But I don't think the kid was putting up a facade, in fact quite the opposite. Also carrying on in life as though you are in full control of everything that comes down the pike is in itself a facade. Sooner or later something is going to grab your emotion, it's part of life, it's part of our make up as human beings. Additionally he is the composer of the piece and who knows who he may have lost in the tsunami. All things that entered my mind. What I noticed about the music is he never lost it in spite of his own composure. I think it's entirely possible that the subject of the music from his perspective struck him that intensely. I think it's also entirely possible that he may go on to play this in the future more composed.
I had a really bad day before I retired, a coworkers daughter committed suicide and he was pouring his heart to me. He had just returned to work recently and was a mess. Later my wife called, our house had been broken into. I went home and later yet found something very personal to me was gone. I sat down at my piano and new a piece of music came to me ( something that has been only happening for a couple of years now). The emotion * was that day* it was all about that day, it took me pretty hard. But I finished the piece and then went on to work with it in the following few days without what I call the quiver lip. I even performed the piece a few times. I found it to be too dark for some people and I can't expect them to feel what I feel in the piece. So I haven't perused it much since. It's funny, while the piece was about the emotion of that day, what went through my mind the whole time was the dead 17 yo girl and her name. That name became the name of the piece. This was like really deep stuff, dredged up from out of the soul. Because that's how I am up front, then I deal with it. If something takes me it takes me. Ya know we have seen really tough people broken in the right circumstances through our bible studies. It's pretty amazing when it happens. The same was true in reverse at my piano work shop years ago. This meek sort of woman for the life of her would fall apart at the keyboard, she tried I think for two years to play Fir Elise without trembling. Then she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She played it flawlessly and a year later was dead. When eternity is your future ( life on earth is not eternal), you are diagnosed terminal and wonder about eternity, when we lose loved ones, suddenly it can be a whole different ball game than the supposed self control one pretends to have through life, whom ever that fits.
Listen, the kid did fine ! And I find you folks seem rather hemmed up, too bad it bothered you. It didn't bother me at all, I certainly sensed his pain and emotion, but it showed me the heart of his piece of music. What we usually have to go by is a bunch of dead composers, here is a live one. I don't have to guess about it. It's one thing if it was a phony display, that is silly stuff but this kid was in pain and he is The Composer of the Music. You don't want to look at it because it makes you uncomfortable ? This then is about you feeling comfortable and you miss the point of the music, if you are capable of feeling the point of the music ( the true heart of the music) to begin with that is. You won't bare your own emotion is what this is about !! And you think Music is numbers and notes on a page. I'm here to say otherwise, in fact you need to get past the notes on the page and into the emotional end of Music for it to come alive. up until then you are following a road map on a trip and not seeing the scenery.
This thread was inevitably destined to come down to this. Music ( with a capital M) is all about emotion. The math and science , the mechanics of it all are mere tools. But if a musician and especially the composer of the music in concert playing his own piece displays any of that , does anything but sit their looking like a stuffed shirt he did a lousy job ? Great.
Topic: The experience of emotion during playing