Hi to all:

My friend and I were discussing how different musician can have different strengths on their music playing. Some people are really good with techniques but not enough emotions and some people are really good with emotions but really bad on techniques (like me....). So if you get the choice - you can choose whether if you're good on technique or good on emotion (not both!!), which will you choose?? Apparently I'm so sad because my technique is really bad compared to my emotion - I always want better techniques.

To be really good you need both, but music without emotion is not actually music is it.

I think I would rather hear someone play a wrong note with some intensity of meaning than just a dry technical performance anyday.

In any case technique can be learned with practice, playing from the heart is a gift to be cherished

True, so I guess I should be thankful of what I have, right??

In my opinion, technique is merely something that allows someone to play more demanding pieces. Music is all about emotion and not about technique. Technique should never be an issue with music, but unfortunately some of the best sounding pieces require amazing technique. I agree with janexxx that technique can be learned, but while musicality can be learned as well, its considerably more difficult to teach what "better musicality" is. Some people can just play the right notes, but there is no music at all in just right notes.

But do you think emotions are innate??

I agree with comments already made.
I certainly feel that I havent sufficient emotion when playing romantic repertoire. Whilst some is needed for earlier music, technique is more important.

The romantic repertoire is extremely difficult to play from an emtional point of view. I have to say that many works from the romantic repertoire don't particularly suit me either - a bit too deep for my liking, especially Brahms sonatas, I struggle to make the music sound convincingly romantic.

To the original point in question though. In order to express any music fully, technique and emotion are equally important. If you have good technique, it will allow your thoughts to be free to express the music without having to worry about the nitty gritty of producing the notes. If technique is seriously lacking, or you are playing music well beyond your current technical capability, then no amount of emotion will make it sound right. It will simply come across as music you are strugging to play.

To the original point in question though. In order to express any music fully, technique and emotion are equally important. If you have good technique, it will allow your thoughts to be free to express the music without having to worry about the nitty gritty of producing the notes. If technique is seriously lacking, or you are playing music well beyond your current technical capability, then no amount of emotion will make it sound right. It will simply come across as music you are strugging to play.
[/quote]

Exactly, surely the point is that we focus our own pupils on the technical aspects of the piece and it's only when that is mastered properly that we can go on to focus on the HOW of our playing. Substance then style in that order. No?

LR

I think the best musicians are those who recognise where their natural strengths are, then work really hard at the other side to get it up to the same level. As I'm always being told, you've got to work at the things you can't do, not keep practising the ones you can.

To answer the question, I think they're probably equally important.

I would second that.
Also, is possible to let feelings run away with you, which may actually hinder the music-making process. I listen a lot, and see how what I hear moves me, then try to bring that to my playing, but I have also to make sure that the sound is controlled a little, so that notes don't become so wild as to be out of tune, or rubato so wide as to lose the sense of the pace of the music. (Yep, even someone playing primarily Baroque music uses rubato!) Even deeply romantic music can be overdone. It is a fine balance, made all the more challenging by the fact that tastes vary too. By all means seek the emotion in music, because that is a major aspect (not the only one, though) of it, but keep it in bounds enough to let the music speak for itself too. Technique is vital - a splurge of wrong notes and rhythms obviously stop us hearing the music properly, and poor articulation will quickly make a performance boring too - but for my part, I'd sooner hear the well-expressed performance with the odd blemish than the technically perfect one which doesn't reach me emotionally.

As a heart on-sleeve merchant I manage emotion quite well (though I was lousy at it at College), but I can only put the emotion I want to into a piece now my technique is up to it.

I'm much more of a technical player - however I'm trying to get a bit more emotion in my playing. I'm currently working through the slow movement of saint-saens' bassoon concerto - relatively easy notes but making it sound nice is a pain and at the moment at least it's very, very tedious to play and listen to.

but it's getting better

One who plays with perfect technique and little/no apparent emotion is not a musician but a technician. Music is after all communication. How can one communicate without emotion? It's a bit like speaking all the time with a constant one-pitch tone?

Agreed to some degree. Yes, it's possible to improve things, but we are all individuals and some will simply have a playing style that is better suited to certain types of music. We need to remember that we can't be good at everything and that may mean conceding to avoid certain composers or works.

Like VN is allergic to Dancla. Seriously.

Music isn't music without emotion, but bad technique can make it impossible to play a piece at all. A simple piece with emotion is much more impressive than a technically brilliant one that means nothing.

Like others have said, it's impossible to say either/or. However it can't be ignored that that technique is a prerequisite to emotion - in that a musician needs the technique to be in place before being properly able to express the "emotion". In the same way that no one can write expressively without the neccesary grammar and vocabulary, technique is the armoury at our disposal when playing expressively. Correct notes and rhythm have already been mentioned, but this is not really what I mean here when talking about technique. (These are understood.) What I mean is the techniques required, for example, for sudden diminuendi, for producing a crescendo in the bass without doing the same thing in the melody, for playing delicatissimo, etc. It's all very well to say that it's important to express emotion (which it is), but we need to know how. A baby expresses emotion in the sounds that it makes, but it needs to learn articulation (and a little maturity) to truly express itself in such a way that others will know exactly what it means.

technique allows you to play more difficult and demanding pieces whereas emotions is more about expressing yourself.. well, you must have both of course.. it's almost inmpossible to have just technique without emotion, emotion without technique.. without technique, you cant play much pieces, unless pieces like "Twinkle twinkle little star"? without emotion, the piece will sound really boring and very flat, not at all will it touch your heart or will it sound lively..

