Beyond the Score: 3 Keys to a More Artistic Performance

Your student has practiced a piece for hours...laboring at the piano until every note, rhythm, and dynamic marking is played correctly. 

Many students think that reaching this milestone is a sign that a piece is "finished." However, learning to play what's written in the score is only the beginning! 

In this article, we will go beyond what's written on the page and learn how to help our students create a more beautiful, artistic, and personal performance of any piece by working on three key concepts.

Keep reading to learn more...

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"Don't play what's there; play what's not there."
- Miles Davis

A big part of learning to create a truly artistic performance comes down to playing "what's not there." The sheet music is just a blueprint--it is up to the performer to actually build and decorate the house!

So, how do we help students move beyond what's on the page and learn to perform more artistically? Here are 3 key concepts to work on that will help create a more beautiful, artistic performance!

Concept #1: Voicing
"It [the melody] is the soul of music, it is the life, the spirit, the essence of a composition."
- Franz Joseph Haydn

Voicing is such an important technique, and one that is often not introduced early enough to students. Just because a section is marked “mezzo forte” doesn’t mean that every note is played at the same dynamic level! In order to create a beautiful performance, pianists need to understand where the melody is at all times and know how to make sure that it is heard above the harmony.

There may also be harmony notes that require attention and proper voicing–for example, drama may be created in a performance by voicing a surprising chord change. This requires the performer to understand the harmonic structure of a piece so that they know which harmonies might require special attention.

Tips for teaching voicing:

1. Make sure your students can find the melody at any given point in a piece. In complex pieces, using colored pencils to trace the melody line can help.
2. Help students analyze the harmony of their pieces and make note of any special chords that might require voicing.
3. This blog post has specific tips for how to teach the technique of playing the melody louder than the harmony to students at every level. 

Concept #2: Phrasing
“He who phrases incorrectly is like a man who does not understand the language he speaks.”
- Frédéric Chopin

Most students learn to follow the dynamic markings in the music from an early level; however, this is only the beginning when it comes to creating a beautiful and expressive performance! 

Phrasing refers to the rise and fall of the dynamic levels within each section of the music, as well as to how each section of the music is divided in order to make sense musically in a performance. Without good phrasing, we risk our pieces sounding like one long, robotic, run-on sentence…

Tips for teaching phrasing:

1. Help students find phrases in their music and to draw in any phrases that might not already be marked. Singing the melody line can be a helpful way to do this!
2. Find the high point of each phrase (what seems to be the most important note) and use dynamics to build up to, then away from, this point. As a general rule of thumb, the first and last notes of each phrase are usually the softest.
3. Beautiful phrasing requires good technique, too! Wrist flexibility, a smooth legato touch, and the ability to release tension are all important components of phrasing. This blog post goes into more detail on how to teach these techniques. 

Concept #3: Interpretation
“Accuracy is not artistry.” - Marvin Blickenstaff

A truly special performance is about much more than playing the right notes. It is about connecting with the audience and communicating the story that is behind the music. 

In order for students to do this, they must first understand the story that is being told themselves. Who is the composer who wrote this piece, and exactly what is he or she trying to say in the music?

​Of course, the beauty of music is that each performer is free to communicate their own unique interpretation of this story to the audience!

Tips for teaching interpretation:

1. Help students learn about the composer, the time period in which he or she lived, and how that affects the performance of the piece. (For example, a piece written in the Baroque period will require a different approach to pedaling, tempo changes, and touch than a piece written in the Romantic period.)
2. Encourage students to write in the score, in their own words, what they feel should be communicated to the audience in different sections of the piece. Students might choose words that describe emotions, colors, musical instruments, or even story characters in these descriptions.
3. Listen to several different performances of the piece and compare how each pianist used their own unique interpretation to perform the piece. What differences does the student hear in tempo, pedaling, and dynamics in the different performances? What does the student like or dislike about each interpretation?

What do you think? What other skills “beyond the score” do you think are necessary to create a beautiful and artistic performance? Let me know in the comments!