capturing and sustaining the emotion of a piece

[Bob]

I think this has two parts...

How can you completely divorce yourself from technique and get to that point of only hearing and feeling the emotions of a piece? 

How long can that be sustained?  How can you get that on demand?


2.  How do you practice in a way that does not lose the emotions of a piece? And is it possible to practice those emtions?  To devleop them the same way you develop a piece of music or technique?

[DarkWind]

There is a problem with this question. Technique is inseperable from music. Even Chopin said that.

[dinosaurtales]

I think that would happen when you have attained way more technique than a piece requires, so much so that the technical part of the piece is so automatic you don't hav3e to think about it.

The same way NHL hockey players dont' have to think about their skating anymore so they just concentrate on the game.

[lostinidlewonder]

You can forget about technique and all the notes that you are playing if a peice is completely memorised. That means that you have absorbed all sections of the music and memorised them through a particular touch routine (you can play parts of the peice as easily as if you where to play a single note scale, that type of routine and form control). If a peice has a strong sense of a routine touch then chords, the melody, note runs etc, all these encountered in the piece feel very farmiliar and are individually caressed with a relaxed hand, without hesitation and they are not played as if they where excersises but rather highlighting the sound quality the piece calls for and which you have spend a lot of time thinking about and testing.  Also your hands shouldn't ever look as if they are searching for keys, you shouldn't be thinking too much about the notes while you play, in fact you should be able to take your eyes from the keyboard while you play your piece and look around the place much more often than not. This demands that you have this routine touch in the piece you play. Making it feel effortless and without conscious thought, but just feeling it.

Then you can fully focus on sound production. Of course you can hear if something is not effective enough while you practice or when you have done something that sounds right, but the notes are what are getting in your way and blocking your full focus on the sound, you are too tied up about the notes and accuracy. They contintually pop up as an error, clouding the achievement of the unhesitant touch and flow of the piece your hands should form. Even one note mistake can disrupt the true feeling of the flow of the peice, so of course we need to get the notes out the way completely so that it doesnt effect our expression in the sound production.

Any alteration to the energy transfer to the piano (your body to the instrument) is based on your ear, listening to what is being produced from the piano and into the room you play in. When i play on stage i am completely interested in the sound of the instrument and perhaps even sometimes the story that the piece goes through. But more importantly, the sound that I am making in the room that I am playing in. This of course has to be tested in a rehersal or you are setting yourself up for trouble if you peform without testing the instrument/room you're in, the acoutstics. This is not always a constant, thus it becomes very hard to master a perfect and constant method for the emotion of the peice since that shifts and changes depending on the instrument, room (filled with people or empty).

Tempo/volume settings of a peice, these things are what you can work on. Volume is such a pregnant dog to crack. If on sheet it says, cresendo, p to f, do you do p to f? Or do you do pp to f, or do you do p to ff? This depends on the size of the room, so the exact emotion of the piece, volume wise, has to be tackled with your connection to the acoutics of the room and your intent listening to the voice elements of the instrument (what are all its volume ranges like, from pppp-ffff and how easy is that to achieve with your touch, what is its fluid arpeggio motion feel like, stacatto,  how does the pedal stick to the foot? etc). There are threads on Acoustics all over the place, i posted recently on this one, https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,7688.msg76818.html#msg76818

Tempo expression is unaffected by the size of room. So generating your own tempo for your music, rubato for instance, are factors which are pretty much a constant despite where you play. I personally feel that it is the connection you make with the tempo of the peice through understanding; which notes hold back, which notes can be rushed, which notes are detached etc, all things give elasticity to tempo, which I feel is what really dips into the emotion of playing. How do you find this personal tempo for the peice you play? It must come from the notes, what do they inspire you to do, or what are they leading you towards? Listening to heaps of music and lots of different styles, will automatically generate ideas within you and make you more aware of how tempo may become a little more elastic and for what reason.

[dinosaurtales]

bob - this is a good topic, but why did you post a "nasty" face on it when you posted?