A piano lesson that will change how you listen (ft. Lang Lang)

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Classical music as popular music

0:57Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Do you remember the first piano piece that you had to perform in a recital? Wow. You're really taking me back to a very fragile time in my life, Charlie. But, I mean, I won't say it's the first, but certainly one of the earliest pieces I remember playing is the Johann Sebastian Bach C Major Prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier.

1:30That one? That's the one. How old are you? I mean, I started playing when I was five, I think, six, something like that. What was your relationship to it when you started? Who were you studying with? So, I love piano, and eventually I started doing this program at the Harlem School of the Arts with a really strict Russian lady who would wrap my knuckles with a plastic alligator anytime I made a mistake.

2:02She had all these, like, pictures of the great Slavic pianist Stanislav Richter all over her office the way that some teenagers might have pictures of, like, Justin Bieber. And I didn't really love playing classical music. It felt like a chore and, like, a labor, you know? I feel like I studied classical piano for a year when I was a kid. I feel like a lot of people start and then quickly stop. It's a rite of passage.

2:33What stopped you? Well, I was kind of fed up. I really wanted to jam. I wanted to balk out, you know, as it were. No. And my parents knew I was a little dissatisfied, and they said, you can stop playing piano, or you can start taking jazz lessons. And I was like, what did jazz, you say? Let's do it. Well, I started taking jazz lessons. I started to improvise. I started to, you know, make my own music. I never looked back. I rediscovered that love of music.

3:08You're a jazz scholar. What's your relationship to classical music today? Well, now, Charlie, I'm filled with rue and regret, because all I want to do now is to be able to play Chopin and Beethoven. Counterpoint. And I can't. I mean, I love, now I love taking out classical music and working my way through it. I feel like I have the patience and the maturity now to rock with that. So you want more classical music in your life. Is classical music popular music? Classical music is popular music. It's just that most people don't know it.

3:41Because classical music has kind of a, what is it, a stuffiness problem, maybe? The stereotype of classical, right, is like it's sophisticated, it's fancy, it's elegant. You have to dress up to go see a classical concert. I think classical music is pop music. It just needs people who are able to convey it in that way. And I think that's what the greatest classical musicians do. They make it pop. They make it accessible. They make it understandable. They make it down to earth. They make these composers into, like, real people who walked the earth and had their stuff that they were dealing with every day.

4:18And I, this is really cool because I feel like there's probably no better performer in the world of classical music than Long Long, who is so excellent at making classical music available to everybody through his fantastic piano book series where he takes the best piano pieces, like the ones you were studying as a kid and very complex ones, and makes them, puts them all together, curates them so that it's like, oh yeah, that is the piano music that I love. Long Long is one of the great interpreters of classical piano. He plays all around the world. He's worked with the best orchestras. He has recorded the most beautiful, the most complex, the most emotionally potent classical piano pieces.

4:56I got to sit down with Long Long at the Steinway showroom in New York City to see why classical music is still so important, and most importantly, he helped me sort of undo maybe my early premonitions about what classical piano needed to be from when I gave it up years ago. So, like yourself. So, here's my conversation with Long Long.

Interpreting Mozart at the piano

5:16Long Long, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Pleasure. Thank you. So, for non-classical listeners, I feel like sometimes it can be hard to understand how a pianist will interpret a work. I was wondering if you could give me an example of like a musical phrase in something well-known, something that, you know, is just deep in your bones, and show maybe how we could play it three different ways, how you might go about interpreting it. I mean, musically, there's a certain style you have to follow. Let's say if it's a Mozart piece, like...

5:50You have to have this very elegancy, right? Yeah, but of course, you can be a little bit more short, like... Or you can be more, like, whispering, you know? So, I mean, you have to follow certain ways of style, this elegancy, right?

6:40But then, after that, you can do some kind of a different texture, colors, dynamics, articulations, and just like a painter, you know? It depends on the mood. You make it more heavy, softer, further, closer, you know? That's your choice. Right. Okay, so I'm primarily a guitar player. We are very lucky as guitar players. We get to bend notes. We have a brado, right? We get to hammer on things, pull away, all this kind of stuff. My feeling of piano is, like, it goes on and off.

7:12And yet, what you just demonstrated there, there's just so much expressivity. Yeah. Could you break down how you think about, like, a single note? Like, how you can approach a note and get a different sound out of that note? Piano is a combination of everything, you know? So, in a way that, if you only play single note, then it's limited. Not like guitar or violin, you can do vibrato, you can make the note as long as you want. And, you know, piano, you need to use the harmony to make it big.