ShArOn

True, but I mean is, one can either be better in emotion or better in techniques.
My friends say it'l be better to have emotions if you can only choose one, because he thinks emotions are innate and techniques you can learn by practising alot.

I personally belief that emotion is everything.

Well yea....I really dislike people who only wants to show off their techniques....

I don't believe that is true. When we talk about portraying emotion in music it isn't about the performer feeling the emotion but how they communicate the emotion to the audience and this communication can be taught and learnt (part of it will be having the necessary technique!). Obviously there will still be people who will be better than others, but to say you can't learn and practise how to communicate emotion is, IMO, wrong.

I agree with TSax. Actually conveying what you want through the music needs a good technique - and I'm not talking about flashy playing, but if you haven't got the necessary control, balance and understanding of the nuances and shaping of melodies/harmonic lines etc, it doesn't matter how "emotional" you are, it won't sound good.

BUt I thought- if you feel emotional, then you can play emotionally!?

Nicely put


I believe that technique comes first-in no way suggesting that emotion isnt just as important, just that it comes first. When you first start an instrument or a new piece, you focus on the technique, and then when you have mastered the technique, you move onto the emotion. Like Dulciana said, technique is a pre-requisite. The absense of good technique will hinder communication of emotion, which in the end, gets nowhere. Believe it or not, emotion can be learned and developed through careful listening, instruction and understanding, this is why as you gain more experience, so does your music. Bad technique is extremely hard to correct, and ''you can learn by practising a lot'' is an understatement. You would have to correct, perhaps years of wrong-doings.

If it were me, i would rather have good technique and be able to work towards putting emotion into my music without having to worry about the technicalities than not being to play the actual piece but portray the emotion well. Technique is a foundation every musician needs.

BUt I thought- if you feel emotional, then you can play emotionally!?

Not always. And this is one of those things that distinguishes a concert musician from an amateur one. The ability to communicate with the audience. Again, this is where technique comes in: even if you can feel the emotion, the audience may not be able to because your technique hinders the portrayal of emotion. It is like speaking a foreign language. You may know what you want to say, but others may not because of incorrect grammar, pronounciation, e.t.c

Not at all. Moving away from music for a minute, think about how different people react to good/bad news. Some people will show everything they're feeling, exclaim, shout their good news from the rooftops, shed tears of joy or sadness. Others will be more reserved in their reaction - that doesn't mean they don't feel the same level of emotion, just that their outward display of what they are feeling is different.

Similarly with music some people are able to transmit much of what they feel into their playing and communicate it to the audience. Others don't have the same level of communication skills so fail to do this.

As part of my work training I've been on several courses on presentation skills - I've got a great deal out of these courses. There was one in particular which was led by actors, at the start of the course we each gave a presentation on a subject of our choice, at the end of the course we had to give another presentation on the same subject. The material in the second presentation was the same as the first, but the way we chose to present it to our audience, using some of the techniques we had learnt, had changed a lot. Everybody's second presentation was so much better than the first.

I don't think you can teach someone how to feel emotion, but I suspect that in the vast majority of emotionally sterile performances the issue isn't that the performer doesn't feel any emotion, but that they don't communicate that emotion effectively and there are techniques that can be used to help with this.

An interesting debate .


I think this sums up my answer to the question . Technique, as others have said earlier is a pre-requisite to emotion, but emotion itself is vital in music. Someone with a sound technique and great expression will still make some errors in performance: that's fine they're human; but if there are too many technical errors with an attempt to 'cover' them with emotion the result is an unsatisfactory performance. Similarly a dry but technically accurate performance is unsatisfying.

I think a major problem though, particularly in those learning the piano and advancing to technically harder pieces very quickly is that they say they have emotion and technique is a weakness: often the truth is that they have neither but don't realise, technique is a prerequisite to playing emotionally (playing easier pieces is a way to require less technique for the same emotion). Because emotion can't be defined it's easy to claim one's playing is emotional when in fact it's just slowing down for the hard bit! Technique develops and takes time to develop, and is vital along with expression for a musically satisifying performance .

Having said that technique is much easier to learn, so if I had to chose a specific natural leaning it would be emotion all the way .

Well said...sad but true....
So I gues my play isn't very emotional, it's just I'm feeling emotional, but others won't be able to detect my emotions if I have bad techniques, right?

I would pick technique, as as others have said, you can't have emotion without technique.

Technique and emotion , exactly the same as a pen and a paper.
Two things that certainly need each other; as they complete each other.