Pictures in your head while playing

[plunkyplink]

What pictures do you get in your head when you're playing a peice? In this mozart sonata (Facile), I am always seeing chickadees hopping from branch to branch in a tree with leaves just starting to come out. Sometimes I "see" waterfalls, or the sun in a tree, things like that.

[henrah]

Wow... Did they come out of the piano lid, and were like seeing real-life cartoony dream bubbles?

I read somewhere that Chopin was playing a sonata to his friends, and by the end of the first movement he could 'see monsters coming out of the piano' and had to go out of the room and compose himself before carrying on.

Rare.
Henrah

[mikey6]

Apparently the guy that attempted to play vexations 840 times I think it is started seeind demons.

[rc]

Speaking of the sonata facile, the development makes me think of two people fighting. The low voice keeps rising, the high voice ends in a scream into Dm. Then they both calm down, but start heading in different directions, a sort of 'screw you'. Then they start to get along and move in parallel towards the recapitulation in the sweet subdominant.

The second movement makes me think of a light spring rain, alone and daydreaming.

3rd movment is the one that gives me spring morning imagery... Until the Am section, which for some reason is a ship in a storm. Especially the arpeggiated RH section, I really try and give it a rippling wave effect.

[infectedmushroom]

I never get pictures in my head, though, sometimes I do get in some kinda "mood".


I can't discribe the mood I'm into at that moment, but it feels great. I mostly get in that mood if I play a new piece I just learned or even better; when I'm improvising... It's difficult for me to get in that mood if I play a piece wich I played many times before (sometimes I'm just bored of a piece, then it's really hard to get "in the mood").

[alwaystheangel]

when i was little and leaning Minuet in G, Bach i believe, maybe mozart, any way, I always picture of a mother looking for clothing in a rack of clothing with a young boy with a baseball cap, glove and ball looking really anoyed.

Blue Danube, I imgaine bubbles popping (Which makes more sense than the shopping image)

Grieg Concerto, some crazy old dude with wacky Meastro hair playing and then collapsing.

Clair de Lune; A tranquil lake with a solitary loon at sunset

Mozart K332 A boy building a boat and then setting it on a canal, hoping for it to float

That's all I can think of right now.

[lisztisforkids]

Chopin prelude 24... Passionet, forbiden love.... Brahms intermezo c#minor.. A nervous astronaut doing a spacewalk to fix his ship so he can get home.... Brahms intermezzo A major.. Goodbyes.

[Motrax]

It rarely happens, but there are few pieces which give me sone very strong, clear mental pictures. Sometimes, just a certain section of a piece will put a picture in my head, while the rest of the piece doesn't affect me in that manner.

It's quite exciting to me when something like this happens in a genuine way. One should be careful, though, not to impose a picture or story on a particular piece.  On that note, I think there is some danger in finding out a "program" behind a particular piece if you aren't already settled on one. For example, if I tried playing the Brahms c# minor intermezzo with a nervous astronaut in mind, I think I'd play a great deal worse than if I played it by just allowing the music to be what I instinctively feel it to be (unless, of course, I instinctively thought about astronauts while I played the piece).

Rachmaninoff's D minor etude (33-4), Rachmaninoff's B minor prelude (32-10), and Ravel's Jeux D'eau are the only peices I can think of that have given me very strong mental pictures (and sounds and smells, in the case of the B minor prelude).

For those who never experienced anything like this before, I liken it to having a dream while still awake and at the keyboard. And it doesn't always happen when I play the aforementioned pieces - only when I'm particularly concentrating and engaged in the music.

[nanabush]

Ravel's Jeu d'eau has to be one of the most 'refreshing' pieces I've heard, and it does evoke an image of water in my mind.

Rachmaninoff etude op 39 #6 gives me very detailed, scary images.  The first measure, the ascending notes sounds like something running up the stairs, then stopping... then going again, then stopping... then chasing someone around a house with the frantic opening theme thingy... then the slower part is the person hides somewhere- i dont know where- but whoever is chasing them is slowly stumbling towards them, then the chase beings again, and the persuer is chasing the person up stairs, endless stairs. then at the top, he gets caught, and it ends.... When I saw the video of Valentina Lisitsa playing it I was like shivering, the imagery was so intense.

Rach prelude b minoe op 32 creates an image of a person sitting in a chair alone in their room, quietly sobbing and 'drinkin their problems away '.  Then at the most intense moment, the person's throwing sh*t around the room, yelling, then for the last part, i got nothing lol.

Rhapsody on a theme of paganini reminds of this huge huge ballroom witha bunch of ppl, and one person's goin crazy on the violin/piano.

[Tash]

back in yr12 i got a bunch of friends to listen to me play about 6 short pieces and they had to write down what they imagined- very funny! random thing was, about 5 of them wrote similar things for the 3rd movement of khachaturian's sonatina: 1920's silent film with 2 guys comically bashing each other up, i was like what!!

[jlh]

I don't automatically "see" images in my head when playing a piece... I have to make a point to come up with them.  One professor of mine told me that coming up with pictures for pieces you're playing can, in addition to improving your performance, actually help you stay focused when performing by keeping your attention on what you're playing.

[lostinidlewonder]

Some pieces I have memories attached to them. People I remembered, things that happened in my life when I learnt that piece. I guess these memories attached to the music was unintentional but just happened. For instance when I played the Waldstien Sonata 3rd movement I think of this girl I use to go to school with who I played the peice for one day in at my house. Or when I play Clair de lune I am constantly reminded of the movie Empire of the Sun because that was playing in the background while I was learning the piece. Memories like this hopefully will vanish when I'm old and senile, I wouldn't mind forgetting about them ahahah

[instromp]

Debussy's Reverie makes me picture flying on a cloud at night high way up in the air, just barely able to touch the moon and play with the stars,lol.

Chopin Prelude 1 makes me picture someone thats in a hurry about to miss something important and just makes it by a hair.

Revolutionary Etude, the 1st chord makes me picture an exploision and the descending notes make me picture someone free falling from the sky.

Moonlight Sonata 1st mvt, makes me picture people walking to a grave ona rainy cloudy day of a funeral.

Well thats my 2 cents

[crazy for ivan moravec]

absolute music doesn't require these pictures but sometimes, our minds just create them anyway.

i think of autumn leaves falling one by one in the beethoven sonata op. 109, third movement, variation 4. funny thing is, i've never been to any country with 4 seasons during autumn. we don't have autumn here.