Her tone and manner of speech is absolutely gorgeous, it's as if the music got through all the way and now instructs how she talks.

Extremely exhilarating to hear you speak on practice. My, my, my word, it was coming from a place deep within the core of your very being. The video I saw of you was playing The Warsaw Concerto having never seen or known you prior. I was blown away then... I have heard many a professional concert pianist perform this piece, but few if any demonstrating all 3 of your facets. When I saw you play the concerto, I said hang on this lady makes the music take on a breath of life in its lungs WOW. So I confirm that all you said is a case in point. I'm a self taught church organist. Thank you for such PROFOUND content. I'm trembling with joy

AS an artist I love Olga's discussion of the emotional factor of her musical performance and practice. I thought it was very well explained. thank you , Fred

jesus...she plays beautifully...and speaks gracefully as well.

Delightful! Her voice and her eyes are as beautiful as her music!

Ольчик, вспоминаю тебя и твою маму. Ты трудилась с малых лет и продолжаешь. Ты умничка.

Excellent insight--thank you!! ❤️ 🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜

You are great!!!

i honestly believe you are the most passionate pianist ever! love your music and all your work!

Glad to have found your channel! Youre a wise human being.

Thank you for your insights, Olga. What you say about technique is a great eye-opener.

I just discovered your blog and I really appreciate what you give of yourself. I saw your blog about memory and I have something to contribute to this memory problem. I am a retired amateur pianist. I studied piano with a private teacher for about 12 years in my youth but I was very lazy and ultimately my level is relatively average. I will quickly tell you my “pianistic” story. My level of music theory was really mediocre: I didn't know how to decipher the scores well, particularly the rhythms. So that when the teacher asked me to learn a piece of music, I had great difficulty deciphering it at home. By listening sounds when deciphering it, I learned it aurally and also digitally and visually. When I talk about auditory memory, I wish to say that I learned to recognize the gap between two notes, and the “special flavour” of each chord and/or dissonance. Hence, I completely assimilated these differences in my brain and acquired very good “relative pitch” - I do not have absolute pitch. When I talk about visual memory, I'm talking about memory regarding the position of the fingers on the keyboard. What is very surprising is that by dint of noticing my fingers, I learned to position my fingers on a third, a fifth and other gaps, in "easy" keys (counter- example: C sharp minor - I think of Rachmaninoff's prelude which brings tears to my eyes and not only for its difficulty). For years, I had fun reproducing certain pieces of music by ear, and in particular pop songs. All this sharpened the auditory, visual and digital memory. The downside of all this was that when I learned a piece of music "wrong", the mistake was always repeated and the teacher had to correct me every time I passed in front of him for my lesson. At the end of the year, all the students had an audition in a concert hall (from extreme beginners to music conservatory levels). I obviously had to participate and although a score was placed on the sheet holder, I played by heart. Where this gap played a very nasty trick on me was when one of my friends who was a harpsichordist asked me insistently to turn the pages for him in an amateur concert. And since I didn't know the score, I followed aurally what he was playing except that sometimes I was lost and I tried to cling to the score as best I could. EXCEPT at one point, I thought we were at the end of the page and I turned the page way too soon. I saw him very quickly turn the page back. Then I felt lower than the 3rd basement, so ashamed of my inability. Since then, I have retired and I no longer have the courage to work on learning things “by heart”. So I took my courage in both hands and learned to decipher a little better to finally discover other musical works, like someone opening a book and tell a beautiful story (“once upon a time...”). And the funny part of the story is that since I started enjoying deciphering, I have partially lost my memory of “by heart”. This shows that we can (and we must) work on our memory by trying to replay pieces - even if we make a mistake - by tying transpose them, by trying to find what I would call the “harmonic color” of each chord, and even more dissonances and their resolution - Just by their color, their particular flavor.

i completely agree with everything you say here. i am not a pianist, i am a skateboarder but i look for advice from professionals in any field. I admire the way you play and completely agree that you have to have the technical ability (tools) to express yourself, but the artistic emotional side is so important as well and getting that balance is when music sounds the best, which is the same with any artform i believe personally. Thank you so much for your insights

Thank you Olga. Great comments and very useful advice !

You are a great musician and a great person! Greetings from México.

That was a very enlightened piece of advice. Ogromnoe Spacibo Olga!

I love this voice

Lovely video, Olga. Your love of music shows in your sincerity.

Thanks for this practical talk about practice.