7:48Like, for example, like... If you play only... That's very limited. You know, you have to know how you play with the waves of the harmonies, you know? When you're approaching a work that you're going to interpret, how do you prepare? Or, look, if I want to just play something simple and fast-react, I mean, I can just side-rate something and second time it should already arrive to a certain level of performance.

8:22But if I really want to record or to make it convincing to myself, to my colleagues, to the audience, then I need some work. I need to memorize everything. I need to break down the details. And then I also need a little bit of time to wind it, you know, to make sure it's not like a raw material. It has to be thought after, digested.

8:55Yeah. Like a good red wine, you know, it just takes a few months or a few years. But a few months should be enough, actually. So, I mean, you just gave me multiple examples of approaching Mozart. When you're doing your version at any given moment, say you're preparing for a concert or a recording, and you're going to make your interpretation of it, is your going through and learning it and practicing it, is the way that you're approaching phrasing, is it a logical, deliberate process?

9:28Is it a very intuitive kind of process? How do you go about finding, like, this is how I want to communicate that phrase? You just showed us many different phrases of Mozart as an example. I mean, you have a kind of certain goals to achieve, like how you count the bars, you know, how you shape the music, and how you put everything together, and where's the highlighting places, you know. But, you know, in the end of the day, you don't think too much. I mean, when I perform, it's a need to have this genuine, spontaneous way of expressing music.

10:06If everything is calculated, it's very bad. Yeah, it's just, you know, then it's not music anymore. It's a pure philosophy or pure mathematics, you know. There's nothing wrong, but, I mean, every night, there should be something different. Every performance of the same piece is going to have a different experience. It should be, like, fresh energy, fresh music, just come out, like, as an interpreter, you have to have this first-time approach.

10:43What do you need to do to get your mindset ready to be able to be in that pure place of letting whatever is going to happen in that moment? You have to be very relaxed before the concert, and you have to set up the right mood, so not overexcited or too depressed. You know, you have to have the right balance. So, I normally take a nap before, and then right before on stage, I eat bananas and chocolate.

11:19Oh. Yeah, it feels better. It just feels more smooth. I'm going to try the banana and chocolate method before an interview next time. Yeah, it does change a lot. I mean, especially if you have performance every day, it's really, really helping. So, you started playing piano as a very young child. What were your motivations for playing piano then, and what are they today? I always felt there's interesting things which I can express myself in the music.

11:49So, piano always became my best friend in a very early stage. But in the same time, when I practice too much, it's also very, very painful. You know, I mean, mentally, it's just too much, you know. So, yeah. So, I would say 80% of the time I enjoyed it, and then the 20% it's like, try to escape, but I have to sit there to exercise.

12:21You're often playing music that's often very challenging, quite acrobatic, very expressive. But it sounds like you have an awareness of how the audience has experienced it as you're playing it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know what they feel in the same time, but I know that if I had this wonderful emotional appeal to the piano, I'm sure they will find it. They will feel the same.

Aligning with different composers

12:45So, you perform music from all eras, many different styles. I'm wondering if there are any composers that you feel like are particularly aligned with just your inner temperament. Yeah, it depends on the different age. When I was a kid, I felt very close to Chopin, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky. Now, I feel very close to Mozart, Beethoven, and of course, I still like Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Liszt.

13:18But, I mean, I just felt, the ones I felt really difficult as a kid, it's much easier to play now. Why that change? Life experience. And also, I have learned a lot on stage and off stage as a musician, as a human being, you know. And so, it's much easier to get into some mood or some poetic theme.

Simple versus difficult pieces

13:46Could you give me an example of a piece of piano music that maybe looks difficult, but is actually easy? And then maybe the opposite, something that looks easy, but is actually fairly difficult to play. We're only talking about it relatively, right? Sure. There's nothing really, it's difficult, you know. Maybe it looks even more difficult, but it's, you know. For example, pieces like... This kind of thing, I mean, it's actually not that difficult.

14:22But, I mean, look, it is difficult. But, if you practice, if you know how you use your energy, how you use your elbow and finger, it's actually not as difficult visually to see those things, right? Yeah, the opposite. Something that sort of maybe looks easy, but actually requires a lot of attention. Sure. I mean, Bach, for example. I mean, this composer sounds very easy, but it's hard to play. It's just a good feeling. I mean, like... ...

