Strategies to enhance the artistic quality of piano recording.

Abstract

Many pianists have remarked how interpretations that prove successful in a concert setting do not always fare well when transferred to the medium of recording. This project sought to identify why this is so and to devise strategies that pianists can use to successfully project interpretative ideals to listeners of a recorded product. For each recording, a performer works within a given studio environment. This project focuses on artistic strategies that may be used when particular interpretative and sound ideals are not well reflected in the recorded product. At the core of the research is an exploration of the performing skills that can be utilised by the pianist to achieve enhanced outcomes in a given recording context. Elements frequently addressed through the project include the quality of staccato touch, continuity of legato lines, timing through rests, sonority of thicker ff textures and the distance through which the sound is best projected. The project emphasised how important it is for the performer to understand recorded sound and the medium of recording from the perspective of a listener. The main reason for this is that the listener does not hear the sound in the same way the performer does during a performance. They are only privy to what is picked up by the microphone and transferred to the audio format, not the total experience of the sound that fills the performance space and to which the performer reacts. This project has documented some strategies that use the listener’s perspective as a starting point for managing the performance inside the recording space. The reader will learn how and why issues of resonance influenced the quality of transmission of interpretative ideals more than any other factor. This research also highlighted the importance of monitoring the optimal levels of expressive engagement during a recording session, brought to attention the importance of the aesthetic value of a recorded sound and suggested a variety of mental strategies and performing approaches for a performer’s consideration prior to and during the process of recording. The primary outcome of this research resides in the recorded performances themselves. While the methodology was structured in a way that enabled testing and evaluation of different strategies and solutions, it was essentially a creative rather than a scientific journey. It was a performance study carried out through a series of recordings and re-recordings. The outcome of this process is a set of four CD recordings with an explanatory exegesis. The exegesis tracks the creative approach to the repertoire that was performed and addresses the questions that form the core of the research.