Over the years much ink has been spilled advocating a return to “historical” performance practice. The message we hear from these quarters is that it’s essential to play ornamentation within a very strict set of parameters, that pianists should very rarely use the pedal in music written before 1800, and that playing a Busoni or Liszt transcription of Bach is heresy because it is “not what Bach intended.”

This is a very literalist way of looking at things, but if a person finds it interesting and rewarding I say go for it. However, there is one major failing to this line of thought:

Every time a pianist living in the 21st century plays keyboard music written before, say, 1950, they are playing a transcription, whether they like it or not. It’s unavoidable.

The fact is that the modern piano is a completely different instrument from what Bach knew, from what Haydn knew, and yes, even from what Liszt knew. I encourage anyone reading this to either listen to a recording done on an old piano, or, better yet, to try playing one for themselves. You will never in a million years get those sounds out of a modern grand. If one accepts the notion that composers often write with a specific instrument in mind (hard to argue, especially in the case of Liszt and Chopin) then it goes without saying that by playing their music on a different instrument we are “transcribing” their work.

This is not a bad thing. Actually, I think it’s cricitcally important to escape from the camp that believes that the medium is the message. While it’s fun to hear a performance on a harpsichord or a Pleyel, it can be quite a limiting experience for someone conditioned to hear how pianos sound these days. I’m often amazed at how the musical message of Mozart or Chopin survives the historical treatment, not at how ear-opening it is to finally hear the music the way it was “intended.” What I mean to say is that the music these composers wrote utterly transcends the limited instruments they had available at the time. The modern piano has a wider dynamic range, a more even sound, more stable tuning, and great power of projection. All of these qualities serve the music well; we pianists should make use of every single advantage we are given. Just remember that every note you play is a “transcription” and see how many avenues of exploration this way of thinking opens up.

I’m not the kind of person to use the word “ontological” in any context, but after the title of my last post I couldn’t resist just this once. Anyway, here’s an addendum to the question of what is real:

Recordings, while not “real” in several important ways, are also a valid art form on their own. If you want to hear a “perfect” realization of a musical score, then recordings are what you need. Technology is so advanced and easy to use at this point that it’s not terribly difficult to splice together a bunch of takes into a flawless whole. And a musician still has to play with great discipline and accuracy in recording sessions in order to get the best raw material to work with.

That being said, my main point still stands: don’t listen to modern recordings to get an idea of what real, live piano playing sounds like. The same standards do not apply because of all the invisible technological assistance being rendered behind the scenes. Recordings are recordings, live performances are live performances. Even though they have a lot in common, they are profoundly different mediums.

I was just browsing through my recording collection and happened across Murray Perahia’s “The Aldeburgh Recital.” I hadn’t listened in quite a long time, so I broke out a few scores and started reading along. The recorded sound is spectacularly good and Perahia plays with incredible accuracy.

So incredible, in fact, that I started waiting for a single slip up. I waited. And waited. It never came. There’s not one note out of place. Not a single smudge. Nothing too early or too late. Then I started noticing something else: for a CD that at least is titled to sound like it should be a live recording, there’s not a single cough or noise from the hall, nor is there any applause. So clearly this is NOT from an actual concert. Gotta love the “reviewers” on Amazon rhapsodizing about how amazing it is that this is live…

This just goes to show how incredibly manipulative the classical music business has become. Somebody at Sony thought that it would be a great idea to slap a deceptive title on this and let people think that some pianist out there is actually capable of playing like an infallible automaton in front of a live audience. I’m a trained musician and up until today I just assumed this was a recital that Perahia gave in some place called Aldeburgh. Generally, recording sessions aren’t called “recitals,” so my misapprehension was understandable.

Attention piano students the world over: it is NOT POSSIBLE to play the piano like this. Please, never, never, never listen to studio recordings or doctored live ones. Go back to the golden age for your musical edification: Cortot, Schnabel, Horowitz, etc. On their recordings you will hear how piano performances sound in the real world. Yes, what they play is beautiful and exiting and moving, but 100% accurate it is not. This whole situation is the equivalent of looking at a model in a fashion advertisement and thinking you personally need to look like that. Guess what: even the model doesn’t. It’s all an illusion. Sadly, classical music is no different. It’s all airbrushed and faked so much that it’s easy to start forgetting what reality is actually like.

