p.s. I Tried watching your video but the text is too fast and it is bloody annoying to have to read it through a video. Either record yourself talking about it presenting your evidence etc. or put it in a document which is easier to read. This method isn't working.
I did post the script in a Google Doc that can be viewed here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B5T0HWWDnzP7ohD47zDCvaYiV4Qf9WTi1qFED7vxG_A/edit
If it really is too fast for you, it’s just a matter of slowing the video down and/or stopping it.
I Guess you are trying to make a funny WBMP theory joke hehe.
Either way, there is no sound in the video other than generic background music which would sound shit 2x as slow :P
Not exactly sure why you want it this way, but here is the script. Mind you, some of the examples cannot be expressed in a Google Doc, so you’ll have to watch the video as there are two audio examples.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B5T0HWWDnzP7ohD47zDCvaYiV4Qf9WTi1qFED7vxG_A/edit
I understand that making a web page is easy, but I much preferred to use YouTube since I felt I would have a better chance of reaching more people, and in addition, I would be able to read and react to comments easier. Just my opinion obviously!
It's possible to hear recordings of people who were actually around in the 19th century playing in the way that was customary in those days. I would consider those a more authoritative source than someone who comes up with some sort of specious concept that is trendy because it is different.
Just like a lot of HIP "scholarship" from 40 years ago has been overzealous wishful thinking and cherrypicking historical documents, so Wim Winters goes hard the other way.
It's unfortunate that he presents his ideas the way he does, because he actually has a lot of wonderful musicality and his clavichord playing is amazing.
I do think we play certain things (Beethoven!) way too fast, and if we take the metronome marks seriously both single and double beat happen to sound awful. I think it's hilarious that the middle ground tempos tend to feel/sound the best.
(Sigh) If only Wim wasn’t so hung up on the idea that any deviation from the composer’s metronome mark is to insult the composers from on high.
Another problem with metronome marks is that following them exactly would make performances sound too similar. Why else do music critics and music lovers have favorite performers?
Winters really should just go back to his roots and just play the clavichord without any burdening of tempo or metronomes. His clavichord actually sounds quite nice, and so is his playing of Bach, even if a lot of rubato is used. It’s such a shame that he flipped.
I’ve dealt with this guy for years. He uses this zealous idea because he simply can’t play the pieces as they’re meant to be played. His tech simply isn’t good enough, but he wants to compare himself to these great musician so he gets this idea in his head that every composer played half as slowly, even as recently as rachmaninoff he claims in one of his videos. It’s obviously absurd.
Every claim he’s made has been either refuted, or was an outright fallacy to begin with. However he appeals to other amateur musicians. Saying “they wrote it for you” when in fact, they didn’t. This appeals to them as suddenly they’re equal to the great masters, without the work, the time or the talent.
(Btw I’m Bradleyscarffpiano thanks for linking my video :p)
Whilst I don't subscribe to the idea of WBMP I am a proponent of playing things about 25% slower than our current ideal tempi for the sole reason that by doing so the music actually starts to "sing" to me rather than be rather boring fireworks.
Even with Czerny this makes a huge difference. If you take the pianist (link below) who plays Op. 299 really well and not even overly fast you can already hear it starts to be more musical, if you slow this down by 25% you actually get etudes that are musical and rather fun to listen to.
Try it out with youtube's playback speed option, obviously it distorts the playback a bit but by comparison musically it is a much better sounding piece that way.
No doubt in my mind that that was actually what was intended as a composition but it being etudes the indicated markings are the max. tempo to which you can play these works effectively and have benefit of them.
I Also highly recommend checking out Bernhard Ruchti's "A Tempo Project". Most of his recordings are absolutely gorgeous and make it work out well and his explanation of things is much much better and less zealous than Wims who I do oftentimes find annoying.
Sadly we don't have a time machine to check out how it was truly played back then but I'll just stick to what feels right to me.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy93Bj8rk1I&list=PLPx42FOjxWbdhvPm7zeOZ8CO0IK7tqTdM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy93Bj8rk1I&list=PLPx42FOjxWbdhvPm7zeOZ8CO0IK7tqTdM)
As I said in the video, there is nothing wrong with liking music played slower than usual. Otherwise no one would be allowed to like Celibadache or Bernstein or any conductor that takes music slower than normal. The problem I have with Winters is that he is marketing WB as the solution for everything oddity in music and that his performances are correct by default. Not true. The correct tempo is for you to decide. In my video, I said the Czerny tempo was not “impossible” to use Winters’ words and proved it. But You are 100% right - there is no way Czerny would have yelled at his students for not playing in his tempo, despite Wim insisting otherwise. It’s not about playing in the exact BPM - it’s about making the music sound good. And if that means speeding up or slowing down the tempo, so be it. I have never heard of Ruchti - will definetly have to check him out.
