Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont, pianist

Far beyond entertainment

Pierre-Arnaud — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:00:29 +0000

For most of the people whose road I happen to cross a day or another, my work is to play the piano and wow or at least please an audience. I would be in this case just an entertainer. You can effectively consider that music has a one and only goal, entertaining people, but I strongly disagree with this simplistic idea. Entertaining people is one of the multiple possible goals of Art, but I don’t really think our job just stops here. We have to go deeper than this first subjective idea of a work and approach other layers of its understanding.

Even in those times dominated by the market law, I think we, artists, have to be free and not only an employee of the culture industry: we should be able to develop and put in practice our vision. If every single move we do as artists is motivated by an external demand with no direct aesthetic meaning within our vision then our position as thinkers is compromised. We loose our function of social influencer and become a reflection of the society. I believe Art is a catalyst for change in society and not a mere exponent of it: turning it into “a simple function, an object which can be substitute for an other object, or – in the final analysis – an article of consumption” (Adorno, philosophy of new music) is degrading it.

If we think about it, every choice of a musician can be seen as a political or philosophical action: our choice of repertoire, the sobriety or verbosity of our playing, our programs translate our state of mind towards music but also towards life in general. Every aspect of our art has to be coherent with one another, and organized towards the implementation of our ideas creating a personal and consistent world in which people (the audience) want (or not) to subscribe.

Unfortunately, most musicians are so anxious about breaking rules predefined by a sort of musical totalitarianism that they forgot to be themselves and unfortunately deliver a standardized output incompatible with their true personality. We finally just endlessly repeat again and again the same things in the same way, with little cosmetic changes to make it look new and shiny. But only one thing really changes: the essence of our Art fades away a little more every day. We are not victims, we have been supporting this for many years. We respect “standards of the industry” so well that our mind (thus creativity) has been standardized too. Even in our pre-formated bios: I played here, here and here with him, her and him, and I grew up in the middle of I-don’t-care-where. But does it really say something about the artist, about his way to approach music? Even when trustworthy, none of these facts really mean something musically speaking nor defining a musical personality. They are at most trying to show the reader how “successful”, in a certain and common way of power and hype, a musician is. But is this being successful musically speaking? I don’t think so, at least if you consider music as an end and not a means.

In other fine arts, expressing your true self and breaking the rules is something you have to do. Sure, you don’t break the rules just to break the rules, you break the rules because you need to/must do so because it doesn’t make any sense within your logical thinking. Which means you first need a critical/logical thinking before anything else. Once you know why, you can break the rule. Thinking is (should be!) the first action of a musician: you play with your mind, not your fingers or mouth or whatever you use to action your instrument.

Thinking out of the box is not forbidden, nor finding new paths. What’s very dubious is trying to be superficially (cosmetically) different, without an authentic purpose. When you have a look at our schools and educational system, you probably think it’s not made to think different, it looks like a factory delivering standardized products. Apparently, you’re right. But in fact you’re wrong. Music schools learn you the basics and traditions, so you know them. But it’s only at the end of your education that the journey towards your vision and your self is beginning. You acquired the tools at school, it’s now time to use them for your own good. This absolutely needed journey is long and painful but is a wonderful inner experience.

Get to know yourself to learn what you value most. Get to know yourself to know what you want to do. Get to know yourself to know what you want to say. Get to know yourself to stay coherent. Get to know yourself to better communicate your values through your Art.

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First Interview with Pierre-Arnaud on his upcoming debut album

Pierre-Arnaud — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 08:30:10 +0000

A few days ago, Pierre-Arnaud met with journalist Vaclav Richter from Czech Radio to speak about his upcoming debut album. It was the pianist’s first interview on the subject.

During this long conversation Dablemont revealed why he chose Prague to record his first album. He also explained his program choice and talked about his idea of pairing Czech composer Leoš Janáček with French composer Maurice Ravel.

Here you can read a written transcription of a part of this interview here (in French): Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont : « Je voulais rapprocher Janáček et Ravel, deux compositeurs qui me sont chers ».

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The recording experience

Pierre-Arnaud — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:00:34 +0000

I realize I’ve not written a post for a long time! Time flies, especially when you have a CD release coming soon… It is my first recording, and we all know how much every new experience can change the way you see (or think about) things. What I wrote a few months ago was very true, but the recording of my first full album really changed my perception of studio work.

