Music Practice Tips

There seems to be a couple of trains of thought out there in the world about recordings and their place in learning music. Many people believe you shouldn’t listen to many recordings, as it will hamper your own development of an interpretation. However, I believe that you should get your hands on as many recordings as possible.Back in the 1950’s, an 78 record of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony may well have cost half a week’s pay. Combined with the fact that generally, there was only one or two recordings of the major works available, it didn’t make sense to want to listen to lots of recordings. In a quick google search for “Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto cd” I found 101,000 results. Even if half, or even three-quarters, of them are copies of other CD’s in the results, that’s still a large number of recordings. Plus they’re so cheap - Naxos CD’s are under $10 each, and there are quite a few good recordings out on Naxos, and many of the one’s I’m seeing online are about the same price (There was even a recording by Nathan Milstein for $3.98 - Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto Op35; Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Op77)

With recordings being so cheap, and there being so many available, not listening them is putting you a long way behind the starting line. Personally, I find recordings a great way to get to know the piece. I find that along with reading the score, I can really get to know a piece well before I start learning it. It gives me an aural perception of the notes, and also gives me ideas for interpretation.

Copy the sound

One of the great things about my university course that they’ve just started exploiting is that the Jazz and Classical students can have some classes together. In one of these classes, I discovered that Jazz students when starting a piece, listen to a couple of recordings - the original, and then if possible a famous recording, and they then try to play just like the CD. In the classical world, this would be unheard of. You don’t do it - it’s just not right, you need to develop your own personal style.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea. Imagine, if you can play exactly like Heifetz, Milstein, Menuhin or Oistrakh, you’ve got to be a really good player, and have a fairly solid technique. Also, if you can play a piece exactly like Heifetz, Milstein, Menuhin and Oistrakh, then you can take elements from them and put it together to create your own personal style. You then have personal style, with solid technique based on the masters.

I think we should aim to have as many recordings as possible, and then try to emulate them in our practice, so that not only can we develop our own personal style, but have the technique of those that went before us.

Do you listen to recordings? Why, or why not? And if you do, what’s your favourite?