Is there any truth to this?

[j_menz]

And if you have the correct teacher, they can teach you how to actually feel the emotions rather than just following the dynamics.

You have got to be kidding. Teaching a ten year old the emotional depths required to play late Beethoven or late Liszt would constitute child abuse.

[Bob]

I've heard several teachers say something along the lines of they can teach the notes and rhythms, but they can't teach the emotion.  It's some great beyond mystical thing.

I don't agree, but...   They keep saying that.   Haha.. Probably they don't know how to teach that or don't want to deal with it.

[iansinclair]

Sorry, Bob, me lad, but it's true.  Perhaps the most obvious way to see this is that the best teachers -- who tend to have the best students (no surprise) are almost unanimous in realising that their greatest accomplishment comes when their students take the tools they have been given by the teacher, and soar far beyond what the teacher themselves can do.  And it happens.  Not often, perhaps; there are an awful lot of people out there with real technical brilliance and all the emotion of a stone, sadly.  The exception, of course, is when one is taking a master class from a real master.  But there what one sees is that the student may (and should, in fact) come up with their own interpretation, again using the tools the master gave them.

I've seen it happen enough times so that, even if I were not able to see it in myself I would know it was a real phenomenon.

[j_menz]

I do think that students can be taught, or probably more correctly guided, as to how to go about expressing emotion in and through their music. Not what to express, but how to go about expressing it.

[outin]

You have got to be kidding. Teaching a ten year old the emotional depths required to play late Beethoven or late Liszt would constitute child abuse.

Not to mention pieces with highly "romantic" nature...

[Bob]

Sorry, Bob, me lad, but it's true.  Perhaps the most obvious way to see this is that the best teachers -- who tend to have the best students (no surprise) are almost unanimous in realising that their greatest accomplishment comes when their students take the tools they have been given by the teacher, and soar far beyond what the teacher themselves can do.  And it happens.  Not often, perhaps; there are an awful lot of people out there with real technical brilliance and all the emotion of a stone, sadly.  The exception, of course, is when one is taking a master class from a real master.  But there what one sees is that the student may (and should, in fact) come up with their own interpretation, again using the tools the master gave them.

I've seen it happen enough times so that, even if I were not able to see it in myself I would know it was a real phenomenon.

A teacher can't just inspire a student and help them actually feel an emotion?

[j_menz]

A teacher can't just inspire a student and help them actually feel an emotion?

Possibly to a (very) limited extent. Even then, I'm not sure that would be helpful. Even young students have plenty of emotional experience of their own to draw on.  What fails is most often the expression of that emotion rather than the ability to "feel" it, and I think teachers would be more productively engaged in working on that.

[clavile]

You have got to be kidding. Teaching a ten year old the emotional depths required to play late Beethoven or late Liszt would constitute child abuse.

Didn't say teaching a 10 year old. I honestly can't see a 10 year old playing late Liszt either. There's not *normally* enough of a musical maturity to do it there.  To genuinely put feelings into pieces CAN be taught is what I'm EMPHASIZING. You don't have to wait till everybody dies in Neverland to work with your student on these things. Like I KEEP saying, a lot of it comes with maturity.

I've heard several teachers say something along the lines of they can teach the notes and rhythms, but they can't teach the emotion.  It's some great beyond mystical thing.

I don't agree, but...   They keep saying that.   Haha.. Probably they don't know how to teach that or don't want to deal with it.

Exactly.

I know it's possible, because both my present AND last teacher have had the ability to help me TRULY feel the music; not just go through the motions.

You have to relate to people's experiences. Extract an experience from them that matches the feeling supposed to fit the piece. How they felt when they broke their favorite toy, how they felt when they tripped, how they felt when they got the birthday present they wanted, how they feel when it rains, how they feel when they're tired, etc. Even have them imagine the music is having a conversation! Put words to the music! Have them dance to it! Anything that relates to THEM, And then have them try to incorporate those SPECIFIC feelings into the piece of music they're struggling with.

It works.