But here’s the funny thing (by funny I mean sad; terribly, terribly sad): this obsession with perfection and ironing out every “flaw” makes for TERRIBLE art. Compare Perahia playing Rachmaninov’s Etude-Tableau, Op. 39 No. 9 from his Aldeburgh Simulacrum to Horowitz’s interpretation of the same piece, clearly captured at a live performance. (To be fair, it sounds like the Horowitz version is all spliced up too. The piano goes in and out of tune and the stereo image shifts around. But editing technology was much more crude back then and they simply couldn’t achieve fine-grained control over every note to make a “perfect” performance.) Horowitz’s version is awe-inspiring. It’s overwhelmingly powerful and leaves a lasting, visceral impression. Perahia is polite and even-tempered and you can hear every single note in every single passage. Horowitz skims over half the notes and flat out misses plenty of others, but it’s an amazing artistic achievement. Perahia makes me want to go to sleep; Horowitz makes me want to run over to the piano and start playing!

In the end, why on earth would anybody NOT want to try and play like Horowitz does? If you took out the imperfections it wouldn’t be amazing any more. Take heed musicians: you can actually make things BETTER by missing notes. Seriously. Try it!

I’ve been seeing a number of classical musicians refer to music as “entertainment” recently. I really have to take exception with this and draw a clear line between art and entertainment. Art is personal, meaningful, and sublime, something which touches the soul in a profound way. Entertainment helps pass the time, a distraction. Art does not hope to distract, but rather dig deep into some of the most challenging questions that we face in life. Entertainment is escapism, art is confrontation.

Yes, I freely admit that there is some overlap here. Art can certainly be entertaining and vice versa. What I disagree with is the characterization that music is only entertainment. I can see how a viewpoint like this might be appealing: it simplifies something that is frighteningly complex, attempts to put things into a safe little box that we humans can feel comfortable occupying. What does it mean to be a musician, an artist? That’s a scary question, so why not just say that it’s all about passing the time in a pleasant way? There, we have set ourselves a simple goal and can relax a bit. If we succeed in providing entertainment then we have succeeded in our goal. Not coincidently, the definition of “entertainment” can be so loose as to encompass almost any endeavor. Get up on stage and recite a poem? Entertainment. Play a Chopin Mazurka in the wrong tempo? Entertainment. Stand on your head and frown? Entertainment. Run in circles carrying a baby pig? Entertainment. As long as the audience’s attention is diverted you have done your job.

But what happens when this well runs dry? I pause now to bring up an important idea that Glenn Gould raised in a commencement speech he once delivered. In it, he brought up the idea that everything that we engage in as part of a system in fact places us in a tiny bubble of the “positive,” which is surrounded by an infinite gulf of negation. Any time we say we are doing one thing, we set up one of these fragile little spots in the universe and hope to ignore the fact that our choice is small and insignificant compared to the immensity of all creation, which includes everything else beyond what we have chosen. Yes, it is easy and perhaps comforting for a musician to say: “I am an entertainer.” But this is a very shallow pool to explore. It will very quickly become apparent to anyone with an ounce of sensitivity that the entire cosmos of non-entertainment is pushing in from all sides, mocking the very idea of things being as simple as we might wish for.

I don’t want to say that there is something wrong with entertainment or being distracted from life. It’s good for us all to be so engaged every once in a while. What I do object to is an artist choosing such a limiting vocation in the face of the infinite diversity of creativity that we are a part of. I’m even starting to have trouble with the word “artist.” While far broader and more inclusive than “entertainer,” it is still in the end setting up a fragile box to occupy. If anything, I can say that being an artist is just one facet of the eternal desire to create and to grow. The goal of every person should be to reach a state very close to pure creativity. Perhaps it’s best to view it as a sort of spiritual continuum, with the artist being ever so slightly closer to that divine wellspring that we all so powerfully thirst for.

I’ve long been interested in the art and science of recording and have explored a large number of techniques and a diverse range of equipment over the years. As with most things in life, I find that discussions about recording get over-complicated and all the choices can quickly become confusing and overwhelming. I’d like to share a little bit about what I’ve learned over the years in an attempt to cut through the misinformation. Note that I don’t have any experience recording any sort of pop music or large ensembles, so what I’m about to say just applies to solo instrumentalists and small chamber groups.

