Successful onstage and in the studio, the Austrian pianist’s recording of Volume II of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier ranked in the Top Ten on Apple Music’s streaming service. His high recognition factor from videos on YouTube and Instagram means sold-out concerts and growing interest in the Pilsan Academy. This online course for piano students offers learning modules and personal instruction from the concert pianist.
He’s a man with a mission: Just as the famous body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger created a fitness trend, Aaron Pilsan wants to repopularize piano playing. Rather than teachers and students, the Pilsan Academy has mentors and mentees, the latter including all levels from beginner to aspiring professional. I myself joined up a few weeks ago, seeking to refresh my rusty technique. After initial group sessions online, I met up with Aaron Pilsan following his recent performance in Cologne.
I read somewhere that you don’t want to play fifty concerts a year but fewer. How many do you do currently?
Thirty or so. I make a point of playing what I really want to play: a couple of choice piano concertos a year, a few recitals with playbills that really mean something to me and chamber music with people I want to perform with. Earlier, before the pandemic, I was trying to perform as much as possible. That’s still the case with most of my colleagues.
All that traveling, going to bed late – last night we ended up eating fast food at 11:30 because we couldn’t get anything else – with that lifestyle I notice sooner or later that my playing isn’t as fresh anymore. But when I perform, I want to be fully present for the audience and continue working on my quality.
With the Academy and my current choice of concert appearances, I’ve found the perfect balance. I can grow artistically because I have time to maintain a practice routine. Working with the Academy has actually taught me a great deal about that.
What have you learned in particular?
There are different phases. When I pick up a new piece, I plunge right into it, and that’s how it should be. Then I reach a point where I have to decide what needs to be practiced on and what doesn’t. Where do I need to do special exercises, and what does this or that passage call for? I become aware of various processes, like in a choreography or a theatrical piece. I need to know exactly what’s coming, and where. Finally I get to the point where I have to just let go of all of that, and go onstage.
These are the same processes with which I guide others in the Academy. I notice that I do need to perform regularly – just like I encourage my mentees to play for others. It doesn’t always have to be in a concert setting. You just need the performance routine.
You seem to have attained a high degree of self-determination. Normally we consider that the ideal, and the more the better. On the other hand, one can’t get by without external factors. If forced to come to terms with things we don’t choose, we can sometimes profit from them. Do you see it that way too?
Yes, we can attain freedom by limiting our choices somewhat. Studies have shown that having too many options makes people less satisfied. At the supermarket for instance: If I have three brands of milk to choose from, I’m a happier consumer than if I have thirty. Because then I’m always thinking: Maybe it should’ve been the other one.
It’s the same in artistic matters. If I specialize in a certain repertory or reduce the number of concert appearances somewhat, it makes me freer.
And artists have different freedoms. Onstage we express the full scope of human feelings. If you and I did that in real life, we’d probably both end up in jail! So the stage is actually a playground where we can also be purely egotistical – and that’s a part of human nature too. Society sets certain boundaries. I’m wearing a shirt and a sweater right now. Onstage, a tux. At home on the couch, maybe jogging pants, or in summer, nothing. That’s my decision. So complete freedom never exists. Of course I could withdraw into the wilderness. But then I’d have to find food, and so on.
It’s a philosophical question, but in art freedom often really does ensue through limitation.
Going back six years, I know people in the creative arts who were stopped dead in their tracks by the Covid lockdowns and aborted their careers. You took a different route. Back then, the internet was an emergency tool in many sectors of life, but you used it to build something that could only exist in the internet, the Pilsan Academy in its current form. A lot of work went into it. How did you go about that?
I’d long had a personal interest in these things. I learned IT at school and did some programming. During my school years I was concurrently a university student in Salzburg, and when on concert tour or in university courses, I would recap my school lessons on a laptop. During my student years I became interested in online marketing.
It was around 2013 that the first online courses for mass consumption began to emerge. They were called information products. I was somewhat intrigued by them but they weren’t relevant for my situation because I was mainly playing concerts. Then I thought, ok, let’s do some Facebook and Instagram.
At one point I hired a coach in personality development who gave online sessions, like the mentoring I now do myself.
He told me about a marketing advising firm. I observed them for a few years but it still wasn’t relevant to me.
Then, the pandemic hit. All of a sudden I lost thirty or forty concert engagements. I found myself playing video games at home. Then I thought, Wait, there’s got to be more to it than this!
I’d already had the idea of maybe helping other musicians with their careers. Right in the middle of the pandemic I didn’t feel terribly qualified but thought, ok, let’s do it as a test. Chatted with a couple of people on Instagram and said, Hey, I’ll give you lessons online. It seemed to work. Before long I was doing what the marketing coach had recommended. Read a book about it and started offering packages of lessons.
It also happened that on Instagram, or after a concert, people would come up and ask, „How do you practice that?“ So I’d play something.
At one point I noticed that the problems people have are always the same. Then I started recording videos and said, „Hey, take a look. This will help because ten other people have had the same problem.“
It grew organically, and out of practice: sharing videos in a Google Drive folder, doing group sessions where we’d play for each other. The structure evolved over time. I eventually got professional advice on how to set it all up, how to advertise – also on the business side of things. That was completely new territory for me.
