inspire you or make you feel a bit inadequate?

I've been listening to a Haydn piano sonata I'm murdering learning for Grade 8. I am sad There is no way I'll ever be able to play it as quickly or as beautifully - the fast passages sound like ripples on water, whereas when I play it, it sounds like an elephant stamping in a puddle. Sigh.

Still, I have something to aspire to in my dreams!

Know what you mean. I guess you have to try not to compare and think about all the hard work it took them to get there, and the not givng up they did. You could embody your forum name in a literal way and impersonate their playing - pretend to be them then maybe you'll sound like them!

The former, particularly away from the clarinet. Virtuosi on any instrument are frequently well worth listening to.

Try listening to hear what someone else hears in the music - it isn't always the same as what you'd want to do yourself in any case - your own performance needs to match your personality, the acoustic you find yourself in, the instrument at your disposal. And remember this - you feel you murder the music because you know what you did wrong: in a recording, a musician has to get everything right, but they don't always do so in one single attempt....and in a concert they don't get it all right, but the moment passes and not all the faults are noticed.

I do listen to recordings - to lots of them. I know there are teachers out there who say don't, you'll destroy your own interpretation and try aping what you hear: I don't think it has to be that way. By the level you've reached, you are ready to listen for what the masters do in order to develop your tastes in performing style, and can hear what works for you and what doesn't. As far as you never playing as well as the performer in the recording - well, but nobody else will either. No performance of any music is flawless, because the issue of taste comes into the equation: I don't aim to play as well as my musical heroes do, but I do aim to play well enough to get out of the music the sense and expression I can find in it. When I was at grade 7-ish level, I also didn't believe I could manage even that, and have been suitably surprised and pleased to find that actually, it does come .

When coming to Egham, I'd sent out a link to a recording of the work I was attempting, for my accompanist to hear, knowing they were going to hear something far more accomplished than I can do, just to give a sense of the shape of the thing. Knowing I can't play as quickly as the guy in that youtube video, I played much more steadily but comfortably within my capability - making it my own in the process. I still fluffed some, but nothing like as much as I would've done if I'd tried to do the same as the professional .

yes, it helps, definitely! Sometimes the notes on the page are very dense and it helps to listen and follow the score, to get a sense of the bigger picture.

I can listen to maybe ten different performances of a piece. One of then will grab me and I'll think, that's the tone, the feeling, the flavour and emotional story line that I understand in this piece -- but that can only be a starting point for my own musical adventure.

When I start to get proficient with a piece, my own performance is what comes out - I'm too busy to think "X gets louder here so make it louder here". Also, when you play something zillions of times, accidents and random variations give you ideas, so your ideas naturally progress and evolve.

Once I just couldn't understand a repeated ornament, I couldn't get it to sound right. So I put the CD of the virtuoso (Barenboim playing Mozart) into the Amazing Slow Downer (or is it the Amazing Go Slower) on my Mac and looped those few bars on half speed until I got it.

Some virtuosos do play so very fast, and when it's at my much slower speed it can sound like a completely different piece. But my teacher insists it is musical at all speeds.........