Body Language / Theatrics

[amanfang]

I was practicing at school this afternoon, playing from memory, and the secretary (a non-musician) popped in and said "You're not playing with your SOUL.  You're playing with your head, but not your SOUL!"  I was like "What?!?"  And she said she could tell by the way I was sitting.  Now, does this mean (esp. to non-musicians) that the only people who play with "soul" are those who move/rock/sway or whatever?  Close their eyes, tilt their heads back....etc.  I admire the flair that some performers have with their theatrics, and in some cases, it adds an element of enjoyment to their performance.  Others are downright distracting.  Then some of stone still, but still create magnificent performances.  What is your opinion on movement and body language in performance?

[counterpoint]

It would be interesting, if this secretary visits some esoteric courses, especially the ones where you learn to feel your Chakra (Kundalini)     

[opus10no2]

It's called BS, and she sounds full of it 

[Bob]

Still good info.  If that's what the layperson thinks.  It's free advice.

[cherub_rocker1979]

I find that most kids don't really get into the music.  It really frustrates me to see young pianists play so rigidly and apologetically--this never helps the composer.  When you're performing you're trying to show the world how great the piece that you are playing is and if you don't play with flair and authority it just sounds lifeless.  Pianists who make faces and move around do it as a result of their passion and their concentration, not the other way around.

[invictious]

Playing while sitting like a statue does not necessarily mean you are not playing with your soul.

Playing while moving as though you are dancing not necessarily mean that you are playing with lots of soul.

It's in the fingers and mind, not your booty.

[mrdaveux]

Except for Beyonce...

[aureole]

Myself I think it's a little bit dumb. If you don't dance around and pull stupid faces then most people say you're not putting anything into it etc. etc. Of course you are, I think it's just silly.

I'm playing the Piano not Dancing.

[kghayesh]

It's just a matter of personal preference and style. I was told I move a lot while i am playing (with my body only not with weird facial expressions). I seen before many pianists who does not move at all and yet have great musicality and expression and play with their soul !
So, it is not relevant at all.

[soliloquy]

If you make an effort to control it either way you will effect your performance, almost certainly for the worse.  Just play like you always play and don't listen to some idiot who wants you boucing off your chair and making joygasm-faces at every note like Lang Lang.  Some people naturally play with a lot of physical reservation, some are just the opposite.  You need to do what you are the most comfortable with.

[thalberg]

I was practicing at school this afternoon, playing from memory, and the secretary (a non-musician) popped in and said "You're not playing with your SOUL.  You're playing with your head, but not your SOUL!"  I was like "What?!?"  And she said she could tell by the way I was sitting.  Now, does this mean (esp. to non-musicians) that the only people who play with "soul" are those who move/rock/sway or whatever?  Close their eyes, tilt their heads back....etc.  I admire the flair that some performers have with their theatrics, and in some cases, it adds an element of enjoyment to their performance.  Others are downright distracting.  Then some of stone still, but still create magnificent performances.  What is your opinion on movement and body language in performance?

LOL!!!!  But also I am horrified and feel sorry for you.  The music secretary, a non-musician?  That goes down in history as one of the most uncalled-for comments I've ever heard.  Hurtful yet hilarious in its stupidity.  I'm sure she's a dear person apart from this.

You might consider telling her that you normally practice the moving/rocking/swaying back at home away from the piano, and only put it in at the end to keep it fresh.   Also, consider stopping by her office sometime and asking if you can try out a few rocks/sways/grimaces for her to get her approval.  (No piano present, of course.)

Seriously, though, go on youtube and watch a video of Martha Argerich, Murray Perahia, Arthur Rubinstein, or Radu Lupu.  They're the most statue-like pianists ever, and yet their playing is so soulful and passionate.  Rubinstein even used to say that he avoided body movements because he felt that it subtracted from his control over the sounds he was making.

Now, I have actually had music professors tell me I needed to move more at the piano.  I respect these professors.  They tell me people need something to look at, and that being a musician is like being an actor.  Given these things, I decided to try to find a middle ground--move a little, but no grimaces ar anything too huge.  I failed to find a middle ground and ended up staying like a statue.  If I move, I miss notes, it's that simple. 

