Opinion

archive-post-image
Pianists Behaving Badly
‘From the outset all manner of unacceptable behaviour, whether manifesting itself emotionally in false rapture or facial grimace, the stamping of feet to mark the rhythm, accompanied by an all-embracing unsightly body movement, the shaking and nodding of the head
Read more
archive-post-image
Playing Music Is It for Everyone?
People are exquisitely attuned to sound from our very beginnings, through our mother’s soft cooing voice, which leads to language. Music has had a special place in the hearts and minds of virtually all cultures across time. The discovery of
Read more
archive-post-image
Music’s Dark Side
Are you threatened by the music you like? We’ve seen it all too often, a composer or popular musician is found out to have a dark side. Does this change how much their music once meant to you? For most
Read more
archive-post-image
Advice to Myself: Never Play Through Pain
I should have known better than to attempt the fast octaves at the beginning of Schubert‘s first Klavierstück, D946, with incorrect (or rather non-existent) technique (this was some years after I had returned to the piano seriously after an absence
Read more
archive-post-image
Must We Have Music With Everything?
Music seems to be everywhere these days, from cafés, bars and restaurants to shops, hotels, stations and airports, leaking out of other people’s headphones and earbuds, and more recently in banks and even the waiting room of my doctors’ surgery.
Read more
archive-post-image
Is Music a Valueless Product?
As someone who has spent most of his life inside music, I value what music has taught me. The things music has given me and the beauty and pleasure I get from listening to and creating music are beyond almost
Read more
archive-post-image
Are Classical Musicians “Stuffy”?
Many people, who are not “in the know” – and even some who are! – regard classical music as elitist and its practitioners as either formal and old-fashioned or pretentious so-and-so’s who have set themselves up as demi-gods, garnering praise
Read more
archive-post-image
Music Versus Noise – A Response to Rob J Kennedy
What is music? And what is noise? These questions have always been lingering in my mind – without any absolute solution. As one of our contributors, Rob, eloquently discussed, there is no consensual agreement on a singular definition of music.
Read more