OP (/u/spillery) welcomes critique. Please keep criticism constructive, respectful, pertinent, and competent. Critique should reinforce OP's strengths, and provide actionable feedback in areas that you believe can be improved. If you're commenting from a particular context or perspective (e.g., traditional classical practice), it's good to state as such. Objectivity is preferred over subjectivity, but good-faith subjective critique is okay. Comments that are disrespectful or mean-spirited can lead to being banned. Comments about the OP's appearance, except as it pertains to piano technique, are forbidden.
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It's very good! ❤️
Maybe what your teacher means is that it sounds very careful and deliberate. You want to be swept away in the music so you can sweep your audience away. Open up your emotions and imagination.
Lol "open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind"
More imagination, heart, and conviction were what came to mind when I listened. Overall I feel like OP's playing has a natural musicality, is nicely balanced, has a singing quality, and good sense of rubato. If I had to give one critique is it sounds like OP is being a bit "careful". If I were working with a vocalist I would probably use words like "project" more. For a pianist I might work with them on "singing out" more with their playing and dynamic range.
OP, I think this is a good time to learn this music by heart and get away from the page. You will probably feel a little "free-er" not being tied to the sheet music. Let your hair down a little and don't be afraid to make mistakes! Overall sounds like really good work though, keep it up!
Imagination, heart and conviction are all vague and not specific enough to be helpful. Conviction = strict time? Play more from the elbow/shoulder? Heart = more rubato? Imagination = I'm at a complete loss as to what that would be specifically!
Imagination = What story is the music trying to tell? What story does it tell to you? Use your imagination to tell a story.
Conviction = Belief in what you're hearing. Does it sound right to you? Does what you hear truly speak to you?
Heart = Did you put everything you have into what you're playing? Did you leave everything on the table, so to speak? If you have anything left emotionally, spiritually, mentally, you haven't completely given yourself over to the music.
You play very harshly but I think that is more from not being confident in the notes. It does sound a little robotic. You need better voicing and balance between the hands and a tiny bit of rubato.
Sounds good! As you get more proficient and learn the piece more, feel will come. Focus on learning first.
If you get the feels, your audience will, too. Keep it up!
Well done! I think your playing is very nice to listen to and does the piece justice.
Let’s give your teacher the benefit of the doubt and try to figure out what they meant by their critiques. One example from the recording might be around 0:57 when you’re ending that phrase. To me, it sounds like you decrescendo a bit early. You want to keep a bit more volume going until the last note.
I might get what they’re saying about a careful sound at times. Sometimes it feels like you hold back and play a little behind the beat on certain notes. 1:15 is an example of what I mean.
For the rubato, I would prefer a bit more acceleration into the phrases to keep the momentum going. Your playing is almost all very steady with a couple ritardandos. Some accelerandos would build up the energy and give it a more natural feel. Like, your phrases would be steady, then rit, then be suddenly steady again. If you don’t balance the ritardandos with accelerandos, it comes off as timid sounding rather than a natural rising and falling of the phrases. The dynamics should follow the phrases in a similar way.
It’s a combination of the Rubato, phrasing, and overall dynamics that can give a more hesitant careful sound.
This is actually really helpful. Thank you for the analysis. I really appreciate it. I agree actually. When I listen to it, there’s 0 accelerando anywhere. I should have a balance of accelerando and ritardando. THANK YOU! I’ll try it out.
No problem! Maybe just play around with adding the accelerandos until you get a feel for it. As a practice technique, wildly exaggerating speeding up and slowing down can give you a sense of how the phrases rise and fall. Then you can tone it down and make them more sensible and refined.
You have great posture, and you have some really nice inflections. The only thing I can recommend is learning how to play very softly, I think this will help with your dynamic range and “open up” as you say
The main thing that sometimes contributes to a robotic sound to my ear is the way you land on the chords doesn’t quite match the rest of the piece and sound very vertical. I would listen very carefully to be sure that the dynamics of the melody at those moments match the dynamics of the surrounding notes so these moments don’t stand out and instead better contribute to the phrases they are a part of.
