Spotify curated "Peaceful Piano" playlist, not at all peaceful

[strosien]

I have listened to the "Peaceful Piano" playlist over the years, however the latest incarnation is anything but peaceful.  Far too many tracks, easily 95%+, include far too much piano mechanical noise.   Someone needs to really listen to these tracks before including them on a curated play list as it's it's tough to enjoy the music with random creaking, pedals sounds, and even in a couple cases, buzzing strings.    Please ensure only high quality recordings are selected because these are not it.  For reference:  (as of 4/22/22)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX4sWSpwq3LiO?si=78da55b69e9649d6

[Alex]

Hey there @strosien,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community.

You can report content by following the steps in this article. After this is done the content team will investigate further and take appropriate action.

Hope you find this info helpful. 

Cheers.

[adsper]

Since I listen to this playlist exclusively when I am doing office work, I actually quite like the mechanical sounds. It sounds like a keyboard typing which keeps me focused on work somehow, like I'm in a busy office and everyone is working but there's also beautiful piano music. It just works for me in a work environment. However if I was just relaxing listening to music then I agree it'd be irritating.

[1148788361]

I absolutely agree. Can the Spotify editors please just feature piano songs that actually have a clean piano sound? All of them have more hammering sounds and atonal string resonances than the actual piano tune itself. It's aggravating to listen to and has ruined listening to these lists on headphones especially since all you hear are the hammers of the piano instead of the actual piano.

Also, I'm sorry, but the moderator's advice on "reporting" the content in the playlist is completely unhelpful. The piano compositions do not have incorrect information, nor do they have hateful content. It's just an annoying trend that the Spotify editors have decided to put on their most popular piano lists making them nearly unlistenable for some, and we are voicing our complaints and want to have cleaner piano compositions again.

Spotify editors are supposed to an artist's compositions based on high production value right? Well, some of these hammering piano sounds ain't that at all.

[Livio_Ventura]

Hello Casual Listener,

for a peaceful time you could try listening to a "cleaner piano" in Making sense of time - https://open.spotify.com/album/63eCliXoMRGowtkWVss5il?si=KYTkzs--TbaU8M-DxZKVOg.

I am thrilled to share that my first EP Making sense of time made it into the list of finalists for the Global music awards and was awarded a Bronze medal.

Making sense of time is made up of six musical moments of melodies and harmonies that accompanied me for a long while. The EP was released at the end of January for my sixtieth birthday. The idea of preparing and releasing an album with my compositions came about in October 2021 during our 30th wedding anniversary trip. I was very eager to start this project and was aware that it was going to take time. Hence I opted to review and release only compositions for piano. Towards the end of the pandemic, a new musical idea surfaced and I opted to include a “bonus track” for flute and piano.

A few words to describe each composition:
01 Candlelight for piano - A delicate and introspective piano solo version of a theme originally composed in the 80s.
02 Uneven (Ndlamu – African dance) for piano - A recollection of the social ritual of a dance.
03 Oblivion theme for piano - A melody fades gently into oblivion.
04 Elisions for piano - An effervescent take on a theme, co-composed with my son Benjamin.
05 Landscape for piano - An evocative piece where a spinning top whirls romantically within an unusually symmetrical scale.
06 Lockdown for flute and piano (bonus track) - An ongoing evolving dialogue between two instruments. Flute part performed by my son Daniel.

Enjoy!

Br, Livio

[tnadsfdsaf]

Totally agree, spoils the peace, who wants to listen to pedal noise??? 

[Serge4Music]

I agree with you. I refuse to go with this awful trend and make my pieces without all these noises. Therefore my pieces are not in this playlist (or any) I think, which is a strange thing. Pitching them had no result so far. Pitched about 30 pieces I think.... Also I can't find the right category for uploading/pitching contemporary piano music. You have to choose classical music, but it's light piano music imo. 

[DonSolare]

Hi @strosien, I fear that the pedal and "machine" noises are intentional. This is the characteristic sound of this particular playlist. Possibly 80% of their tracks are produced with virtual instruments (I am unsure which ones are the favourites). In such instruments you can say "add x % of pedal noises", etc. This leads, of course, to a paradox: usually we real-life pianists tries to avoid pedal noises as **bleep** (it is a demonstration of lack of playing technique). However the criteria here are radically different: the goal is to simulate a human playing. Pedal and key noises are meant to convey the idea of intimacy: your ears are so close within the instrument that you can even listen such noises. The apradox is, as mentioned, that human pianists try to avoid that noise!

[guitarlancer]

Yeah the creaks and squeeks are whats called felt piano. That's really in now. What I wish they'd do is support more independent artist on there and less of royalty free music from Epidemic sound (which they must have a deal with) 
They don't support enough real working artists on these instrumental playlist like peaceful piano, peaceful guitar and so on. 

I'm one of the artist deserving of the playlist placements. 

[joelynock]

The sounds of the pedal creaking, hammers striking the strings and string buzz, for most people, are near impossible to remove in a piano recording. Not everyone who wants to compose piano pieces for people to listen to on spotify have access to high quality grand/upright pianos (extremely costly) and expensive mic setups which can lead to "cleaner" sounding piano music. These mechanical sounds are not indicative of "low quality recordings" - they're indicative of real flawed instruments, being played by real flawed people. It's common nowadays for the mics to be placed very close to the piano for a more intimate sound - mechanical noises are therefore inevitable, especially if you only have access to an older piano for example. I think people generally do their best to minimise these noises where they can, although yes I agree in some cases they can be a bit off putting.

And sure, you could use a virtual piano, many of which sound good enough and can be played with as much (or as little) mechanical noise as you like, but you most certainly lose expression, emotion and musical nuance when compared to a real piano. I'm afraid I disagree with DonSolare that 80%+ of the songs on "Peaceful Piano" are virtual pianos. The vast majority of them are real recordings, probably on inexpensive/older/out of tune pianos. I can smell a piano VST a mile off, especially fake mechanical noise. 

There's a real magic in the imperfection, in my opinion. But if it isn't for you, there's lots of other "cleaner" piano music out there 🙂