Performance Journal: Playing the Space, Not Just the Piano

One of the biggest lessons I’m learning as a young pianist is that performing doesn’t stop in the practice room. Every hall, every piano, even every pedal feels different. No matter how much I practice at home, I can’t completely prepare for how a different space will respond.

The pedal especially is something you can’t really practice in isolation. The SK concert grand I use at home reacts very differently from a Steinway concert grand in a larger hall. The depth of the pedal, the resonance of the space, and the colour of the instrument all change the result. Something that sounds perfectly balanced in my room can suddenly feel dry or even blurry somewhere else.

Tiger Han performed at John Vallance Hall with a mesmerising performance on a Steinway grand piano.

A few weeks ago, I performed Chopin’s Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 42 at John Vallance Hall. The acoustic there really supported the brilliance of the piece. The natural resonance allowed some phrase endings to be slightly drier without losing warmth, which actually worked beautifully.

But when I was preparing Chopin’s Polonaise in F-sharp minor, Op. 44, I realised during the dress rehearsal that the fast running passages sounded much drier than in my home practice room if I used my usual pedaling. The ends of the runs needed more careful pedal to connect the sound, but not so much that everything became blurred. It was a small adjustment, but it made a big difference.

The Mazurka section inside the Polonaise was even trickier. The ends of phrases couldn’t sound dry, they needed warmth and shape. But if I added pedal too early in the middle of a phrase, certain notes suddenly sounded louder, and the line didn’t feel natural anymore. I had to be much more sensitive with half-pedal and timing, not just pressing it down more, but really listening to how it changed the sound.

At John Vallance Hall, I also noticed that the echo can make powerful running passages keep ringing longer than I expect. It can sound exciting and dramatic, but it can also blur the phrasing. Sometimes, even while playing, I can’t hear every detail clearly from the keyboard. That made me wonder: if I hear that blur on stage, what might the audience be hearing from further away?

These are the kinds of details I’m constantly processing and adjusting in real time during a performance. Playing the space at every piano performance teaches something new, and every rehearsal in the actual space feels like another layer of discovery. I’ll let you know how the performance of this Polonaise goes and what I learn from it next.