How much education does a pianist need?

Answer 1

Education, learning, ability, talent and training are important to different degrees in different careers.

If by "pianist" you mean a pianist who gives concerts and so on and earns a living solely from this, then the real answer may surprise you.

Education (seen as colleges, degrees, etc) makes no difference to a concert career. Qualifications help to get jobs, for example teaching jobs on college faculties, but do not affect one's ability to give concerts. In fact even without a single academic qualification, a respected pianist will still likely be invited to teach at one or other of the great music learning institutions of the world.

But they are the pianists - the few who can do it. They have developed their technique so that difficult music is no longer difficult to play. They have removed the physical barrier to interpreting music so that they can concentrate on their understanding of the ideas behind the music, and so be better able to communicate it to the audience. The process of developing all this is, of course, an education. But having a degree, or degrees, doesn't help it in itself.

A teacher can help, but a good teacher knows that he will not be there all the time so he must teach you to teach yourself. If you have talent and love music then you should be able to help your teacher by working your hardest to improve the problems you already know you have, so making it easier for him to show you the problems you have but don't know you have.

If you want to be a piano teacher, then a diploma can help to demonstrate to prospective students or their parents that you have learned "how to teach". If you want a career teaching at an institution then a Master's degree may be required, or a PhD (or similar) in some cases. But simply to be a pianist, classical or any other style, giving concerts or playing on film soundtracks or whatever it is, the only qualification you need is that when they put the music in front of you, you can play it. When they ask for your programme for the concert, you have a repertoire which contains some music people want to hear, and you can play it. You don't make mistakes and you play in a way that people find interesting, exciting, compelling, magical, surprising, stirring, soothing - something out of the ordinary. People don't pay money to hear music the way they can play it themselves.

So academic education is not vital purely for giving concerts. If you already have the talent to be a pianist then solve your problems, fix the things that make it difficult for you to play your best, learn about a wide variety of music, as well as trying to understand about different art forms and other subjects. A knowledge of languages will help in travelling, as well as in understanding performance directions and other writing in the music you play, which will be from many different countries. All of these things can be learned without studying at an institution. However, if you study somewhere you have the benefit of meeting people, both students and teachers, who will broaden your mind and personality. Plus, as said above, having degrees helps you to get better jobs - if the "pianist" job doesn't work out, or if you change your mind about what to do in life.

Being a pianist is lonely. You can play in a room with 2000 people listening, but you are the one who has to sleep in the sad hotel away from your family. You can get paid $3000 a night, or more, or less, but still the audience feels the need to broadcast their coughing ability just when you think you're doing really well. You will meet musicians from all over the world, and meet them again as you travel all over the world. But the great ones and the ordinary ones, they all meet over the same medium-quality breakfast in the morning.

If you enjoy travelling and do not mind hotels of varying degrees of comfort, then this may be the life for you. On the other hand, this may be the career for you if, when you step on the stage, the air crackles with magic, and you sit down at the piano as if the last piece of the jigsaw is being fitted into place. If you belong at the piano and can pass on the message that the composer sent. If you can move a crowd or gentle it. If it makes you...happy.

By all means get a degree. It will mean something. You won't always get a lot of thanks for your efforts on stage so sometimes it's nice to have an award. But degrees can be very expensive. Remember, learning institutions are for people who don't know how to do it yet. They are for people who want degrees. But you can learn there quite well, so it won't hurt.

Answer: the pianist needs all the education he can get, but having academic qualifications is not important to working as a performing pianist.