How To Become A Successful Concert Pianist?

A Pianist is a musician who plays the piano and other keyboard instruments, providing harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic elements in music, whether solo or as part of an ensemble, band, or orchestra.

A Pianist is a musician and artist who performs in concerts and makes recordings, whether working alone or in an ensemble or orchestra. Sometimes called “Piano Players” or “Keyboardists,” especially in popular music styles, the Pianist provides chords, melodies, and bass lines and influences the dynamic and timbral range of a piece of music in overt and subtle ways.

Being a Pianist is a career that allows one to travel, meet interesting people, form lifelong relationships, and collaborate with other highly talented and driven individuals. It’s a demanding lifestyle and a very competitive career that requires a lot of hard work, stamina, and perseverance. Yet, successful Pianists universally speak of their love for playing the piano and the satisfaction they get from an active professional career as a musician.

Everybody makes mistakes, even accomplished pianists. The difference between a hobbyist and a good player is the willingness to LEARN from those mistakes. That’s because a good player recognizes that mistakes reveal weaknesses. And when you work on your weaknesses, you improve and turn them into strengths.

A casual player will want to hide their mistakes and not work on them because it’s uncomfortable. That’s why a casual player will only ever reach a certain level of playing. But for someone who truly wants to master the piano and improve their skills, there’s no limit to how good they can get.

Good (and especially great) piano players have complete control over their playing, and everything is intentional. Non-serious players usually only have one volume level, which doesn’t change. They have probably spent so much time learning the notes of the piece they’re playing that they haven’t paid attention to HOW they will play those notes. 

If they play a note loudly, it’s because that note was MEANT to be played that way. I often say that practicing dynamics is the faster way to go from being a good piano player to a great one. And finally, a good piano player will:

Play With Emotion

This ties in with the previous point, but it goes much deeper. It means practicing and perfecting a piece of music until it’s like you’re “speaking” through that music. Using dynamics, timing, and all of your technical skills to create emotion in your playing and then draw other people in to feel the same things you are feeling. In my opinion, this is the purest form of music because it’s proper communication.

One person who has built quite the fame in this field, along with many other arenas of business that revolve around his skill sets, being a pianist, vocalist, and composer is one thing that many people know and appreciate. We have chosen Wiley Graydon as our example for the relevance of this article to give off the message that having more than one skill can be balanced quite well if you know how to do it.

Graydon is an entrepreneur, CEO, concert pianist, husband, father, and educator. Born in the same small city as Ray Charles, Patti Labelle, and Paula Dean (Albany, Georgia), He has spent 46 years in the Music industry and has earned respect for his input to the industry. Academically having completed Associates of Science, Bachelor of Music, MBA in Business Management, Ph.D. in Secondary Education has given him the opportunity to have a diverse career line.