I don’t think I’ve ever heard Mary Had A Little Lamb in this many different ways before. To be honest I really had to listen to a few of the selections to get the sense that this was what was being played at all. I won’t go out on a limb and disrespect this person’s skills on the piano, largely because I have none, but some of this really sounded like noise instead of a well-composed piece of music. Maybe that’s why it’s called practice, as in the person needs to practice a little more. I might not know how to play but my ears work just fine and a person wouldn’t have to know a whole lot about music to notice the discord in a few of the pieces. I do wonder however if that is just a part of the styles that are being improvised or if the pianist is not familiar enough with said styles to really play them accurately.
The classics are after all hard to emulate for just about anyone unless someone is willing to dedicate their lives to perfecting the style and creating something that is similar but not quite the same. That’s the trick with anything if you desire to make it your own really, take something else as a basis and then find a different direction to go in. No matter if it sounds almost exactly the same it will never be because the person performing the piece is not the same. The energy is not the same, and the feeling that is put into the music is not the same.
This might sound like a lot of sentimentalism but to be quite honest anything that can perfectly replicate something done so long ago is not an original piece nor can it ever be. Taking someone else’s work and trying to improve upon it still makes it your own with the original work as a base from which to launch your idea. That is why being unique is so easy, and why improvisation is such an awesome skill no matter how it sounds or looks the first time around. It’s all you.
Some of these styles are flowery, elegant, and even quite beautiful while others are a bit clunky, almost too heavy-handed, and sound as though the person is attacking the keys rather than tickling them. Some pieces sound upbeat and positive while others make you wonder if a monster is about to spring out from around the corner and yank the pianist away in a splash of crimson. The point is that music has its own feel and it really depends on who’s playing it. Some of these styles are masterful and enigmatic in their own way while others are quite down to earth and don’t allow for a lot of leeway in terms of how to interpret them.
The pianist in this clip might not be playing every style perfectly but that could be on purpose, or it could mean that they have their own style and aren’t fully accustomed to playing like anyone else.
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