How 'free' are you during performances?

[virtuoso80]

To take the two extremes: Is everything you do meticulously pre-planned, analyzed, and executed in the exact same manner every time? Or do you 'let your feelings guide you' to spontaneously do whatever you feel to express while playing, giving potentially an entirely different performance each time?

I'm sure most people do a some of both, but to what extent? Personally, I think the ideal is more of the latter, which has to do with my favoring of 'method acting', and the pursuit of 'emotional truth' in my performances, even to the extent of deviating from the score if you feel the need. Or do you think that is mostly over-idealized hokum when it comes to classical piano?

[pianoplunker]

To take the two extremes: Is everything you do meticulously pre-planned, analyzed, and executed in the exact same manner every time? Or do you 'let your feelings guide you' to spontaneously do whatever you feel to express while playing, giving potentially an entirely different performance each time?

I'm sure most people do a some of both, but to what extent? Personally, I think the ideal is more of the latter, which has to do with my favoring of 'method acting', and the pursuit of 'emotional truth' in my performances, even to the extent of deviating from the score if you feel the need. Or do you think that is mostly over-idealized hokum when it comes to classical piano?

Yes, I feel that the feelings and emotions are the most important to the mastery of any music. what is the point otherwise ?

[virtuoso80]

Yes, I feel that the feelings and emotions are the most important to the mastery of any music. what is the point otherwise ?

Well, expressing feelings and emotions is essential, but do you need to feel them? A great stage actor can get the audience weeping through learned skill and without having to be 'crying on the inside' themselves. Hollywood actors, on the other hand, tend to be more method in approach. Do the complex technical demands of classical piano dictate that we must be more stage actors than method actors?

[j_menz]

Well, expressing feelings and emotions is essential, but do you need to feel them? A great stage actor can get the audience weeping through learned skill and without having to be 'crying on the inside' themselves. Hollywood actors, on the other hand, tend to be more method in approach. Do the complex technical demands of classical piano dictate that we must be more stage actors than method actors?

The "method" and non-method approaches to acting are not dictated by the medium. That is to say, there a stage method actors and screen non-method actors.  In both areas, there are exceptionally good actors using either approach.  I suspect it is a case of either how they were taught, or of what works best for them.

I further suspect that pianists fall into both camps and that there are good pianists using either approach.

[pianoplunker]

Well, expressing feelings and emotions is essential, but do you need to feel them? A great stage actor can get the audience weeping through learned skill and without having to be 'crying on the inside' themselves. Hollywood actors, on the other hand, tend to be more method in approach. Do the complex technical demands of classical piano dictate that we must be more stage actors than method actors?

You could go either way as far as acting/emotions . You could be crying on the inside, or methodically reproducing a "crying" feeling. what is important is that it is always part of the performance.  You can play freely either way as the artist. I dont think an accomplished piece is hindered if we dont actually cry during a sad part. But we must always be aware that it is a sad part and hopefullty we have practiced so we can always portray it .  The technical demands can certainly be a part of the expression - whether easy or hard.

[cometear]

When I perform, I usually know it so well it is done the same every time. If I don't know it well enough to play it exactly the same every time (I can still make small changes to improve on it) than my emotions get the better of me. If I am having a bad day, and I were to play a Mozart sonata, why let the emotion take away the enthusiasm. If you taught yourself it with enthusiasm than no matter how bad the day may be, you will play it with enthusiasm. 

[birba]

Interesting discussion here.  I think you certainly have to feel it in order to communicate it.  How can you express something if you don't know what it's about?  Take an example.  The scriabin etude op.8, no. 12.  Full of pathos, maybe tragedy, maybe not, intense expressive swells of sound, etc.  First of all, what do you want to express?  An idea?  A "feeling"? an emotional upheaval?  despair?  Now this is where I get blocked.  I can't express in words what I want to express in my playing.  And  I think that's necessary.  Also, maybe after having played it lots, I don't feel that same surge of emotion I did when I was learning it.  So, when I play it, I'm sort of "pretending" to feel that emotion.  Going through the motion, so to speak.  In this sense, maybe it's better not to be tied down to a certain interpretation.  Try to experience it for the first time as your performing it.  Something Kempff was absolute master at.  And something I'm always striving for..
Am I making sense?  I feel like I'm thinking out loud...

[gvans]

My string-playing friends and I discuss this one a lot. I play with a hot-headed violinist who has a great deal of trouble controlling his emotional response to the music.

It's a hard thing to pin down, as many have said. Especially with Romantic works, one cannot let gushing waves of emotion loose, or dangerous events may occur, such as tempos running wild and entire pieces de-railing. This is especially true in chamber works, but also in piano solo. That being said, no one wants to play, or listen to, cold, sterile performances.

So...what to do? Balance in all things, I think. Certainly a performer must try to get back to the feelings one had on those exciting first reads, as Birba suggests, while also keeping an element of intellectual control and discipline. It's a hard line to walk, but critical.

