Please don't get the wrong idea - not starting a debate here at all.

Just that I was visiting friends today and one told me amongst other things that his nephew is a brilliant violinist (which I believe) but he does not play the piano at all? I was so surprised. He was also the leader of the NYO or something like that. I mean National Youth, UK, not New York! Would you believe that? I don't mean to extol the virtues of piano playing here but then how about his sonatas? How will he understand the piano parts of his partner in a sonata? Surely he can't play the duo in a vacuum?

Apparently, Paganinni played the guitar and mandolin, too, but not the piano! I wonder whether there are any good or great violinists today who can't play the piano at all?!! Menuhin admitted he dislike the instrument but he still studied it.

Any thoughts?

Tess

The pianist doesn't have to play the violin to understand how to accompny it does he?
He can understand by listening, working together with the pianist and maybe studying the score.

I'm a mediocre pianist, but I can understand piano parts. It helps to be able to play them, but it's not vital. I've had about 5 years of piano lessons total but I can still play along with a pianist and know what's going on Might just as well ask how a pianist can accompany the sonatas if he doesn't play the violin

Playing the piano well should not, in my view, be assumed as being any kind of 'prerequisite' to being a good musician. (This is, admittedly, largely to make myself feel better as my piano skills are very limited!)

A good violinist needs to be good at the violin and have good general musicianship skills.

I usually look at the piano parts of pieces I learn to get an idea of what goes on/harmony etc. That doesn't mean I can play them! I think there's a difference between understanding the part and being able to play it. After all, I can look at a score and understand what the French horns are doing but I wouldn't have a clue how to play their part (unless it was on the violin!).

Paganini didn't play piano, that's what I heard. Guitar is very good for strengthening your 3rd finger, and learning to stretch Playing another bowed string instrument or orchestral instrument gives a better perspective of the whole quartet/orchestra, and a violinist's place within it. Piano is very good for...accompanying yourself? Ummm...learning bass clef, which you don't need for violin? Meh. I don't think I'll ever be a competant pianist. If you can bang out some chords, and use it to check harmony or whatever, what's the point of learning grade 8 pieces? If it's primarily a helper instrument, then there's no point learning it like a solo instrument. Yeah I can find any chord, yeah I can bash out a tune if called upon, no I can't read music, no I can't play anything impressive.

As far as real violinists who don't play piano, I'm sure there are many. How many pros would have time to practice violin enough, let alone indulgein a 2nd instrument? I doubt any touring soloists or orchestral players have enough spare time to be faffing around with piano seriously. Teachers seem to be a bit better, in that they can play basic accomps for pieces, but generally if you need a pianist, you find a pianist, not a violinist.

If you want to be an all-rounder, piano is essential. If you want to be a violinist, it's not going to set you back, but clearly it's not essential beyond a very very basic level. Which is lucky.

Nicely put!

Aha! The pianist doesn't have to play the violin because he/she can read and understand the violin parts well. But then the violinist who never played the piano/guitar cannot undertsand the piano partner's parts well because he/she cannot or may not be able to understand the bass line well just like Julia Fischer pointed out in her rather constructive criticism!

Well quite frankly any violinist who performs a piece without having heard a recording of it done by pros first is asking for trouble anyway, and that's a much better way to understand the bass line, because it is in the context of the piece as a whole.

Just because the pianist can read the treble clef and have an idea of how it goes, does not mean he understands what it's like to play on the violin, the technical difficulties, etc etc.

(and how about the pianist accompanying a violist, or a cello playing in tenor clef...? one doesn't assume they will need to be violists or cellists to cope...)

Piano is useful, it's by no means essential... one can understand a bass line without being able to play it.

violinists often play with cellists and violists. Do they also need to play those too, to grasp the tenor and alto clef parts?

The guitar gives excellent insight into chord structures (in fact, to know how to play an arpeggio, I generally think about what the guitar chord for it is!). And reading bass clef really isn't that tough.

I suspect that the only people who give such immense primacy to playing the piano in order to be able to play anything else are pianists...


(oh now I'm embarrassed - sarah just said exactly the same thing about cello and viola, and I didn't spot it till after I posted. Ooops!)

great minds think alike

ps: when it comes down to it, I'm sure playing the piano does help with playing other instruments... but then again, playing the violin helped when I first started playing the piano!

I don't think it's an effect which is in any way limited to the piano

Oh yeah, I think you're right about that. Playing any instrument makes the first acquisition of another one easier. For example, I know picking up the trombone again has been tons easier because of the cello.

Well spotted, meerkat! Julia is a pianist! Her mum is a pianist, too.

One doesn't need to play piano to be able to read a piano score or understand harmony. Playing piano also doesn't automatically grant these skills.

Very true on both counts!

Ah this topic has made me feel better about my non existant piano playing skills.
But one point, if playing piano isn't necessary to be a good musician, why do all music colleges and universities ask for at least grade 5/6 standard piano?!?! food for thought...

Yes, I wondered, too. Have the conservatoires got it wrong historically? Personally, I think, mastering the guitar is just as good for an understanding of harmony! Still, I was thinking of sonatas...

