What's the most memorable feedback you've received about your playing?
What's the most memorable feedback you've received about your playing?
85 replies
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The most memorable feedback that I have received about my playing was during one of my visits to a middle school in Sarasota, Florida. I played a program of many different composers, including John Williams, showing the students how some of the most popular tunes (Star Wars, Jaws) were influenced by composers like Beethoven, Bellini, and Debussy!
Afterwards, one of the kids came up to me and shared a picture he had drawn of me during the performance.
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I asked him:
"WOW! that is so much stuff in the drawing, what is all that?"He said:
"Well, I can't read music but I felt like I was seeing so many different shapes, objects, and stories through your music. I just wanted to draw what I was seeing. I want to know more about music after hearing you play and talk to us today. Maybe I can draw a new story next time."
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Needless to say it is always my goal to bring stories to life when I play music, and it meant a lot that this young man recognized it and was affected by it!
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Once I played a competition and got only this feedback from a judge: “You are talented. Why did you play Mozart?”
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The most memorable and gratifying feedback I have received was last week when my teacher said “you are improvising freely…”
I know I have a long way to go with playing the changes, but this was music to my ears.
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When I was 15 I played for my teacher’s teacher. This gentleman said that my hands were too small and I shouldn’t continue with piano at all but may harpsichord would be OK.
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I only started to get more serious about playing the piano around 12. Prior to that I was very lazy about practising (particularly techniques and studies which I found
boringuninspiring) - my piano lessons were quite hellish then because my teacher was also very strict.Anyway, this one time I tagged along to my cousin's rehearsal for her teacher's studio recital. After all her students had done rehearsing, the teacher asked if I wanted to play anything and so I did (I believe it was Clementi's sonata) ... and she said "you played it very well".
It was a small comment that spurred me into practising - and since then the relationship with my own teacher improved (the magic of pratising😄) and so did my own playing ... enough that a year later my teacher asked if I wanted to try entering a competition ... and the rest is history.
I would not have continued to play the piano now without that small, encouraging comment.
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“Yes there were some problems but there were moments of greatness” 😆
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A three-word sentence from my beloved teacher has meant more to me over the years than I can adequately express, and it has given me confidence through times when I doubted my ability. Rigorous in her teaching and economical with her words, she said: "You play well."
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Three comments come to mind. One teacher recently said to me after I finished playing a piece: “I really enjoy listening to you play”. And a comment from a music professor during a master class a few years ago after I finished playing Schubert’s impromptu: “This is Schubert, not Schumann”. 🤣
But the most memorable comment was a question from my teacher shortly after I restarted playing again: “How do you practice this piece?” In 15 years (from age 6 to 20) of professional music training, not one teacher ever asked me that.
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I was told by one instructor that I’ll never be Billy Joel or Elton John. That didn’t work well for me. But it was memorable. 😎
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Probably the most memorable feedback about my playing was the nickname my brother gave me when I started to play the trombone: Moose. 😄