PIANIST or TYPIST ?

Many pianists nowadays who play piano are merely - typists. They can type well and fast on the piano, since a very early age even. Those young people have been trained (and that is the right word), not taught. Not to mention not being engaged in the process of thought, emotion, soul exchange, which is the only way to 'teach' music and art. By transmission, not training !

Sadly, the majority of young musicians to be, have been trained like in sport. And among people who listen, there are those who admire the speed and the acrobacy of their typing - the product of their training. Admiring their sportsmanship. But, that is not music, and certainly that is not art.

Then there are those who learn to play an instrument, or to compose - they fall into the same trap. They learn structures, styles, techniques, theories, everything but not art. They compare themselves with others being pushed by their teachers to attend numerous competitions. They train to be better, they train to become the best. Like in sport, again. But, that is not art either.

And then when we listen to them play - they sound all alike. They are not different from each other. There is nothing in their performance that makes our heart flutter, or our eyes water. Nothing that steers our soul. Just a mere exhibition of an ability to type well.

If music (performance) doesn't reach its ultimate purity, focus, and effectiveness in opening the heart, mind, and spirit - it is nothing.

And many find classical music boring and stop listening to it because of that. Because, when it is not art - it is nothing !

I don’t know what needs to change, and how we can change it (certainly to stop with insane competitions, they belong to sport, not art !), but creating and favouring typist over artists seems to be ‘in’ right now, a product of the times we live in and everything that is happening around us. People seem to be attracted to superficial and flashy, so superficial and flashy is what we get. It is even more difficult to ‘teach’ or transmit something else, when almost every piano student dreams of becoming a flashy typist. Or is being pushed by the whole music industry to become one.

This sounds quite discouraging, maybe because I am at the moment, not knowing the way out of the trend that is taking us farther and farther away from music and art and their true purpose.

But I know this: I am not interested in typing. And, I am grateful that some of the most genuine artist of our time are still with us performing live. They are few and far between though. But luckily, they still exists.

That's why I promote Maria João Pires so much. Because she is a rare authentic artist, an artist among an ocean of typists, a sole unique gem among thousands of worthless stones. The one able to touch and open our mind, heart, and spirit. And as she is rare as a musician and as an artist, she is rare in the art of transmission (the way she 'teaches'), which is capturing my continuous attention, admiration and respect.

Sounds harsh, but there is no reason to sugar-coat it. And frankly, I am not in the mood to say anything but the naked truth right now, as I see it and as I feel it.

© Alternative Approach to Music: Inspiring - Healing - Empowering, Xenia Elizabeth Zilli

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Listen to Maria João Pires here:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1hRLlo7ZGxEmc0ztMOKurs?si=e682_OmoRlGkiT12T-hjmg

Photo by emm.art_photographie, enhanced by Xenia E. Zilli - Maria João Pires at the Château de Trousse-Barrière in Briare, rehearsing for the opening of the exhibition "Les Schubertiades en atelier" and for the rehearsals of the concert which will take place at the Philharmonie de Paris as well as at the Calouste Gulbenkian foundation in Lisbon in September 2023.