[j_menz]

When I perform, I usually know it so well it is done the same every time.

If you really knew it so well, you would know that there is not one, all ambracing interpretation. You would know the options available, rather than having learnt only one of them. Then you would be free to play it in the moment - uniquely and inspiredly.

In this sense, maybe it's better not to be tied down to a certain interpretation.  Try to experience it for the first time as your performing it.  Something Kempff was absolute master at.  And something I'm always striving for..
Am I making sense?  I feel like I'm thinking out loud...

Perfect sense.

[4greatkeyboards]

Good topic!

I see freedom in two levels: one of rubato (tempo push forward-pull back) and one of dynamic (loud/soft) expression. (Parens for newbies.)

Now that's what I think I do, as my own way of adding emotion. But there is another thing besides freedom and that's top-level concentration. For me, I want my main concentration to be in hearing my inner mind's ideal of the music as I go. I try to accompany that as I hear it internally.

Of course this is only possible if one has complete automatic control over the fingering, the playing of the notes. This is after the piece has been fully learned. Only then can we fully express it.

Also, don't we need to inwardly see kind of a movie of what the music is a soundtrack to? That is our understanding of the piece. That will not change, after a while, but will grow in definition. And does that not bend our freedom of interpretation to that 'movie'?

[pianoplunker]

Interesting discussion here.  I think you certainly have to feel it in order to communicate it.  How can you express something if you don't know what it's about?  Take an example.  The scriabin etude op.8, no. 12.  Full of pathos, maybe tragedy, maybe not, intense expressive swells of sound, etc.  First of all, what do you want to express?  An idea?  A "feeling"? an emotional upheaval?  despair?  Now this is where I get blocked.  I can't express in words what I want to express in my playing.  And  I think that's necessary.  Also, maybe after having played it lots, I don't feel that same surge of emotion I did when I was learning it.  So, when I play it, I'm sort of "pretending" to feel that emotion.  Going through the motion, so to speak.  In this sense, maybe it's better not to be tied down to a certain interpretation.  Try to experience it for the first time as your performing it.  Something Kempff was absolute master at.  And something I'm always striving for..
Am I making sense?  I feel like I'm thinking out loud...

Birba, yes I can hear you thinking all the way from here. For me, I must stick to the color of the image that I saw in the first place to match with whatever piece I saw it. I may have cried the first time or the 145th time but nowhere in between. But I still think everytime I want to convey what made me cry/laugh/growl the first time

[clavile]

To take the two extremes: Is everything you do meticulously pre-planned, analyzed, and executed in the exact same manner every time? Or do you 'let your feelings guide you' to spontaneously do whatever you feel to express while playing, giving potentially an entirely different performance each time?

I'm sure most people do a some of both, but to what extent? Personally, I think the ideal is more of the latter, which has to do with my favoring of 'method acting', and the pursuit of 'emotional truth' in my performances, even to the extent of deviating from the score if you feel the need. Or do you think that is mostly over-idealized hokum when it comes to classical piano?

I wouldn't say I "pre-plan" or "analyze" everything, but I surely do study how to play it so I don't get up there and drum through a piece.

I study the feeling in the piece, study the dynamics, and then add changes that I feel are appropriate to the piece, and let the music guide me. I would never go up on a stage and perform what my feelings "spontaneously" led me to, because most likely that would mean I'd rush the piece, and ruin it. I think you should have a true understanding of the music when you have reached the stage, so as not to "spontaneously" play, and possibly ruin the piece for everyone in the room, not to mention your performance.

Now, if you were to perform it and feel something was missing, by all means, fix it for your next performance!

If you're talking about the hand flinging, head shaking and foot stomping so many of the classical performers do today, no. I find it utterly ridiculous. Your movement during a highly emotional piece should not make you writhe like a worm or appear as if you were dancing an Irish jig on the bench. It should flow with the music.

If you're REALLY feeling the music, then your body will move appropriately, and there is no reason to pre-plan. Just like people who don't feel the music sit straight like a board and play stiffly don't have to pre-plan to do that.

[cuberdrift]

"Planning" your emotions? Is there such a thing?

In any case, I'd choose the more spontaneous approach of "going with the flow" of the composition. I often realize I am much more in a state of euphoria while on stage than while practicing alone, especially when other people are around, so there seems to be no great stress for me on how to structure it out. I haven't performed much since, but it's taught me a great deal.

[cometear]

If you really knew it so well, you would know that there is not one, all ambracing interpretation. You would know the options available, rather than having learnt only one of them. Then you would be free to play it in the moment - uniquely and inspiredly.

I mean I would know it so well, nothing would fail during a performance. My sad emotions would not change a happy piece into it's opposite. Of course as an artist each performance would have your own input but the notes and original style will not fail if you have it physically mastered.