🎹 What Comes First: Music, Instrument, or Pianist?

This question isn’t rhetorical — it shapes everything about how we approach piano technique.

When facing a technical difficulty, many pianists ask:

What am I doing wrong?

But I believe a better question is:

What does the music ask of me?

Then:

What does the instrument require to fulfill that musical idea?

Only then do we ask:

What must I do to make it happen?

This is the order of priorities I work with:

⸻

1. The Music

The music comes first. It defines the artistic intent, the emotional shape, the phrasing, the color, the energy.

Technique is not the goal — it’s the tool.

As Josef Lhévinne once wrote, pianists should aspire to a touch as delicate and beautiful as Cluny lace.

That search for beauty applies not only to interpretation, but also to the sound itself. We must listen, question, and refine.

⸻

2. The Instrument

The piano is not passive.

It has mechanical laws, physical limitations, and acoustic possibilities.

It doesn’t respond to our intention — only to what we physically transmit.

We must understand what the instrument needs in order to give us what we want.

⸻

3. The Pianist

We are the adaptable element.

It is our task to discover the movement, the biomechanics, the gesture that allows the musical idea to pass through the instrument — expressively and efficiently.

⸻

But this hierarchy is only meaningful if we cultivate one essential ability:

awareness.

Without it, we can imagine we are playing legato — while the sound is choppy.

We may think we are playing with color — while the piano tells a different story.

To work truthfully, we must train ourselves to really hear what we are doing — not what we wish we were doing.

Awareness is the bridge between intention and sound.

And through it, our technique becomes not just efficient — but expressive.

Soon, we’ll begin exploring how this framework shapes practical technique: from how we touch the key, to how we build sound, to how we organize practice.

✨

JM | Art of Piano

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