14:59... ... Yeah, this sounds very easy but if you want to really highlight

15:31the intervals of voices you do need to plan really precisely and everything has to be there. That's hard to balance actually. Where are you putting your attention when you're approaching? Because so many Bach pieces for example are written as student studies and we still perform them today in concert halls because they have an elegance to them. Sometimes it's the sort of mathematical precision oftentimes it's the deep expressiveness to them

16:03but oftentimes they are beginner pieces. Where are you putting your attention when you're approaching a piece that as you said looks simple but it actually requires a lot of precision? I mean it's really the balancing. I mean with Bach it's always multiple voices. Right. You cannot just think about one melody. You have to be kind of simultaneously using different part of the brain in the same time. Right. You know and don't miss somewhere

16:34and some voices. Everything has to be balanced. You have to be more like an octopus you know or like a squid. Yeah. Yeah you have to have more fingers and more brains. Yeah. I think one of the things I always enjoy about listening to Bach is when we're listening to Counterpoint we have to be paying attention to the past, the present and the future all at the same time. Yeah. It kind of forces us to have this sort of wider awareness. Yeah. So that's why they say that if you practice Bach

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Navigating the scale of Beethoven

19:22Back to Beethoven. You're preparing all five concertos to play in a row. How do you prepare yourself mentally to approach such a large arc of work? I mean, since I started quite early, it's okay. But still, I like to listen to great recordings like Daniel Barenboim, the people I really admire. For me, Beethoven is the best, his interpretation. And I've been very lucky to study with him for a few years with the Beethoven repertoire.

19:54What kind of things have you learned from him? I mean, the logical way of making music and with everything has to, you know, have a reason. With Beethoven's music, you cannot always just play with your emotions. You have to be very clearly on what structures and what type of characters and what type of literature even.

20:26I mean, he has a lot of literature connection to Gotha or to Shakespeare and there's always Schiller. There's always someone that it's like literature. It's really like a European romantic, I mean, classic romantic literature style. Yeah, you're working in a much larger ecosystem of culture. It's not just the piano. Yeah, and also nature. I mean,

20:56his music, when you listen, it's a field, it's forest, it's the Alps. it's so much, I mean, the birds, it's so much into the black forest or the the Viennese hills or little rivers whether it's Rhine or Donope. It's, you really see visuals of the European forest

21:27suburbs. you really feel it. And even the folk music when they eat sausage, you know, drinking beer, you know, it's so, so much alive. So there's a whole world building going on as we're hearing. Could you give an example in Beethoven of when you're hearing a character and maybe also an example of a really clear sense of place? I mean, this is very obvious, like you hear this majestic

21:57character.

22:06He means Napoleon, but he was not satisfied with Napoleon later. And what about place? This is like a beautiful black forest with the waterfall.

22:33He's always using it also.

22:38Or just in the field. a bird.

22:53Or some folk dance. So we went from like a trickling waterfall, dark and stormy night, we went into a field, but it wasn't like the sunniest day. It was kind of like a cloudy day and the birds are moving through. I mean,

23:24there are some, yeah, yeah, I mean. I'm picturing things, he's taking me places. He likes, normally he likes to have something with dark clouds, like. Yeah, let me see.

23:57The more sunny days, let's see. Let's see. Yeah, that's the more on the happier side. But he always have this kind of hint, you know, he's never really happy, you know, he's like, he was a stormy guy. This kind

24:27thing. I so appreciate that even in these demonstrations, you pour your whole being into every time you touch the piano, it seems. There's no treating it casually. Yeah. And if you're going through and playing a work of Beethoven that has all these dark, stormy clouds, luckily we just perform for a huge audience, that must feel good, but does it ever leave you feeling a little stormier when you get off stage? Yeah, the good thing about Beethoven, he always somehow get

24:58out from this painful and struggle, so he's always shooting for victory in the end. It's like light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, he's always, so that's why many people when they miss direction in their life or they get depressed, you listen to Beethoven's music, you always find the answer. Same thing with Brahms. classical music in general is to give you certain wonderful spiritual

25:30energy to bring you out from the sentimental mood, but also makes you sentimental. I think that's one of the reasons why classical music has a wonderful influence on people today, maybe not for everybody, but still, you know, it's a reaches quite a far corner in different parts of the world. So you mastered your instrument at a young age,

26:00many of these things I'm sure are just, you know, they're just in you at this point, but you are performing at the highest level. As you said before we started, you're always on tour, you're always playing. What do you need to do to maintain peak performance? I think the good thing is that when you're always performing, it's a great thing to maintain a very good level. If I stop for a while, then it's harder to get to the level

26:31I'm trying to achieve. And also, you know, by meeting different artists all the time, it's a wonderful kind of inspiration that you can learn from the others and to get yourself into a different style of appreciation as a musician and to learn from that, to observe, to take those elements into your own interpretations and become part of you. You know, and this is a great thing

27:03with music is that you always learning from somebody.