First off, a shopping list:

1. You need a pair of small-diaphragm, omnidirectional microphones. Many manufacturers make these type of mics: DPA, Earthworks, Neumann, Røde, Schoeps, Sennheiser, Shure, etc. Have a look at the frequency graphs for the mics you’re interested in. You want something with a neutral character. If there’s a big bump at the top end you’re probably better off avoiding that mic. Also, have a look at the noise figures. Anything over 20dB and you might start hearing a bit of hiss in soft passages. Stay away from cardioid mics. They have their uses, but as a main pair for classical music they just don’t sound very good.
2. You’ll need a recorder or computer interface. There are plenty of super expensive choices in this area, but really all you need is something that has a flat frequency response. For example, a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 has a frequency response of 20Hz – 20kHz +/- 0.1 dB. That means across the entire audible spectrum it will be accurate within 0.1 dB. There are some interfaces out there that aren’t this precise. Most are, but double-check just to be safe.
3. You’re going to want to use reverb a lot of the time. Any recording done in imperfect acoustics will benefit from some warming-up with reverb. Altiverb is the best; it’s affordable, easy to use, and amazingly natural-sounding.
4. A good pair of open-back headphones are key. The K 701 or K 702 by AKG are affordable and fantastic.
5. For recording and/or editing, you’ll need some computer software. REAPER by Cockos is what you want. It’s cheap and very powerful.
6. You’ll need mic stands, shock mounts, cables, etc. No need to spend a lot of money here.
7. Last but not least, get a pair of small desktop monitors for listening. You need both headphones AND monitors to get an accurate picture of what you’ve recorded.

Now, some technique tips:

1. The easiest and best-sounding mic setup is a spaced pair of omnis, or “AB.” You can play around with position, but about a foot between the mics usually sounds good. Experiment with the distance from the sound source. Too close will sound dry and unnatural, too far will sound muddy and indistinct. Remember that microphones are NOT ears and what sounds best to you in person might not actually be the best place for your mics.
2. Once you get your mics in positon and connected to your recorder or computer, do a level check to make sure no loud sections will cause clipping. That’s the crackling sound that occurs when things get too loud. If it happens you won’t be able to edit it out, so better to make sure you’re not even close to levels being that hot.
3. After you’ve got some takes, you’ll probably want to edit the best-sounding ones together. This is done by crossfading clips together. If you don’t crossfade, you’ll get little clicks where the edits happen, something you don’t want. REAPER does auto crossfades; just bump two clips together and they’ll automatically blend into one another.
4. Once you get a complete performance edited together, it’s time to add a little EQ and reverb (if necessary). Probably the only EQ you’ll need to add is rolling off the bass a bit. Omni mics tend to pick up lots of bass, and that’s where you’ll find HVAC rumble and street noise. As far reverb goes, the sky’s the limit. Just have fun playing around in whatever software you’re using. You want the end result to be subtle and to just warm up the sound slightly.
5. Listen to what you’ve come up with in many different settings, at different times of day, and in different moods. You’ll start noticing little things that bother you and that you want to go back and fix.

That’s it! Follow these simple steps and you’ll be well on your way to making professional-sounding recordings.

In closing, I’ll suggest a starter setup that will give you amazing results and will be useful for a long time to come:

Microphones: pair of Shure KSM 141 ($800)
Computer interface: Focusrite Saffire 6 USB ($200) or Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 ($500)
Headphones: AKG K 702 ($350)
Monitors: pair of KRK Rokit 5 ($300)
Reverb: Altiverb ($530)
Recording software: REAPER (free to try, $60 to buy)
Miscellaneous: XLR cables, mic stands, stereo bars, shock mounts, desktop or laptop computer with USB or firewire connectivity.

For about $2,500 you’ll have a wonderful setup which is guaranteed to get you excellent, reliable sound and will reflect the performances you capture with perfect accuracy. While it might sound a bit expensive, this is actually on the cheap end of things for a good setup. Once you start getting into the very high end stuff (Neumann, RME, Sound Devices, Nagra, Prism) you could easily spend over $10,000 for basically the same capabilities. Sure, professionals need the extra features these setups allow, but for an amateur recordist who is only interested in a purist approach it’s overkill.