Can you be a good composer without being a good pianist?

I think it'll certainly be useful, which is why I started playing piano fairly recently, so I can play any keyboard pieces I write in my study of counterpoint and so I can become proficcient at keyboard harmony.

I haven't seen a single composition program at any university that doesnt require at least some proficiency at the piano (this is frustrating), so I'd certainly recommend it.

Mine doesn't, but a lot do.

And it's certainly a very useful skill regardless of university entrance requirements.

Having piano skills no doubt makes composition a lot easier... is it mere coincidence that the vast majority of the great composers (and even composers today) were also pianists, or at least had some piano background? Being able to organize your compositional thoughts onto a lateral plane (the keyboard) can make things a lot easier and can illuminate certain paths you would probably otherwise miss. Even with the aid of programs like Finale and Sibelius, it helps to see your music in 'physical motion' - which the piano and only a handful of other instruments can provide. You can see patterns, correct voice leading, and best of all you can manipulate your musical materials easily into whatever you want at the spur of the moment - something you really can't do with Finale. Sometimes it's good to have some improvisatory flair and simply fiddling at the piano with an idea can provide this.

I would highly recommend the study of piano to augment your compositional progress - I don't think any harm can come of it and you will reap many benefits.

I think I've already posted but here goes again:

Proficiency in playing piano, I highly doubt it. I mean, I don't see any reason of being able to play Chopin, or Rachmaninov in the piano in order to compose.

Knowledge of playing the piano, in order to try out things, certainly useful.

BUT, the main thing:

It is useful while learning techniques and learning composition, not for the actual composing.

Once you've tried and succeeded and are ok with what you know, you don't really need to try out everything on the piano. On the contrary, one should avoid improvising on the piano to write a new piece.

And as an example: I don't have ANY kind of keyboard in my house. Nothing at all. Not a piano, not a midi controller, not a synth, NOTHING! Do I miss it? Hell yes! Would I use it>? Like crazy for the game music I write. For the PhD? Sorry, but nope, I wouldn't! I just know how to write straight to paper (with a pencil that is, not Finale), and how this will most probably sound. Call me crazy if you will, but since I don't have proof, everything, absolutley everything, posted here, the game music, the orchestral stuff, the live stuff, all were composed without a keyboard or any kind of instrument. Just my mind, and my notes (drafts)

Why should one avoid improvising on the piano to compose?

Music is meant to be played on instruments. Removing yourself from them while composing doesn't make any sense to me - it's just 'improvising' with your brain, except the difference is that only you can hear what's in your brain.

It's not impossible to compose without the piano. In fact, you compose perfectly well without ever touching one. I've written many pieces without the aid of a piano, but these pieces are of no higher quality than the ones where I used the piano. The only difference is that when I used the piano the compositional process was quicker and the whole task less stressful on the whole. Which is why I recommend it.

Why should one avoid improvising on the piano to compose?

Music is meant to be played on instruments. Removing yourself from them while composing doesn't make any sense...when I used the piano the compositional process was quicker and the whole task less stressful...

I don't know about you guys, but for me, composing often has little (if anything) to do with 'notes'. The only things a piano is good for are notes...and notes are boring. I tend to concentrate on the overall: form, contour, density, kinesis, orchestration, rhythm. AND, above all: energy.

I don't care about notes. They're the easy part. I worry less about the notes I'm trying force through my musicians than the notes I'm trying to extract from them. Granted, most of you don't deal with controlling improvisation on such a grand scale, but I feel if more attention were paid to less rigid aspects of music we'd have much more organic and creative music out there...

You have to be good at piano. Trust me I'm horrible at piano. The second I learn my scales my counterpoint will improve. If I work hard enough on my solos I'll be better at orchestration.

Berlioz didn't even KNOW how to play the piano. To my knowledge, he's the only classical composer to have composed absolutely NO pieces for or including the piano...

