AVOID These 3 Rubato Traps!

[@catherineofsweden24]

These videos and your lessons of which I have purchased two so far, are like a beacon of light. When I was a kid, no internet, in the sticks, didn’t have resources. Let alone of this quality. Just had to say this is like gold dust. So generous to share. What a brilliant pianist/human being.

[@ewhyte8059]

I watched this video 3 to 4 months ago and grasped the basics and just continued incorporating those basics into my melodic compositions. Today watching it for the second time in its entirety the information conveyed by Josh made a lot more sense as I was better able to appreciate the nuances of each demonstration with hindsight.Tutorials from Josh and Robert from living pianos are treasure troves for the discerning student!

[@ChanningWalton]

The tone of your piano is beautiful.

[@joshwrightpiano]

Thanks Channing!

[@AaronPetitPianoTutorials]

13:00 so accurate. I like to say 2/3 slow down. 1/3 speed up to make up. Totally agree that you can't do 50/50.

[@KeyboardPonderings]

I love this tutorial! Rubato can be so beautiful. That’s one of my favorite Chopin Etudes. I hope to learn it someday. I believe rubato, done properly, highlights the emotion of a piece, and the example Etude is VERY emotional. Thank you!

[@suzannahardman207]

Wonderful! Thank you for your perfect explanations with examples on how to practice this technique. Teachers often emphasize what not to do, but not on teaching the correct practice skills. The problem with this is we can get stuck in a rut because all we remember is that we didn't play that particular passage well, which becomes exactly that!

[@Gijs_Sickenga]

Thanks Josh, your content is always informative, to the point, and helpful in improving my playing. I'm thankful you continue to upload these free videos with the production quality and thoroughness that you do. It's always a pleasant surprise when a new video of yours pops up. I also like that you present both the perspectives of your skilled teachers throughout the years, as well as your own experiences. Hope to enjoy your content for many years to come, but wanted to say thanks for everything you've done so far. Keep it up! I'll keep up the practice sessions in the meantime!

[@El4568]

I love working with my students on learning how to use rubato. I liked the thought that you mentioned of “push and pull”

[@saltlakepianoservice]

Awesome audio balance and mastering levels.

[@joshwrightpiano]

Thanks Hyrum! Looking forward to meeting up next week for some filming :)

[@saltlakepianoservice]

Thank you for this lesson!

[@robertdyson4216]

I enjoyed that not so much for the tips but for the reminder that you give thought to a rendering and not be a machine. Best is to record and listen. Had I lived near Josh I would have booked some lessons.

[@cynthiabower8558]

He was teaching by live video long before most teachers were so many of his students haven't lived near him. I've always admired how he has embraced technology and used it to help others and share his great wealth of knowledge - kind of a pioneer of moving forward into technology for teaching.

[@robertdyson4216]

​@@cynthiabower8558 Indeed, I subscribed to his full package some years ago and have not exploited it as much as I should. I still find magic in physical presence.

[@MadMax300173]

Crystal clear as always Josh, thank you for these useful insights, i enjoyed this lesson a lot!

[@Miller9.1_5-43]

I was finding sonata no.17 in D minor and I found this such a great Channel. I love your teaching so much!!!!

[@MrBobbyspark]

Thank you so much,your advices are really deep and I 've appreciated and I will try to work on it more than I can. Great news, all the best, Robert 🙋‍♂️

[@KTee08]

Thank you Josh! I'm taking a break from classical and learning a pop song arrangement; the beginning has a lot of similarities with the first 5 measures of the Etude in this video. I learnt alot from it!

[@gretareinarsson7461]

One of best ways to learn rubato is to sing the melody/theme

[@messiahh]

Wonderul video! This "range" of rubatos is a really interesting idea. On giving back the stolen time, Seymour Bernstein says "rob Paul but don't pay Peter", always comes to mind when Im deciding what to do after a rubato

[@maxjohn6012]

It's incredibly helpful to just have your demonstrations of what not to do - I instantly recognised how I sometimes play and can fix it :) 100% agree with your assessment of the relative importance of pushing and pulling, and I've definitely heard the idea that they should be perfectly balanced well-rubbished.

