When learning a piece of music, we generally learn to play
the right notes at the right time first. As the piece
becomes more familiar, we add tempo changes, dynamics and
articulations. Depending on the musician and the difficulty
of the work, maybe some of these can be played right from
the beginning when learning the notes. After a certain
amount of practice time, we'll be able to play the
composition as written on the page; however, is this as far
as it goes? Is it possible to take our performance to the
next level?
With the highly developed computer programs available
today, we can program a synthesizer so that it does just
that: play all the right notes at the right time, all the
tempo changes, all the right dynamics, all the right
articulations: everything as written on the paper, and much
more accurately than a human. Therefore if we humans have
only gone this far in making music, any computer can
replace us. This is only the technical level, and there is
something very essential missing here.
The next stage is the level of musicianship. This is where
we learn to express ourselves. I say learn because it's a
never-ending process that will continue as long as we live.
We may be able to express ourselves to a certain extent
already, but is there a limit to musical expression? I
think not. The ability to express ourselves is limited only
as far as our imagination can carry us. Let's look at the
aspects that lead to true musicianship.
Each phrase we play - even every note we play - can be an
expression of our emotions. Each great composer had a
particular feeling he wanted to express in each and every
phrase, and searched his soul for the means to do this. The
ability to express our emotions in music is directly
proportional to our ability to empathize with the
intentions of the composer - We have to try to feel and
recreate what the composer felt when writing the music. One
wonderful way of learning the emotions in music is to
listen to Italian opera of the late 19th century. Verdi,
Puccini, Leoncavallo, Giordano, Mascagni, to mention a few
of the outstanding composers, put the entire palate of
human emotions to music. Intensity, color, phrasing,
vibrato, articulation - a great singer will make use of all
these in order to express the emotions that the composer
wrote into his translation of the story into music.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to make music at this level?
At first it will take time to delve into the emotional
level. Let's take a simple crescendo for example. Starting
on a softer note and getting louder is the level of
technique. The level of musicianship is to feel and express
why we are getting louder, maybe adding intensity
or vibrato in order to become angry or adamant. Another
example is phrasing. Each phrase we play should have a
direction. It should lead us to or from a goal, expressing
a thought and/or an emotion. In consideration of
articulation, playing an accent is not just starting a note
louder; it can be a stressing or a hammering or even a
yearning. This is all dependent on what we decide to
convey, and in making music it is vitally important to
visualize and internalize the intentions of the composer,
and to awaken the emotions in ourselves.