Playing Expressively at the Piano

Five Principles, Part 3

In this post I’m going to talk about another one of my core principles: Playing expressively at the piano.

This is a core principle in my teaching and playing, because music is all about communication. Music is about “saying” something in sound that affects or moves the person listening to it.

Missed the rest of the series?

• Series Kickoff: Announcing: “The Piano Prof” YouTube Channel!
• Part 1: Developing Ease at the Piano
• Part 2: Improving Your Listening Skills at the Piano

EXPRESSIVE PLAYING

When all is said and done, expression is not something that somebody else can truly TEACH you: a teacher or someone else can point you in the right direction, but expression is something that has to come authentically from within yourself.

That said, there’s one simple principle that will transform your playing and your approach to the instrument. And here it is:

Commit to playing expressively, every time you play something on the piano.

This means, don’t play mechanically. Don’t play without listening. Everything you play, commit to playing it musically and beautifully.

Every note. Whether it’s scales, or chords, or just a single note. Whether you are playing hands separately, or slowly, or sight reading or learning notes for a new piece.

NEVER let yourself play mechanically.

This one simple decision will go a long toward a habit of playing expressively by default.

Here are four ideas you can use to help in your own work on playing more expressively:

#1. Think deeply about the motivation of the composer.

Music is first and foremost about communication, and your job as the interpreter is to bring the notes on the page to life and serve as a conduit between the composer and the audience. Therefore, it’s crucial that you ask yourself what the composer is trying to communicate at any given moment.

Use the musical instructions the composer gives in the score as a guide to emotional meaning. The dynamics, articulations, and other printed directions are there for a reason – they’re there because the composer wants to say something.

Get in the habit of interpreting these instructions as an emotional clue. For example, if you see a crescendo, this is an intensification of sound and therefore an intensification of an emotional state. Don’t just take it as an instruction to play louder; dig deeper to find the emotional REASON the composer is asking you to play louder.

This takes some extra imagination on your part, but once you start thinking that way, it can be really fun to put yourself in the composer’s shoes.

#2. Make up a story

My second suggestion for playing more expressively is to make up a story for your piece. You can take the music you are working on and write a whole story that takes place in your mind’s eye while you are playing it.

To come up with ideas for a story, imagine that the music is a soundtrack for a movie, with a series of scenes that are happening to drive the story forward.

• Here are some questions you can ask about each phrase, based on the clues you hear and see in the music:
• What would be happening in this particular scene?
• Is it day or night?
• Are you in the city or the country?
• What is the landscape like?
• Are there other people there or is the protagonist alone?
• What mood is the protagonist in?
• What action happens in the scene?

#3. Engage in the creative world around you

My third suggestion to help you play more expressively at the piano is to engage fully in the creative world around you. It’s easy to get stuck in the world of our phones and our to-do lists and other obligations. But it’s amazing how nourishing it can be to consciously engage in other art forms, just for its own sake. Here are some examples of what I mean:

• You could read some poetry or literature, or go to an art museum.
• You could attend the theatre.
• You could make art – enroll in a pottery class or something else you’re interested in.
• You could learn to dance or attend a ballet or modern dance performance. Or, just dance in your kitchen!
• Savor the food you cook and look for interesting new recipes to explore.

I enjoy doing all of those things, and also, for me, spending time in nature is always deeply restorative and inspiring.

The important thing here is to do activities that engage your imagination and give you a reservoir of imagery you can draw from. In your playing, you can use the images and emotions you store up in your inner world to inspire you to play with expression.

#4. Practice feeling emotions

My final suggestion for you today is to PRACTICE feeling emotions.

There’s a big difference between somebody “acting” like they are sad and somebody actually experiencing sadness. If somebody just acts sad, it can come across as insincere and you can spot it a mile away..

When you’re playing at the instrument and you want the music to express a certain emotion, it’s not enough to just imitate what you think that emotion might sound like.

Just like a good actor, you need to actually draw on your inner life and practice feeling the emotion you want to communicate as you play that particular section.

It takes practice to learn to cue yourself to feel an emotion as you think about or play a particular phrase. To do this, it can be helpful to remember a specific time when you felt a particular emotion, and practice re-experiencing it. You can practice feeling and thereby associating emotions like joy, sorrow, excitement, regret, and others with particular musical phrases in your music.

Conclusion

So, these are some of my thoughts on playing expressively at the piano.

Remember: commit to playing expressively every time you sit down at the instrument. You will find that that one thing will transform your playing.

What strategies do you use to play expressively at the piano? Leave them in the comments!

VIDEO: Playing Expressively at the Piano

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