Complex vs Simple

by VictorCS Sat May 03, 2008 10:16 pm

What is your thoughts on this? Is a piece better if it's complex?
Or can a simple piece be as powerful as a complex?
Why struggle with fast, difficult pieces, when you can play something easy?

When you get skilled, there is no reason to not play some difficult pieces,
but even easy pieces need love, care and skills to play properly.

I browsed through my midi archive, and found Bach - Air on a G-string ( did I name it correctly? ),
and that's a very slow, peaceful piece. I think it's beautiful, even if it's very easy to play.

by pianohama Sat May 03, 2008 10:21 pm

Wasn't it somebody who said that simplicity is the final achievment? Razz

thought i read it in this forum..

Anyway, i think that a piece can be beautiful although its simple, I mean look at fur elise ... so simple yet so beautiful.

But i think a piece is more "fulfilled" if it has more arpegios in the background etc =)

by Thomandy Sat May 03, 2008 10:32 pm

pianohama wrote:Wasn't it somebody who said that simplicity is the final achievment? thought i read it in this forum..

Anyway, i think that a piece can be beautiful although its simple, I mean look at fur elise ... so simple yet so beautiful.

But i think a piece is more "fulfilled" if it has more arpegios in the background etc =)

Yeah, I agree. There are som simple an beautyfull pieces.
But Fur Elise got some hard parts, it is cind of hard to get the 32/notes (148tempo) to sound nice, I stugle a bit here.
And the 16noterun at the end is a little hard to, so Fur Elise, got som complexity to it I think... =)

Look at moonlight sonata, it is a easy pice to learn by hart, but not so many on youtube that play it at a high level..

by Jordan Tue May 06, 2008 5:10 am

There are many pieces that are complex and simple that are beautiful. I honestly think that the music is more important than the difficulty of a piece, as long as I'm loving the music, difficulty and simplicity doesn't matter.

by Thomandy Tue May 06, 2008 5:39 am

Jordan wrote:There are many pieces that are complex and simple that are beautiful. I honestly think that the music is more important than the difficulty of a piece, as long as I'm loving the music, difficulty and simplicity doesn't matter.

That was a good one. I will qoute you on my qoute-topic Wink

by Admin Andrew Tue May 06, 2008 6:57 am

I agree with Jordan. It's not about how difficult the song is. It's about how the piece moves you. It can be simple, but maybe those notes arranged quickly and in a difficult way make you feel a way that you could not feel with slower notes.

I feel like pianists are pushed to learn harder and harder songs, not necessarily better ones.