Life Lessons From Lang Lang—Part Eight (July 29, 2025)

From left to right: Lang Lang’s Eight Golden Rules for Studying the Piano; Menachem Pressler performing Debussy’s Clair de lune.  Notice how deceptively simple it is, and yet how much technique he uses to play it so well; Jan Lisiecki performing the Chopin Nocturne in C sharp minor; Lang Lang playing Beethoven’s Für Elise.

RULE NO. 8: Art and Technique Go Hand in Hand 

Lang Lang says that one’s music education needs to be paired with a full understanding of technique, and I could not agree more. A master chef has to learn, for example, many different techniques.  For cooking alone she has to know how to boil, fry, roast, grill, sauté, and poach many different foods. In addition, she has to know how to use many different knives, understand how to combine flavors, organize, and measure, long before making great food.

By the same token, a pianist needs to have mastered all of the skills related to playing elements of many different works, such as scales, runs, trills, and arpeggios, in addition to rhythm, memorization, music theory, improvisation, and of course, the patience needed to practice these many elements over and over again for years.

In order to become really good at something one is never finished studying or learning. It is a lifelong process where one is trying to improve over previous performances. It also it takes the willingness to play something over and over again to discover how it might be improved.

What do you think it takes to master works like Debussy’s Claire de lune, the Chopin Nocturne in C sharp minor or even Beethoven’s Für Elise? Deceptively simple, all of these works require many hours concentrated study, practice, and technique in order to perfect.  Simple can sometimes be very difficult, and at the core of the greatest performances is great technique.

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