Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Emotions and Expressing

I have noticed that when I listen to or play a beautiful piece for the first time, I am very touched, and I cab bring out all the emotions, and feelings. However, after I have practiced over and over again, I lose the expressiveness. By the time of the recital, I have a perfect technical ability of the piece, but I have lost the emotional side. For example, when I first played the Moonlight Sonata, I almost cried at the end. Now, my impression is just a easy piece with lots of triplets. What can I do to retain the musical emotions when playing, or even listening to a piece?

It sounds as if you lack what it takes to be a performer if this is truly the case.

Maybe if you understood the music better. The Moonlight, for instance, was nicked from the opening death scene of Mozart's Don Giovanni. It's not just a bunch of triplets.

I think that's the natural progression I think.. it's not as if a performer is 100% emotional all the time, at 100% of his capability.. I remember a Bill Evans interview.. you have good ones, and not so good ones, but his thing was that if you keep the performance consistent (regardless of how you feel about it), the you've done your job as a performer.

If the case is that you COMPLETELY can't feel anything... I'm not sure what to say.. I do think that once you feel that a piece is easy, and can see and feel how it's built, then it should be that much more easier for you to impose your feelings onto it. Which in the end, will lead to a more successful performance.

For listening, I think listening to a piece and feeling the same emotions at the same magnitude all the time, is a fallacy. People say "it gets me every time", or things like that, as a figure of speech. Cognitively I doubt that is what is really happening. So, if the sensation diminishes, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Perhaps, the more you know a piece, you can start appreciating it from a higher or deeper perspective. And while that may not be as sensational, or emotional, it may lead to a more intellectual type of enjoyment.

Also, this is a very general statement, but it may also pay to have dynamic experiences yourself too. Performing a piece on a piano, can be as simple as executing the written notes.. as in, performing for sake of performing it. But, with a dynamic life experience, you can perform for the sake of communicating your dynamic emotional experiences.. Which usually is a better way to communicate. I mean, you need to have a message (preferably something powerful) before you try to say anything right?

I'm not much of a performer, but I do compose. Most art forms end up being introspective.. asking yourself questions, learning about yourself and your emotions, your experiences.. so depending on how deep you want to go, it's important that you know these things. But I guess you're knocking on the right door.. you already questioned how you feel, or rather, why you're not feeling anything. That is the first big step I think. You want to be aware of these things, be sensitive of what's going on inside you.

Either way, there are always ways to make something interesting. That's where much of the effort and creativity goes to I think.

Think of your technical ability as giving you what is needed to express yourself. Technical ability is not the end - simply the means.

I doubt that you know enough about the OP to make a snide and unhelpful comment like that.

Firediscovery, I think what happens when you first hear - or play - a beautiful piece is your focus may be on an initial impression of the emotional content. After hearing it, and studying it more and more, that initial impression wears off. That can be a natural reaction to repetition. However, what you want to communicate to listeners when you perform is the beauty and emotional content of the piece, so oyu have to find away to keep it fresh, and find what you originally saw in the piece again.

I think one of the criteria that the very greatest classical works meet is that one can play or listen to them more than lesser(but good)works and not get bored.

I do often wonder how some pianists can pkay the same program for 10 or even 30+ recitals and not get bored. Even harder for a those performing a Broadway show almost avery day for a year.

I remember the OP as being the author of a thread saying that he had all 48 of the WTC in his repertoire at the age of 12 and couldn't decide what to play for his audition to Juilliard...

I couldn't care less how old you are or how many preludes and fugues you can play from memory.

If you cannot make a piece of music sound fresh after you have practiced it over and over again, this is not the right career for you to be in.

Having a life certainly helps. Some of the posts I have read on PW where people are practising 4-5 hours a day and I assume,working..you've got to wonder.

I think you have to actively concentrate on the emotional side of things. Treat it as seriously as you treat technique. When you practice, practice with emotion - even if you're repeating the same measure over and over.

What I found helpful is to have some kind of image or scene in my mind as I begin to play, and to focus on that for a while before I start playing. So as you're playing the Moonlight Sonata, think about the mood of the piece - think about the last time you felt that way, and what the situation was, and pour it all into the music.

As it's about a geeza dying, that could be a little difficult.

my comment above.....way too harsh. I withdraw it. I can easily waste 4-5 hours in a day.

Does this mean that you have lost your own sense of emotional connection to the music, or that you have lost the ability to communicate the meaning of the music? The two don't necessarily correlate. Your audience can have a meaningful musical and emotional experience through your performance though you did not have such an experience yourself.

Get away from the music for a little while. This will give you time to separate yourself from the technical content of the piece. When you return to it, your ears will hear it anew and the emotionals will be fresh again.

It sounds to me like your approach to playing
is incorrect. This "feel the music, express
yourself in your playing, bring out the
inner meaning in the music, understand
the meaning behind each note, etc.",
emotional approach to the piano, is completely
wrong, to my way of thinking.

First, let me say, in a seeming paradox,
that emotion is essential to playing
the piano, because no one would ever sit
down at an awkward, cacaphonous instrument
like this, unless there was a strong emotionally-
based spur behind him to make him do so. However,
it does not follow that one needs to
be emotional about the actual playing
process. Piano playing requires
great physical and mental discipline
and hard, athletic-like training, and
if you sit down and try to just let your
emotions run rampant and expect that
to be the way to learn, then you're
going to severely hamper your progress,
because uncontrolled emotions and
mental discipline do not go hand in hand.

On the contrary, one needs to rein in
his emotions totally when playing,
in order to apply the physical and mental
discipline necessary to become a good
player. This crying while playing is not
the way to do it, in my view. Note
that computers can be programmed to
play a piano better than any human
can, and computers have no emotions--
that's why they can play so well.

And when one does this, he is never
in any danger of his playing being devoid
of emotion. We humans are emotional in
the extreme and it is a constant struggle
to rein in those emotions in order to
function in a civilized society.

This thing about your playing "lacking
feeling" by recital time is not correct,
in my view. This is simply the case
where you have not learned the piece
well because you have tried to use
emotion as the vehicle for learning,
which is going to hamper the learning
process severely.

Gyro - does that mean that you prefer to listen to a digitally-generated (perfect mathematically)piece of music over a human-generated piece of music?

Firediscovery,
May I suggest :

Technical mastery is but the prelude to true artistic expression.

Look at Vladimir Horowitz play this piece,or even Barenboim,you will hear they add something of their own unique interpretation.

They are able to do this because they have complete technical mastery and control of the work.

The Moonlight ,2n movement is easy to play but difficult to play well.

You are lucky to have arrived at technical competence ,its now a question of digging deep to discover the composers intentions

My favorite thing about that graemlin is unquestionably the animated flies buzzing about the horse's head. God is in the details!

Steven

Also listen to Claudio Arrau's performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5vRRrhJdWg

It is a bit slow for many people, but it is the most profound performance of this piece I have come across.