Musical Character

Hi Andrew,

I am loving your online lessons, even as a pianist and piano teacher. One thing that I think would be helpful to me as well as others is a bit more about musical character. This is an important concept and I would love to hear your thoughts on how to better develop a musical character, or the feel of the piece. I know you talk about this in playing with emotion, but even more about this, I think, would be helpful. The musical character we eventually decide on shapes every section, and every decision about articulation, dynamic, to tempo and phrasing. So it's a hugely important choice.

Thanks again, I am loving your lessons! You have a generous heart and you definitely do bring a lot of sunlight to youtube. PS I guess some people find your style a little ADD, but personally I often like your distractions as much as the lesson. And they are not invaluable, they show the fun of playing piano. They communicate the flow you find, and that is not useless. If you were to just talk like a robot about piano and stay perfectly on topic, I don't think we would feel your passion as much.

Best wishes,
LP

Wow, thank you very much! ^_^ I enjoyed reading your post here!

Musical Character is definitely important. I was thinking I covered it sufficiently in the "playing with emotion" lesson. I like to think of musical character as something that is created by each artist themselves. It's something unique. I think that might be why it's called character in the first place! I think we all have that sound inside us that tells us how it should sound, or at least we all have the potential. But, I guess what i'm trying to say is I try to leave musical character up to the performer and let them create their own unique style

Maybe we are thinking of two different things. Could you explain in greater detail what exactly the topics you think I should touch base on?

Hi Andrew,

Oh you're probably right. I just think this is such a central concept that maybe others (besides me ) might benefit from more about it. For instance, you say that a musical character might be just an image that comes to mind or a story. I think I have trouble unifying these images into a coherent one for the piece as a whole. That might be a pretty advanced topic, but that does affect everything else, I think.

Anyway, thanks again for all the lessons. Best wishes,
David