave uh a tremendous amount of advice to every kind of Pianist on the face of the Earth and who knows some of them might go on to be great musicians who are performing at Carnegie Hall one day and it was all because of Seymour or or perhaps not there you go perhaps not I have a piano here I should I should I practice it now I think you've inspired me enough um I'm gonna play a a scale four octaves at 144 BPM fortissimo don't you dear all right Seymour well I'll let you get back to your piano and I'm gonna get back to mine and uh I hope all the viewers at home have taken a lot away from this this video

Channel: tonebase Piano

Views: 46,621

Keywords: piano, classical piano, tonebase, tonebase Piano, piano lessons, learn piano, seymour bernstein, ben laude, new year's resolutions, 2023, piano world, piano teachers, beginner piano, intermediate piano, advanced piano, virtuoso

Id: 1aPP4Mb87bQ

Length: 36min 46sec (2206 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 31 2022