Ok, ill admit it, this is half a moan, but i just want to see if anyone feels the same way. I have played the piano since age 8 and a half, and then, i only did it for fun, but as you grow older you find that there are all of a sudden many more opportunities that you can take up, but at the same time, things get more competitive.

Does anyone else feel however, that, as a normal music student, there is so little opportunity for pianists? At secondary school, the only thing a pianist can basically do is chamber group, which isnt very much-and you dont even perform- considering how we have the orchestra, string orchestra, string ensemble, AND chamber group for string players, and similar groups for brass and woodwind. It just annoys me that with the piano, how you have to be THE VERY BEST to be able to get anywhere. It's resent i guess, for the fact that lesser musicians playing other instruments are allowed the opportunity to shine where as pianists just have to lurk in the background and do the odd accompanying. And even then, you have to be really good for them to let you accompany a choir(oh yes, some hideous experiences i had). It's just NOT FAIR!!!

Yes you are right but that never bothered me.
I only wanted to play the piano and never thought about performing. It was (and still is to a great extent) just a personal thing for me.
I do enjoy playing in church and am starting to do some accompanying (mostly at forum events) which I enjoy and would like to improve on.

Yes, I agree - that's why I joined my school band and took up the clarinet!

i agree too... most likely it's because most people take up piano instead of other instruments...

ShArOn

Sometimes I think it is more about broadening your horizons as a musician rather than just a pianist. I am a first-study pianist, I have had lessons for the last 3 years in piano and flute. At first, there wasn't anything to do at school, so I played some stuff with my friends which was great experience. This year I am accompanying a choir and playing for one of the bands. There is also another pianist who plays for the soul band.
But if you are prepared to have a go at something new, then there is often loads of opportunity. For example, I have played flute with bands and sung with the choirs. I have 4 out of 5 lunch times a week now filled with rehearsals, and although only half of that is piano stuff, I still love the singing and flute things I do too. It gives you a chance to get really involved in a group - as a pianist I think you are always separated as there is usually only 1 pianist, but if you are in the middle of a choir or a band it's so much fun!
Moaning about 'it's just not fair' isn't going to get you anywhere. You need to look for opportunities and be prepared to challenge yourself to step out your comfort zone and try something new.

How about contacting your local AB exams representative and offering your services for accompanying at exams? There are a lot of instrumental teachers around who are not able to accompany their students, and you are entitled to charge as well.

Just noticed that you are from New Zealand, but I expect there is a similar set-up there.

One of the other difficulties faced by pianists is that if they venture into accompanying, they generally find themselves faced with fairly advanced music, even if playing with beginners or those with only a few years' experience. It is very hard to find music for pianists of every level to play with others, except for piano duets. Once you're pretty good at it...then you become more popular, and chamber-music making can take off.

Hi!

I understand where you're coming from. Pianists often miss out on the (very important!) social aspect of playing in an ensemble. I'd advise trying local amateur theatre groups - the ones in my city usually perform with small ensembles that always include piano. They also love pianists to help out at rehearsals. If you're not confident learning all the music by yourself, drag a friend along & share the load.

What about piano duets?
Get together with friends to play chamber music. There are some great piano parts around for trios, quartets etc. If school doesn't organise it organise it yourself.
Some of the pianists at my sons' school also double on percussion to increase their playing experience.
Ask if you can play at assemblies, if you have them.
Offer to play to the residents of any Old Folks Homes in the area.
Playing opportunities will be out there but you may have to organise them yourself.

I would also avoid calling other instrumentalists "lesser musicians" you might just upset them and find that they won't want to play music with you. I suspect you mean that they are at lower grades than you not that you think that they are poor musicians.

Two things:

[1] If you are very able, confident and a brilliant pianist then the World's your oyster. If you are moderately capable and make only the odd mistake you will have trouble making it as a solo performer, no one will pay to hear amateurish piano playing. There is no room for mediocrity.

[2] The members of an orchestra can hide their mistakes and I guess don't need to be quite the very best, as you say. Who's going to notice the odd wrong note in the violin or woodwind section?.

The audience, perhaps?

With any mistake, it depends on how big it is, what sort of mistake it is, and how obvious you make it that you've made a mistake as to who notices. I was playing in the orchestra for a show last year, and whilst I made a couple of mistakes, I kept going, in time, and didn't make a big song and dance about the mistakes. No point crying over spilt milk - a mistake has happened, and no amount of cringing will undo it. If anybody noticed, they didn't say anything - but perhaps they might have noticed (and commented) if I'd started playing on my A when I should have been playing on my Bb.