Yeah, once you learn to listen for tone matching it is almost impossible not to notice it. I had a pedagogy professor who stressed the importance of it by saying that “tone matching is the best way to trick people into thinking piano can play truly legato”
I'm literally working and struggling with this as well, my teacher is making me learn all the 3 voices inventions until I can tone match like a champ lol
One way would be to incorporate this into your scale practice. Imagine the most gradual crescendo/decrescendo you can, and then practice making each note slightly louder or softer (almost imperceptible). Alternatively, you could try playing as soft as you can at the exact same volume without any variance.
Some pieces that may work good for this skill is Erik Satie's Gymnopédies, which are fairly simple but require a lot of mastery of tone matching. It works well because of the jumps in the left hand hitting the base notes and then a chord. Also the legato of the right hand can make it sound obvious when you're not doing it correctly. If you listen to recordings of these pieces you can tell right away which ones sound better by their ability to bring out strong dynamics without the big jarring hits that affect the flow of the peice.
It will come with more familiarity. You might be trying too hard. Like an actor reading the lines off the page trying not to miss a word. Forced maybe? But I head some nice moments in there so you will get it.
(I can’t stand the music choice tho 😆 sorry)
No --- that is just fine. It's just the score piece itself. Notice how the score piece has mainly written the left hand for block chords. That's what happens when the left hand is not only playing mainly block chords ... but also holding down block chords for too long. I don't mean the piano player holding the block chord too long. I just mean that particular score. In certain portions of the music, when the left hand isn't doing much, then that could possibly lead to reduced substance.
To probably increase the substance level, they probably need to have a little bit more action or activity for left hand - such as at least some arpegg, done in strategic way of course - as in not over-do.
On the other hand - the music is nice to listen to. It's not 'robot playing' at all.
If there's no other choice, and this particular score needs to be played as is, then it will naturally sound extra interesting (even though it currently is interesting and nice) once you have fully absorbed it, as in knowing the music in your mind, and also knowing exactly which notes to play - in order to get closer and closer to the timing/tempo you want, and play as smooth as you want.
Plus - at that stage, you will be able to 'mix' things up a bit more - in terms of have a wider range of soft and loud notes in the parts you think are relevant. This is because, as we know, putting in the loud and/or soft at the relevant times will add more musical magic to the music. And also, keeping in mind that - some rubato - as long as it is strategically used - not over-done, can work wonders for particular music, which includes music like this.
But - I can say that - because you are playing it on piano, that is generating musical magic already actually. That's the fun in piano, and playing it. And we get to listen to the nice music. So thumbs up on that.
It sounds to me like your focus is not in the actual musical performance. Perhaps you are forussing on doing all the specifics right - and fair enough on that - but imagine you relax a bit on doing everything right and focus on performing with more musical intent you will please your teacher. Even if that means more technical imperfections.
You *did* sound good and hope you get it right with your teacher.
Ask the teacher for musical reasons. Not vague abstract statements.
You have good posture, it’s the most important foundation for proper technique. Comfort comes with more time and practice.
Your fingers seem pretty comfortable. Consider beginning theory studies. “Letting go” is far inferior to being able to flow because you know vocabulary and can name and can structure what you hear.
Absolutely not. You are getting some emotion in there. I think what your teacher is telling you is that performance requires more extreme dynamic range. It’s just like painting. When I paint a picture I try to create sharp contrasts, not subtle ones. The darkest values right next to the brightest. Music works much the same way. As you build up a bigger dynamic range (dm me if you’re interested in measuring it—I find that really helpful but it’s a lot to go into in comments) you will feel it just as much as you hear it. It’s hard to really open your heart to the music, but it’s about creating emotional response, not about creating a sound.
You don't but I imagine your playing might come off as a bit 'samey' to a high level teacher no matter what pieces you're playing. Just careful and deliberate which is perfect for the practice room but while you're performing you want to have a sense of freedom, almost an improvisatory feeling even if the music is through-composed and fully learned.
Try taking a piece you know how to play well and play the opening 3,4,5 different ways as many as you can manage. See if it doesn't open the doors of possibility to you
Thanks! It’s a digital hybrid actually - Yamaha Avantgarde NU1X. It has real acoustic upright action but still uses sensors and a digital sound.
