EXPERIMENTING
Testing different interpretation options
Michelle can play right through her piece easily, and rarely makes mistakes. But there's one problem.
It's boring. Boring to play. Boring to listen to.
"I don't know what else to do" she thinks. "Maybe it's just a boring piece..."
As we'll see, it's hardly ever the piece that's boring.
~ 0 ~
Experimenting is a creative way to practice that can help old and tired pieces become fresh and surprising. Sometimes very surprising.
The whole adventure is based on three ideas:
1) That there are countless different ways that you could play any passage in your piece... and that so far, you only will have tried a fraction of those possibilities
2) That some of those possibilities will be more effective than others
3) That because you've only tried a fraction of these possibilities so far, the best options are probably yet to be tried...which means they are waiting for you to discover.
"I wonder what if..."
When you run your Experiment, you'll be playing each passage in your piece in as many different ways as you can, while listening carefully to the results.
During this time, your favorite question is going to be:
"I wonder what if..."
"I wonder what if I were to push through to the next phrase, instead of holding back like I normally do?"
"I wonder what if I made these staccato notes really short, instead of the current non-legato approach?"
"I wonder what if I brought out the left hand in this passage?"
"I wonder what if I delayed this crescendo by another bar, and then made it steeper?"
Don't just wonder "what if" though. Go try each of these things, see what you think.
Don't prejudge...
Some of the best ideas you'll ever use can sound silly until you actually try them. So when you're creating your "I wonder if...?" possibilities, keep an open mind.
Even if you're 99% sure your "what if" is a bad idea, try it anyway - you'll be amazed (and delighted) by how often you are wrong.
...but be guided by the score
Perhaps the only exception to prejudging is where your idea openly contradicts the composer's markings. If the tempo indication is Largo, then you should probably discard "I wonder what if I played this opening a cut-time prestissimo" - even if this otherwise slow movement sounds exciting when delivered.
That having been said though, composers are not always automatically the best interpreters of their own music - just as there have been some brilliant interpretations of Shakespeare that openly defy the marked stage directions.
Even the bad results help
Your experiments won't exclusively uncover treasures. Sometimes you'll try an "I wonder if..." and realize very quickly that it was a bad idea. But that doesn't mean you've wasted time.
For example, if placing a strong accent on the first beat of each bar ended up making the melody sound ploddy and insincere, then it's worth knowing that. You've moved a step closer to discovering the best delivery of this phrase...by taking a step away from a bad delivery.
The power of sampling widely
If you were interviewing candidates for a job, you've got twice the chance of finding the right person if you interview four people than if you only interview two.
This is why companies that interview two hundred people for a job end up with such fantastic staff - they have a hundred times the chance of finding the right person as a company which only interviews two people.
The same holds true for your performance. If you've only ever tried to play a passage one way, then you'd have to be very lucky for that to just happen to be the best way.
But if you've tried a dozen different models, then on concert day, we're not just hearing what you came up with first. We're hearing the very best out of all the options you considered - and the better the best is likely to be.
Elements to experiment with
So what can you experiment with? You probably shouldn't experiment with the notes themselves, but just about everything else is on the table:
Dynamics: Not just which dynamics and where, but shapes. So if you're planning a crescendo to run over three bars, is it going to steadily get louder throughout, or is most of the crescendo going to happen in a rush in the final half measure? There's a huge difference between the two - you won't know which to use until you experiment. And then when you're done, try it with a decrescendo.
Articulation: Placement and intensity of accents, staccatos, etc. For example, are you going to treat those indicated dots as staccato, staccatissimo, or simply non-legato? And will they all be uniform, or will they evolve as the passage moves forward?
Time dependent elements: Choice of tempo, steadiness of tempo, rubato. If there's a dramatic moment in the piece, try delaying it, then try anticipating it. Then try it bang on time. See which feels most compelling. Similarly, experiment with different tempos for the piece as a whole.
Technique related elements: What happens if you breathe differently? Or hold your hand higher? Or lower? Or maintain more tension across the bridge of your hand? Or less? Every physical change you make will have some sort of impact on ease of delivery and your sound - make lots of changes, pay attention to what happens as you do.
Find a better move
There's a saying in chess that once you've found a good move, wait, and find a better one. The same is true of your musical decisions.
So even if your experiments so far mean that you've found an exciting way to get neatly from the 3rd to the 4th variation in your Theme & Variations, you might find an even more exciting way if you run a few more tests.
It can be hard to achieve closure with Experiment practice - in fact, the whole process can become a little addictive.
he!he!he! :-)
Keep a "can't decide" book
If you find you're torn between two possible ideas, make a note of the options and the section they apply to. Have your teacher then act as the umpire at your next lesson.
Get a "don't mess with this" list from your teacher
While experimenting theoretically allows for any possible combination of dynamics, articulation and rubato, there will be some areas of the piece where your teacher will have Non-negotiable ideas.
But even in sections where, for instance, your dynamics are non-negotiable, you can still experiment with your posture, and the extent to which principle beats are accented. And whether or not this section will be rigidly in time, or maybe feeling like it's hurrying forwards slightly...
....the point is, even in the most proscriptive sections, you'll have plenty of room to be able to tweak elements that aren't specifically mentioned.
Which is great news, because working like this is a ticket not just to creative and interesting, but revelatory practice. :-D
No comments:
Post a Comment