How is it that they (seemingly) never play a wrong note?
We just got home from a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth, which was amazing. We’re talking about maybe 70 musicians and 70 more in the chorus.
I’ve been playing music for over 50 years. I hit lots of bad notes. (Who was it that said ‘all the clams aren’t on the beach?’)
So, how do they stay perfect every time?
They’re paid to play perfectly, every time. That’s their job. If they couldn’t do it they wouldn’t be up there on the stage.
Classical musician I know, when he is not giving public recitals, he is practicing 10 hours a day. Plus he is a perfectionist.
I am baffled by this as well. I play the piano, have played off and on for (also) more than 50 years.
I would not be able to play even a very familiar piece perfectly on demand no matter what the circumstances.
mmm
Once I heard Radu Lupu apologize after a Rachmaninoff piano concerto. He admitted he played one (1) wrong note somewhere. Anyone who did not have the piece memorized would not have been able to tell.
Some of them use beta blockers.
Beta blockers have been common in classical music since the 1970s. Originally prescribed to treat high blood pressure, they became performance enablers when it became clear that Inderal (the brand name) controlled stage fright. As long ago as 1987, a study of the 51 largest orchestras in the U.S. found one in four musicians using them to improve their live performances, with 70 percent of those getting their pills illicitly.
I once had a professional musician (guitar guy, very skilled, but not “classical”) as a flight student. Early on he couldn’t grasp how I could land the plane every time, effortlessly from his point of view. No nervousness, not being overwhelmed by the responsibility. One day he asked incredulously, “How can you rely on that skill? How can you know you’re going to be able to do it every time?”
“The same way you know you can play “Hot Rod Lincoln” every night without screwing up.”
“Ohhhhh…”
It just hadn’t occurred to him to think of it that way. W are all products of training, and professionals are the ones who have the right combination of training and ability to do it for a living.
“If I don’t practice for a day I know it.
If I don’t practice for two days the critics know it.
And if I don’t practice for three days the public knows it.”
–Jascha Heifetz
I think it’s important to remember that “the right notes” are only one element of a performance… and they are probably the easiest to get consistent.
Variations in timbre, dynamics, “feel”, rhythm, and other elements are not necessarily going to be obvious to a listener, but a performer might play a piece exactly as they intended one day, and then wildly off the next, with audiences both nights thinking it was “perfect”.
I once read, I don’t know how true it is but it stuck with me:
“Professional musicians don’t practice so much that they always play the right note. They practice so much that they CANNOT play the wrong note.”
Frank Zappa said the performance of his songs by the London Symphony Orchestra contained some mistakes:
Extensive use of editing was employed to fix musical mistakes.
The original vinyl LP recordings were tweaked in the studio to hide out-of-tune and wrong notes…
(Link.)
I’m aware that recordings are sometimes edited. I was asking about live performances. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a discordant note (that wasn’t intended) in a classical performance.
That’s about it. I was once a kind of a lyric soprano who sang in recitals, and small solo parts in large ensembles. If I had to sing in front of an audience I practiced until the song would sing itself with or without me. On at least two occasions the accompanist completely lost their way and abandoned me. I just sang as if they were under me until they caught up (usually we at least finished together). It wasn’t aplomb, it was just like a train that ran on a track.
I’d say for a technically difficult piece I’d practice it about fifteen times a day – that’s after I had it cold. I would have sung it more often but the voice is a muscle that you can injure through overuse.
Thirty-ish years ago, my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I attended Henry Mancini Night at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Among other things, they played a suite from Creature From the Black Lagoon. It was perfect. At some point they played the Pink Panther theme and the lead saxophone screwed up the melody, badly. The one place you don’t want to mess up Mancini.
I think this is the answer. They’re just that good. As a non-musician I am often struck amazed at great performances. I ask myself “Just. How?” I try not to analyze it too much, and just enjoy it. It’s incredible how both skill and creativity can be combined to make something so cool! I also appreciate how much work goes into getting to that point.
I’m not a classical musician, but I have known a few. In general, they really are that good at what they do. There’s a ton of competition to be a member of a paying orchestra, and you’ve got to be good to make it in that world.
Some of it does depend on their role in the situation, though. A soloist or a member of a chamber group making a mistake is going to be a lot more noticeable than one of the second violins being off-pitch a few times. And heck, I know from playing in rock bands that if you make a mistake, as long as it makes musical sense in that context to the listener, almost no one is going to notice.
I played the violin through high school and we were a pretty good orchestra. We played as well as we did because we practiced. To prepare for our concert, we’d practice our parts individually at home and spend at least five hours each week practicing with the whole orchestra. Obviously we weren’t as good as professional symphonies of course, but how they’re so good doesn’t really mystify me. They just practice, practice, practice. It’s been more than 30 years since I’ve touched a violin, but I still remember some of the finger positions for the music we played.
The instrument one plays in an orchestra can make a big difference too in regards to practice time. A former empolyer plays tympani in the city orchestra, and has more time making jokes about viola players than anything else, really.
Good point.
With 70 musicians and 70 singers, it is possible they did have one or a few wrong notes, but you didn’t notice or realize.
I imagine that it’s also possible that another classical musician (or an extremely knowledgeable classical music fan) might notice, but a more casual fan might not.