Yong Hi Moon: melodies are multiplication, not addition
The Peabody piano professor on listening to your own sound, moving less and playing only what the composer wrote.
Yong Hi Moon is a longtime piano professor at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and also teaches at the Tianjin Juilliard School. She has served on the juries of major international competitions, including the Gina Bachauer, Virginia Waring and Seoul International piano competitions.
Here are eight of her best tips, taken from feedback she gave young pianists after live performances, with a link to each moment on video.
1. Melodies are multiplication, not addition
Melodies are not just a series of additions. Mathematically speaking, I love to use this phrase: melodies are a series of multiplications.
Yong Hi Moon
2. Develop your inner ear
Listening to your own sound is one of the hardest things in playing the piano: not listening to your imagination or what you think you are doing. Try to develop your inner ear.
Yong Hi Moon
3. Move less, listen more
Try to avoid the physical gestures that don’t go with the music. We move horizontally because the notes go up, or we move because there is a crescendo. To start with, try not to move so much.
Yong Hi Moon
4. Play what the composer wrote, not what he didn’t
Let’s do the things he wrote, to the best of our knowledge and effort, and not the things he didn’t write.
Yong Hi Moon
5. Sometimes you must go against instinct
Making a crescendo as the texture gets thicker, where he does not write one, is a human instinct. Sometimes we have to go against our natural instinct.
Yong Hi Moon
6. A sforzando is not just louder
Especially for Beethoven, the sforzandos are really important. It’s not just playing louder, but using the timing and the meaning of it, which helps the structure of his music and his phrases.
Yong Hi Moon
7. Ask why the time signature changes
When the time signature shifts, there is an urgency. He has to shift the time signature for a reason, and I think that’s the most important thing to show.
Yong Hi Moon
8. Get to know the folk music behind the piece
We would like to get as close as possible to the folk tunes and folk dances behind the music, so that we can express it as if we can taste it and smell it.
Yong Hi Moon
Quotes are lightly edited for length and clarity. They come from Ms. Moon’s comments as a judge at the 2022 Piano Star International Competition. You can watch the full performances and feedback on the Piano League YouTube channel.
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