She is as beautiful a person as she is a pianist😍😍😍

She is beyond beauty and art.

Very well said... !!!

Ps. This video alone has had such an apocalyptic sense of dynamic goodness sprinkled over me that I am agog . It was so needed.

Вы для нас открытие!

Responding to your answer below: yes, your way is a beautiful way, pretty much the way I practiced when I studied violin at Mozarteum, Salzburg in 1980s (I played piano as well). But I remember my brilliant violin teacher teasing me that Heifetz, arguably the greatest violinist who ever lived, practiced 10 hrs a day. I monitored carefully when my fingers, wrists and arms started showing signs of strain each day and it was impossible to do more than 2hrs a day more than my usual ration without risking injury. I never damaged myself and my rate of improvement under that teacher was greater than ever before and mostly since. I observed the same when I was training my science research colleagues to run the Paris marathon: you improve faster never missing a training session than having to stop for weeks due to overtraining.

This was so helpful

Well said!

Where can I find more of your performances? I can only find like 3 or 4 clips on youtube. You're my favorite pianist.

Excelente gracias

I love your playing alla turca. I love it.😄😄😄😄😄

Love u ❤

Even if I am not playing any instrument I love to listen to it nearly every day. And I love to learn about it a lot. So I hope we will see more videos from you. Cheers

What she's trying to say is we should all learn Bach, the best of all worlds x)

Olga Jegunova, through her frankly divine mastery of her chosen art, describes here a methodology for existence which has the potential to lead to a meaningful life. She has achieved enlightenment and is an example to us all.

As one who possesses the emotional qualities to enjoy music but lacks the physical and intellectual properties to practice my opinion may seem invalid, but here it is for what it's worth for these attributes apply not only to the practicing and enjoyment of listening to music but apply to the way we approach our daily lives. Along with, and perhaps separate from, the emotional investment necessary to practice I would add spiritual. Here, spiritual is intended as originally defined, from the Latin for of breathing, a realization and connection between our body and mind. I understand and agree with your analysis and hope we live our lives and enjoy our music as you have gracefully stated. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and helping at least one to better enjoy and understand the music you play.

3 aspects of Mozart: Hands, brain, heart. This is mozart stuff

How it could be that I never met wonderful, smart, brilliant, human souls like this is a great tragedy for me. When I was coming of age in art school in NYC of the 1980's while also studying music, there was no such amalgam of emotional, intellectual, & technical, it was all ego, ego, ego. Beautiful to hear this sentiment from someone of such talent & mastery, who could have been like the artists & musicians I knew, who were all about competitiveness, striving for celebrity, glamour, recognition, money. Visual art went on to become a complete fraud, pop music burned itself on its canned celebrity, but this, KZfaq self-published young musical geniuses taking us back to true beauty & depth is heartening. The 80's left me bitter, this gives me hope.

I Couldn't say it better! Thank you! True passion of music talking here' By the way, where did you go !?

You are a starseed. A lightworker.

My first teacher ruined my technique, it was impossible to re-teach myself how to do the basic things. But yes as soon as you start seeing melody in every single phrase you play, technique, muddle work and hours of playing Cherney becomes irrevelant. One can jump ahead from others if he/she sees “music in everything they play”.

ur so talented and so beautiful and so adorable. i love you. please marry me

Hi Olga! Can you recommend me a way to improve muy tecnique? thanks :)

when you learn to play an instrument like the piano, do you think age is a important factor to make a difference in how good you can become? like is there an age you pass when no matter how hard you practice you'll never make up for the lost years?

The bottom line is 'practice, practice, practice', the same as becoming a signpainter (that's me!) There are no shortcuts or special 'methods' that make it any easier.

All I would advise is build up physical work sustainably: too many musicians damaged from Repetitive Strain Injuries. Everyone is different, but I would not increase practice more than 1hr a day each six months......and like sportsfolks, do a proper warm up and warm down every day and do finger stretching exercises for flexibility.....pianists hands are like physicists brains - the crown jewels!

who is that one person dislikes this video?? some people videos shouldnt include dislike button. hey google do something

1: Technique 2: Intellectual 3: Emotional/Intelligence/Life Experience Did I Get That right Professóra? Or was my brain distracted at your beauty? Sincerely, Brad Cady

Your essentially talking when you play the piano.

Olga pls marry me

Beethoven didn't have the last one, he was kind of an asshole capable of composing awesome music!