I could speak about the lack of audience, the coldness of a studio recording but I already spoke about that and I still feel the same about these topics.

However, I never spoke about the human dimension of the recording process. When you see the final product, you tend to forget a CD is before everything done by humans. For this recording, I was very lucky: I had a wonderful team. Even if I didn’t know them before, they made everything in their power so I can feel as comfortable as possible.

Recording involves several people: the musician, the recording engineer and the recording producer. Both engineer and producer have to “manage” you: express their opinions about your playing, understand what you want and get who you are. That’s why I really think that more than their technical skills (of course required!), their social qualities are most important: they help you to give your best in these unusual conditions and God knows how difficult it can be to manage an artist. Time management, diplomacy, patience, flawless artistic taste are basic human skills really needed from the recording team. And for the musician, an ability to trust others and let them guide you. For me, a recording is not just a matter of a artistic mastery, it’s also a matter of human symbiosis between all of the people involved in the process.

And there is an “after recording”. Since I’ve had an interest in audio tech for a long time and I’ve been several times on the other side of the glass, I was very aware of recording, editing, post-processing techniques. I knew how a recording is done. But even though I was familiar with this, recording a full album completely changed the way I listen to recorded music. I am right now rediscovering my whole music collection, hearing things I never heard before in these recordings I’ve listened to hundreds of times.

Recording a good album is tough work: you have to meet the right people, the right piano, the right studio and make the right choices. And while the memories of a concert fade away with time, recorded music is there to last and can be played and played again. Years ago, I thought recording was easier than a live performance. I changed my mind. Recording is hard.

Ravel’s Scarbo (Gaspard de la nuit)

Pierre-Arnaud — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:40:34 +0000

After meeting with Ondine and picturing the gibbet, it’s time to talk about Scarbo, the last movement of Gaspard de la nuit, work I recorded for my first solo album last month. We all know Scarbo is terrifying from a pianistic point of view. Even if I played it extensively on many different stages, Scarbo still scares me and requires a special attention when included in a recital program.

At the beginning of the XXth century, Balakirev’s Islamey was THE most technically demanding piece ever written for piano. With Scarbo, Ravel decided to transcend Islamey’s virtuosity and write something much more difficult than Balakirev’s work. Well, he won his bet and by far. More than a hundred years after, Scarbo is still the most difficult piece in the piano standard repertoire.

Besides its virtuosity, it also appears to be one of the most beautiful, mysterious, colorful… work ever written. You get it: I love Scarbo and this piece has been fascinating me since I was 14.

Who is Scarbo? Scarbo is a little fiend or goblin, moving fast, disappearing and reappearing, frightening us. Ravel didn’t write a difficult piece for the sake of virtuosity. He wrote it in this way to express the “personnality” of Scarbo: scary, fast, unpredictable. So, you now understand the huge dynamic contrasts, the virtuosity and the constantly changing character of this work. Once again, Ravel perfectly used his talent to render Bertrand’s poem into music.

“I wanted to make a caricature of romanticism. Perhaps it got the better of me.” said Maurice Ravel on Scarbo.

Sure it did! And, dear Maurice, with Gaspard de la nuit you certainly wrote one of the most interesting work for piano solo if not THE most interesting one. You clearly broke down the barriers of technical possibilities and opened a new dimension in piano writing and performing.

Record labels & artistic agent deals

Pierre-Arnaud — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:00:19 +0000

You certainly noticed a proliferation of companies calling themselves artistic agencies or record labels. In fact I’ve received lots of emails from these companies flattering me and offering me a management or recording contract (or both!).

The first email of this type I got was from an “artistic management” company. I was excited to get an offer and I went on reading it carefully, thinking a manager was interested in my projects. In fact what I read was a weird offer : paying a high monthly fee + a commission to get a pdf press kit and have a call center phoning presenters to try to get me concerts. In brief, “pay 300$ or 500$ a month for minimum one year, and maybe you’ll get something“.

Just for fun, I checked their roaster : something like 30 pianists with a nice empty schedule for the next years, and obviously 25 of them had been listed less than one year ago. Conclusion : obvious rip-off. (Well, Norman Lebrecht posted a warning on his blog about these “agencies”).