Maybe you and I can call Argerich and Perahia and we can start a statue-musician support group:)

[mcgillcomposer]

Body language can be very important in finding the "rhythm" of a piece. I am sure that anyone who has played incredibly difficult pieces with relative ease (technically) knows what I mean. As for theatrics...well, it's just that...but it can be a crowd pleaser ...Liberace (a good career move in his case).

[ahinton]

If you make an effort to control it either way you will effect your performance, almost certainly for the worse.  Just play like you always play and don't listen to some idiot who wants you boucing off your chair and making joygasm-faces at every note like Lang Lang.  Some people naturally play with a lot of physical reservation, some are just the opposite.  You need to do what you are the most comfortable with.

For all that my personal preference is to align myself with the "statues" in this, the above is just about the most sangine and sensible advice that can be given on ths subject. Fliging oneself about on the piano stool, making grimaces, etc. might be perceivd to be bad enough in its own right, but doing these things in deliberately contrived ways purely for "effect" is surely far worse; if the pianist does these things subconsciously, then however unacceptable it may seem to have to view them as part of the performance, there may well be a good case to be made out for leaving the pianist alone rather than discouraging this part of his playing manner.

One factor that occurs to me, however (as it has to others who are actually pianists, which I am not), is that of the potential distraction from playing which may be brought about by such gestures that are inherently extraneous to the business of producing the sounds at the piano; the only additional advice that I might therefore consider offering anyone whose movements while playing seem unnecessary and potentially counter-productive is to try to play some music that engages limbs brain over the entire keyboard for quite a high proportion of the time, requires highly developed mental/physical co-ordination and calls into service most of the musculature used in playing for a high proportion of the time - the more challenging works, say, of Sorabji, Finnissy, etc - and then see what happens to any such gesturising! There's simply little or no space left for this kind of thing in such contexts, so it comes as no surprise that pianists who do play this music are not at all known for the kind of thing being discussed here. This fact does incline me to ponder on the kind of repertoire in which pianists to this kind of thing - a factor which has, so far, not bee addressed here, i think.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Body language can be very important in finding the "rhythm" of a piece. I am sure that anyone who has played incredibly difficult pieces with relative ease (technically) knows what I mean.

If so, how in practice might this be expected to work - and be perceived afterwards by the listener/onlooker - in the contexts, say, of Carter's Night Fantasies, Sorabji's Gulistan, Ferneyhough's Lemma-Icon-Epigram or Barrett's Tract? Puzzled by this, I am...

Best,

Alistair

[mcgillcomposer]

It's all in the gesture. For example, the left hand of Chopin's Op. 25, No. 4: If you don't get a "circular" motion going with the left hand you'll tense up.

Another example (I just happen to have the etudes in front of me), Op. 25, No.6. RH - It is all about the initial impulse...play that 100% in the fingers and you'll become tense VERY quickly.

Op. 25, No.7 LH at m. 27 ...try to play that with out some kind of attack gesture...I guarantee that your right hand will lag for that measure.

After all, playing the piano is all about muscle memory, which involved PHYSICAL actions...gestures. Many people find it easiest to achieve these with some kind of related body movement that initiates the muscles.

[mcgillcomposer]

I should note that these gestures aren't always obvious to the eye, but they are always there.

[ahinton]

I should note that these gestures aren't always obvious to the eye, but they are always there.

Indeed, so whilst they are of the utmost relevance to the performer and how he/she goes about preparing works such as, for example, the Chopin études that you mention, the very lack of obviousness to the eye of the audience member is such as to place it in a quite different context to the thread topic which, it seems to me, is about movements that are inessential to the production of the sounds required.

Best,

Alistair

[mcgillcomposer]

the very lack of obviousness to the eye of the audience member is such as to place it in a quite different context to the thread topic which, it seems to me, is about movements that are inessential to the production of the sounds required.

