Playing music, like any other performance art, requires the element of control. An artist must have full control of her entire body. Facial and body gestures are mistakenly thought to mean showing emotions. While physical expression has its place, it is not what emotional expression conveys. You see, a musician doing this is either unaware and therefore not in control, or they are aware and are dramatizing and making that the carrier wave. Let’s dig deeper into this.

Some musicians habitually do things like shake or shake their heads, move their mouths or lips, contract their bodies, obsessively raise their eyebrows, open their eyes, etc. Well, imagine if someone did things like that while trying to have a serious conversation with you. The content would be lost. A person communicates with his intention and delivery. If they are using various gestures and movements habitually, they are using them subconsciously to try to get the message across, rather than the intent and delivery, which is what actually does. It is a kind of nervousness or effort. The same principle applies to music, since music is a form of communication.

However, some musicians make a conscious effort to perform physically to convey their emotions. Again, this is an attempt to use that as the carrier wave to carry the message. The music itself IS the carrier wave. For example, in pantomime, the physical movements convey the message. When narrating, the spoken word does it. Imagine if a pianist verbally announced what emotion he was trying to display, like saying “And now this is where I show myself to be melancholic” or something like that. It would be additive. Well, when one deliberately gesticulates, he is adding an unnecessary element to the performance.

Now this does not mean that one should be deadpan. Rather, one must be very expressive, but there is a correct way to do it. It is done by enhancing the music itself. You do this with proper movement, which is a specialized technique. Without getting too technical, music with movement can be practiced in the areas of harmonic progression, characterization of a piece, outline of the melodic line, climax, phrasing, etc. These are covered more extensively in previous articles.

When practiced correctly and mastered, the result is congruent with the music. In actual tests, 90% of listeners, when asked to close their eyes and only listen to two variations of the same fragment of a piece, one played with the correct movement and the other with the wrong movement, were able to discern the difference.

Any musician of any level, including virtuosos, can have bad habits while performing. These are easily correctable for any musician.

by Evelyn Simonian
© 2011. Evelyn Simonian