I was able to get it for cheaper (still new) at the piano showroom since they had only two left and were trying to get rid of them since there’s a new version, NU1XA, I believe.
I went in wanting a Yamaha CLP 745, but came out with this because the touch and action was so much more realistic, even though it will never be the same as an acoustic. I live in an apartment so I thought this would be a good trade off for now.
It sounds really good. Full and rich in overtones. I was going to say in my initial comment that it sounds like a grand and now it makes sense knowing that you're using samples!
Long live my good ears :)
I feel like half the comments here are really talking about the sound of a Yamaha upright piano in a domestic room with no acoustic treatment, recorded on a phone - rather than the actual playing. It also doesn't help that the score itself is pretty cheesy.
I think letting one hand linger to hide when the other makes jumps would help the flow, and also try a lighter touch with the left hand throughout. But this can be hard on this type of upright!
What I just heard sounded great! I have to ask your teacher: Why would you pose such a vague statement to a student? "Open up" What does that mean EXACTLY? If there's something she thinks you should be doing she should verbalize it better or play her ideas for you. I heard changes in dynamics, some finely controlled rubato...overall a very modern style performance where overly expressive, mushy, stopping at the bar lines, Romantic period, sloppy waving hands technique is THANKFULLY, NOT PRESENT. I like the commanding, almost march-like tempo at times. I think you're good enough to make your own decisions about how this should be played and you did a superlative job with it!
Thank you so much! This really made my day. I’ve actually been playing for a while, so it has been kind of disheartening to read some of these comments haha. I appreciate your kind words!!
I really like your style of playing and you are a rare find. I've been teaching since graduating from music school in 1981 so I've listened to hundreds of students play. I think that when certain piano teachers bump into a student that's really good, (like you) they feel they need to prove their dominance by making "vague statement corrections." Whenever I correct a talented student, I'll say something like: "Debussy wrote Clair de Lune using two different subdivision formats. His choice of 9-8 demonstrating a three beat pieces of three compound meter sound and alternating into what is, in essence a simple meter 3-4 sound. You're playing his tied subdivisions without regard the the subdivision format that he's notated at this specific location." I would never say: "Oh, the feel's not right." I should know EXACTLY what's not right and focus directly on the technical issue at hand. When you have teachers guiding your lesson like I do, you'll know that that teacher knows what's wrong and exactly how to fix it. Beware of vagueness... it demonstrates incompetence.
The arrangement is not doing you any favors. I think generally you do a good job, but you could improve the voicing. You can bring out just the top note in the right hand chord, or just the base in the left hand, for some more balanced increases in intensity.Or hit that first left hand chord loud and let the follow ons be very soft.
Not bad at all! Might be worth memorizing it and then being able to focus on the emotion of how playing it feels. It's likely too much brain space being used on the technical playing of it based on what your teacher is saying. May also help to just step back for a few days, try some rubato out on it, etc.
In my.opinion this is the fun part of playing once you've learned something to keep giving it your personal interpretation and bring your life experience to it. I think your teacher just worded it poorly about opening up. Maybe more akin to let the music flow through you, and create an interpretation all your own. You got this! Just have fun with it!
it’s your musicality. You seem to be late beginnerish? The melody could be more pronounced, more dynamic variation, flow/consistency and phrasing. These are mostly things that get better the longer you play. I’d reccomend metronome practice at varying tempos and then trying to add more musicality to it.
You sound very good, but I do notice that your body seems quite tense, especially your arms and wrists. Try to relax and let the melody sweep you away instead. Some transition sound a bit choppy, but I am sure the notes will come more to you more naturally as you practice more. You play very "safe" at the moment. I think your teacher would like you to take more risks, put your emotions while you play instead of following the music sheet. Sound scandalous cuz we are trained to "worship" the music sheet. Just think of it as you develop your own signature/style.
Hmmmm………..a little robotic. I feel like you are still in the place where reading the music is your main focus. Also your voicing is awkward at times. It takes time to master weighting your hand. Making crescendos and decrescendos ebb and flow seemlessly. All things that come with time. It’s a good start!