[j_menz]

Didn't say teaching a 10 year old. I honestly can't see a 10 year old playing late Liszt either. There's not *normally* enough of a musical maturity to do it there.  To genuinely put feelings into pieces CAN be taught is what I'm EMPHASIZING. You don't have to wait till everybody dies in Neverland to work with your student on these things. Like I KEEP saying, a lot of it comes with maturity.

Then we would ap[ear to be in furious agreement, seperated only by the way we have expressed it.

[clavile]

Then we would ap[ear to be in furious agreement, seperated only by the way we have expressed it.

"Furious agreement?" Not by my book. To some minuscule degree, yes.

[pianoman53]

Okay, a new question:

Why does everything has to be so extremely perfect the first time they play it?
I played the mephisto waltz way too early, according you j_menz, and I can agree that it wasn't perfect. But come on, we're students for a reason! If we would play everything perfect right away, we wouldn't be students. And how does it help to just have felt the emotion? I know plenty of musicians who "lived" some of the music, and they seldom play very well.

How does a certain voicing, or color, become easier if I lived the piece? Well, it doesn't. And ofc you can teach someone to feel the emotion! Maybe they don't always know what the emotion is, but a good teacher can explain it so that the students, so some level, understands it.

Oh, and the mephisto waltz has matured by itself. When I played it this time, I didn't have to think about the notes (They're also a rather big part in playing music) and could focus more on the music.

[j_menz]

I would never suggest that anyone (who can) shouldn't have a look at whatever they like, but to think they can do it justice? No.

Apparently you missed this.

[pianoman53]

okay, so I guess this discussion is over. It suddenly turned veeery boring, with replies like that. You didn't answer any of the things I asked, so then there is no point. Meh, what a shame... finally something fun happening here, and now it's gone.

[j_menz]

okay, so I guess this discussion is over. It suddenly turned veeery boring, with replies like that. You didn't answer any of the things I asked, so then there is no point. Meh, what a shame... finally something fun happening here, and now it's gone.

OK, the detailed response then:

Okay, a new question:

Why does everything has to be so extremely perfect the first time they play it?

I have never suggested it should be. Indeed, I believe that that would be impossible.

I played the mephisto waltz way too early, according you j_menz, and I can agree that it wasn't perfect. But come on, we're students for a reason! If we would play everything perfect right away, we wouldn't be students.

You may well have played it before you were capable of fully understanding it. I have not said that this will hurt you, just that you cannot expect to fully understand it or give a fully considered performance of it. I have not said that this is harmful. Indeed, we have all done it (and are probably still doing it).

And how does it help to just have felt the emotion? I know plenty of musicians who "lived" some of the music, and they seldom play very well.

There are two aspects to this. One is to have the emotional range, the other is to have the ability to express that in and through music.  One is a matter of life, experience and personality; the other is a skill that can and should be learned and developed.

How does a certain voicing, or color, become easier if I lived the piece? Well, it doesn't.

That is the technique with which to draw your musical picture, not you ability to envisage the picture you wish to draw.

And ofc you can teach someone to feel the emotion! Maybe they don't always know what the emotion is, but a good teacher can explain it so that the students, so some level, understands it.

No, you can't teach people to feel; what I have said is that you can, and should, teach ways to draw emotion from music and to express emotion in and through music. Students come with plenty of emotions already, just not necessarily the depth and experience of these appropriate to some pieces. There are plenty of pieces where they have all the emotional baggage they need to do it justice; they do need to be taught how to do that.

Oh, and the mephisto waltz has matured by itself. When I played it this time, I didn't have to think about the notes (They're also a rather big part in playing music) and could focus more on the music.

No, you have matured. The Mephisto Waltz is what it always was. You are the one that has changed: your technique is more developed, you are more mature and you may have a greater facility to see and express what you want.

[49410enrique]

just a thought.

if young inexperienced people are so capable of expressing such complex emotion (as evidenced by some folk's apparent proclamation that an understanding of it is all that is needed to express it), why is it they don't cry  like older experienced people do when they are confronted with complex emotion (like extreme / rapturous joy)?

just a thought.