Alias, there aren't many opportunities around generally, so you have to make the most of those which come your way, and make your own for when they don't. Are any of your friends playing pieces with accompaniments which you could manage? Does your teacher know of any performance opportunity which would suit you? Can you put on a concert for a local good cause? Is there anyone with whom you could perform piano duets or trios?

Not sure if I agree there is little opportunity for pianists. Admittedly, unless you do play in chamber group or accompany there are few options but why does one have to just play classical music?

Jazz and Blues bands always want a piano player as do many pop/rock bands who'd often want a keyboard player. If anything - once you go down that route, you tend turn down offers because there is so much demand. At the school where I teach, most of my pupils are in one type of band or another.

That's why I like playing piano and viola. Best of both worlds! I'd get fed up if I had to have other people all the time there to sound good and that's why I like piano! But I do love it when I play in orchestra and get the 'little cog in a big machine' feeling - it's great!

That's a very big EXCEPT! There's a huge and wonderfully varied repertoire of original music for piano duet (two players at one piano), for everyone from beginners to fully-fledged professional players, and plenty of music for two players at two pianos too but finding somewhere to rehearse that is more of a challenge.

Start looking for a friendly partner and go for it!

Yes! At my school people who play orchestral instruments can take part in heaps of activites every week - even if they aren't really good! Pianists just don't get a look in and even if you are "the best" or very good, there are still NO opertunities, the teachers always play the piano. I wish something could be done

Do you have musical friends? There is lots of chamber music, not all of it very hard, and you could organise your own group. Some of my favourites are

Mozart: Lots of piano trios (i.e. p, vn, vc); two piano quartets (p, vn, va, vc); Kegelstatt trio (p, cl, va); quintet for piano and wind (p, ob, cl, bn, hn). These are for c. G8 but with a fair amount of practice to get it thoroughly fluent (see below). The Kegelstatt trio is probably the easiest technically.

Haydn: Lots of piano trios, slightly easier than Mozart, I think.

Frank Bridge: Nine Miniatures for piano, violin and 'cello; these range in difficulty from about G5 to G7 for all players.

Walter Leigh: Trio for flute, oboe and piano; this is a stunning piece, somewhat in the style of Hindemith, but more immediately attractive and with some gorgeous tunes and rich harmony. The last movement, in particular, is more difficult than any of the above Mozart.

Once you get halfway to diploma standard, there is lots more: Beethoven; Mendelssohn (two of the best three piano trios ever, according to Hans Keller); Brahms, trios (3? with vn & vc, 1 with cl & vc, 1 with vn & hn), quintet (v. hard); Faure (C minor piano quartet!!!); Shostakovich quintet (not far past G8) and two trios (v.hard); Ravel Trio (fiendish).

The piano has a marvellous chamber music repertoire. The snag is that much of it was written by composers who happened also to be virtuoso pianists. If you can play it easily, it is as rewarding a form of music as any, except, perhaps for string 3,4,5, and 8.

What you need to bear in mind, when you start getting into chamber music as a pianist, is that in several respects you have the most difficult part. The piano being such an easy instrument in its own right, you often find yourself with more notes to play than the others*; you have a score, while the others are playing from parts, so until everyone knows what the music sounds like, you are the player who can tell that you are not all in the same place and need to do something about it. You are probably also the player who knows the music best, because you have had to practise your part more than the others have. It is important, therefore, that you choose music that is much easier for you than for the others, because you have to play your part with half your attention and listen to what everyone else is doing with the other half, whereas they can put three-quarters of their attention to playing.

* at the end of the Faure C minor quartet, the pianist is playing at least 17 notes per second, while the string players have about two per second each.

There is a vast amount of easy chamber music for piano by 20th C. composers. If the ones I have listed so far look too difficult for you to start on, give me some idea of what standard you are and I can probably suggest something.

WOW thanks for all those repertoire recommendations! Yeah, i posted a thread asking about chamber music not long ago.... coincidentally, we had our first chamber ''trial'' yesterday. I called it a trial because it was to see how well we as a group work together, luckily enough! Because the violinist is so bad that even i can play better than him, which isnt much to compare to.... The cellist and i work really well together though.