Best,

Alistair

I was under the impression that it was simply a thread to discuss the issue of body movements in performance in general, regardless of whether or not they help one to achieve the desired sound. I was simply saying that sometimes extravagant gestures aren't for showmanship, I wasn't really arguing with you.

[ahinton]

I was under the impression that it was simply a thread to discuss the issue of body movements in performance in general, regardless of whether or not the help one to achieve the desired sound. I was simply saying that sometimes extravagant gestures aren't for showmanship, I wasn't really arguing with you.

No, I know that you weren't - nor indeed I with you - but I had taken the thread topic's inclusion of "Theatrics" to be intended to convey an aspect of the "Body Language" in the sense that they were thought of as one and the same thing (hence the forward slash), so my responses were cast accordingly; if in fact the thread initiator's intent was to open up discussions of two separate things which occasionally could be thought of as part and parcel of the same thing, then I have perhaps missed its particular emphasis...

Best,

Alistair

[nouon]

I think her comment was a bit weird and confusing, but there is some truth to the notion that the way you sit affects the way you play.

I`m not talking about theatrical gestures, they are normally just movement habits that people have developed alongside emotions they feel when they play

Keith Jarret and martha Argerich both have tremendous feeling in playing
but Keith Jarret has a habit of making strange sounds

doesn`t make him more or less musical

The important aspect of the way you sit is that if you don`t sit good it affects your
awereness, because muscles that are not meant to keep you uprighth have to do the job of the muscles who are meant to do it

this causes tension that you might be unaware of , but this tension affects breathing
and movement and in the end your  sense of "being in the moment"

being in the moment is the central part of playing with emotion, the opposite of analytic playing based upon muscle memory rather than spontanity
(just as this reply is analytic, but it is hard to explain my view on this in text form without being analytic, or else I would sound like some  spaced out new age fanatic

There are methods who helps sitting uppright effortlessy, and that is alexander technique
feldenkrais and some others

[nomis]

Close their eyes, tilt their heads back....etc.  I admire the flair that some performers have with their theatrics, and in some cases, it adds an element of enjoyment to their performance.  Others are downright distracting.  Then some of stone still, but still create magnificent performances.  What is your opinion on movement and body language in performance?

I think body language is extremely important for pieces that have deceptive harmonic progressions, or have certain sections that sound self-contained. You have to give the impression that you are still going to play, otherwise the audience may applaud or feel very uncomfortable. Of course, that is only for when you are playing for others. Likewise, it might help if you give a gesture of some sort to show that the piece has ended - most audiences are too polite nowadays or don't seem to be able to know when a piece has ended.

[slobone]

If you develop a style of physical presentation that conveys the mood of the piece by closing your eyes, leaning your head back, swaying, etc. or alternatively cultivating a look of fierce determination with your eyebrows scrunched down, and looking as if you'd like to kill the piano instead of playing it, there will always be those in your audience who will ooh and aah at the greatness of your soul.

But it won't help you have a career because the serious musicians who act as gatekeepers won't be fooled for a minute.

Now of course there are some bodily movements that can actually contribute to the sound you're producing, but that's a different issue.

[jinfiesto]

Occams razor should be applied here... Ixnay movements that don't help you play. Ie... Major histrionics... However, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be gesture in playing, in fact the gestures one makes are at the heart of your playing, however, the gesture has to assist the technique, not just exist for the sake of there being a gesture. Also, a lot of times this gesture is misinterpreted as the pianist "getting into it". That is definitely a misinterpretation, the gesture is a physical representation of the phrase, and the sound and gesture are inextricably linked, movement is just another part of technique. Oh.... Completely digital playing sounds pedestrian... Always... No ifs ands or buts. Gesture needs to be there for complete sound.

[walking_encyclopedia]

I think that if movement doesn't take away from your playing, you should feel free to move. Of course, good posture is a plus- don't kill your back!

As a matter of fact, Horowitz was very well known for being a veritable statue while playing. His only expression at the piano was intense concentration, and I heard that he never brought his hands more than eight inches above the keys (although he often had them below the keys). But his playing was out of this world.

I'm of the opinion that it makes no difference, as long as it is natural and not affected.