For me, that’s not the way management works. I take a risk putting my career and interests in the hands of a stranger, the manager takes the risk of believing in and trusting an artist. Reimbursing the manager’s expenses can be considered as normal (press-kit design, web-mastering …) but paying a high monthly fee for nearly nothing is unbelievable. The couple manager/artist works as if they were associates : they both invest time and money for a common goal, it’s a win-win deal (at least, it should theoretically be one). They must trust each other and I’m pretty sure commission-based work is the only way to keep the motivation alive for both parties. And don’t expect to do nothing because you got an agent. It’s your role to help him.

I spoke earlier about record labels because the same kind of rip-offs take place in the recording business. The deal is generally something like this : Record, bring them a master, and add a 8000$ to be listed in their catalog and produce 500 copies. They claim they’ll advertise a little, do the P.R., distribute your recording and take a 20% on the sales. Usually the only things appearing in contracts are the fees you have to pay, and obligation for them to send promotional materials to some random journalists. When you know how the promotion business is working, you also know this kind of “obligation” doesn’t mean anything and have no impact.

Of course, if you need copies for yourself (the copies you already paid!) you have to buy them from the label (at a discounted rate, but anyway you already paid the goods…). What a good deal… for the label! They have nothing to invest, and they earn money even before the recording has been published, why should they bother to promote your recording? And I don’t want to speak about their releases, usually as bad as the deal is.

The musician’s life is complicated enough and we don’t need these vultures flying around our heads. My question is : do they really think musicians are that dumb and rich?

Le gibet (Gaspard de la nuit – Ravel)

Pierre-Arnaud — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:20:35 +0000

Today, we will pursue the exploration of my album’s Track list with Ravel’s Le gibet. Very slow, mesmerizing, Le gibet, central piece of Gaspard de la nuit, put the audience in a sort of cataleptic state. Ravel, like in the other pieces of his triptych, challenged himself and wrote a truly fascinating piece. And a damn hard work for the pianist.

Le gibet, what does this mean and what is the piece about? Gibet is the french word for the english gibbet. Le gibet is another poem from Bertrand’s Gaspard de la nuit. Let me reproduce here a translation of this poem:

Ah! Could what I her be the cold night wind yelping, or the hanged man uttering a sigh on the gallows fork?
Could it be some cricket singing from its hiding place in the moss and sterile ivy with which the forest covers its floor out of pity?
Could it be some fly hunting for prey and blowing its horn all around those ears deaf to the fanfare of the mort?
Could it be some cockchafer plucking a bloody hair from his bald scalp in its uneven flight?
Or could it be some spider embroidering a half-ell of muslin as a tie for that strangled neck?
It is the bell ringing in the walls of a city below the horizon, and the carcass of a hanged man reddened by the setting sun.

Once again, Ravel perfectly got the ambiance of the poem and mastered its musical transcription. Let’s focus on the last sentence: It is the bell ringing in the walls of a city below the horizon. The bell is clearly symbolized in the piece by a b flat octave ostinato running from the beginning to the end of the piece. Ravel’s challenge was to keep a pedal point of b flat for 152 bars (the whole piece). He didn’t fail at all and this ostinato is what makes this piece so hypnotic.

The fun part is the rhythm of this ostinato. In a so ecstatic piece, Ravel chose a rhythm of rumba for his ostinato (of course with a little distortion) and you don’t even notice it in this environment. The contrast is indeed funny (the rumba discovery is not from me, but from a friend composer: Steven Berryman). Here are the first three bars of the piece, with the bell pattern in red.

If you have been told there was a rumba in Le Gibet, would you have believed it? I didn’t, I really thought my friend lost it definitively! But when I looked at it closer… I found the rumba element.

Ravel’s music is always full of surprises and you never stop finding new elements in it. That’s a part of why this music is fabulous. No matter how long you’ve been playing it, there is always something you overlooked or missed. And I’m glad of it, because in ten years I still will be amazed by Gaspard de la nuit, and I’ll still have things to discover in it.

Don’t worry, be happy!

