How do I put emotion into a piece

[wendytelfer]

I always have trouble putting emotion into a piece because I am always worried about hitting the wrong notes.

What can you suggest to help me?

[scott13]

I used to have this problem until my teacher simply told me not to worry about wrong notes, as almost all live performances have small blemishes in them. He instead suggested really hearing and feeling every phrase as a musical entity in itself, which needs dynamics, phrasing, articulation, voicing etc and once you start thinking of your pieces in this way, the musicality comes much easier as you have all these tiny details already developed into each phrase.

[DeusExMachina]

You need to practice this on pieces much less difficult than you are now playing. Lop-sidedness like this happens when a person moves to quickly into advanced literature.

To prove my point: Can you play easier pieces with expession? If so, then the above diagnosis is true.

If not, then you need to start at an even simpler level to develop this skill. Not a setback, only an opportunity to learn what now escapes you. You can do it!

[vandermozart3]

I've had this problem my whole life up until a few weeks ago. I was preparing for my final school exams when I had multiple performances coming up and didn't feel ready at all. I thought that instead of worrying about hitting wrong notes all the time, I'd practice my pieces with over-the-top emotion, exaggerating every litttle hand movement so it was ridiculous. I played everything with too much rubato and played whatever dynamics I felt like, not completely disregarding what was written, but just exploiting it I guess.
I tried on purpose to make it ridiculously showy with expression. Obviously this isn't the best way to do it in a proper performance, because it has to have TRUE emotion, not staged, but practising this way helped me to feel more free in my actual exams, and it worked. I wasn't worrying about the right notes because I felt more confident in giving getting the right impression and expression out of the music.

[werq34ac]

Think in terms of gestures rather than single notes. Take note of the shape of phrases