Getting to the core of these principles

-      “But I need my technique to become fluid and automatic before I can think about the music”


Okay, yes, of course, we need to have a level of technical fluency that enables us to play the repertoire we choose and of course we need the basic principles of placing, articulating, relaxing etc. to be well established. There are also times when we are going to be totally focussed on a physical sensation when working on something and in this sense a problem can seem purely ‘technical’. However, what I’d like to explore is exactly what it is that is becoming automatic when we practise technically,  and how we are approaching our technical work in a way that is building on our ability to create colour, shape, various kinds of articulation and which, ultimately, brings us back to the music. If our technique is required in order to better express the music we want to play, with all its colours and emotions – in other words, to serve a purpose - we need to make sure that we are actually practising using our technique to serve a purpose. Right?


So, let’s say you are practising some arpeggios with the aim of being able to play them at a certain speed, but you’re not going to bother about dynamics or phrasing and you haven’t thought about the kind of articulation you want. Naturally, paying close attention to notes and fingering is, initially, going to be of utmost concern, and of course there will be a stage when it will seem impossible to think of much else. But choosing not to think about dynamics, colour or phrasing – and, crucially, what these things are conveying - at any stage of this ‘technical’ practise, for me, creates two problems...

Firstly, does any sound or music have absolutely no dynamic, colour or characteristic? Now this could lead to a long debate about the nature of sound and the concept of a ‘dynamic’ (!) but from the point of view of an instrumentalist, I think we can agree that behind every sound we make there is some kind of decision, and we choose – sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously as a reaction/response to what’s going on around us – the dynamics and colours we play with. We want to have control over these things - a command of each sound that we make, right? The idea of ignoring these concepts in any part of our practise therefore seems, to me, to be counterintuitive.


If every sound we make inherently has some kind of dynamic or colour, then if we are not listening to it are we in control of it? Are we building on our ability to create and use dynamic and colour? Our ability to say something with the sound that we make?

 

Furthermore, in the event that you continually ignore the dynamics in your exercises, the likelihood is that everything you play is around mezzo forte/mezzo piano and even more likely is that the dynamic and colour alters as you try to up the tempo of your exercise; we all know that playing with different dynamics/colours requires something different from our technique, and, as we play faster, how we create such dynamics and colours also changes and often becomes much more difficult. (E.g. often as we play faster it becomes more difficult to play loudly.) So, already, the speed or ‘technicality’ of what we are playing is now dictating all the ‘musical’ features of our playing.

 

If we practise our exercises like this, is it not likely that this translates to the 'technical' work we do in our pieces? With no acknowledgement of intention – whether in an exercise or a piece of music - and the nuances and details which realise that intention, we have lost our balance: our technique has no purpose to serve.


The same applies to the ideas of phrasing, shape and direction – should we ignore these in all of our ‘technical’ work? By doing this are we actually practising ignoring phrases, harmonic direction or the overriding musical gesture of a phrase/motif/passage?

 

If we are not listening for these things at any stage of our technical work then I fear that we are allowing this ignorance to become automatic..


Key Points

·     If we want to have command over the sounds that we make, should we be ignoring dynamics, colours, phrasing at any stage of our practise?

·     By ignoring these things are we practising this ignorance? Will this seep into our ‘technical’ work in our pieces?

·     Does any sound really have no colour or dynamic anyway? Do we therefore not want to have control and command of these things? Over the sounds that we make?

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My second concern is that by choosing not to be aware of these details in our ‘technical’ practise, we are never contextualising our work, and what I mean by this is that we are never thinking of the bigger picture - the aims, ideas, characteristics, emotions and intentions of the thing that we’re practising. Whether we’re playing exercises, a substantial solo work or an accompaniment in an ensemble, we need to think about what we’re aiming for. When working with scores, we need to make sure our choices are true to the markings of the composer, acknowledge the style and period of that work and, with a solo work,  make sense within our own artistic concept of the piece. Within an ensemble we have a role to consider and we must understand how this role – along with the contributions we make and the support that we provide – changes within the context of the music we’re playing. Without these wider concepts to work to, it’s difficult to engage our imagination - to explore using all the details of dynamic, phrasing, colour etc. to convey a bigger musical intention. And without this imagination, our technique has no real purpose to serve and no benchmark against which to refine.

Key Points

·     We need to understand what these details of colour, dynamic etc. are serving – what is the overall musical intention or message?

·     Without this bigger picture can we really engage our imaginations to hear and experiment with how we use the smaller details to say something?

·     Without a clear imaginative concept, how do we ensure that our technique is serving the music? We need an idea, a benchmark to work towards.

So, we’ve established that technique and musical expression rely upon one another. How, though, can we incorporate and practise the concepts we have explored in the work that is not necessarily related to a piece of music? During those times when we feel like we're not playing something 'musical'?

 

-      Put your technique and imagination to the test!

You might be working on a very simple, specific exercise that doesn’t appear to have a phrase or shape to it, no chord progression or arc of phrase to follow. But, do you know what it is that you are aiming for? There is always an intention! Perhaps absolute evenness is your aim? Indeed, this doesn’t have to be a ‘technical’ or ‘boring’ thing - it can have great character! And this skill is also required if we want to play a phrase, with notes of varying levels of ‘evenness’.  What is crucial here is this idea of intention - making a choice about what it is you are working towards, making sure you are achieving the desired effect and playing around with that choice. You may play it evenly in ‘mf’ but can you do the same in ‘pp’ or ‘ff’. Can you give this a different colour? How do you do this? Now that you can play it evenly can you make it sound less ‘notey’ and create the idea of a flourish/one musical gesture?


By asking yourself these questions and experimenting, you are pushing the limits of what you can do technically, and, even more importantly, you are unlocking the ways in which you utilise your technique; thinking of colours, gestures, sounds, ideas is a much simpler and more effective way to use and develop the skills you have. Now, the technique and imagination can work together – they’re in balance.


Key Points

·     We can practise using our imaginations and refining details in very simple ‘non-musical’ exercises

·     What is our intention? What can we play around and experiment with?

·     How can I use colour, a wide range of dynamics and characteristics within this exercise?

·     This is how we push the limits of what we can do technically

·     Thinking of colours, ideas, gestures is a simple and highly effective way to keep developing your technique

·     The technique and imagination can now work together – in balance.

This balance and constant interplay between technicality and imagination pushes the boundaries of our hearing and, ultimately, it is our ears that drive our playing forward: hearing more, addressing what we don’t like and building on what we do like. However, we must remember that without engaging our imagination and understanding our intentions, our ears have nothing to drive us towards. The imagination is the greatest tool to expand our virtuosity, to broaden our palette of sound and to search for something we haven’t yet found or heard: it’s through the imagination that we look for what can’t be described in words.

Isn’t this what music is all about?  

The Imagination Feeds The Technique Q2.pdf

© Elizabeth Bass 2020

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