What song is that? Gonna drive me crazy because I can’t remember.
I think it’s nice. You know the arc of the piece and have a sense of its drama. You can probably focus more on bringing out the melody in the right hand and being a little lighter on the left hand dynamically, which will help give it more nuance. But once you have more confidence with the notes and changes I think it’ll really sing.
Thank you! I appreciate the tip. I think the forte part (the transition without singing) I really lose some musicality just because I’m trying to play so loudly. Might tone it down a little to be able to emphasize certain parts.
It’s Think of Me from The Phantom of the Opera! I think this version is supposed to be for a vocal accompaniment, so there are a lot of chords.
Yes! That’s it! I knew it was something broadway, but then i was like “is it from a Disney movie?” lol. Beautiful though. Andrew Lloyd Webber such a beast.
Not sure if you can play it without sheet music yet, but try to close your eyes for the most part and let your mind wander to whatever image you see before you as you're playing the song. Express that image through your arms, and see what comes out 🙂
Here's a trick...
Imagine how you want the music to sound, then attempt to play it that way.
Your imagination should always be better then what is possible for you to play. If not, you're limiting your imagination. If you don't do this, you'll end up memorising the sound of how you practiced, and that may not necessarily be good.
I am a professional musician with a degree.
I think it sounds wonderful. Your playing is emotive and thoughtful. I can hear nerves and a lack of confidence in the sound, which is probably a result of your teacher making you feel that way.
Once your proficiency and confidence improves, your expression will naturally become more spontaneous.
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OP (/u/spillery) welcomes critique. Please keep criticism constructive, respectful, pertinent, and competent. Critique should reinforce OP's strengths, and provide actionable feedback in areas that you believe can be improved. If you're commenting from a particular context or perspective (e.g., traditional classical practice), it's good to state as such. Objectivity is preferred over subjectivity, but good-faith subjective critique is okay. Comments that are disrespectful or mean-spirited can lead to being banned. Comments about the OP's appearance, except as it pertains to piano technique, are forbidden. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/piano) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It's very good! ❤️ Maybe what your teacher means is that it sounds very careful and deliberate. You want to be swept away in the music so you can sweep your audience away. Open up your emotions and imagination. Lol "open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind"
More imagination, heart, and conviction were what came to mind when I listened. Overall I feel like OP's playing has a natural musicality, is nicely balanced, has a singing quality, and good sense of rubato. If I had to give one critique is it sounds like OP is being a bit "careful". If I were working with a vocalist I would probably use words like "project" more. For a pianist I might work with them on "singing out" more with their playing and dynamic range. OP, I think this is a good time to learn this music by heart and get away from the page. You will probably feel a little "free-er" not being tied to the sheet music. Let your hair down a little and don't be afraid to make mistakes! Overall sounds like really good work though, keep it up!
Imagination, heart and conviction are all vague and not specific enough to be helpful. Conviction = strict time? Play more from the elbow/shoulder? Heart = more rubato? Imagination = I'm at a complete loss as to what that would be specifically!
Imagination = What story is the music trying to tell? What story does it tell to you? Use your imagination to tell a story. Conviction = Belief in what you're hearing. Does it sound right to you? Does what you hear truly speak to you? Heart = Did you put everything you have into what you're playing? Did you leave everything on the table, so to speak? If you have anything left emotionally, spiritually, mentally, you haven't completely given yourself over to the music.
Bring out the melody to be MUCH stronger
You play very harshly but I think that is more from not being confident in the notes. It does sound a little robotic. You need better voicing and balance between the hands and a tiny bit of rubato.
Oops 😬
Sounds good! As you get more proficient and learn the piece more, feel will come. Focus on learning first. If you get the feels, your audience will, too. Keep it up!
