Dear Friends,
Quick note before we start: we still have spaces available at Butler Piano Camp this June 15-19. It's on Butler's campus here in Indianapolis for piano students entering grades 7 through 12. It will be a week of lessons, practice, seminars, alongside other serious young pianists. If you know a young pianist who might be interested, please spread the word: we'd love to work with them! [Details and registration here.]
Now, on to today’s topic: the difference between hearing and listening.
One of my students has been working on Bach's English Suite in A minor. He was playing the Allemande in a lesson the other week.
Although he was playing it well (he'd learned and memorized the piece), something was missing: my student was playing the music, and hearing the sound of the piano, but not actively listening to his sound.
On the piano, this is actually a trap that’s easy to fall into because, unlike many other instruments (including, of course, the voice), once you put a piano key down to make a note sound, it requires no further physical effort to continue the note, except simply not releasing the key.
This isn’t the case for other instruments: wind players, for example, have to continue to blow air through their instrument to make a note continue. A string player has to move the bow over the strings to sustain a note. In both cases, the player needs to actively engage with the note to shape it as they play it.
Not so for pianists: we can play a note and then completely space out, without affecting the sound whatsoever.
Which is why it's especially important for us pianists to learn to actively listen to and engage with the sound of every note we play for its full duration, and also learn to experience the motion from one note to the next.
Listening to each note fully is what allows you to hear the line, grouping notes into musical ideas and phrases that have shape, direction, and, ultimately, meaning.
Unfortunately, there’s no checklist or "top tips" for learning how to listen well at the piano, because it's deeply personal: it requires training yourself to commit to listening to the sound, for the full duration of the note.
I have found that learning to listen well at the piano has some similarities to learning to meditate: it’s a practice that takes repeated concentrated effort. It requires noticing when your attention drifts, and bringing it back to the present. And over time you can get better at it, but you never reach a point where you’ve truly mastered it once and for all: there’s always the opportunity to go deeper.
If you’d like to get started with experiencing this difference for yourself, the simplest and most foundational listening exercise I know involves playing a single note on the piano. Play the note, hold it down, and then listen. Try it with your eyes closed. Give the sound your full attention. Listen until the sound is entirely gone and the room is quiet. On a good acoustic piano this can take eight to sixteen seconds. Notice that the sound “blooms” slightly after the initial attack, and the decay isn't perfectly even. If you pay close attention you may begin to hear the overtones. Notice also that on an acoustic piano the pitch rises almost imperceptibly.
After that, try a slow single-line melody with one hand, and pay attention not to the notes themselves but to the intervals between the notes. Play a C, giving it your full attention. Then play a D and notice what it feels like to move up one step. Go back to C and then move up to an F instead. The experience of a rising fourth is different from the experience of a rising second, in that you are “reaching up” further to play it; when you're really listening, you will start to feel that difference in a way that eventually changes how you play.
Learning to listen this way is a lifelong practice, and there's no point at which you can declare it finished. But these two exercises are a place to start, and even a few minutes of this kind of attention can change your awareness at the piano and, over time, translate into more connected, expressive playing.
I remember when I was an undergraduate student, working on Beethoven's Op. 110. I would close my eyes, play the opening chord, and just listen to it. I would then do it again. And again. And again. Making subtle changes in my attack, trying different voicings. Listening to the sound of the chord all the way to the end. Then, after a while of just playing the first chord, I'd add the second chord, and try to fully experience the shifting intervals. Experience it on a deep, emotional level: the journey between that C down to that A-flat, and then all the other inner voices in the chords. That kind of listening practice felt like an exercise in opening my ears.
My challenge to you: this week, spend time listening, really listening, to the sounds you are making: the full duration of the notes you are playing, and the relationship between the notes. Let me know how this goes for you - I love hearing from you and read every email, even if I can't reply to everyone.
👋 Happy practicing,
Kate
PS: Butler Piano camp, June 15-19. Here's that link.