*flies away....

[pianoman53]

Some of your is just marking words, which is a bit silly, I must say.

And then taste comes up to the picture. Say Russian school vs the French school - Merlet vs Bashkirov. Only an idiot would say that only one of them are great musicians, but they stand for completely different ideas. You can have experienced as much as you possibly can, but one of them will still say you don't feel it.

And somehow I still don't buy the argument. I simply don't think you will have to "experience" that much to be able to express something. For me, it's one of those things lazy teachers tell their students.

Last time I played the Mephisto waltz was more or less a year ago, and the time before that was 2 years ago. I have to admit, not That much happened in my life, that I would suddenly start to feel it, or understand it. I simply had a new teacher who could tell me what he thought was good.

For me, musicality isn't something you should have to wait for to get. One simply has to listen and practice..


Enrique: Beethoven was almost never moved to tears either. But ya, maybe he was not capable of feeling complex feelings like joy or sadness...

[49410enrique]

Enrique: Beethoven was almost never moved to tears either. But ya, maybe he was not capable of feeling complex feelings like joy or sadness...

good point and thanks for the response
hm maybe. i never met him. don't really know if he cried when he wasn't sad or not. but he did live, and experience. i have to think that allowed him to express himself musically to a greater degree of complexity/depth.

was just wanting to keep the conversation going.  still it makes me wonder. but if we are to begin hypoethisizing about the presence of absence of 'tears of joy' in someone who died long before we were born, i guess we can also post the equally difficult question to prove, if one is not literally crying, can one cry through their music (performance of or composition of)? and if so, does it not lead back to the question of someone who has not experienced a particular emotion to be able to 'cry' through music? is it just an imitation of it?

[ajspiano]

I've heard several teachers say something along the lines of they can teach the notes and rhythms, but they can't teach the emotion.  It's some great beyond mystical thing.

I don't agree, but...   They keep saying that.   Haha.. Probably they don't know how to teach that or don't want to deal with it.

I'm not convinced that its possible to teach someone how to "feel" - you can however teach someone how to express a feeling through music..  or foster experiencing emotion in/through music..

..its a gradually developed skill though, you can just dump a piece of music in front of someone and expect them to feel a certain thing playing it just because you say they should. Emotions are not conscious choices.

...

Its an interesting topic though..  at a contrast to what we generally do with music (feel-->express through sound) I have a friend who did an acting course and the instructor basically said "today we are going to cry". And proceeded to get the entire group to cry without them having to first feel something that would make them cry.

Obviously I wasn't there, but my friend explained it like this ... emotions have physical manifestations, that are linked to other physical actions. A crying person, for example, breaths in a certain way.. maybe scrunches their face up etc. These things can be done consciously..  and the body can respond by crying if you allow it to, without you actually feeling anything at all initially.. rather than "feel --> express" you can "express --> feel" ..I haven't personally allowed it to happen completely, but it seems like its going to work.

One could probably apply that to music and it would result in a stronger expression of a particular emotion..  but unfortunately the physical stuff would get in the way of your technique.

..........

I don't really think anyone actually means that someone without the right emotional experience can not play certain works well. They can play them fine. But the performances will be far more moving and generally better once that person has matured and experienced real life emotions applicable to the music..  not having done that does not prevent them from exploring the possibilities of expression and producing something wonderful. Many listeners won't have had a certain experience either.

[clavile]

just a thought.

if young inexperienced people are so capable of expressing such complex emotion (as evidenced by some folk's apparent proclamation that an understanding of it is all that is needed to express it), why is it they don't cry  like older experienced people do when they are confronted with complex emotion (like extreme / rapturous joy)?

just a thought.


*flies away....

I cry 

[cmg]

Couldn't you argue that it's the job of music to ELICIT the emotion in YOU?  You're just the means  to channel it through your instrument, right?

I mean, many truly great musicians began as child prodigies (Korngold, Midori, Kissin, Arerich) and at a very early age the emotional content of the masterworks they played was in evidence.  They didn't have to experience heartbreak from a love affair (at age 6?) to plumb the depths of Rach or 'Chopin or Beethvoen, etc.