So it was mainly learning by doing. There were no pre-existing models or anyone else who’d done it before.
Yeah, I’ve been observing the music scene for a long time, and this strikes me as unique. And you’re successful with it. You seem to occupy a middle ground between the stereotypical jet setter who’s constantly performing and the proverbial forgotten artist who after much work and sacrifice, can barely scrape by. Could this be a model for others to follow?
Definitely. In the classical music field we’ve got to come down from the ivory tower anyway and be in dialogue with the public. Most of my mentees play piano as a hobby. Other professionals work with amateurs too. I find this a lot more important – after all, aspiring professionals already have their own institutions of learning.
There’s a huge difference between listening to a concert and playing oneself. It’s a much deeper experience. And I think it’s an important task to keep music alive this way.
Many musicians are only occupied with the material but never give any thought to how to bring music to other people.
In this sense, I consider myself something of an ambassador. I come from Austria. My former compatriot Arnold Schwarzenegger started out as an accomplished body builder but then actively promoted the sport to a mass audience. Nowadays everybody does fitness, and I think he’s the reason for a lot of that. My vision is a bit similar: I want to see more music making at home again.
The Schwarzenegger model: Intriguing! Joining your academy a few weeks ago, the first thing I noticed is that the other mentees come from every part of the world, and they’re of all ages and levels of proficiency. You seek out the participants yourself, and even advertise for the Academy. That’s also unusual. What kind of piano students are you looking for? Or the other way around: who’s not included?
It has to do with the inner stance. You can sum it up in two words: Be coachable. A certain openness, acceptance, curiosity – and you need to leave the ego a bit off to the side. Some individuals resist advice and want to be right all the time. They want to demonstrate how good they are. But when one says, „Here, try it this way“ – it can be difficult.
We have various programs for various levels, so I think there’s something for everybody. But you have to be willing to learn.
In the group sessions you react to different people in very different ways. Does empathy play an important role in this?
Yes, that’s very important. Everyone has their own history and ability. I need to find out: What can I build on? And how can I offer support to improve weak points? That varies a lot from person to person.
Empathy is important, but apart from that you just need mutual respect. A basis of trust. Before agreeing to work together we both examine whether it will make sense and what kind of plan can be achieved.
How large is the Academy, and do you want it to grow?
We now have about fifty active participants in all the programs. I have an assistant, Mario Häring, and sometimes others join the team. There are exercises in modules, so there’s potential for growth there. I want to maintain quality of course.
How much of your time goes into practicing and concertizing, and how much into teaching? And which area of activity brings in the most income?
I actually now almost spend more time instructing than practicing. I do practice regularly, but I don’t think I could have done this earlier. In my twenties I needed more time to get things up to par. You learn from experience. That’s one thing. And in terms of sources of income, I think the Academy is ahead there too.
Many musicians become instructors at academic institutions and continue performing. That’s ok too. It’s interesting that for me, the two areas overlap and are mutually beneficial.
Yesterday the Cologne Philharmonie was sold out. Even the event organizers were surprised, because it was on a Wednesday. The concert was actually sold out in October, months ahead.
Yes, I was surprised to see that. Highly unusual.
Most likely it was partly because I do a lot of paid advertising on Meta and Google. I spend a four-digit sum monthly on it. From a marketing perspective, it’s easier to advertise the Academy because the turnaround is faster. Advertising for concerts is more complicated because they’re planned two years in advance.
But filling the auditorium certainly helps. That wasn’t always the case. So marketing the Academy has a positive effect on concert attendance too. People see it on the internet, then they might see a poster and say – „Ah, Pilsan! Let’s go to the concert.“
And at the concert, in turn, the Academy is promoted.
Exactly.
A hundred years ago there was a piano in every middle class household. Now you find every kind of mass media there. But on one of your YouTube videos you describe a trend back to piano playing. Please explain.
You’re starting to see pianos in train stations and airports or on public squares. A friend of mine started learning piano, and his personal goal is that when he sees a piano somewhere, he’ll be able to sit down and play.
I see it happening more and more: People my age are enjoying playing for others in public spaces. For that, you need a piano at home to practice on. I’m working on encouraging that.
It’s ok if they play film music or neo-classic or pop. It’s all about actively making music. Just like in prehistoric times, where drums and singing around the fire were social conventions.
Nowadays we’re used to consuming media products passively, or maybe there’s a keyboard with prefabricated sounds in the house. But perhaps sometime people will have had enough of that and want to make music themselves. Maybe that’s what the world needs in fact.
Yes, I think so too. Identifying with a meaningful activity is very, very important. That goes for some of my mentees, who are retired – but at earlier phases in life too.
We always ask ourselves: What, in us, is human? With artificial intelligence, the question is growing more important, because jobs that require human intelligence are falling by the wayside.
I think music comprises creativity and human potential. Even the elite will need a meaningful activity in the age of AT because they’ll want to feel human. And people who lose their jobs will need creative activity to avoid psychological decline.
Even if the future isn’t so dystopian, which I hope: Music making is certainly an effective way to keep human creativity alive and to foster emotional and mental health.
