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Many students want to create music that has a certain emotional quality. For example, I once had a student ask me to show her how to play something that sounded happy.

Of course, this student missed the entire point of my teaching - to play where you are emotionally and to not try and come up with something. I tried to explain to her that if she were feeling happy, then the natural outcome of the music would be flavored with this emotion.

As a natural outgrowth of the proceeding statement, there will be times, many times perhaps, when the music that comes out of you sounds the same. Many interpret this as being uncreative, when in fact, you are being true to yourself. When you don't try and come up with material, but instead, let the music come up, you are not forcing or willing the creative act.

Instead, you are allowing yourself to express in the moment - whatever the sound may be.

If someone tells you that everything you play sounds the same, acknowledge it silently as a compliment and know that you are being true to yourself and the integrity of the artistic process! When you are more concerned with enjoying the act of creating then trying to come up with material, you'll be way ahead of the game!

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Play New Age Piano
http://www.quiescencemusic.com

I'll disagree. It's possible to feel emotions and them not move into your playing to such a degree that it changes the sound of your music.

Most people are shy and do not like putting their emotions on a plate for everybody to see--or in a song. For me, and I'm sure others, it's something that must be learned.


Also, as far as creating music goes, some forms of songs inherently sound happier/sadder than others. light, bouncy music = happy; slow, smooth music = sad. But not always!

Take the Funeral March of a Marionette. Fast and bouncy, but not happy.


Perhaps some better questions:
How do I have a happy left hand? (Let's say, Alberti bass)
How do I put a melody over this so that it sounds good? and happy?

What I would do with that student is find "happy songs" and analyze them vs. "sad songs."

I say "Everything sounds the same" to my students when they don't play with CONTRAST in articulations, dynamics, tone, and (depending on the piece) tempo. It is never a good thing to play everything sounding the same, unless the composer wanted it that way for an effect--like a drone, or imitating a machine.

There is a huge gap between 1) feeling something and 2) playing a piece a certain way so the audience will feel something. You don't have to have #1 in order to do #2, but it certainly helps. For example, I have students who are far too young to appreciate the idea of "lost love" or "yearning for love." But if I can demonstrate to them the mechanics behind making a series of sounds (with different shades of dynamics, tone, articulations, and tempo), they can more or less re-create the effect. If you close your eyes and just listen, you just might be able to pick up the feeling that the music is conveying, rather than what the performer is feeling inside.

I remember watching an interview of the actor James Woods on his performance as Byron De La Beckwith in the movie "Ghosts of Mississippi." He was so good, he got an Oscar nomination. James Woods explains that he did an imitation of Byron De La Beckwith. Of course, James Woods is not the racist that De La Beckwith was, but an actor can ACT--with proper training and good technique--so that the audience feels like they are watching a racist man on the movie screen. It's all in the acting technique and delivery. A good actor does not have to feel racism in order to portray a racist man.

Does that analogy make any sense?

It does to me; I wholeheartedly agree!

My point is directed towards those who are creating their own music either through improv or composition.

As Larry Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman - "Why don't you try acting, dear boy?"

Well, I compose and I definitely don't want to be told that all my music sounds the same. I'm always trying to find new and interesting things to say, and different ways to say them. Not for the sake of it, but because, well, it's actually more interesting. I can sit there like I assume quiescen means and let music flow out from my fingers, but I'd prefer to shape it rather than having it end up "all the same". That's not to say there aren't recognisable features of my music, but if everything sounded the same there wouldn't be much point in writing anything except the first piece .

I don't know - maybe you think all Mozart "sounds the same"! All the New Age music I've ever heard sounded pretty much the same to me, and resulted in no desire to listen to any more of it. But by all means like whatever you like ...

Currawong,

I'm talking about an intuitive approach to playing piano here. Something many on this board don't understand. I get that. You see, they're used to playing the great classics and have deprived themselves of the ability to just "be" at the piano.

Always practicing for that perfect performance or whatever ... they miss the joy that can come from actually letting the music direct them instead of the other way around.

And by the way, most music in any genre sounds the same. Rap, Mozart, all of it can sound the same unless you're exposed to the genre for some time. Nothing wrong with that. That's just the style of the music.

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Play New Age Piano
http://www.quiescencemusic.com

I saw Marathon Man. You kind of remind me of Sir Larry's character.

Hmm - I'm not so sure it's true that many on this board don't understand just "being" at the piano. Your original post gave us no context for your comments really, and no clear idea that you were talking about improvising - which a number of teachers here both do themselves, and teach.

And as for the perfect perfomance (whatever that is - I don't aim for perfect performances myself, simply musical ones), I think many if not most classical performers would say they are letting the music direct them as much as directing the music. They're two sides of the one thing, I think, not an either/or. You shape the phrase, but it's the music that leads you to do it - the music that tells you how it should be played.

It sounds a little like you're saying that letting stuff happen is better than "willing the creative act". For most of the improvisers I've heard, I'd much rather listen to the results of them "willing the creative act" than just letting it happen . And even playing just for yourself, in the privacy of your own home, there is great satisfaction in craftsmanship, as well as in letting music flow out without thought. By all means do the latter - but don't disregard the former or say that it is somehow less an expression of yourself.

Oh just great, so suddenly I'm a Nazi now!

If someone told me that, I would know for sure that I was in a rut. I would start looking for opportunities to grow as a musician.

Some comments on the original post:

1) I think it is true that what a person plays sounds mostly the same. It's what makes Art Tatum sound like Art Tatum.

2) I don't always agree that the natural outcome of a piece of music reflects the emotions of the performer. This is where technique and theoretical knowledge comes in. You may be feeling as giddy and whimsical as a Bugs Bunny Cartoon, but if your fingers can't move that fast and your brain can only handle three chords and a scale, then it's going to sound like a nervous mess to the audience.

3) I also agree that many people are in search of a "correct" or "perfect" performance. It happens in all genres, whether it's someone asking what the "right" voicing is for a particular chord, what the "right" tempo is for a Beethoven sonata, or what would be the "best" way to make some vapid new age thing "more interesting."

4) I think it's something great artists don't worry too much about. Take Keith Jarrett for example. If he's feeling frenetic, he can play a hundred different chord substitutions and change scales every beat in "All the Things You Are," or if he's feeling otherwise, he's content to spend 5 minutes on a D Major chord in the Koln Concert.

5) A lot of what we're talking about here regards amateur music making and solo performers. If you're an accompanist, then you need to be able to evoke emotion without necessarily feeling it. There are times when "play where you are emotionally" and "perform the Hindemith Bassoon sonata at 8 o'clock on Friday night" might not line up, but the bassoonist and the audience still want a show, and you have to give it to them. This is what people have been saying about acting. Watching somebody act sad is not the same as watching somebody be sad, and the latter is not always as powerful as the former.

What about calling me a Nazi? (funny, at the ABF I'm being called a commie lefty, sheesh).