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The best pianists in history
This is not the first post nor the last you’ll see with this title but if you want to be a little different from the others to classify the best pianists we are not going to use a single parameter such as virtuosity. We are going to evaluate other aspects such as their musicality and their social impact with the music they created in their time.
All this leads us to wonder what a good musician is. Who does play faster? Who does composes better or have a better rhythm?
Before entering our classification we leave you with an answer to these questions. Here’s a genius like Jon Chapin giving his point of view on what a good musician he is.
I’m sure you’ll be interested in…
Some of the best musicians cannot play their instrument virtuously, but they play music extremely well…
There is not only classical music
Many times it seems that the past was always better. And it’s true that there’s almost always talk about the classics. They are the ones who were creating a musical world around the piano since its invention more than two centuries ago. But even if it seems to be a lie, we also have geniuses in the 20th century that can be compared to the geniuses of the classical world.
Having said all this, it must be said that we are going to respect a little the chronological order of the classification, especially to have a chronology. So here we go with our selection.
Wolfang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Evidently he has to be on the list and not just because he was a prodigy and learned from other musicians, applying everything he learned about himself like a sponge. But also because he was one of the first to seriously bet on the piano.
Mozart played many instruments and was a harpsichord and harpsichord virtuoso. Which were more popular than the piano in the 18th century.
At Mozart’s time romanticism was coming and a different instrument was needed to express emotions and moods. The piano made it possible to regulate its dynamics by pressing the key with one force or another and this gave it a devastating capacity to express itself.
But Mozart was able to imagine a world of instruments at once. All of them sounding in their head perfectly differentiated. It was like a Cubase human multitrack software cyborg and photographic memory.
Here’s a piece for piano that marked a milestone in his career:
W.A.Mozart: Concerto for piano and orchestra Nº9
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
A real impressive pianist in its history. Beethoven changed the music with his way of playing and his compositions, with an expressiveness and musical richness never seen before.
We could define Beethoven as the Jimmy Hendrix in that time, piano version. They said that the piano keys had to be changed every few months as they were being charged. So he was the luthiers’ best friend.
What he had of genius was lacking in social skills. He had a difficult childhood due to an alcoholic father who forced him to practice instead of playing with other children and this affected him in his social relationships. Not to mention his cruel fate in the form of deafness. A musician’s worst nightmare (well, along with no cable jack to plug your instrument into a jam session, but it doesn’t come to mind)
Among other curious stories of this great musician we can talk about his piano duels. Yeah yeah, like rappers’ cockfighting. In particular, a duel that took place in 1800 in the Lobkowitz palace against Daniel Steibelt. To make fun of his rival Beethoven took scores of a song from his rival and began to play it and modify it at the same time he played. He humiliated his opponent so much that he moved to another city.
Beethoven with a serious face
Okay, now let’s take some temporary leaps. We know that we skip some geniuses like Johann Sebastian Bach or Joseph Haydn but the length of a post on a blog can not be 35 pages. By jumping these pianists much want to kill us but well, is what one risks doing this type of post.
Franz Liszt and extreme virtuosity (1811-1886)
Probably the pianist with the best technique that has ever existed in the history of the piano. And few people dare to refute this reality today. Although he is a pianist now forgotten by many.
It is curious that what inspired this pianist and many others to reach this level of technical perfection and virtuosity was not another pianist, but the great violinist Paganini.
Paganini studied 14 hours a day, they said he was not human and Liszt wanted to take this same level to the piano and we can say he did it.
It must be said that what this man did is a life choice and of course he is considered by many to be the best technically speaking pianist that has ever existed. Although we must not forget that pianists like Schumann in his eagerness to reach virtuosity was built an artifact to elongate the fingers of the hand and have more range for his fingers … The composition had to be changed after the hand had been damaged for life.
Liszt’s works are often characterised by their technical complexity
Duke Ellington, a good team player (1899-1974)
We had doubts between putting Duke Ellington or Bill Evans, but in the end we decided on Duke (we felt weakness of his album with Coltrane).
Duke Ellington is one of the key pieces in 20th century jazz. With a prolific musical production he reached the highest levels of success and today many of his compositions for Big Band are the object of study in modern music schools.
