Playing on the right side of the brain
A good friend of mine, an artist who provides wonderfully exotic art courses in a most beautiful part of northern France, asked me recently whether I had read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. “An excellent book” she said, “it will revolutionise your drawing”. Given that my best efforts with brush and canvas don’t really go beyond stick people and square houses with a chimney (smoke spiralling out, of course), I thought this would be a good idea. In fact I found this a marvellous book, and although it hasn’t had much effect on my drawing yet, it has set me thinking about why so many young musicians don’t play with the right side of the brain. Or, to put it more simply, why they have so much trouble playing expressively.
I know that the right brain/left brain concept may not be one hundred per cent scientifically precise (some people are brain transposed, for example) but it is a useful and convenient way to express the workings of the brain. I hope those with a particularly detailed anatomical knowledge will forgive my simplifications. We’re all familiar now with how important it is to exploit both sides of the brain if we are to produce a well-rounded musician.
All good lessons will mix linear and sequential left brain work (technique and notation for example) with imaginative, perceptual and insightful right brain activities. Those of you who employ the basic principles of simultaneous learning will find that making those essential connections has become much easier and more natural. But still it’s often a real struggle to get our pupils to play really musically, really expressively. I often hear very well prepared performances, both at exams and at music festivals, but they frequently miss the degree of musical involvement and understanding that we might desire.
Let’s now think how we could help our pupils to gain access, still more effectively, to the right side of their brain. Instead of sinking into a long philosophical discussion on what causes music to be expressive let me simply and emphatically proclaim the tremendous importance of simile and metaphor in our teaching. In this way we can start to make some meaningful connections and ultimately cause our pupils to begin to play with more imagination and more musical insight. The essential factor is to connect with what our pupils already know – a well-known teaching concept that dates back to Mrs Curwin’s famous (and still relevant) piano tutor of 1886, and indeed before.
These similes and metaphors can take a great many forms. As you begin to consider those that follow, many more will begin to appear in your mind. Here are a few to get you started. Physical motion can offer the young learner any number of metaphors and similes, and is perhaps the most direct to perceive – anything from total inactivity to total activity. This can be coloured by everything from a virtual comatose state (grazing gently like sheep) to one of maximum energy (firing on all cylinders). To this we can add a sense of tempo – from advancing snail-like to moving like the clappers. To this movement we can add a mental state: on the one hand calmness and tranquility; on the other, a wild irrepressible and uncontrollable vitality. We can further superimpose a state of awareness – from a dozy stupor to maximum alertness.
Then there are a whole group of emotional metaphors: perceiving music as an expression of feeling. And here we must try to move away from relying on the basic happy/sad dichotomy. Find a piece of paper and write down as many words as you can that could be used to describe different kinds of happiness, and then do the same for sadness. Each will have a slightly different connotation and we need these if we are to draw out ever more interesting musical responses and interpretations.
Then we need to consider how each emotional state is reflected in physical movement. Make a list of the outward physical signs of being miserable, agitated or angry, for example. We can look at metaphors to do with colour, contrast, brilliance, light and shade. We might describe a piece as being dark. What does that mean? What aspects of ‘dark’ do we wish our pupils to assimilate into their performance? How might they do this? With tone colour, dynamic level, tempo, rhythm perhaps?
There are extensive connections to be made with metaphors of language: the way we use words, the way we inflect our voices (our tone of voice) to make what we say understood. When teaching phrasing, a central aspect of expression, we can draw on the manner with which we use our voices to clarify the meaning of what we wish to say. By emphasising a particular word in a phrase we can suffuse that phrase with a specific slant – just in the same way as emphasising a particular note in a musical phrase.
There are endless useful metaphors in real-life situations, like dancing, praying or having an argument. Or in mental pictures – I well remember a lesson with the great German clarinettist Karl Leister where he described the end of the first movement of Brahms’ F minor clarinet sonata as ‘an angel singing, welcoming you into heaven’ – a powerful and unforgettable image. You could hardly play those bars inexpressively with that idea going through your mind.
