Any pianist whether a beginner or an expert in this area may be capable of playing piano well however the effect of your musical piece that is performed with complete expression would be different on your audiences. Adding feeling and expression to playing piano is important no matter what kind of piece you are playing. It is vital for a musician to be emotionally attached with his music and that is the sign of a pro performer. Getting emotionally involved in your music is not difficult, you just need to have command on what you are playing and would need to follow certain tips for making your performance more expressive.
Ways of adding Expressions:
There are many ways with the aid of which you will be able to relate to your piano music and it will thus be more expressive and full of feelings:
- Have a Theme or Storyline: Just playing some words and notes together on a piano without any meaning would surely be expressionless and thus it is vital to have a storyline or theme for the song or piece that you are playing over piano. The background story would be in your mind as you play it and that way you will be able to reach all details and situations with complete feel of character and situation. Many pianists prefer to write short summary or extracts of story that the music is based on and as they play by reading musical sheet; they will be able to relate to those phrases.
- Have a Reason to play: Pianists should have an aim to play music. Most professional pianists would have the aim of making their audiences happy and play music in a way that is captivating for them. Watching your audiences enjoying your performance would be the best feeling of all for them and it is thus their reason to play. Having a reason would give you motivation to perform better and you will become more expressive.
- Look for Hints on Notes: Many musical sheets would have some words or notes underlined or italic or bold, this means that these areas should be emphasized as you perform these notes. Keep an eye on those areas and you may make variations at those places in order to capture attention of audiences on those parts of your piano music.
Tips for adding Expression to your Piano Music:
Here are certain tips that would enable you to enjoy your music at piano and you will thus be able to become more expressive with this amazing instrument:
- Sit with complete comfort: You should maintain a proper posture as you play piano. Your body should not be bending but your back should be completely straight with your elbows little extended from your body. Your arms and hands should be completely comfortable while playing piano.
- Proper fingering: Placement of hands and fingering is extremely important when playing piano. A controlled yet comfortable movement of your fingers will improve your skill of playing the keyboard and you will be able to look for varied ways of adding diversity and richness in your sound. Movements of your fingers should be focused and it should have a lot of awareness. Overall coordination of muscles of hands and arms would be able to make you fluent and it is the key to adding expression.
- Play with focused mind and ears: Your performance should be well heard with both your ears and your mind. Not only that you should have your heart pounding to your performance so that every note that you play is not only played with focus but it is felt with your heart.
- Love for your music: Anything that you play over piano, you should have love for it. Sometimes the situations would be that you will be asked or assigned to play something that you don’t really relate to or love to play. Take it as a challenge for your fingers, mind and heart; love this challenge and you will be able to love the music you will play.
- Move yourself with music:Being expressive is important for you to have fun at piano. Your body should be at a relaxed state as you play piano with complete enthusiasm and enjoy it.
- Take Feedback from Others: An honest feedback is the only way to see if what you are playing is appealing your audiences or not. You should have feedback from others however at the same time hear yourself play so that you can better determine what lacks in your performance. You can record a video or audio of your performance and hear it yourself and make others hear it too for a sincere feedback. This way you will be able to determine if you are able to play expressively or if you are lacking at some parts that you should work to improve on.
- Don’t worry about Mistakes: Mistakes are common and there is nothing bad about it. Don’t keep yourself stressed and worrying that you might make a mistake. This would do no good to your performance and you will not be able to play expressively.
Conclusion
No matter what level you are at as a pianist, you may be completely new to this instrument or may be an advanced level pianist; key is to begin playing expressively since the day you begin. Your very first lesson should also be expressive and it is the teacher who should emphasize on student to play expressively even if you don’t have the notes in your memory completely. Simple practice and exercises would enable you to add diversity and expression to your performance and as you do so you will find your performance to turn magical.
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