Lisa Yui on the future of pianists, and why a melody can’t sing over a ten-piece band
The Yamaha Artist on key speed, clear melodies, clean pedaling and why pianists need to stay curious and flexible.
Lisa Yui is a Yamaha Artist and a top prizewinner of the Senigallia International Piano Competition in Italy. She is on the faculty of Manhattan School of Music, where she teaches graduate piano literature.
Here are fourteen of her best tips, from her Piano Star Masterclass on the future of pianists on Piano League.
1. The speed of the key sets the volume
Remember, when you play softer or louder: the slower you go down the note, the softer it will be. The faster you go down, the louder it’s going to be.
Lisa Yui
2. Don’t let the band drown out the singer
It’s like one small child is singing, and then there’s this whole band of ten people playing an accompaniment, and it’s hard for the singer to sing. And so you have to make the melody clear.
Lisa Yui
3. Be gentle with your thumb
This is such a fat finger, you have to be careful not to go bang bang. You have to be very, very delicate with the thumb so that it doesn’t go louder than this poor little pinky.
Lisa Yui
4. Muddy pedal is like unclear speech
Muddy pedal is kind of like someone’s talking, kind of annoying, when people don’t talk clearly. So you have to clear your pedals so that every word, or every note, is clear.
Lisa Yui
5. Never play the same note the same way
In music in general, if you play the same note, they have to all be different in some ways. … Is that kind of boring for me to speak everything in the same tone? You need to kind of go up and down, and louder and softer and so forth, to be interesting, and especially if it’s the same note.
Lisa Yui
6. Think of music as talking
I want you to think that it’s not getting just louder, but you’re going towards it. It’s like a ball is falling down a hill towards that last G. So it’s like I’m saying: this is what I want to say. So the more you think of music as talking, it will seem more natural.
Lisa Yui
7. Slow down so a conductor could still follow
I should be able to hear you play this and still be able to conduct. You can slow down, but I have to still be able to conduct.
Lisa Yui
8. A crescendo starts soft
Remember, if you want to do a crescendo, you have to start soft.
Lisa Yui
9. Don’t forget it’s a craft
What I’m afraid about is that we forget that this is a craft. We’re not just doing interesting things, like cool things, but we’re talking about how do we make this beautiful phrase, how do we make this complete unity out of this piece.
Lisa Yui
10. Speak your audience’s language
If you and I, who love this incredible world of classical music, and we’ve been deeply moved by it, our lives have changed, it is comfort to us, it is our passion, if we want to share that, we have to find a way to speak in the language that the audience speaks in.
Lisa Yui
11. What working musicians have in common
All of my colleagues who have kind of somehow hung on until our age, they have very, very different individual stories, except there’s one connecting aspect between all of us, which is we all love music madly.
Lisa Yui
12. Flexibility matters most
I think the most important thing is flexibility, adaptability, of being able to adapt to the world, to what happens in your life. And if you have this just simple, pure love for playing, somehow people find a way.
Lisa Yui
13. Don’t just stay in the practice room
This is what I tell students: you can’t just stay in the practice room and practice Beethoven sonatas. And we’re talking about repertoire as well as real skills. You have to be not just clever but curious about being able to do everything.
Lisa Yui
14. Take a breath between pieces
Make sure before you play a new piece that you take a breath and you calm yourself and you get into the piece, because they’re very, very different.
Lisa Yui
Quotes are lightly edited for length and clarity. They come from Lisa Yui’s 2020 Piano Star Masterclass on the future of pianists. You can watch the full masterclass on the Piano League YouTube channel.
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