Of course this man was an authentic factory of standard Jazz, but in addition to his orchestra have passed the greatest jazz musicians ever seen as the saxophonist Johnny Hodges.
The award for teamwork comes from his habit of focusing his compositions to get the best out of other musicians and make them shine. A tremendous character, this Duke Ellington.
Herbie Hancock (1940 – still alive)
Herbie certainly takes the innovation award. This pianist has been a key piece in the evolution of jazz piano towards electronic music and synthesizers.
There are conflicting opinions about Hancock, as certain changes in his musical career have not pleased the most purists. He has played all styles of Jazz and composed some of the best known songs of that style such as Watermelon Man.
With engineering education Herbie Hancock marked the first step in the use of electronic music. He spent 5 years with Miles Davis but then left him to follow his own trajectory. Then I travel to Funk and innovate with the use of electric pianos and synthesizers. Winning several Grammy awards and reaching a total worldwide repercussion.
He is a restless musician and a reference in the world of synthesizers and electronic keyboards. It’s definitely our favorite.
There are many more amazing musicians and we know that we have left apart but it is impossible to get them all out. But we’re sure it’s a good selection.
The best platforms to learn piano online
Learn Piano Online- Guide to the best platforms on the Internet
There are several internet platforms with online courses, some are free and others paid but they are usually not expensive, or they have a free trial version, to see if they are worth it or what you like. Of course in the paid ones, the quantity and quality of the contents are better and allow to interact with the user, although there is some free that is worth it.
Don’t miss our selection with the Best Cheapest Keyboards. A selection of BuscarInstrumentos.com that will surely be very useful to you:
The keys on online pianos
There are applications out there that have a virtual keyboard. That’s good to find out visually about what we’re seeing, but it doesn’t help us to learn piano correctly. We advise you that apart from the virtual piano in which you have to press the keys with the mouse, you have a MIDI keyboard or electronic next to it to practice at the same time.
flowkey.com: an interactive app (english and spanish version)
All the information here: Flowkey.com
Our favorite and most recommended. We were looking forward to something similar taking advantage of new technologies. The truth is that it is not a web application in itself, but an app for tablet or mobile. They have also recently released the app for Android.
It’s designed to practice with a digital piano or real piano, but the good thing is that this app is installed on a tablet or mobile and we put it on our lectern. So that the app is able to detect with the microphone of the tablet that we are playing and can interact with us as if it were a virtual teacher. It tells us if we pressed the key wrong or right.
It has a very interesting free version that will let you know if you like to play the piano. Don’t hesitate to try the free trial version by clicking here.
I’m sure you’ll be interested in…
- Ranking with the best digital pianos in quality-price ratio
- The cheapest musical keyboards for beginners
- Learn piano by yourself and for free
PlernPiano.com (english version)
Free website in English, a little old in appearance, but has great power. It’s possible to upload a MIDI file of the song we want to hear and the application plays it while we see which keys have to be pressed.
MIDI is a file format capable of storing the musical notation of a song.
As we have already said it is important that while we are in front of the application we have a MIDI or electronic keyboard to practice what we have on screen. The web is in English and it is very intuitive, so if we have a few notions of the language we can manage.
It is important to remember that English websites use American notation, simply change the name of the musical notes and the equivalence is as follows (American notation on the right):
Do=C,RE=D,MI=E,Fa=F,Sol=G,La=A,Si=B
PianoMarvel.com: Power for your MIDI keyboard (english version and promo code)
If you sign up for the free version with the code MARVELDISCOUNT then you will get a discount of 12 to 16 dollars. Which is quite interesting:
Web and APP payment but very affordable. It’s in English but we expect a Spanish version soon (they should because if they don’t lose a lot of market share). Flowkey is working harder on this and we’ve already been told that. The highlight of Piano Marvel is the amount of lessons and content it has, much more extensive than any other website because it takes more time. And above all, it allows the connection of our MIDI keyboard. Interact with us through a MIDI cable or in the same way as Flowkey with the microphone on the tables.
