17: Expression

Think back to what first inspired you to pick up an instrument or open your mouth to sing. I’m guessing it wasn’t a desire for dry, robotic “getting the notes right”!

More likely it was the emotion of music, and a deep desire to express your own emotions through music that you love.

Sadly, many of us wind up sat with our instrument in hand, pressing the buttons, and even if the “right” notes come out… where is that feeling?

We watch and listen to our musical heroes, we see and hear how they embody the music, reach into our hearts, and touch us deeply. Perhaps you have had moments where you felt the music moving like that through you, and wondered “Where did that come from? And how can I do it again?!”

You might have been told by a teacher or well-meaning friend to “play with more expression”. Or perhaps you’ve commented yourself on how a musician plays “so expressively”. 

We know what “playing expressively” means in terms of its effect and impact on the audience. And we know instinctively when we hear (or play) music with great expression versus a dry, lifeless performance.

In Chapter 1: Musicality several of the featured descriptions highlighted how central this is to musicality itself. For example “It’s the way the performer makes a piece of music uniquely his/her own”, “Musicality means being able to express your thoughts/feelings through music”, “Musicality to me would be when you have a little more freedom to make the best piece you can of any piece of music.”

But what is it that actually constitutes “playing with expression”—and is it something you can learn to do?

If you’ve read this far, you’ll appreciate by now that at Musical U we’re never satisfied with answers like “it just happens”, “nobody really knows” or “it’s just a gift” when it comes to music! There is always an explanation, if we have the courage and the determination to seek it out. And fortunately musical expression is no exception.

In our H4 Model of Complete Musicality, this represents a large part of the Heart component, as well as being deeply tied to our Musical Inside And Out Pillar Belief. How do you go from “operating an instrument” to feeling like the music is flowing out from inside you, through your instrument? 

In the next chapter, we’ll cover one big part of it: how to connect more deeply with your instrument, the music, other musicians and your audience.

Here, we’ll introduce a way of thinking about “playing expressively” which transforms it from a mysterious abstract “you’ve got it or you don’t” phenomenon into something clear, concrete and practical. You’ll learn to expand your musicality through playing each and every note with intentional musical expression, and do so in a way which lets you intuitively infuse your music with the emotions you feel inside.

Overview

In this chapter we’ll begin by introducing “The Musical Language of Emotion” as a way to think about playing expressively, using analogies between spoken language and music to gain greater insight into what it means to “play with expression”. We’ll discuss phrasing and its importance for expressing emotions through music, and then give some general pointers for finding success with the exercises in this chapter.

Then we will go through the four Dimensions of music, as you may have encountered already in Chapter 5: Active Listening and elsewhere in the book: Timbre, Dynamics, Pitch and Rhythm. For each one, we’ll unpack the various ways you can make creative choices to express emotions, and practice exploring and experimenting—first with a single note, and then across a musical phrase. Then we’ll bring your experiences with all four together, to practice shaping a note and then a phrase using everything you’ve learned so far.

Then, in the second half of the chapter, we’ll look at four musical activities and how you can practice expressing emotions with each: Active Listening, Movement, Audiation and Singing, and Creativity. This will help you to bring your new ability to “speak the language of emotion” into every area of your music-making.