Pierre-Arnaud — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

8:30 am. I just had a light breakfast, and I’m about to drink the first coffee of the day. Half sleepy, I check my feed reader while sipping my dose of caffeine. So, what’s happening in the classical music world? I used to enjoy reading news about classical music, it used to bring me pleasure and positiveness compared to the uninterrupted flow of negativity we can hear in the traditional news. Well, checking the specialized websites and blogs used to be my routine. But not anymore.

Yes, I fled classical music news. My interest gradually went down until I figured these news were in fact having a negative impact on my mood. News have become a long list of bankruptcies, alarmist titles, epic fails, disasters, concerns about the future of classical music. Well, if I was an adept of conspiracy theories I could have easily thought a mogul somewhere wanted all the classical music related people to commit suicide so he can definitely get rid of our noisy art.

In the course of the 3 last years, I have been reading the same thing over and over : classical music is endangered, everything in this business goes wrong. Booh, that sounds scary. Let’s spend the next 30 seconds trying to understand all this. Why such a statement? Everyone has an explanation: today’s composers are unable to write beautiful classical music like in the past, audience is aging and declining, classical music world is too stuffy and so on… Well, discussing the validity of these arguments would be indeed a lot of fun. But more important than an endless subjective fight is to notice that the heavy criticism basically led nowhere, except to a schism and an increasing number of worried and depressed people in the world of classical music.

Have you ever wondered why people like classical music? Maybe, because it makes them disconnect with their problems, bring them a little joy and happiness. Classical Music changed my life to the point I couldn’t live without it. It helped me go through difficult times in my life. And I believe it can do so for other people. But I’m also pretty sure it wouldn’t have had this effect on me if I had been overloaded with a huge amount of negative news. I guess I would have run away if it has simply reflected the cruel world we’re living in.

Sure the classical music business is not a heaven. It has its issues, everyone knows it, even the audience. Like everyone else in this business I struggle every day. I should say: Like everyone in any business I struggle every day. But that’s not important. The point is that no matter how tough my work can be, no matter the problems I encounter, I will be forever thankful I can play the piano, I will be forever grateful for the life I’m living. No matter what, classical music is a positive experience.

A long time ago, I acted in plays as a hobby and I learned one of the most important lessons: what happens backstage stays backstage. Especially the downsides. Endlessly publicly pointing out problems is not even the beginning of a solution. Endlessly being angry and vindictive is harmful. Endlessly predicting a revolution is tiring. Endlessly blaming others for our own failure is useless. All of this is counterproductive.

I’m happy. Truly happy. I want this happiness to be contagious. I want my love of classical music to be contagious. And I want to make my audiences even happier than I am using the only way I know to do so: playing music.

Ravel’s Ondine, timbre and basic acoustics

Pierre-Arnaud — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:25:09 +0000

Last week, I introduced you to the water spirit Ondine, main character of Ravel’s eponymous work. I also mentioned at the end of this short introduction I will talk today about the German physicist Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, the author of the classic study of acoustic science. I’m not very sure you are familiar with this great guy. He discovered several things but what makes him interesting to me is his strong interest in physics of perception, and especially his On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music published in 1863. What’s in it? Roughly, he discovered harmonics and their importance. Not following me?

Each sound is the result of a vibration and consist of sine wave shaped oscillations. Sounds produced by an acoustic instrument or by singing consist of a fundamental frequency and overtones that are multiples of the frequency of the first harmonic. These multiples as a whole is called the harmonic series (see fig. below).

The human ear usually doesn’t perceive harmonics as separate notes. A musical tone composed of many harmonically related frequencies is perceived as one sound, the quality, or timbre of that sound being a result of the relative strengths of the individual harmonic frequencies. The timbre of an instrument is thus defined by its harmonic spectrum. For example, the characteristic timbre of a clarinet is a result of its very weak even (4th, 6th, 8th, …) harmonics.

Why did I say I would talk about Ravel if I don’t? Here it comes! We’re speaking about timbre, a synonym for color, the most important thing in Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit. I am about to reveal a well guarded secret: how Ravel literally creates new sophisticated colors with a single instrument called piano.