Romantic composer, mind you... :)

And you're wrong, he composed 3 small pieces for piano solo, and his Fantaisie on Shakespeare's Storm (last movement of L

You have to be good at piano. Trust me I'm horrible at piano. The second I learn my scales my counterpoint will improve. If I work hard enough on my solos I'll be better at orchestration.

You have to be good at piano? :)

What does your proficiency at playing scales have to do with your ability to compose counterpoint?

Why will learning solos on piano make you a better orchestrator?

...

I'm not a very good pianist, but I've written above alright, completed pieces. I think it probably helps to make melodies if you are a good pianist, but that's not the only way to.

Can you be a good basketball coach if you can't jump?

Why should one avoid improvising on the piano to compose?

Music is meant to be played on instruments. Removing yourself from them while composing doesn't make any sense to me - it's just 'improvising' with your brain, except the difference is that only you can hear what's in your brain.

It's not impossible to compose without the piano. In fact, you compose perfectly well without ever touching one. I've written many pieces without the aid of a piano, but these pieces are of no higher quality than the ones where I used the piano. The only difference is that when I used the piano the compositional process was quicker and the whole task less stressful on the whole. Which is why I recommend it.

Whoever told you this doesn't know what they're talking about. Granted, one should avoid improvising and transcribing that improvisation. But to use improvisation as the first-step in the compositional process is, to my own process, necessary - or if not necessary, at least very helpful.

But to use improvisation as the first-step in the compositional process is, to my own process, necessary - or if not necessary, at least very helpful.

Agreed, there's a certain sense of spontaneity that improvisation can lend to an idea that's priceless in expanding it. Even without a piano, we all tend to improvise in our head (unless I'm just crazy!) and virtually all of the melodies/ideas we produce are a product of that improvisation.

...virtually all of the melodies/ideas we produce are a product of that improvisation.

It's not virtual, that's everything there is. The compositional process is just very slow improvisation.

'tis true, 'tis true. :angry:

I don't think it's necessary, personally, but I do believe a bit of proficiency on as many instruments as possible does indeed help. As long as you know what notes clarinets shouldn't sustain because it's a sharp note, and why a saxophone shouldn't do trills on a two particular notes because of the awkward fingering, etc.

That involves knowledge of orchestration, crucial to every composer.

Christopher Dunn-Rankin , had you paid attention you would see that nightscape is answering/questioning me. :)

when you play the piano for many years, the hands are faster than the head. When you sit down to imporvise, or play to... get some ideas, you will end up, either, repeating yourself, or repeating what you have played in your life. It's not easy to escape that. Except if you don't actually play the piano.

For me composition is not slow imporvisation at all! (sorry Robin). I organise everything before hand, and may end up months in advance in order to find the right form, the right pitches etc, to my purpose. Then I start actually composing. On paper, and not on a piano.

And, no matter how you dissagree with me, I do know what I'm talking about. :) You may think I'm not right, and maybe I'm not, but I do know what I'm talking about!

I don't think that learning to play piano will have any immediate effect on compositional skills. My thinking on this is that it's learning to interpret the piano music that is so beneficial. I'm self taught piano so I'm not that good, but I specialize in marimba, which is in essence, a big wooden piano. I think it's the analysis that helps so much. Pianists that I know are able to look at the music, and identify the theme, harmony, counter melody, etc, and all that good stuff, and of course those skills will help with composing. Wanna sound like Beethoven, check out why a piece sounds like it does. And then it's all scaled up and applied to an orchestra, and it just sounds different than a composition that doesn't understand how these techniques were and are used. I also think the THE BEST way to understand and learn real counterpoint and fugues and wonderful baroque things like that is to look at well-tempered klavier and his invention/sinfonian. But...every almost every pianist has played those at some point so i may be preaching to the choir. Anyway, point i'm trying to make is it's not the actual playing the piano, it's the analysis skills. It's just easier if you've played piano I guess.