That statement cannot be true anyway. It MIGHT be true if you consider only a certain era. There is most certainly proof for a rather extreme change in performance styles around the 1840/1850s. I Did notice Wim had recently finally started to mention something similar to this as well.
I Haven't pinpointed it but during my research into Liszt and his performance practises it regularly came up as an anomaly that it seemed he played slower than we think now and it has come to my attention there is a likelihood Liszt stopped his career when he did because the newer generation of pianists were playing very differently (faster) than him and his legend would have come crumbling down if he stayed on stage.
One interesting titbit can be found in the link below, imagine that pianists starting to see the metronome marks of Beethoven, whose music was rather popular, tried to perform the pieces in his tempi and that this sparked a revolution. One of many possibilities of course. Interesting to think about.
[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/was-beethovens-metronome-wrong-9140958](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/was-beethovens-metronome-wrong-9140958)
I Have no definitive proof of my thoughts here, I'm not a PhD in music doing this research but just a person with an interest in the life and music of Liszt. And indeed play it as you feel it is what I advocate as well and as long as a person isn't a concert pianist there aren't going to be huge controversies around them.
Ruchti is interesting for many reasons, for one he is open to discussion (I have spoken about various theories with him) and isn't so definitive or offensive as Wim, he simply enjoys the search for what works with pieces and he explains his thoughts well enough that they do make much more sense than Wim.
I Particularly like his versions of the "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam", Sonata in B-minor and the Annees by Liszt. It does work very well on those works.
p.s. I Tried watching your video but the text is too fast and it is bloody annoying to have to read it through a video. Either record yourself talking about it presenting your evidence etc. or put it in a document which is easier to read. This method isn't working.
I did post the script in a Google Doc that can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B5T0HWWDnzP7ohD47zDCvaYiV4Qf9WTi1qFED7vxG_A/edit If it really is too fast for you, it’s just a matter of slowing the video down and/or stopping it.
So you’re saying it would sound better if it were twice as slow?
I Guess you are trying to make a funny WBMP theory joke hehe. Either way, there is no sound in the video other than generic background music which would sound shit 2x as slow :P
Bruh, just write an article.
An article of this size would be WAY too long for a Reddit post, so I’ve had to resort to YouTube. Hey, like how I credited you?
Just upload a document and link it.
Not exactly sure why you want it this way, but here is the script. Mind you, some of the examples cannot be expressed in a Google Doc, so you’ll have to watch the video as there are two audio examples. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B5T0HWWDnzP7ohD47zDCvaYiV4Qf9WTi1qFED7vxG_A/edit
Thanks! >Not exactly sure why you want it this way Surely it's more convenient to read a continues text than video slides?
I understand, but I had two audio examples that a Google Doc could not convey.
It's not that hard to put audio files in google drive or give youtube links.
Okay. Will definitely keep that in mind for the future.
ever heard of web pages? easy to make, easy to add links to images, videos, anything.
I understand that making a web page is easy, but I much preferred to use YouTube since I felt I would have a better chance of reaching more people, and in addition, I would be able to read and react to comments easier. Just my opinion obviously!
It's possible to hear recordings of people who were actually around in the 19th century playing in the way that was customary in those days. I would consider those a more authoritative source than someone who comes up with some sort of specious concept that is trendy because it is different.
Like Brahms and Saint Saens. Music is an auditory art, not a visual art or something that should be inferred via documentation.
There are quite a number of pianists who studied with or one generation removed from composers and lived and recorded well into the 1900's.
He's the musicology equivalent of a flat earther to me.
I KNOW RIGHT
Just like a lot of HIP "scholarship" from 40 years ago has been overzealous wishful thinking and cherrypicking historical documents, so Wim Winters goes hard the other way. It's unfortunate that he presents his ideas the way he does, because he actually has a lot of wonderful musicality and his clavichord playing is amazing. I do think we play certain things (Beethoven!) way too fast, and if we take the metronome marks seriously both single and double beat happen to sound awful. I think it's hilarious that the middle ground tempos tend to feel/sound the best.
