Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Do you event stories or images for the music you play???

My piano instructor has told me she always invents stories or images for the music she plays... I have images or stories when they are self-evident (to me and maybe to no one else) in the music; for example, a dialogue for parts of Mozart, or the image of running across a field in a Chopin nocturne, or two dancers in tango music. You get the idea.

BUT I do not try to always have an image or a story for each piece of music. Just curious, do you always invent a scene, story or a dialogue?

Hardly ever - except in music which is programmatic or highly descriptive (night music/nocturne/notturno doesn't necessarily evoke starry nights - with or without the moon - or aureola borealis.....).

The only recent piece I'd learnt in which I made up images was Bartók's Román népi táncok, which was necessary to get the 'style' of each dance right, but even here, it was pure speculation on my part, as I'd never seen Romanian (or Hungarian) folk dancing. So, I evoked images of (English) Morris dancing, Scottish Highland fling, and Irish dancing - and Riverdance (& even an image of John Travolta ) into my mix, but banishing from my mind any trace of British reserve.........

Sometimes I need to listen for the tenor voice, sometimes I need to be grounded in the downbeat, and sometimes I need an image or a memory or experience. Depends on the music and what I'm trying to do.

Sometimes I do and it helps me interpret the music. For example, Schumann's Aufschwung, which means "soaring", brings to mind the lifting off and travel of a hot air balloon. The thundering bass sounds, to me, like the roar you hear when the pilot pulls the cord to fire the burners. You can hear the balloon lifting and floating. The center section sounds very pastoral, as if the balloon is floating and soaring over farmlands. When that picture came into my mind, the music suddenly made sense to me.

Liszt's Funeraille has a tragic story that goes with it but specific parts sound to me like tolling church bells, doom, marching cavalry, weeping and there is the actual execution of his 3 friends.

I have a few pieces I have that sort of imagery for; a cold winter day, a vocal duet, a few paintings etc.

I usually do. It can be a made-up story, a conversation, an event in my life that made me feel the way the music seems. I don't feel like I've connected with the music otherwise. If the music is sad, and I'm not sad I don't think It will be effective. If I am sad I will interpret it in a way that enhances my feeling. Stories also help to also make repeated material different the second time around.

Just today I was practicing Vergebliches Standchen, a Lied by Brahms. In this strophic song one verse is about the boy speaking to a girl, another verse is the girl's answer, and yet another verse has the boy speaking again but now complaining about an icy wind. Not knowing what the text is about, I would have come up with a different interpretation of the music. Knowing the meaning of the text I understand what Brahms was doing with his variations in the accompaniment and I can now emphasize the differences even morre.

Sure, pure instrumental music doesn't have the advantage of a text, but if creating a story will help me like it does playing lieder, why not?

No, hardly ever. For me, music is not a visual medium nor is it enhanced by visuals, and conjuring images interferes with my connection with the music. Programmatic music is the only exception.

Regards,

It's a good way to make your music sound more meaningful.

I usually try to figure out what emotion I want the audience to feel at each measure, but that's not always pictures.

This is an interesting question, and I think I and others have made threads about this before. Personally, I virtually never envision stories or images connected to music, even music with evocative titles. OTOH I have been to tons of master classes, and the teachers use imagery quite often to try to explain what they want the student to do.

My guess is that the use of imagery by performers would be something like a bell curve. I would be at one of the extreme ends of the curve!

This is an interesting question, and I think I and others have made threads about this before. Personally, I virtually never envision stories or images connected to music, even music with evocative titles. OTOH I have been to tons of master classes, and the teachers use imagery quite often to try to explain what they want the student to do.

My guess is that the use of imagery by performers would be something like a bell curve. I would be at one of the extreme ends of the curve!

I'm not necessarily imagining stories, but more feelings that fit with the music. Or situations where you might be in which trigger some emotional response.

When I know a piece well I do invent stories or imagine something to evoke my emotions while im playing.

At strategic spots on the score, I'll often draw a cartoon dialog bubble in which I put an emotive or otherwise helpful interpretive word that sums things up, like "pesante" or "murky" or "grand" or "giddy" or "maestoso" or "sulky" or (my favorite) "???" (meaning "mysterious").

As for a complete story or program, I've had listeners tell me some scenario that they have imagined to what I just played, then ask if that was what I had been thinking. I always answer, "Oh yes, exactly!" I wouldn't want to burst any bubbles! (I'm really mostly thinking form and phrasing.)

There is a spot in the finale of Beethoven's C Minor Piano Concerto where the sun comes out (to stay).

Exactly! I make up stories about everything I play - I'm surprised to find anyone who doesn't do that. All music tells a a story of one kind or another. The story that you find in the piece you are playing is the unique way you have of hearing it, and what you find interesting or beautiful there.

One of my teachers in college liked to make up rhymes or even proverbs that matched the syllabic rhythm to the phrase in question, to help get the stress and the phrase shaping just right. For example, she performed the Mozart g minor piano quartet with her husband's quartet all the time, and she had come up with this little sniglet to get the emphasis of the opening just so:

"Paaasss thhheee toMAtoes please!"

Ah well...typing just doesn't do it justice....

Your definition of "story" is not what I think most people are thinking of or the way "story" is used in the OP. I think most people are using "story" in the dictionary sense. Your definition would automatically include anyone playing a piece...even me.

Nope, I think you're mistaken piano. Besides, since I didn't (nor did anyone so far) really explain in detail what I meant by it very clearly, how can you tell?

And does it really matter which one a person is doing? A subtext is a subtext, whether it's one word, 10,000, or a picture or mood instead of any kind of linear narrative.

The example I gave of my college teacher is only one way she invents a subtext to go with the music. And that example is a very evocative story that says much more than its 4 words suggest.

You switched from "story" to the more general "subtext". You defined story as the pianist's "unique way of hearing it" or what they find "beautiful" or "interesting". That would apply to anyone hearing the piece in their mind or ears. It applies to me although I don't use images or stories.

There is a recent book about images and stories in piano music, and it uses those words in the ordinary dictionary definition.
https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Imag...717&sr=1-5&keywords=piano+images

Don't you think you're being a little too narrow (wink)?

my score literally says in scribbled pencil "the sun comes out" right there.

Hi, dogperson! For what it's worth, I NEVER have felt the need to invent a story or conjure an image for anything I've played. I do seek to project the emotional qualities that a piece seems to suggest, but never a specific storyline or image. This, however, does not preclude music like the Impressionism of Debussy or Ravel, where THEY provide strong clues to visual imagery in their compositions.