Wishing you a low-sodium life, rach, that's all.  Suffering's a drag.

[jollisg]

For deeper pieces (like brahms intermezzi) You have to have emotional experiences. Of course, You can play The piece good just following directions. But to feel what The piece is about, you have to know the feelings of the piece (i think)

[davidjosepha]

Do I have to get high at least once before I can play Scriabin's 5th sonata?

I can say it definitely wouldn't hurt your understanding of the piece.

But in response to your general question, I would agree with what jmenz said, in general. When playing a piece, you won't be able to properly communicate an emotion unless you really understand it, and I don't think you can understand it without feeling it.

It's worth noting that the same doesn't necessarily apply to listening to a piece. If the performer has actually felt the emotions and is able to communicate it properly, you should be able to feel the emotion the performer is feeling even if you've never felt it before in context. I swear, listening to Rachmaninoff's 2nd and 3rd concertos, I've felt emotions I've never felt before, ones I don't even know how to name. That's part of the reason I love Russian music so much...there's clearly so much suffering behind a lot of it and good composers and performers are able to channel the emotion to the listener. I think it's safe to say I've felt most French emotions (melodrama and...uh yeh, that's basically it) but Russia has had a bit of a hard past, to say the least, and it has affected Russian music in some pretty crazy ways.

[49410enrique]

... I love Russian music so much...there's clearly so much suffering behind a lot of it and good composers and performers are able to channel the emotion to the listener. I think it's safe to say I've felt most French emotions (melodrama and...uh yeh, that's basically it) but Russia has had a bit of a hard past, to say the least, and it has affected Russian music in some pretty crazy ways.

you might be interested in this (if you hadn't seen it already on my feed). very good advice and info on interpreting and perforing int he russian piano lit. well represented examples from Scriabin to Rachmaninoff, Medtner, etc. miniatures and larger works. great stuff here. well written and supported.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/113124732/Performance-Practice-Issues-in-Russian-Piano-Music-pdf

[chopin2015]

good point and thanks for the response
hm maybe. i never met him. don't really know if he cried when he wasn't sad or not. but he did live, and experience. i have to think that allowed him to express himself musically to a greater degree of complexity/depth.

was just wanting to keep the conversation going.  still it makes me wonder. but if we are to begin hypoethisizing about the presence of absence of 'tears of joy' in someone who died long before we were born, i guess we can also post the equally difficult question to prove, if one is not literally crying, can one cry through their music (performance of or composition of)? and if so, does it not lead back to the question of someone who has not experienced a particular emotion to be able to 'cry' through music? is it just an imitation of it?

I thought Beethoven was very passionate in a masculine way, feelings like anger and despair. Sadness is tender and short.  But despair is unforgivable and eternal...ya know? 

[shazeelawan]

As long as you can feel and project the emotions,it isn't necessary to have horrible experiences. I like playing sad pieces,but haven't a heart-wrenching experience worthy of those pieces,which means I'm not qualified to play them? Yeah,right......

[ahinton]

Does this mean that I have to be addicted to heroine to play Scriabin's 5th sonata?

But you are addicted to one, aren't you? I mean Ms Lisitsa, of course. I think that you meant heroin - and the answer in any case is quite obviously no.

Seriously, though, the question of emotions and their expression, with particular reference to the youngest players, is a large one that has perhaps not yet been fully explored or understood here. As the performer's task is to convey the thoughts of the composer, he/she therefore acts as a kind of messenger - an intermediary, if you like. For that performer to be able to achieve this fully, it is necessary for him/her to have as fine as possible a grasp not so much of what the composer necessarily felt when he/she was writing the piece concerned but what that composer was representing emotionally in the music; just as it's ill advised for a performer to "emote" while performing (as this invariably risks introducing both physical and mental distractions that will likely compromise the performance), it's the same for a composer when composing, for a composer will "remember" (if if sometimes only subconsciously) certain emotional states and other things - and his/her responses to them - when being fired up to write and the performer's art is yet one stage farther removed even from this in that he/she is charged with the responsibility to reproduce the results of this.