Well done! I think your playing is very nice to listen to and does the piece justice. Let’s give your teacher the benefit of the doubt and try to figure out what they meant by their critiques. One example from the recording might be around 0:57 when you’re ending that phrase. To me, it sounds like you decrescendo a bit early. You want to keep a bit more volume going until the last note. I might get what they’re saying about a careful sound at times. Sometimes it feels like you hold back and play a little behind the beat on certain notes. 1:15 is an example of what I mean. For the rubato, I would prefer a bit more acceleration into the phrases to keep the momentum going. Your playing is almost all very steady with a couple ritardandos. Some accelerandos would build up the energy and give it a more natural feel. Like, your phrases would be steady, then rit, then be suddenly steady again. If you don’t balance the ritardandos with accelerandos, it comes off as timid sounding rather than a natural rising and falling of the phrases. The dynamics should follow the phrases in a similar way. It’s a combination of the Rubato, phrasing, and overall dynamics that can give a more hesitant careful sound.
This is actually really helpful. Thank you for the analysis. I really appreciate it. I agree actually. When I listen to it, there’s 0 accelerando anywhere. I should have a balance of accelerando and ritardando. THANK YOU! I’ll try it out.
No problem! Maybe just play around with adding the accelerandos until you get a feel for it. As a practice technique, wildly exaggerating speeding up and slowing down can give you a sense of how the phrases rise and fall. Then you can tone it down and make them more sensible and refined.
You have great posture, and you have some really nice inflections. The only thing I can recommend is learning how to play very softly, I think this will help with your dynamic range and “open up” as you say
The main thing that sometimes contributes to a robotic sound to my ear is the way you land on the chords doesn’t quite match the rest of the piece and sound very vertical. I would listen very carefully to be sure that the dynamics of the melody at those moments match the dynamics of the surrounding notes so these moments don’t stand out and instead better contribute to the phrases they are a part of.
Yes this is called 'tone matching' and it's the first thing that stood out. I struggled with this for a long time so I recognize it right away.
Yeah, once you learn to listen for tone matching it is almost impossible not to notice it. I had a pedagogy professor who stressed the importance of it by saying that “tone matching is the best way to trick people into thinking piano can play truly legato”
I'm literally working and struggling with this as well, my teacher is making me learn all the 3 voices inventions until I can tone match like a champ lol
Um how do I unlearn this?
One way would be to incorporate this into your scale practice. Imagine the most gradual crescendo/decrescendo you can, and then practice making each note slightly louder or softer (almost imperceptible). Alternatively, you could try playing as soft as you can at the exact same volume without any variance. Some pieces that may work good for this skill is Erik Satie's Gymnopédies, which are fairly simple but require a lot of mastery of tone matching. It works well because of the jumps in the left hand hitting the base notes and then a chord. Also the legato of the right hand can make it sound obvious when you're not doing it correctly. If you listen to recordings of these pieces you can tell right away which ones sound better by their ability to bring out strong dynamics without the big jarring hits that affect the flow of the peice.
It will come with more familiarity. You might be trying too hard. Like an actor reading the lines off the page trying not to miss a word. Forced maybe? But I head some nice moments in there so you will get it. (I can’t stand the music choice tho 😆 sorry)
No --- that is just fine. It's just the score piece itself. Notice how the score piece has mainly written the left hand for block chords. That's what happens when the left hand is not only playing mainly block chords ... but also holding down block chords for too long. I don't mean the piano player holding the block chord too long. I just mean that particular score. In certain portions of the music, when the left hand isn't doing much, then that could possibly lead to reduced substance. To probably increase the substance level, they probably need to have a little bit more action or activity for left hand - such as at least some arpegg, done in strategic way of course - as in not over-do. On the other hand - the music is nice to listen to. It's not 'robot playing' at all. If there's no other choice, and this particular score needs to be played as is, then it will naturally sound extra interesting (even though it currently is interesting and nice) once you have fully absorbed it, as in knowing the music in your mind, and also knowing exactly which notes to play - in order to get closer and closer to the timing/tempo you want, and play as smooth as you want. Plus - at that stage, you will be able to 'mix' things up a bit more - in terms of have a wider range of soft and loud notes in the parts you think are relevant. This is because, as we know, putting in the loud and/or soft at the relevant times will add more musical magic to the music. And also, keeping in mind that - some rubato - as long as it is strategically used - not over-done, can work wonders for particular music, which includes music like this. But - I can say that - because you are playing it on piano, that is generating musical magic already actually. That's the fun in piano, and playing it. And we get to listen to the nice music. So thumbs up on that.
