Zen & the art of playing da 88… yes you have to constantly overcome mechanical/physical limitations to be able to produce this dazzling display of speed on demand in the most difficult pieces - but the parodox is that you can do that best by striving to spiritualize “technique”, by making it purely mental after the artisanal part has become like a second nature. Great faith is also needed. Like once said, at the spur of the moment you have to believe that you can walk on water…
Very true. With this wisdom in mind you can avoid falling into the trap of idolizing one particular pianist too much.
Yes Liszt also said tech comes from spirit. And it is true, but you also can’t separate them completely. I have problems playing Godowsky’s LH transcription of Op.10#5 for instance since my fingers simply aren’t strong enough. I keep wiggling and rotating my hand to compensate and get striking position from more favourable and better balanced angles. But once you’ve got a strong and pliant hand, it’s only mind & imagination which limits what can be done with it.
eh…dun mean to throw shade, but "if I had a strong and pliant ___iz sorta my point. da VOL crackah calves would be dunkin ferom da 3pt line if he wuz mike jordan
Yes, but I think it somewhat comes by itself if you play 10 hours a day, + good early instruction.
But, yeah - it’s the point I’m making as well. Tech comes from spirit, but only if you’ve got the physical tools to execute, which need to be developed as well.
This good example. Felt as Ho aged and mechanics declined he was making a conscious effort to sacrifice mechanical element for clarity and projection. There a million examples of this in passage work alone. When it fits though when he should be completely physically unable you get closing scales of valse caprice and your like WTF!! Conversely da Doc favor chill even playing in concert so even crazy stuff a bit “bring a book” live but slick in recs
I’d be interested in hearing alternate sources of the same performance which prove what you’re talking about. You can’t just magically hide fuckups due to how your sound projects.
Definitely unedited as he played it only once in public… and there were no studio session at all that year.
Da up close version sounds all clunky
In da audience tape, da level of articulation is just perfect and all da details project. N da zheeyat dat sounded fucked up close - did not matter at all
It’s not the same rec?
Idk, I’m not off base here, the upclose rec is really not my cup of tea…
I’m not saying there are less wrong notes etc in da audience tape, I’m saying dat all da uneven fucked clunky sheeyat actually does not matter at all in da acousdicks
This comes to mind. The spastic nature of the commercial recs sounds more like attempts at orchestral contrast and dynamics. The narrative quality of the slower than usual parts only really comes through on the deeper in hall bootlegs.
once said, at the spur of the moment you have to believe that you can walk on water…
