Feeling the music and immersing yourself in it

[recnepspencer]

Often when I play, instead of focusing on expression, my mind wanders and thinks about random stuff. I can occasionally focus and get into the music, making it sound much more elegant, but that's typicall when I'm playing in the dark at 3am. So what are some things you do to immerse yourself into the song you're playing? The prime example of someone I see doing this is Evgeny Kissin if you have watched him on YouTube.

[hfmadopter]

Create my own music and the more I express myself the more I get into it and am able to express myself. It's a cycle that pretty much takes away the wandering mind.

The other approach is to learn to catch yourself wandering, or otherwise use the wandering for things about expression, train your wanderings ! IE winter scenes for some lonely sounding minor key piece for instance. Eric Satie's music, for instance, finds me seeing black and white scenes in an old city with iron fencing and cobble stone streets. Let your wandering mind see things that apply to the music you are working on and set the mood. If you start day dreaming about paying the bills or work or i need to go shopping, the music is pretty much going to suck.

[bronnestam]

Don't touch the keys. Close your eyes if you like, and imagine the music you are working with. Listen to it in your head. Listen very carefully. Slow it down if you like, or feel the rythm and tempo if you like.

If the piece is not "grade 1" it probably has more than one line. Have you listened to them separately? Have you investigated the harmonies? Have you listened to the chords, explored the richness and full sound of them? Have you tried to achieve the most beautiful, rich sound you can, or have you "just played it"?

When I fully immerse in the music, I can listen to a single phrase or a few phrases, and when I do it right I feel that my heart follows the beat and the feeling (just an illusion, I hope, but still!) I get emotional. Sometimes I see scenes or pictures, sometimes it is just a feeling.

Another trick to stay on track is to work with very short sections. Observe all your movements (and by all means, also observe your posture and your breathing) and be very aware of what you are doing in EVERY movement. In this way you cannot think of anything else than what you are doing.

[indianajo]

Play pieces you like.
I play pieces on the piano because I want to hear them.
I play pieces on the record player because I want to hear them.
Pieces assigned to me by the teacher for training, I did not focus on nearly as well. It took 6 months for me to get through the normal recital repretoire.    I think she detected my lack of interest my last year, when she gave some pieces back to the music store, and I finally decided to stop taking piano lessons.  
The beauty of not taking lessons, you don't have to play pieces you don't like.  
If there is an exercise you need to gain a physical skill, by all means keep your focus on the piece this exercise will enable you to play.  
Obviously this advice is for players who have achieved the basic physical skills over several years of lessons.  Those in the first years, exercises are as necessary as the gym routine I endure now 4 or 5 times a week.  Fortunately, there are pieces like ragtime that require enough strength and flexibility that I can use those to keep my piano physical ability up, without going back to tedious Czerny or Edna Mae Berman exercises.  In my future - maybe arpeggio exercises, which are reputed to increase sight reading ability.  Followed of course by some sight reading.