There is, of course, a particular problem to the extent that it's well-nigh impossible for even the most inspiring, perceptive and communicative of teachers to "teach" someone aged 10 or less about certain kinds of emotion and the part that they play in the creation and performance of certain music, but what then is an otherwise very talented young student to do - or be given by the teacher - when his/her fingers are already capable of tackling the "technical" challenges of Gaspard de la Nuit, the Hammerklavier, Liszt's Sonata et al?

I was once invited to go to someone's house to listen to a highly accomplished 11-year-old pianist play Messiaen's 8 Préludes, the B flat minor Prelude and Fugue from Book I of WTC and the finale of the Alkan Concerto; the Messiaen was well-nigh flawless textually but failed to plumb the depths or raise the excitement sufficiently when required, the Bach actually sang most wonderfully and the Alkan was an improbably courageous, well-meaning and determined attempt that was nevertheless more replete with accidents than an A&E in a deprived city area on a Saturday night, but what struck me most was not only that this young pianist was anything but full of herself and her abilities but also that she had somehow managed to convince herself that her account of the Alkan fell well short of due expectations in departments other than that of the right notes but that she really didn't know what to do about this - clearly because the requisite personal maturity simply wasn't present that might otherwise have been expected to help her to figure this out for herself.

Of course the performer doesn't necessarily need to have experienced personally what the composer is seeking to put across (and this is one area in which the absorption of literary writings can help put some matters into perspective) but it is nevertheless necessary to know what it is to feel and experience certain emotions (rather as Sorabji once said that it was vital for a composer not necessarily to be able to sing well but to know what it is to sing). That said, however, it is worth considering that working with certain music at an unusually young age might help to develop his/her emotional capacities and range, although this kind of thing is, I suspect, rather more the province of neuroscientists than of piano teachers and their young students!

Best,

Alistair

[zzivauri]

  What kind of listeners /fans do you want?  People who work exclusively from the head chakra?  If so, play brilliantly, technically, perfectly.  To the mind, this IS a sort of emotion- something done well, a mental athlete of Olympic skill;- a quality thing.   People who are physical especially will love a player full of strength and bravura and won't care about sensitivity.  People who come primarily from the heart and who have lived their lives experiencing life deeply will require a different sense of timing perhaps-- more pregnant pauses, the imbuing a piece with an atmosphere--though, if the pianist does this for effect, they will sense it.  But you know how when you are deep in an emotion, that time changes- your soul is busy feeling something, so time is warped.  I watch actors for this, notice their timing sometimes- some of them really understand this- but if I am thinking on my mental side as I am playing, I will think I am being boring.  (And if I am in that mood, perhaps there is more integrity in playing faster or whatever- still...)  I think that everyone should understand that they listen with their bodies, and not just their ears.  Check your muscle tension when you are listening to an underconfident player.  It will be tight, as you sympathise or fear for him/her.  Feel how certain chords or orchestrations just fill your body, and where you feel them; which ones make you melt.  It's not your ears who are melting, it's in the body.  It is as if you are not just playing 'touchingly' for people when you are playing for them, -but that you ARE touching them, just as if you were caressing them, or dancing wildly with them, or slapping them.  By the same token, don't you just hate it when pieces are, for instance, "Alla marcia", but are played so fast that no one could possibly march to them?  For instance, the way all the geniuses are playing Rach's prelude in G Minor...Or when they are meant to be a dance, and the body couldn't possibly do the dance well at that speed...Or when an ocean wave is portrayed, but it has no weight.  My head is sometimes very convinced that a piece is impressive when other parts of me haven't been touched at all.

[zzivauri]

  P.S.  Oh, dear- I was thinking about the subject of this thread, truly I was...but I forgot to say that at different times of life people may have different strengths...and that someone who may not be 'deep' may have a brilliant charm ,or a fresh view, even if they never 'suffered'.   And you know, some folks were just born 'old'.  Old souls.

