how to make a good expression?

[christalia]

hm.. can anyone tell me how to make a good expression ?
sometimes my family said that i'm lack of expression.. 

[danny elfboy]

hm.. can anyone tell me how to make a good expression ?
sometimes my family said that i'm lack of expression.. 

You need to spice things up
For example if you take a mozart sonata and just follow what's written in the sheet you won't end up with something that sounds too good. You need to experiment with expressive means and see what works and what doesn't and what you like and what you don't. For example the naked sonata you start adding pedaling, then crescendo and decrescendo, and sometime you go from piano to forte and other times from forte to piano. You try to accent important notes, increase certain pauses, play the accompainment legato, you make sure the right hand is louder than the left hand and yuo make sure to emphasize the staccato notes, you add rubato and a decise sound in certain chords or soft sound in certain others, you add fading or change the speed.
It's more a matter of instinct than of theory.

[dan101]

Play what you feel, within the given style. I have found that listening to recordings helps, provided you don't listen to the same one recording over and over. 

[seicinta]

.

[amelialw]

you can't learn how to make a good expression, these are things that simply can't be learned. It has to naturally come.

[danny elfboy]

you can't learn how to make a good expression, these are things that simply can't be learned. It has to naturally come.

You can learn certain tricks and basics though.
It's like talking as seicinta mentioned. Talking is not just something that comes naturally.
Everything about the tone of voice, the pauses, the volume even the quality of our own voice, the tilting of the head, the resonance of the mask, the opening of the throat ... can be learned.

[richard black]

Listen to lots of performances by both established and beginning, even amateur, artists (preferably live but recordings have their place) and try to work out what moves you and then why and how it does so. Don't necessarily think directly about copying anything they do, just the general principles. If it doesn't move you at all, maybe you simply weren't cut out to be a musician.

[counterpoint]

you can't learn how to make a good expression, these are things that simply can't be learned. It has to naturally come.

I think, it's a bit more difficult.

Some people find the "right" expression just by intuition, others (like me for example  ) have to work on it.

There are some principles, that help in finding the right expression:

1. play what is written in the sheet music. there are many indications in a score, that often are overlooked.

2. find the right tempo (very important!)

3. don't rush through the piece. The listeners should be given the chance to hear the tiniest details in the piece.

4. accents and dynamics are very important, so decide carefully how loud/soft you play every note. Absolute dynamics and relative dynamics are very important.

5. between legato and staccatissimo there are many intermediate levels. Try out different articulations to find the one that fits best.

6. some sort of non-musical imagination (images, sounds, feelings) may help as well in making a piece sound colorful and expressive

[dorfmouse]

you can't learn how to make a good expression, these are things that simply can't be learned. It has to naturally come.

Of course expressiveness can be learned and developed if one has the desire ... and knows what one wants to express! Why do people spend years at conservatoires or on performance degrees? Presumably partly because they can learn to perform better, even if they are naturally musically gifted.  Watch a masterclass, or listen to a professional performer practising; hours will be spent in a quite calculating, objective way on every phrase and nuance. They think, analyse, experiment and refine. But when they perform well, it's as if the music is flowing out, fresh and alive, as if they are just inventing it. But natural?  Only a bit. This is art after all!
Follow the ideas and suggestions people have made above. Plus, maybe make a project to listen to a well known instrumental piece, or a song, and listen to as many different versions of it you can find. Youtube is a good resource if you haven't access to a music library or can't afford to buy lots of music. Youtube has also the advantage that you can hear interpretations of a piece that range from sublime to completely awful.  Then you can compare and start to analyse for yourself the difference between the expressiveness and what is causing the differences,  eg using the points Counterpoint listed.
Sometimes we think we are playing expressively, but it's just not coming over to the listener; often it's just very simple things that can be brought out more, eg the top line of a singing melody, a little bit more emphasis here, a slightly longer wait there. Here's where a teacher's listening ear is worth its weight in gold . Or if you don't have a teacher, experiment experiment; exaggerate tempo or dynamics or accents way more than you normally would and see what happens. You can have a lot of fun!