Then there are poetic metaphors: ‘play that phrase like the sun rising over a glistening field of awakening creeping buttercups’ or perhaps ‘this movement is one continual attempt to swat a fly’. Can anyone think to what I’m alluding? Of course the list is inexhaustible – and fascinating.
And we haven’t even mentioned smells, places, textures, tastes and shapes. But we now need to consider how to take our pupils to these imaginative places – how do we access the right brain where these images live and then apply them to playing Allegretto in C or Dancing Bears, thus causing our pupils to play with real character?
The secret of success is twofold. First, as in all effective teaching, we must tease the thoughts and ideas out of our pupils by constantly asking the right questions. And secondly, we must never lose an opportunity for making and developing connections.
In a lesson, awaken the right brain as soon as you can. Perhaps you begin with a scale (hopefully the same key as the piece about to be studied). The left brain stuff is not a problem – are we using the best fingering, is the scale in time and rhythmically even? Yes? Fine. But now let’s explore it further. Let’s enjoy the sensory side of the scale. Play just the first note, listen to it and enjoy the sound quality. Do pupils enjoy the feel of playing scales? Can they learn to enjoy putting the thumb under or crossing the break? Talk about the dynamic level, the sense of motion,
the tempo. Use interesting words: play it more energetically, more dreamily, more solemnly, more whimsically. We are beginning to access right brain thinking. Encourage your pupils to think up different ways of playing scales. Draw on as many different metaphors as possible.
We know of the importance of creative work and as we begin to explore even the minutest of improvisations we are doing incalculable good for our pupils. Let’s move on to a short improvisation based on just the first few notes of the scale. Think of a title and one or two musical ingredients and off they go. That’s enough to stimulate the imagination.
Now, move on to the piece being learnt. The essential requirement is that once we have introduced a metaphor, we try to draw out the specific from our pupil. Let’s consider for example how you might work with a young pupil on the popular Creepy Crawly (Piano Grade 1, List C) – marked ‘sinister’. First, let’s think about the meaning of that word. What other words mean the same or similar? Your pupils may not be familiar with the word ‘sinister’ but they will probably know ‘evil’, ‘menacing’, ‘threatening’ or ‘frightening’. They will probably have read Harry Potter books or seen a scary movie. Can they play just those first two notes in the left hand in a spine-tingling way? Now work on the left hand bars 1 to 4. Enjoy the blood-curdling sounds of that colourful chromatic phrase! Now get them to make up a chilling little phrase of their own. Now go back and try to play that left-hand phrase with the intention of leaving their audience terror-struck!
We’ve used a lot of verbal and pictorial metaphors here but there are no end of others. Just allow your own imagination to take flight. Always be asking, ‘What’s that like? What does that make you feel?’ In this way you are accessing your pupil’s right brain. And the result will ultimately be a much more expressive performance because they understand what they are doing, what they are trying to say – they become more involved.
We must communicate when we play – always. Performing a piece is like telling a story. It is a story without words, perhaps even without a story. But nevertheless we must converse, in musical terms, to our listeners all the time. We are all excited by a passionate speaker, someone who delivers their message, their beliefs, their character in a play with intensity, sincerity and conviction. It is the same in music. And perhaps this is the best metaphor.
No moment is allowed to go by without a profound belief in what we say or, in music, in what we play. And whether that piece is a Beethoven or Brahms sonata, or Creepy Crawly or Dance of the Elegant Elephant, the fundamental desire to make contact with our listeners is pre-eminent. If we successfully move or amuse them, our objective is met. It is through stimulating the right side of the brain, the imagination, that this desire will eventually become a reality.
Paul Harris is a teacher, composer, writer, clarinettist and examiner. He is the author of over 250 publications, including The Music Teacher’s Companion (ABRSM (Publishing) Ltd) and the Improve Your Sight-reading! series (Faber Music), and many works ranging from short educational pieces to five concertos and a ballet.