[bronnestam]

Makes me wonder how actors do it? Make a believable performance while they certainly cannot have experienced everything themselves. I don't see why music would be so different. I think it is about your personal sensitivity and ability to imagine how something might feel and create emotional content based on that. I think there are very few basic emotions that people associate with different event in their life. So even if you have not been suffering from a deadly disease, most have been ill and can use that experience to imagine how it would be if the that suffering and loss of personal security is multiplied by 100. Also you cannot judge someones emotional experience by their age, some people have suffered emotionally more before the age of 10 than many do all their life. Just simplified examples, hopefully the point comes through...

If it isn't so, we should categorize all music according to who wrote it: Music written by men should only be played my men (I'd better get a sex change then), music written by old people should only be played by old people, music written by depressed composers should only be played by those who are/have been depressed and so on.

Another thing is that how can one judge what is the right emotional interpretation of music that was composed 200 years ago and none of us never heard the composer (with his/her life experiences behind the performance) play it? When we listen to music we use our own experience to interpret the emotional content, so how do we know that we understand/feel it the same way it was meant by the composer or even the performer? The listener may be just as lacking as the performer in this sense.

So I'm just an amateur piano player, playing for fun and not very good. But I am a professional writer as well. And if a writer could only write about their own experiences, the literature world would be rather dull, right? I have got praise from young guys who think my portrait of a distrubed young murder (boy) was so spot-on ... I have never been a boy, I haven't even got a brother, and I have certainly never been close to kill anyone. What you need is empathy and imagination, and just like an actor you have to be fair to your characters, even to those who are not very nice, "not like you".

The same must, of course, go with music. But I agree that you might need some kind of own life experience before your musical interpretations feel "mature". At least that is my own experience from piano playing. I have recently picked up old pieces I learned as a teen, and I remember very well how I was thinking when I played them ... and I get slightly ashamed because I realize I was far too naive back then. 

The other night I played the 1st movement of the Moonlight Sonata, one of my favourite pieces. For many, many years I have believed, as many people do, that this is about "moonlight". So I've played with moonlight in mind, quite romantic, very slow, very soft. But the whole sonata is dedicated to the lady who many suspect was Beethoven's "immortal beloved". This moonlight thing was not invented by HIM. So I've started to interpret this adagio differently: it is about a broken heart. Then you have to play it much differently, with a faster pace, with much more emotion and despair. I think I like it better this way. But I find it rather funny that you can play such a piece in such different ways, depending on what kind of emotion you want to convey. And actually I have no idea what Beethoven REALLY had in mind when he wrote this but ... I am not him. I can only give my OWN interpretation of his music, that is what we are supposed to do when we play.

[mahlermaniac]

I never mentioned a specific age. Certainly not 18.

Consider (an extreme example, perhaps, but illustrative) the very late piano works of Liszt. They are music of old age, of regret, of despair, of longing and of resignation. They are are rather miserable reflection on life by a rather miserable old man. How does an 18 year old know anything of this? Or a 40 year old? Or a content and happy nonagenarian, for that matter?  How could such a work speak to them, what experiences could they bring to the music to give it life?

I would never suggest that anyone (who can) shouldn't have a look at whatever they like, but to think they can do it justice? No.

Sadly, young people can experience regret, despair, and longing. A 12 year old child can potentially have more misery in life than an 80 year old has experienced. Such is the way of the world for some people.

I think if a certain piece speaks to someone, if it really sparks them, then it's worth trying the piece. If it's going to bring the hunger to play, then play they should. Full disclosure I do speak as a piano newbie. Will they do it justice? I don't pretend to know the answer to that.

[lianaxana]

I'm not a professional pianist.   

what constitutes a professional pianist anyway?

[mikeowski]

what constitutes a professional pianist anyway?

Having piano playing as your profession.

[j_menz]

what constitutes a professional pianist anyway?

The paycheque.

[49410enrique]

The paycheque.

yep. you have to at least be a thousandaire.