This thread is both timely and important. Fame, money, finger dexterity, arguing incessantly about which sorts of music we like or dislike, making reverend gestures toward this or that way of playing, this or that magisterium of common practice or avant-garde - the underlying reason we play and listen to music is unconnected with these things, and is utterly ineffable. Thank you for reminding us of it.
Has anyone performed a piece in such a way that it elicits tears of JOY from the audience?
It's straightforward to make people cry with minor-scale pieces, nostalgia, etc., but how about the opposite? For example, I equate it with the tears a new parent cries at seeing their baby come into the world, or reuniting with a long-lost loved one. The work performed can be anything- one of the classical composers or an original piece.
I have a theory: a number of years ago scientists discovered that humans have brain cells in their heart tissue (!). Is it possible this "second brain" is what responds to the way a piece of music is played?
but taking it a step further to induce this same reaction in someone who has no frame of reference for the piece, and in fact may have never heard it before in their life. As mentioned, the reaction is entirely unexpected. If I may include my personal experience, I have played classical music in Latin America for people who have never heard anything but bachata, salsa, etc., and they are surprised to find themselves crying with joy. There is some sort of magical resonance or alchemy that seems to occur. As the pianist, I don't actually feel anything other than the usual enjoyment of performing, which is interesting.
...I felt that if my playing would only interest a select group of "educated" people, it would be a travesty.
I think I've only been mildly successful. There needs to be some level of willingness and affinity from the person listening, and I think that music largely works on familiarity and association. We all have that one song which is really not special at all, which we love nevertheless because it was the backdrop for significant moments of our lives.
I still find the reasons why someone likes a piece of music to be rather mysterious.
I think when you perform a piece for a layperson, you need to simultaneously play the piece, and "educate" them. By "educate" I mean that you need to place extra emphasis on the themes (and perhaps demonstrate with your facial expressions as well) so that they pay more attention to them and realize that those are the things which will be used as thematic material throughout the piece.
I feel that I am an educated pianist and listener since this is my profession but I have musical tastes which are mostly unaffected by education.
The reason why I think people connect to pieces they know well is that they are anticipating the sounds constantly and this allows them to immerse themselves in the music. When you play something they have never heard they are not sure what they are listening to or what to expect or what may come next. It can be a confusing experience especially if you play something very demanding and since they have no expectation as to what will come next their minds can wander and their effective listening then comes in waves.
There certainly can be an incredible power behind music and words put together and certainly a huge reason for how the majority of people connect to music. As a pianist the pieces I connect with the deepest are those which I can hear the emotional images, sense the many situations of life in sound.
Describing real life situations which effected the composer and may have inspired the creation of their works allows anyone to connect on some emotional level without even hearing the music and then when the music starts they have their attention focused and can connect. You do a good service for others who listen to pieces you play for the first time doing things like this, I have always found it helps them listen and experience the music much better.
The music can simply stand for itself and nothing else matters to them. I had one person in all my years of concerting come up to me at the end of the concert and tell me that and I agreed with them with a however.
I think this is too subtle of an education to give to listeners who are not instrumentalists themselves. If you describe the music before playing it as I wrote in the previous quote I responded to, I think this will help them a great deal more.
This was one of the issues I had with my previous teacher haha. She thought that your idea of where music should go changes a lot with time and instruction, and I felt that mine basically hasn't changed much over the years I've played piano, but rather progressively refined itself.
I don't look back with distaste at the music I liked starting out -- in fact, I sometimes think I had better music taste back then because it was unhindered by musical education and I was experiencing it more directly. Now, I tend to try to get myself to like things while back then I just had this raw sense telling me what was good and what wasn't, and I think it was actually pretty good because that was what I used to develop my own sense of how I should play the piano which has worked quite well for me so far.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that the very reason I prefer instrumental music is because it is abstract, and does not tell you what exactly to think. That allows you to engage in it in a more personal way, open to interpretation, rather than vocal music for which doing that is much more difficult.
Bach's counterpoint just is, but the ways people interact with it and get an emotional payoff are very diverse.
For me personally, I like to try and just listen to a piece in an unfamiliar style firsthand, but that may just be my bias as I have a certain knack of (and have developed a sort of method for) being able to understand a broad variety of music.
For some people, I have been successful by going over a piece with them and asking them to go with their visual imagery, or suggesting a very wide term such as "water", and demonstrating a motif, followed by asking them to listen to it carefully. However, this may require a talent in itself, and I have seen that often even people who are trained in music take it too literally -- one person I showed my improvisation to was very confused because it didn't have much resembling major or minor scales, so they didn't know what to feel. It also works better with one-on-one interaction.
I think this may be the purest way of experiencing music. We are limited by our vocabulary and words can very well fail to express an emotion. Just listening to a piece of music and trying to let it wash over you, experiencing the emotion as it comes by, is imo the best way to listen to music.
Perhaps you're right. But it's the sort of education I've had. Gusts of wind and other wistful analogies musicians like to conjure up are often far too vague to express the kinds of emotions pieces generate, and I've found more success by making up my own mind by listening to pieces. In a way, I trust my ear absolutely. It's the only way I see forward, because if you doubt what your instinct tells you about a piece of music, it's very hard to form a progressively refined interpretation or sense of music, because you will always be stuck questioning basic things (does this modulation to a minor scale mean it should be more 'sad'?). In my experience, the best results come when you are certain of where your inner ear is taking you, really listen, and follow it through. It is much more likely to result in an internally consistent interpretation which will speak to the listener.
I've had a couple of great experiences playing for people without a big classical music background or interest. I live in a very rural, sparsely populated corner of northern New England. Most people are not very aware of classical music. I gave a short recital in the nursing home where my mother lives. After I had played the first movement of Bach's fourth French Suite, the cook shouted out from the kitchen "Hey Bill, now I have beautiful music in my head." She's a kind woman, generous to the inmates (er, residents), but definitely not a big follower of classical music. A few months later I gave a house recital for friends and neighbors. While I was playing the Chopin Nocturne Opus 9 #1 in Bb minor, I noticed that our nearest neighbor, a dairy farmer, was in tears. After the recital she told me the music had brought back her whole childhood to her. I think that in small, personal settings it is quite possible to communicate classical music to people who aren't already fans of it.
What is that "connection" that people who don't listen much to piano music is very intriguing to me and whenever I get the chance I will test people out. Through my explorations I have found that the vast majority of "non-piano music listeners" like music which is gentle and pretty sounding without too many complications. They don't actually relate to a complicated Liszt or Chopin etude as readily as they do with something from say Yann Tiersen, Ludovico Einaudi. They even prefer the simple structures of Phillip Glass a lot.
I think all performing pianists had some reaction to this fact when it hit them the first time: we may study many hours on very difficult works only to find that these non-piano listeners really connect better with our music simpler pieces.
This may merely be the natural progression of someones interest with piano music. For me for instance I started playing piano at 3 years of age, so much of my experience listening to music was my own playing. I didn't start with high level pieces and built up from very easy works. So my listening experience built up from a very low point. So when we throw at someone who hardly listens to piano music something very elaborate and complicated it often has no more effect on them than if we play something much more easier. That is to me a very interesting observation of the power of music.
Powerful enough to penetrate through terrible disease:
Hey, I was assigned that video for 10th grade health a month ago!
Topic: Power of music 