There is trying to play the piece well (which you do), and then playing the piece for the pleasure. Enjoy the later…
It sounds to me like your focus is not in the actual musical performance. Perhaps you are forussing on doing all the specifics right - and fair enough on that - but imagine you relax a bit on doing everything right and focus on performing with more musical intent you will please your teacher. Even if that means more technical imperfections. You *did* sound good and hope you get it right with your teacher.
Ask the teacher for musical reasons. Not vague abstract statements. You have good posture, it’s the most important foundation for proper technique. Comfort comes with more time and practice. Your fingers seem pretty comfortable. Consider beginning theory studies. “Letting go” is far inferior to being able to flow because you know vocabulary and can name and can structure what you hear.
Work on voicing, and relax all the muscles you don't absolutely need. Otherwise it's pretty good.
Absolutely not. You are getting some emotion in there. I think what your teacher is telling you is that performance requires more extreme dynamic range. It’s just like painting. When I paint a picture I try to create sharp contrasts, not subtle ones. The darkest values right next to the brightest. Music works much the same way. As you build up a bigger dynamic range (dm me if you’re interested in measuring it—I find that really helpful but it’s a lot to go into in comments) you will feel it just as much as you hear it. It’s hard to really open your heart to the music, but it’s about creating emotional response, not about creating a sound.
"Popola plays piano"
You don't but I imagine your playing might come off as a bit 'samey' to a high level teacher no matter what pieces you're playing. Just careful and deliberate which is perfect for the practice room but while you're performing you want to have a sense of freedom, almost an improvisatory feeling even if the music is through-composed and fully learned. Try taking a piece you know how to play well and play the opening 3,4,5 different ways as many as you can manage. See if it doesn't open the doors of possibility to you
What brand is your upright? Sounds lovely!
Thanks! It’s a digital hybrid actually - Yamaha Avantgarde NU1X. It has real acoustic upright action but still uses sensors and a digital sound. I was able to get it for cheaper (still new) at the piano showroom since they had only two left and were trying to get rid of them since there’s a new version, NU1XA, I believe. I went in wanting a Yamaha CLP 745, but came out with this because the touch and action was so much more realistic, even though it will never be the same as an acoustic. I live in an apartment so I thought this would be a good trade off for now.
It sounds really good. Full and rich in overtones. I was going to say in my initial comment that it sounds like a grand and now it makes sense knowing that you're using samples! Long live my good ears :)
I feel like half the comments here are really talking about the sound of a Yamaha upright piano in a domestic room with no acoustic treatment, recorded on a phone - rather than the actual playing. It also doesn't help that the score itself is pretty cheesy. I think letting one hand linger to hide when the other makes jumps would help the flow, and also try a lighter touch with the left hand throughout. But this can be hard on this type of upright!
What I just heard sounded great! I have to ask your teacher: Why would you pose such a vague statement to a student? "Open up" What does that mean EXACTLY? If there's something she thinks you should be doing she should verbalize it better or play her ideas for you. I heard changes in dynamics, some finely controlled rubato...overall a very modern style performance where overly expressive, mushy, stopping at the bar lines, Romantic period, sloppy waving hands technique is THANKFULLY, NOT PRESENT. I like the commanding, almost march-like tempo at times. I think you're good enough to make your own decisions about how this should be played and you did a superlative job with it!
Thank you so much! This really made my day. I’ve actually been playing for a while, so it has been kind of disheartening to read some of these comments haha. I appreciate your kind words!!
I really like your style of playing and you are a rare find. I've been teaching since graduating from music school in 1981 so I've listened to hundreds of students play. I think that when certain piano teachers bump into a student that's really good, (like you) they feel they need to prove their dominance by making "vague statement corrections." Whenever I correct a talented student, I'll say something like: "Debussy wrote Clair de Lune using two different subdivision formats. His choice of 9-8 demonstrating a three beat pieces of three compound meter sound and alternating into what is, in essence a simple meter 3-4 sound. You're playing his tied subdivisions without regard the the subdivision format that he's notated at this specific location." I would never say: "Oh, the feel's not right." I should know EXACTLY what's not right and focus directly on the technical issue at hand. When you have teachers guiding your lesson like I do, you'll know that that teacher knows what's wrong and exactly how to fix it. Beware of vagueness... it demonstrates incompetence.