It is able to know the notes we are pressing and correct us if we do something wrong. They have a free version that is also worth a try.
Other free resources
Sometimes sites like Zebrakeys.com are recommended. In its day this website was quite popular, but it is many years old and has not been updated. It’s good to see the resources it has and practice with it and a keyboard in front of the site, but compared to the new interactive possibilities like Flowkeys and Piano Marvel, it’s too short. Although being free, you can always take a look at it.
Free websites are fine especially if you have time to experiment. If you’re on a tight schedule, maybe you’ll need some of the payment options such as Piano Marvel, because you’ll advance much faster and better. These are inexpensive options with which you will advance much faster, and that will have an effect on your important motivation.
If you are a complete beginner, take a walk through our free course. It will always be good for you to learn basic concepts, practice hand independence, simple chords, etc:
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Guide to the best products for soundproofing a piano room
The piano is an instrument with enough sound power, especially if it is a grand piano. Although wall pianos are also very noisy.
It is normal for a piano student, especially if he is a conservatory student, to invest many hours in his practice. And this unfortunately often leads to problems with neighbors and sometimes quite serious. Added to this is the difficulty that renting a study room is very expensive and few can afford it.
I’m sure you’ll be interested in…
- Ranking with the best digital pianos in quality-price ratio
- The cheapest musical keyboards for beginners
- Learn piano by yourself and for free
To avoid these problems or alleviate them to a level tolerable with neighbors there are some options. Soundproofing a room professionally is also expensive but there are wall and floor panels that can suffice in several cases.
Many of us at Spain remember the bizarre case of Laia, a girl whom the prosecutor asked for 7 years in prison for a complaint about noise. Her neighbor accused her of piscological torture. It must be said that the case was filed and the judge in the final order harshly criticized that the process had been admitted for processing and that it was so lengthy in time. It was a bit of an extreme case…
The sound of the piano is transmitted through the air and through the floor. That is why it is sometimes felt in the adjoining floors and certain materials can help in the damping of these sound waves. So we’ve prepared a guide to these materials for you, and we’ll give you tips on how to place them correctly.
Acoustic Foam Plate
A classic of the local rehearsal and in the home music studio. It is one of the materials most used by individuals at very affordable prices. It’s a very effective and cheap option, it’s usually the first thing we have to try to see if we get results.
We always advise to place these panels and show them to the neighbor who is complaining, that way he will see that we are trying to alleviate the problem and his attitude towards us will probably be much more positive.
These panels are placed on the wall, a little above the floor, about 50 cm above the floor. And they can reach the ceiling but they do not put the ceiling exactly, but at most up to where it joins ceiling and wall, this improves the acoustics and partially muffles the noise.
It is important to protect the wall that is closest to the piano, in a similar way as the wall of this Home Studio is being protected from the photo with similar plates:
The sound that travels through the air will go in quantity to that wall, this way it will bounce towards us and we will also improve the acoustics of the room.
You must also protect the rear wall of the piano and the side walls. The least important is the wall farthest from the piano.You can buy small panels, but we are going to recommend you a very effective one that has a lot of surface, with one of these behind the piano you already do a lot and if you put them on the side walls better.
Foam sheets or Bass Trap
If you can afford it these plates are a perfect complement to cushion the bass, which are the sound waves that create more problems with neighbors. They’re plates that are placed right in the corners of the room. A little attached to the ceiling in a similar way to the image:
Above all they are placed in the corners formed by the wall behind the piano and the side walls.
Acoustic insulation cork – 2 mm, 5 X 1 meter
Very interesting product. As we told you before, sound waves are also transmitted through the ground and this is one of the biggest sources of annoyance for neighbors. The piano is an instrument that when in contact with the ground its basses feel a lot.
It is a product designed to be placed under the parquet. But we can use it in a variety of ways. We can put it under the piano and over it a carpet, between the piano and the cork. Being in the lower part of the piano this will help us to palliate the sound that travels on the floor. And this mixed with the previous bass traps may be enough for neighbors not to complain.
If you don’t like how the cork looks aesthetically with a carpet or similar you can always put parquet on top as you will see in the original image of the product.
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