Remember the beginning of Ondine reproduced above? The “tremelo” is clearly a color pattern: Ravel doesn’t want us to detail each of the thirty-second notes but to give the illusion of a general color. He uses a C sharp major triad and adds a minor 6th (A). The key is C sharp Major, fundamental tone is C sharp, the C sharp major triad in C Sharp major represents the 4th,5th and 6th harmonics of the C sharp spectrum, nothing unusual. That would have been totally boring if Ravel had not added the minor sixth, the 13th harmonic of the C sharp spectrum. So, basically Ravel took the fundamental tone C sharp, and modify the color of this C sharp by reinforcing certain harmonics in his spectrum. But why adding the 13th harmonic?

First, he added the minor sixth to make the C# triad unstable and create movement. For me, this tremelo is an evocation of liquidity: a general pattern in motion with micro modifications sounds to me like flowing water. But he could have done this in other ways. Why precisely this 13th harmonic?

Acoustics specialists noticed that we reinforce the thirteenth harmonic in our voice to create a compassionate and loving tone. Have you ever noticed the shift in timbre when you speak to someone lovingly with great inner empathy? Putting emphasis on the 13th harmonic creates for the listener a feeling of warmth, comfort, kindness and presence. Exactly what Ravel wants to convey in the beginning of Ondine. Fascinating, isn’t it?

Balancing harmonics is the secret of the timbre: without this 13th harmonic, this beginning would have been totally blend. With a pattern consisting in four tones of the a single spectrum, Ravel created a color exactly matching the ambiance of Aloysius Bertrand’s poem. That’s genius.

Ecoute, Ecoute! C’est moi, c’est Ondine (Ravel – Gaspard de la nuit)

Pierre-Arnaud — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:00:54 +0000

Today, We will pursue the exploration of my album’s Track list with Ravel. Not that we’re done with Janáček yet, believe me, but let’s take a little detour by one of my favorite pieces ever, Gaspard de la nuit. For those who know me close enough, they know how I adore this piece and that I could speak about it for hours. Written in 1908, during a very dark period of the composer’s life, it represents for me the quintessence of piano writing. From a technical point of view, of course, this dense triptych is still considered as the most difficult work for piano in the standard repertoire. But more than this, the piece shows such a large range of colors and emotions that it requires from the pianist a heart, sensitiveness, creativeness and imagination more than in any other piano work. The thing is: with Gaspard de la nuit, you can’t cheat. You can’t pretend to be anything but what you are.

The first piece of Gaspard de la nuit is Ondine. So my first question is: what is an ondine? To keep it short, an ondine is a water nymph or water spirit. Interesting fact about ondines: Ondines are said to be able to gain a soul by marrying a man and bearing his child. Other interesting fact about ondines: they are supposed to have a beautiful voice and sing to charm men. Ondines are popular characters in literature as well as in music (I’m thinking especially about Dvořák’s Rusálka as the perfect example).

Reading Aloysius Bertrand’s poem (epigraph to Ondine), we clearly understand the picture: An Ondine comes out of the lake, tries to charm a man. She’s singing a song telling him she’s a princess and has a marvellous liquid castle. Of course, she asks the man to marry her, but he refuses, saying he already loves a mortal. She “wept a few tears, burst out laughing and vanished in showers that formed white trickles down my blue windowpanes” (Aloysuis Bertrand).

Why am I telling this story? Because Gaspard de la nuit is program music. How could I deny that? Ravel sticks to the poem and expresses in music what Aloysius Bertrand expresses in words. Let’s take two easy examples.

Ondine begins with a sort of tremelo (right hand) and a beautiful melody (left hand).

In this beginning, you can make a connection with two elements qualifying Ondine : water (the “tremolos”) and her singing (the melody). The narrative content is here : Ravel describes the scene for us. In the background, water flows. In the foreground, Ondine is singing.

Let’s now take the last part of the poem : She [...] Burst out laughing and vanished in showers that formed white trickles down my blue windowpanes. Now, have a look at the last page of the score:

Isn’t this fast ascending arpeggio with a crescendo to fortissimo a musical burst of laughter? And aren’t the following descending arpeggiandos perfectly expressing Ondine vanishing in showers?

Ravel is generally considered to be one of the greatest impressionists. He didn’t like this categorization at all and wrote music far from being impressionist (Concerto in G for example) but in Ondine he uses fast movements of sounds in the pianissimo dynamic, explores timbres of the piano, finds new sound effects and place the colour of sound in the foreground. So typically impressionist.

