# Do I need to be a highly skilled pianist in order to be a composer?



## PresenTense (May 7, 2016)

It is known that Hector Berlioz couldn't play piano and he was such a great composer. Were there any composers who were not that great at their instruments but were really good composers?


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Do you need to be a good singer in order to compose an opera? Surely the important thing is to know what performers can or can't do with their instrument.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Nereffid said:


> Do you need to be a good singer in order to compose an opera? Surely the important thing is to know what performers can or can't do with their instrument.


If we all had such wisdom Nereffid .


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## Guest (Sep 11, 2016)

PresenTense said:


> It is known that Hector Berlioz couldn't play piano and he was such a great composer. Were there any composers who were not that great at their instruments but were really good composers?


This needs to be checked and confirmed, but I vaguely recall reading that *Haydn* and *Schubert* were rather mediocre pianists (not virtuosos like Mozart, Beethoven, etc.). If this is true, then you have your answer, PresentTense.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

'Were there any composers who were not that great at their instruments but were really good composers?'

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Yes - the Irish harpist Turlough O'Carolan only learnt to play the harp after he went blind at the age of eighteen. He was generally thought not to be a very good harpist, but his compositions were and are greatly admired. 

However, I suppose that even if a composer can't manually manage to perform all that well - one thinks of Schumann, who ruined his fingers trying to stretch them - he or she would need a thorough understanding of what their instrument can or can't do.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I don't think either Rimsky-Korsakov or Borodin were excellent at any instrument. Ravel played the piano, but had the Spaniard Viñes and others premier some of his piano works because he thought himself not up to the mark. Then there is Wagner. And Tchaikovsky.


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## Picander (May 8, 2013)

I don't think you have to be a highly skilled pianist if you want to compose music, but I think it helps a lot to be able to play a "polyphonic" instrument, and the piano is the most usual of them.


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## JamieHoldham (May 13, 2016)

Speaking from first hand experience, I can't play instruments yet but I and many composers over the decades have still been able to compose, you simply need to know the range of instruments, and it's as easy as that. On the other hand if you want to be a great composer, you need only learn music theory and practise, although I wont deny the potential usefulness of creating complex polyphonic music as Picander described, which may be better off composed at the keyboard, rather than without.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Many consider facility on the piano a prerequisite for composing good, idiomatic piano music, especially if it is virtuosic. Otherwise, today, given the existence of notation programs with playback capabilities and ever improving samples and sound processing, it is not essential for any other kind of composition.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Learning to be a skilled pianist at least, can benefit your composition. Plus, it's really nice to know how to play piano once you get into it. It can only feed your musical mind, once you are done wrestling with the basics of even a high intermediate technique. If you just remember that your truest passion is to write music, it doesn't matter what other skills you acquire. So, no for the need to but it's not a bad idea.


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