We sightread an arrangement of brahms hungarian dance no.1 and just hacked our way through it.... i think its ok for us to play. We want to try a beethoven trio, but have less taste for mozart. I WISH i could play mendelssohn, to hard... You are SO RIGHT about the piano part being so much harder!!! I could only pretty much sightread one hand at a time. But i cant afford to choose easier music for us because it might just get boring...AND i need to teach my friend that she's supposed to be following ME(even though we are all listening to eachother) not the other way round... im right though right? You do follow the pianist in chamber music?

Oh yeah by the way, because the violin was so bad(not just the odd wrong note or something, this guy couldnt do vibrato and he's supposed to be doing grade 8) we need another one, does anyone(or know anyone) who lives in auckland, goes to secondary school and want to be in a chamber group with us? =)

The only answer to this is for you to practise your part until it really is second nature. If you have memorised it (I must admit I rarely do this, but I've had a lot of practice at score reading) you can watch the other parts.

There's no one person to follow. What often works well in rehearsal is for the others to listen to the busiest part, because if you have semiquavers you can't easily adjust for crotchets of varying length.[1] In performance, you may have a busy accompaniment to a melodic phrase in longer notes which needs speed changes within it. In this case, you start by rehearsing that phrase in strict time, until everyone knows what's going on. Next you get the "soloist" (the part with the melody) to play his/her preferred shape of the phrase. Then you play it together with the same shape. Also, you watch each other throughout this sort of passage. Especially with strings, you can see both by natural bow movements and by "conducting" movements of the player's head or instrument (not 'cello or bass, of course) what s/he is about to play.

[1] A corollary is that if you have a rhythm change (e.g. duplets to triplets, or triplets randomly inserted into mostly duplet rhythms) in a passage where you are doing this, you may need to tell the other players, because otherwise they may just count the notes and arrive in the wrong place. It can be helpful for them to have rhythmic cues (tails and beams with no notes) written into their parts in the space above tricky bars. (Soft pencil only!!!)

To get a piece properly into the inner ear of all the players, it is vital to play at a constant speed and stay together. A very helpful technique is to play with a metronome. There are two main difficulties: playing quietly enough to hear the metronome; and listening to it rather than to each other. However, even if you have to play at half speed or less, the point is that you can then be much more confident that you are hearing a correct coordination of the parts. A metronome that distinguishes the sound of the first beat is particularly helpful.

For high speed preparation for performance, many of the techniques I describe can be replaced by the help of an experienced coach who either knows the music well or has a score. Even if you prefer to prepare by yourselves (it's more fun that way) it's a good idea to get an external listener to check the balance in the performing venue.

Watching the bow is also a good way to start together and finish final chords together. My usual rule here is that the lead is taken by the highest instrument playing. This should be the violinist in your trio, but it sounds as if you have problems at present.

Another point ot bear in mind is that new mistakes happen in performance, and you have to make very high speed decisions to respond to them. Don't worry if some of these are apparently wrong. One of my rather cheering memories of chamber music performance is of the Mozart "Kegelstatt" (cl, va, piano) that I played with two other students at a Reading University Lunchtime Concert. Our clarinettist missed a beat for the first and only time in that place) in a bar in which all of us were playing. I immediately followed her (easy for me: I could see her part on my score), which might have caused disaster for our violist, but, fine musician that she is, before I could even thing of what trouble I might have caused her, she was with us. The point of this is that we got away with it, but might well not have done so.


Not all good orchestral players can immediately play chamber music well.

Sorry I can't help (too far away).

Yes,thats why i took up the flute!

I know exactly what you mean!

I always think the same about drummers...

It feels so good to play with a group again, i havent done so 'properly' in such a long time!

Thanks kenm for all that advice! Ill keep it in mind!

You might find it rewarding to look round for some music that is technically straightforward but interesting to listen to, and with lots of interplay among the instruments which would help to develope your chamber music skills.

There are no generalisations of that sort in chamber music. Sometimes the composer will make it obvious by his or her use of dynamic markings which part is "the soloist" at each point. If not you can discuss whether all the parts seem to need to blend or whether there's "solo" and "accompanying" material at a particular point. Rehearsal is the time to experiment with balance, trying the same passage with a different balance among the parts (and that can include different balance within the piano part, as you may well be playing several independent lines rather than just block chords).

I assume someone thought he would be OK. Did he say he couldn't do vibrato? It's certainly expected at that level. Is it possible that his sight-reading is very poor or he was just very nervous, or both? Perhaps you could choose something to work on for a week or two and then get together again to see how it goes?