I think it's so they know you have an understanding of harmony to a certain level. Perhaps this isn't actually the best way to go about it, though.

As for violinists not understanding bass lines: I can read bass clef quite easily, I can hear and see what the bass line does when I'm playing my part, but still I am not a pianist.

I maintain these are general musicianship skills, not specifically pianistic skills.

I'm pretty certain Maxim Vengerov doesn't play the paino at all. In fact, I know he doesn't play because I've seen him sat at one hamming at playing.

Anyone who claims that those who don't play piano are not musicians or that they lack musicianship skills because of it, is talking absolute cobblers. I don't play the piano at all - I could probably hack my way through something around grade 1 standard, but that would really be my limit. Apart from that, my hands are not pianists hands - no wirey spider-like fingers that span chasms and play all the notes in between at the same time.

I know that all music conservatoires these days insist on students having a minimum of grade 5 standard on the piano, but they do still offer places to students who don't have keyboard facility. They normally allow them in with the provisio that their playing will have improved sufficiently between being offered a place and starting the course. The crunch test comes at their first musicianship class............

I was lucky that I got on a performance course at Trinity, which at the time, didn't require keyboard facility. Not being able to play the piano didn't stop me from becoming a professional violinist, or indeed hinder my violin teaching. I can look at a piano part and get a rough idea in my head of what it will sound like, so what more do I need from that perspective.

In a similar vein, being able to read through the parts of an orchestral score and get some idea of what it sounds like as a whole, doesn't require the reader to be able to play every instrument. Musical training in general fills in the gaps for the instruments you can't play.

If Vengerov can get away with it, I'm not going to strain myself He seems to do pretty well for himself

Imagine what Paganini's piano music would be like if he wrote for piano as opposed to violin!


*dies*

Eerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.............................................and his mum's a pianist!!!!!!




Why die?

VN

Cause his piano music would be just ARGH worse than Liszts! Physically mentally psychologically and musically killing the player in the process of the piece!!!

Sorry, matey, I would not judge (is this the right word???) a person I don't know too well, Chris. I might BUMP into him one day when I am dead in the after life! Off to Hainault Forest now with mum. Bye, all. Had to miss orchestra for this big outing.

VN

There's going to be a potentially interesting programme on Radio 3 at 1.30 on Tuesday, with Susan Tomes the pianist grumbling - I mean making the point - that pianists get a raw deal from pesky violinists who will insist on stealing the limelight from them.

In other words, pianists who play sonatas with violinists are getting fed up of being referred to as accompanists rather than equal partners (they're also fed up with violinists getting paid 10 times as much by some promoters - a fair point, I think). She blames it all on Paganini/Kreisler/Heifetz.

Should be interesting!

Violinia

Good for her! Whenever a violinist includes a sonata in a recital they should always acknowledge the pianist as an equal at the end. It's good manners, and to be honest I usually find the pianist has a much worse job than the violinist in sonatas - I often learn sonatas with a friend playing the piano parts, she's a very talented pianist but has all manner of problems which I don't! If a soloist didn't give the conductor or orchestra credit after a concerto it would look very bad indeed, and an equal partner in a sonata has a more important role than the conductor or orchestra, in a way. They have no-one instructing them how to play, as the orchestra does, instead they have to make decisions for themselves, possibly with the violinist. A conductor has overall control of a work, but does not have to also perform a major part of it as an instrumentalist. I have so much respect for accompanists. Their job is harder than being a soloist.


Paganini for piano couldn't be that bad...just get finger extensions, maybe a couple of extra digits grafted on...

So was my grandmother, and a very, very good pianist she was as well. But, just because a blood relation plays the piano, how does it absolve their non-piano playing musician relatives from their so called 'crime'?

I like this point! Shame she hasn't read this yet, AmandaL but then on the other hand she'll probably use this argument to start learning classical piano as late as possible!!! She has always preferred the violin to the "normal" piano. I think when she took the violin and piano - I can't remember now but it was such a ridiculously short time, for maybe, just 1 or 1.5 term? - well, she played each day on the violin without wanting to stop. However, 5-10 mins on the piano and she came up to me with - mum, I'm fed up now! Do I have to carry on? She MIGHT have thought that since the piano is THE hard instrument, it'd have been a lot easier if her mother or a grandma knew how to play it? Well, perhaps not. I sometimes think that not being musical ourselves may instead have helped her?! One is not qualified to criticise! We have a close relative who is a professional musician like you but he was dead before I (not just VN) was born!

VN is keen to take up jazz piano though as she seems to think (rightly or wrongly) that it's more to do with improvisation and composition than technique. She wants to do jazz piano as soon as she has reached grade 8 playing level with her violin.

Tess

I think it's also because a decent level of piano helps with harmony classes etc - ie being able to play the 4 part harmony you just wrote to your prof or to check it's right or whatever. It's much handier if all the students can do that for themselves... I think it's a case of it makes life easier for the colleges if all their students are reasonably proficient more than anything else.


I agree


Well I think that pretty much proves it ain't a prerequisite to anything!!


I'll try and remember to listen - sounds interesting.