...I do believe a bit of proficiency on as many instruments as possible does indeed help. As long as you know what notes clarinets shouldn't sustain because it's a sharp note, and why a saxophone shouldn't do trills on a two particular notes because of the awkward fingering, etc.

When does it leave the responsibility of the composer to write properly for the instrument, and fall on the performer to have the ability to play their instrument well?

In the case of sharp notes on a clarinet - I say it's the performers job to know which ones are out of tune, and how to fix them.

...

Don't worry about it. Composing is about what you can imagine, not what you can play. And you can imagine things without the piano just fine- otherwise you wouldn't want to be a composer. :happy:

I can neither play the piano nor compose, so the question is moot to me. :P

When does it leave the responsibility of the composer to write properly for the instrument, and fall on the performer to have the ability to play their instrument well?

In the case of sharp notes on a clarinet - I say it's the performers job to know which ones are out of tune, and how to fix them...

I agree, with a few provisos... when there are well known limitations on certain instruments, for the composer to ignore those limitations will not give players or listeners confidence in their ideas. Just to pluck a few off the top of my head (forgive me, I'm a little woodwind-centric)...

• there are at least a dozen trills/tremolos that are simply impossible on the bassoon.
  
• unless you have a specially constructed flute with a specific trill key, you cannot trill G6 to A6. Cannot. Can. Not. Attempts to do so will sound either horribly out of tune, or as if the flutist was having some kind of seizure.
  
• you'll never get a pianissimo on the lowest third or fourth of an oboe. You'll most likely just have an embarrassed oboist.
  
• the largest glissando on a trombone is an augmented fourth... but that's only available if you're moving from the longest position (7th) to the shortest position (1st) or vice versa (1st to 7th). Therefore, you can only get those glissandi on specific notes from the overtone series for those positions.
  

As to the actual question posed by the original post:

No, you don't have to be a pianist to compose. There are some things that it can be helpful for, such as visualization of harmony, but on the whole I think the piano is far too limiting in other ways... you're limited by your reach and the physical constraints of the instrument. Piano can also give a flawed conception of how a particular piece will sound (unless, of course, you're only writing for piano...) simply because other instruments don't sound anything like the piano - different timbre, different attack, different sustain characteristics. Something that sounds full and warm on a piano may be hopelessly muddy and blah (technical word :pinch:) played by other instruments.

Of course, it all depends on you and how you work. *shrug* If the piano helps, use it, if not, do whatever works!

(why are people so hung up on superlatives? If there was only one *best* way do something, wouldn't that get unbelievably boring?)

when you play the piano for many years, the hands are faster than the head. When you sit down to imporvise, or play to... get some ideas, you will end up, either, repeating yourself, or repeating what you have played in your life. It's not easy to escape that. Except if you don't actually play the piano.

As a pianist, trying to get into composing, I pretty much agree.

The more you can do at the piano (technically), the more difficult many of the beginning composition concepts seem to be.

(Which is why I'm debating on whether I want to make the investment to learn to compose.)

It took a lot of work to get out of most of my familiar patterns, both harmonically and just technical finger-patterns. I still play a lot of variations of the left-hand from Chopin's Revolutionary Etude, because it's just... fun to play.

For a long time, whenever I started "repeating" something, I immediately changed to something new. It took plenty of discipline to train myself to avoid familiar patterns.

It was a fairly painful process, but the results are seeming to be worth it from a rhythmic, harmonic and melodic standpoint. New ideas seem to come together that wouldn't have otherwise.

However, my fingers often do move faster than my head, and while I might have neat ideas that pop up now and again, I can't really isolate the melody from the harmony from the rhythm, and build them into coherent pieces. It either all has to sound right together the first time, or it just doesn't work for me.

Basically, I really don't know how to go from what I improv on piano, to learning how to "compose".

Is anyone interested in helping me?

(I'm kinda sorta looking at Nikolas...)