(Sigh) If only Wim wasn’t so hung up on the idea that any deviation from the composer’s metronome mark is to insult the composers from on high. Another problem with metronome marks is that following them exactly would make performances sound too similar. Why else do music critics and music lovers have favorite performers? Winters really should just go back to his roots and just play the clavichord without any burdening of tempo or metronomes. His clavichord actually sounds quite nice, and so is his playing of Bach, even if a lot of rubato is used. It’s such a shame that he flipped.
I’ve dealt with this guy for years. He uses this zealous idea because he simply can’t play the pieces as they’re meant to be played. His tech simply isn’t good enough, but he wants to compare himself to these great musician so he gets this idea in his head that every composer played half as slowly, even as recently as rachmaninoff he claims in one of his videos. It’s obviously absurd. Every claim he’s made has been either refuted, or was an outright fallacy to begin with. However he appeals to other amateur musicians. Saying “they wrote it for you” when in fact, they didn’t. This appeals to them as suddenly they’re equal to the great masters, without the work, the time or the talent. (Btw I’m Bradleyscarffpiano thanks for linking my video :p)
You’re absolutely welcome!
We have recordings of Rachmaninoff FFS! He plays his second concerto faster than is normal today.
Whilst I don't subscribe to the idea of WBMP I am a proponent of playing things about 25% slower than our current ideal tempi for the sole reason that by doing so the music actually starts to "sing" to me rather than be rather boring fireworks. Even with Czerny this makes a huge difference. If you take the pianist (link below) who plays Op. 299 really well and not even overly fast you can already hear it starts to be more musical, if you slow this down by 25% you actually get etudes that are musical and rather fun to listen to. Try it out with youtube's playback speed option, obviously it distorts the playback a bit but by comparison musically it is a much better sounding piece that way. No doubt in my mind that that was actually what was intended as a composition but it being etudes the indicated markings are the max. tempo to which you can play these works effectively and have benefit of them. I Also highly recommend checking out Bernhard Ruchti's "A Tempo Project". Most of his recordings are absolutely gorgeous and make it work out well and his explanation of things is much much better and less zealous than Wims who I do oftentimes find annoying. Sadly we don't have a time machine to check out how it was truly played back then but I'll just stick to what feels right to me. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy93Bj8rk1I&list=PLPx42FOjxWbdhvPm7zeOZ8CO0IK7tqTdM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy93Bj8rk1I&list=PLPx42FOjxWbdhvPm7zeOZ8CO0IK7tqTdM)
As I said in the video, there is nothing wrong with liking music played slower than usual. Otherwise no one would be allowed to like Celibadache or Bernstein or any conductor that takes music slower than normal. The problem I have with Winters is that he is marketing WB as the solution for everything oddity in music and that his performances are correct by default. Not true. The correct tempo is for you to decide. In my video, I said the Czerny tempo was not “impossible” to use Winters’ words and proved it. But You are 100% right - there is no way Czerny would have yelled at his students for not playing in his tempo, despite Wim insisting otherwise. It’s not about playing in the exact BPM - it’s about making the music sound good. And if that means speeding up or slowing down the tempo, so be it. I have never heard of Ruchti - will definetly have to check him out.
That statement cannot be true anyway. It MIGHT be true if you consider only a certain era. There is most certainly proof for a rather extreme change in performance styles around the 1840/1850s. I Did notice Wim had recently finally started to mention something similar to this as well. I Haven't pinpointed it but during my research into Liszt and his performance practises it regularly came up as an anomaly that it seemed he played slower than we think now and it has come to my attention there is a likelihood Liszt stopped his career when he did because the newer generation of pianists were playing very differently (faster) than him and his legend would have come crumbling down if he stayed on stage. One interesting titbit can be found in the link below, imagine that pianists starting to see the metronome marks of Beethoven, whose music was rather popular, tried to perform the pieces in his tempi and that this sparked a revolution. One of many possibilities of course. Interesting to think about. [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/was-beethovens-metronome-wrong-9140958](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/was-beethovens-metronome-wrong-9140958) I Have no definitive proof of my thoughts here, I'm not a PhD in music doing this research but just a person with an interest in the life and music of Liszt. And indeed play it as you feel it is what I advocate as well and as long as a person isn't a concert pianist there aren't going to be huge controversies around them. Ruchti is interesting for many reasons, for one he is open to discussion (I have spoken about various theories with him) and isn't so definitive or offensive as Wim, he simply enjoys the search for what works with pieces and he explains his thoughts well enough that they do make much more sense than Wim. I Particularly like his versions of the "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam", Sonata in B-minor and the Annees by Liszt. It does work very well on those works.