Music Video Lesson: Extraneous Motions in Musical Performances

Hi and welcome to virtualsheetmusic.com and livingpianos.com. I'm Robert Estrin with a great subject today - extraneous motion in musical performance. What's this all about? We're going to cover this in a wide range of genres.

You've probably watched some performers and they sit there almost like a robot, never making any motion at all and other performers are very demonstrative, whether it's a violinist moving around to the music. European orchestras, for example, the whole orchestra seems to move and whole sections of the orchestra are moving together, where American orchestras are more stately and reserved. Well, what is best? Is it good to move around when you play or not? Well, it's not such a simple subject.

There are performers, for example, Lang Lang comes to mind. He's very demonstrative, looking at the audience, smiling, with gestures. You get the feeling he's really enjoying his performance. Some people really like that and they're engaged in the musical performance because they get a sense of what are the exciting parts and the emotions are on the face. Other people feel it's kind of put on and too much. I'm interested in hearing from you, what your thoughts are about motion and performance, whether it's piano, singers, anything.

Now, there's a whole other element to this and that is what I would refer to as excessive motion. Some of the great musicians of all time sometimes let themselves go a bit. Rudolf Serkin comes to mind, Glenn Gould is another. During recording sessions they would have to put barricades because they would make kind of singing sounds and grunts and groans that would come through the recording. Now, in a concert hall you probably wouldn't hear it very much because you're far away, but in recording it's definitely an issue in terms of you don't want to hear these sounds.

How does this happen? I've actually seen pianists who not only make grunting and groaning sounds but actually stamping their feet and all sorts of things. Here's what happens. At some point this mannerism developed and a teacher never stopped it, so they just grew to make this part of their playing and it's all but impossible to eradicate it once you get used to it.

An extreme example of this is Keith Jarrett. Have you ever watched a Keith Jarrett concert? My goodness, it's a whole experience if you haven't seen it where he's actually standing in front of the piano with gyrations. Audiences seem to love it. Just as many people are turned off by it but it definitely gets a reaction.

That's what you need to know about motion and performance. It elicits a reaction in the listener. It can be a positive or a negative reaction and the more extreme these motions are, the more diametrically opposed these opinions will be. I would say that a little bit of motion, facial expressions, can be helpful to guide the audience as to what is happening in the performance but don't let it get carried away. You must have control over yourself during your practice so that you are aware of how you look and how you sound.

Thanks so much for joining me. Robert Estrin, here at livingpianos.com and virtualsheetmusic.com. I'll see you next time.

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