The question of "the proper tempo" is a huge issue for many pianists and piano students. Thus, I thought I'd put down what I know, what I have observed in 40 years in the piano business, as well as my personal opinions on the subject, in a couple essays. Hopefully it will help.
"Tempo" refers to how fast the underlying beat of the music progresses. We take for granted - and should NOT- that no matter how fast or slow, this beat WILL be steady. Consider how much this steadiness is "a given" in any music you are likely to have heard; what if you had never heard a particular piece before,(classical, ragtime, pop, whatever.) You would not know the melody before hand and thus would NOTactually know if the performer was altering it. You would NOTknow whether this particular version was faster or slower that usual or pretty typical. What you WOULD know, however, is whether the basic beat was STEADY. You would assume it, just as the vast, vast majority of the world's population would do.
This creates for the musician a critical problem - namely, keeping things even. Some measures are easy, some are less easy, and some are just plain difficult and yet ALL measures must be the same size if the music is to be accepted and enjoyed. Naturally, the temptation on the part of the musician is to play the easy parts fast and the hard parts slow. After all, harder tasks require more time, don't they?
Not in music. We have created this problem for ourselves by demanding a steady beat in our musical performance. Those that do not perform this way are seen as the amateurs they are. One of the marks of the professional is the fact that he/she keeps the beat REGARDLESS of the difficulty of the piece.
Keeping this fact in mind can answer a ton of questions regarding tempo. I'll give you just two:
1. How fast should I play when I perform? No faster than you can do it right and still keep the beat steady. This tempo may be either more or less than you wish it was, or more or less than you were able to accomplish yesterday when you played the piece. Doesn't matter. It's what you can do RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE.
2. Shouldn't I play at the tempo of the original piece? Only if you can keep the beat at that tempo. I can absolutely guarantee you that a fast but uneven rendition sounds vastly worse than a steady rendition with a few bad notes. Try it and see if I'm not right. You will find yourself reacting very negatively to the stop/start/pause/repeat a wrong note version, and much more positively to the steady version, wrong notes or no wrong notes.
Actually, any professional, if they are honest, will tell you that the above is true. Those who don't know this are called amateurs.
"Tempo" refers to how fast the underlying beat of the music progresses. We take for granted - and should NOT- that no matter how fast or slow, this beat WILL be steady. Consider how much this steadiness is "a given" in any music you are likely to have heard; what if you had never heard a particular piece before,(classical, ragtime, pop, whatever.) You would not know the melody before hand and thus would NOTactually know if the performer was altering it. You would NOTknow whether this particular version was faster or slower that usual or pretty typical. What you WOULD know, however, is whether the basic beat was STEADY. You would assume it, just as the vast, vast majority of the world's population would do.
This creates for the musician a critical problem - namely, keeping things even. Some measures are easy, some are less easy, and some are just plain difficult and yet ALL measures must be the same size if the music is to be accepted and enjoyed. Naturally, the temptation on the part of the musician is to play the easy parts fast and the hard parts slow. After all, harder tasks require more time, don't they?
Not in music. We have created this problem for ourselves by demanding a steady beat in our musical performance. Those that do not perform this way are seen as the amateurs they are. One of the marks of the professional is the fact that he/she keeps the beat REGARDLESS of the difficulty of the piece.
Keeping this fact in mind can answer a ton of questions regarding tempo. I'll give you just two:
1. How fast should I play when I perform? No faster than you can do it right and still keep the beat steady. This tempo may be either more or less than you wish it was, or more or less than you were able to accomplish yesterday when you played the piece. Doesn't matter. It's what you can do RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE.
2. Shouldn't I play at the tempo of the original piece? Only if you can keep the beat at that tempo. I can absolutely guarantee you that a fast but uneven rendition sounds vastly worse than a steady rendition with a few bad notes. Try it and see if I'm not right. You will find yourself reacting very negatively to the stop/start/pause/repeat a wrong note version, and much more positively to the steady version, wrong notes or no wrong notes.
Actually, any professional, if they are honest, will tell you that the above is true. Those who don't know this are called amateurs.
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