Ravel choose in the first of Gaspard de la nuit to tell us the story of Ondine using his musical talent as a narrative technique and carefully selected his colors to depict the scene as he pictured it. That’s why, when listening to Ondine, I expect the pianist to be creative enough with sound effects, colors and textures to be able to tell me this dense story. That’s one of the challenge of Gaspard.

This was my first post about Ondine and in the next one, we’ll still talk about Ondine, but more specifically about Ravel’s experiments in this piece, featuring, as a guest star, Hermann von Helmholtz.

Competitions, Janáček, and me

Pierre-Arnaud — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0000

One year ago, one of my readers asked me how I feel about competitions and if I could write something about this hot topic. I really had to think about it (one year!) and find the right time to publish this. But, wait, aren’t we in the middle of a series of posts dedicated to Janáček? Yes, absolutely, but you’ll soon understand the connection. As you can notice in my biography, I didn’t “win” any prize in any competition. Not that I never attended one, I did join one but I decided right after that I will never do it again. But don’t worry, I won’t bother you here with the traditional music-competitions-are-evil. Things are not that simple.

“Musicians can’t compete, music is not a race, there is no winner, no looser”. Yes, it’s surely aesthetically ugly, maybe inappropriate, at least not romantic at all to make musicians compete for a trophy. I agree with this. BUT, music is for us a business too, a passion/business certainly, but a damn hard business. And in any business there are competitions and competitors. This doesn’t mean that we hate each other and we want other pianists to burn in hell. No. I meant competitors in a sense that other people are “providing the same kind of service”. Like it or not, competition even in the fabulous and marvelous world of music exists, that’s a fact. And music competitions can be a way to learn that. As well as a way to set a practice goal.

So why did I stop competing if competitions are so great? (sniggering in the audience) In fact, I was expecting to get a constructive criticism about my playing and meeting people doing the same thing as I do. What did I get? None of that. Participants didn’t want to speak to each other (as if I was going to steal them their talent just with a conversation) and I met nobody I could keep in touch with. For the constructive criticism, let me tell you a short story (here comes the connection with Janáček).

A couple of years ago, I performed In the mists for one of the rounds of my soon-to-be last international competition. After the jury’s decision, I decided to test the water and ask the jury members what they liked and what they didn’t like. I got various advices, a third of them could have been helpful if I had not been told the exact opposite right after, and the last third of these precious “advices” didn’t make any sense at all. And here came the cherry on the cake. One of the members didn’t like at all my Janáček. OK, I can take that you know, but what I was really interested in was why? Suspense… Let’s precise here that members of the jury are supposed to have no information about participants: The guy didn’t know anything about me, and that’s why it was so hilarious.

He advised me to listen to Czech people speaking, for me to get the color of the language, maybe even learn a bit of Czech or work with a Czech teacher because I was obviously not aware of Czech culture, how Czech music has to sound and of the bohemian background of Janáček’s music. Wow. Frankly, I’m still surprised I stayed impassive. The guy, (I’m sorry I can’t remember his name but I made my research in those times) obviously never spoke Czech, never had more exposition to Czech culture than his 3 days trip to Prague 10 years earlier. Anyway, I just wanted to throw in his face I was a 5th year Czech speaking student of Prague Conservatory and that Janáček had no bohemian roots or background but Moravian ones. I didn’t do so but I can remember myself standing in the room with a piece of quiche in the hand just looking at this guy and thinking “this competition thing is a huge joke”. I made up my mind: I would never apply for one again.

Was it a mistake to make up my mind having only one experience? Was it a childish reaction? No, in fact I think I just found a good excuse not to be involved in more competitions. Admit it, it was a very good excuse! But the truth is I never needed to have external practice goals, and I don’t care much about what other pianists can say about my playing. As far as I can remember, I’ve always hated competitions, but when I was a child I did not really have a choice. In my childhood, that maybe taught me how to deal with stage fright. I certainly could have used the kickstarter an international competition can be, but I’m happy I didn’t use this shortcut: I’ve learned a lot more about my job and the music business that way.

Competitions aren’t good or bad, they are a tool in the pianist’s life. A tool you choose to use or not, a tool you know how to use or not, a tool you like or not. Life is not easier nor harder with or without a prize. The important is what you can learn from the experience, and believe me, I learned a lot, even if I didn’t find what I was looking for in the first place.