[@joshwrightpiano]

Thank you so much!

[@maxjohn6012]

​@@joshwrightpiano Thank you, Josh. Your channel is extremely useful. I haven't had regular lessons since I was 15 and, while I've improved considerably since then, your channel is an invaluable source of reassurance and insight :)

[@radmilamikulic1290]

Dankeschön 🙏

[@TriNguyen-kz8ig]

I'm technically self taught but watching Josh's video really makes me feel like i'm not. Very useful content!

[@MariaRosa-qs3zm]

THANK YOU Josh! Reading suggestions based on very clear and well explained concepts, is ALWAYS something to be grateful for. I guess the more one knows, the better explained or transmitted this knowledge is. Question: Did your teaching vocation contribute somehow to the obtention of your Doctorate degree? Best wishes for you and your beautiful family.

[@maximyanchenko3780]

Great lesson, thank you! Babayan is exceptional, easy to agree on this :)

[@mhermarckarakouzian8899]

I mean, if you hear most pianists play their own music (whether it’s living ones or any of the recordings of the greats that we have), they are basically completely liberal. Also, as a composer myself, I know that you can’t notate every single little thing. So definitely I veer more on the liberal side of rubato as well. There are some exceptions to this however, the most notable one (to me) being Ravel, who is more, let’s say, “image-based” and therefore would spend hours on one bar just to get exactly the “image” he wanted. Stravinsky called him “the Swiss watchmaker of composers,” so I find it hugely disrespectful when people “change” too much what the man worked hours to perfect.

[@mhermarckarakouzian8899]

It just comes down to intuition, at the end of the day. And some pianists just have that musical intuition and some don’t, so they need to be taught “how (or how much) to rubato”. It should really be clear from the context (harmonic or rhythmic or what comes before/after the bar).

[@williamschneider4472]

The relationship between rubato and dissonance is rarely mentioned by musicians.

[@Mr3kiwis]

Is there ever a case where it's appropriate to use a metronome to teach pieces that require a lot of rubato? My daughter is in a chamber group - piano, voice, and flute - doing the Betty Roe Shakespeare pieces and the singing teacher insists on their using a metronome and counting out how long each note with rubato is. It's wildly frustrating to me, as I think it'll teach all sorts of bad habits (like going back to the strict time) and because it's trying to make what is subjective and from the soul objective and from the head. But am I wrong?

[@annep.1905]

I don't know what Wright would say. For my part, I understand rubato to be somewhat subjective. There are people who think that rubato ought to push and pull within a strict tempo (I think this is what you're describing), but I was never taught to use a metronome for rubato, and if you watch great pianists like Rubenstein, Rachmaninov, Horowitz et.al. they do not seem to follow any metronomic timing. Also, Wright, in this video, indicates that he finds that he takes more time than he gives back. If I understand your description correctly, this may give the student a very good sense of keeping to an overall time, but if it's something that's not useful, I think it can easily be unlearned. But this is just my personal opinion. Hopefully some others will weigh in.

[@davidseymour6246]

It seems that one of the reasons rubato is so hard to have rules about is that it is completely subject to fashion; e.g. what the Edwardians liked and what we accept are poles apart. When people talk about it they refer to good taste and bad taste, but that too presumably changes with the fashion? I suppose one absolute you could have (as you mention in the video) is that bad taste is anything that harms the natural flow of the line. What I would love to see someone demonstrate is an example of what both Mozart and Chopin were insistent about - that the left hand should always be metronomic (“the conductor”) while the right was free to wander. I can’t begin to imagine how that could be done, or even be desirable compared to letting the whole music breathe - and scientifically it couldn’t of course be achieved without refunding any slowing with exactly the same amount of speeding up to get back in time with the left hand. The concept seems horrendous, but you would imagine they knew what they were talking about!

[@musicfan3609]

First!