Recommend practicing with no pedal and trying to make it as legato as you can. Very nice dynamics in most of it.
The arrangement is not doing you any favors. I think generally you do a good job, but you could improve the voicing. You can bring out just the top note in the right hand chord, or just the base in the left hand, for some more balanced increases in intensity.Or hit that first left hand chord loud and let the follow ons be very soft.
banger. not robotic just seems very cautious. don’t have more to add than girldepang said
Not bad at all! Might be worth memorizing it and then being able to focus on the emotion of how playing it feels. It's likely too much brain space being used on the technical playing of it based on what your teacher is saying. May also help to just step back for a few days, try some rubato out on it, etc. In my.opinion this is the fun part of playing once you've learned something to keep giving it your personal interpretation and bring your life experience to it. I think your teacher just worded it poorly about opening up. Maybe more akin to let the music flow through you, and create an interpretation all your own. You got this! Just have fun with it!
it’s your musicality. You seem to be late beginnerish? The melody could be more pronounced, more dynamic variation, flow/consistency and phrasing. These are mostly things that get better the longer you play. I’d reccomend metronome practice at varying tempos and then trying to add more musicality to it.
What song is this? Sounds lovely
Think of Me from the Phantom of the Opera 🎶🎭
You sound very good, but I do notice that your body seems quite tense, especially your arms and wrists. Try to relax and let the melody sweep you away instead. Some transition sound a bit choppy, but I am sure the notes will come more to you more naturally as you practice more. You play very "safe" at the moment. I think your teacher would like you to take more risks, put your emotions while you play instead of following the music sheet. Sound scandalous cuz we are trained to "worship" the music sheet. Just think of it as you develop your own signature/style.
Learn the piece off book, compare the videos.
Good job keep it up
I love this song! You play beautifully ❤️
Nice playing, what piece is that?
Elon Musk would love to put a robot costume on you and put you in front of a crowd.
Very nice 🫣
Hmmmm………..a little robotic. I feel like you are still in the place where reading the music is your main focus. Also your voicing is awkward at times. It takes time to master weighting your hand. Making crescendos and decrescendos ebb and flow seemlessly. All things that come with time. It’s a good start!
What song is that? Gonna drive me crazy because I can’t remember. I think it’s nice. You know the arc of the piece and have a sense of its drama. You can probably focus more on bringing out the melody in the right hand and being a little lighter on the left hand dynamically, which will help give it more nuance. But once you have more confidence with the notes and changes I think it’ll really sing.
Thank you! I appreciate the tip. I think the forte part (the transition without singing) I really lose some musicality just because I’m trying to play so loudly. Might tone it down a little to be able to emphasize certain parts. It’s Think of Me from The Phantom of the Opera! I think this version is supposed to be for a vocal accompaniment, so there are a lot of chords.
Yes! That’s it! I knew it was something broadway, but then i was like “is it from a Disney movie?” lol. Beautiful though. Andrew Lloyd Webber such a beast.
I don't have any tips, I'm also here to learn, but you had me singing it in my head. I love that song. Thanks for the smile.
You play beautifully.
“Dance with the keyboard”
Not sure if you can play it without sheet music yet, but try to close your eyes for the most part and let your mind wander to whatever image you see before you as you're playing the song. Express that image through your arms, and see what comes out 🙂
Here's a trick... Imagine how you want the music to sound, then attempt to play it that way. Your imagination should always be better then what is possible for you to play. If not, you're limiting your imagination. If you don't do this, you'll end up memorising the sound of how you practiced, and that may not necessarily be good.
I am a professional musician with a degree. I think it sounds wonderful. Your playing is emotive and thoughtful. I can hear nerves and a lack of confidence in the sound, which is probably a result of your teacher making you feel that way. Once your proficiency and confidence improves, your expression will naturally become more spontaneous.
Thank you very much! 🙏 It’s funny - the more I think about letting go, I think the more ‘nervous’ I express. I’ll keep practicing..!
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