Curating Piano Book 2

27:09You put out a work last year, Piano Book 2, and it features some of the great piano works of all time from many of the greatest composers. Why return to the great works? I mean, I'm always trying to inspire more students, music students and music lovers to take piano class and to play something not so difficult to achieve, but you still need to practice, you still need to to hear

27:41different interpretations, different references, and also we want to not only play the greatest hit, but we also wanted to do something new like from today's composers. Like for example, Tony Ann, you know, this beautiful work he made across. It's a four-handed piece. Yeah, but also we have the two-hand version as well. Would you mind giving us a hint of the melody?

28:12Yeah. Yeah.

28:33Yeah. Yeah, and we also have, of course, um, melody? Mm-hmm.

29:01Yeah.

29:04Hmm. Yeah. And we don't Wait, ground me. Where did you just take me? That was La La Land. Oh, yes, of course. Right. Yeah. Oh, it's a wonderful piece. Who's the composer? His name is Horowitz. Of course, Horowitz. Yeah, Horowitz. So some of it is about inspiring people and some works that are going to pull people in and others are also, I think, to inspire. You have a piece on Piano Book 2 called Rush E.

29:34Yeah. Because the original, at one point, plays every note on the piano all at the same time. It's very hard. So we just try as fast, you know, to play as fast as possible, but to still have the clarity, you know. So don't push too hard. Yeah. And we also have pieces like Immigration 18 by Rachmaninoff.

30:05Yeah, so we basically covered a lot of things. And we even had this Chinese fairy tale story

30:39from Monkey King. Yeah. And last year, two years ago, they made this to a big video games. Yeah. Yeah, but they used the same tune as the original TV series. So it was really funny. So it just kind of reminded me when I was a kid watching the soap.

31:11Oh, it's so funny. Yeah.

The piano as a global language

31:12You play all over the world. Right. You're bridging cultures. In what ways is music its own language that can communicate things that maybe regular language, regular words fails to communicate? I mean, the thing is that as a musician, we play music from different parts of the world. So I will try to kind of take some of the music I have learned from the past, from that region, you know, or learn something completely new and to try to connect to the culture.

31:43It's like using their language, but on the piano. So piano is like the bass, you know, that you can just basically play whatever cultures work. Yeah, you can always transcribe on this instrument. So this is the great thing about piano. It's just easy to have that access to play wherever you want. It's like a time machine and it's like an airplane.

32:14You don't have to go anywhere. Just stay at home. Like, you're in Spain here.

32:31Yeah, and then, or if you are, you know, you want to be in Egypt.

32:42You can, you know, you can just start to play something from their region, from their decorative note and just listen, you know, sometimes play by ear. Yeah, it's really a wonderful instrument that you can go in and out quickly. So if I'm a novice pianist

33:13and I'm just beginning, what mindset should I have when I'm practicing? You have to really focus a little bit on the basic things, you know, like, you know, like a C major scale. Yeah, you have to know where's your hands positioned. Like, if you want to type on a computer, you know, you have to know the basic positions, right?

33:44And fingering. Yeah. And then after that, actually, you can just go wherever you want. When you have the basic hand position, the hand shape. Do you have any recommendations for people who are beginning piano about how to fall in love with the instrument? I would say just try to listen as much as you can and choose the piece you like. Yeah, it's important. If you don't like that piece, maybe you shouldn't do it

34:16in the beginning, you know. You should like something and then, you know, try to learn that. Yeah. Yeah. Whether it's Turkish March or Chopin Nocturne, it's always easy to start, you know.

34:32It's not so hard to play with melody. Yeah. Yeah, or something.

34:57This doesn't need so much technique skills. It's just holding the positions of the hand.

35:09And what if I'm feeling really angry and I'm a young pianist? What do I want to play? I mean, you can go against the anger or you can face the anger. So you can even play something makes you kind of even more angry. like And then

35:40release it. Yeah, what if I need to let go of that anger? What do I need to do? You know, you can push your finger much harder on the keys but don't destroy your finger and don't destroy the piano, you know, but you can a little harder. Yeah. Yeah. What are the places in your life that are not from the world of your repertoire that are inspiring your repertoire? Paintings. Paintings. Paintings really helps me a lot. My imagination world and to see the different part of the world

36:11with different landscapes whether it's ocean or snow mountain is always helping a lot with beautiful nature. So I'm realizing if I'm coming to see you in a concert, you're going to transport me around the world. You're going to play Beethoven. You're going to take me into a field. You're going to take, you're going to go into a storm. You're going to let me out of that storm. I mean, that's the, I think once you're at the piano, you are completely in another world. You have to believe in that. You know, if you don't believe that you are capable

36:41to bring yourself into different world zones, then it's hard for other people to believe. Well, Long Long, thank you for transporting us. I really appreciate it. Great interviews. I really enjoyed. I really enjoyed chatting with you. Thank you so much for doing this. We're all feeling it,

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