I'm finding this hard to define, but have experienced it, so maybe you can help out?

It's the process of playing with other musicians who somehow manage to "lift" what one is doing, so that it clicks, and feels like more than just the notes. I've noticed that there are some players who seem to have an amazing effect on my playing, a warmth, or communicativeness, which allows me to play more as I want to (but usually don't manage). What is it? Does anyone know? Do you also know people who can achieve this? My teachers have this ability, one or two of my accompanists do too, and earlier this year, when on a course of very advanced recorder players, I noticed that one of the players there could do this to my playing too. But not all of them....

I'm thinking that having a high level of playing may help, but I'm not aware of being able to have this effect on others in this way myself: what else does it involve? It's a wonderful experience to have, that much I do know, because it provides insight in to what I could manage to do, but I so wish I knew how it works....

I think it is something to do with a total commitment to the music, going beyond being aware of technique and individual notes and really feeling the shape and meaning of the music.

I do know what you mean but it is difficult to pin down. I suspect that it is very possible to over-analyse it and try to hard to reproduce it, and in the process of trying to eliminate any possibility of succeeding.

I'm interested to see where this thread leads, and I will carry on thinking about it in case any other amazing insights come to me.

Hmm it's hard to try to put into words something that is largely about nonverbal communication but I shall have a go anyway..

When I have experienced this, it has been a combination of the following

- eye contact. If with chamber musicians, watching each other so you know when they are going to breathe (or the string equivalent, I can't quite describe it). If with conductor, then watching him/her

- Having enough knowledge of music, and the specific music that we are playing, to know when the "right things" are going to happen. Stuff like, slow down here, speed up here, come together for the peak of the phrase there. I have only ever played common-practice or relatively tonal stuff; I have never played anything atonal or extremely contemporary where the musical language is different. i do not know how I would cope.

- Trust. Knowing that one can lead or follow the others and that they will not do unpredictable stuff.

However this is only based on *my* experience. I have heard that there are musical pairs who are temperamentally extremely different and don't actually get on in real life outside of music, but who work very well together. The example I was quoted was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Alfred Brendel - the former supposedly very emotional and (melo)dramatic, and the latter quite clinical in his approach. I have no substantiation of this at all! It was an anecdote related to me by a music professor of mine in university.

That is interesting - I find this phenomenon happening though even when we're sightreading, and even on the first time of playing together. The eye contact thing I do understand - I know that if an accompanist doesn't even meet my eye before we start, playing, we're in trouble, and I've also been accompanied by musicians before where so much of their energy is on the score that it's as if there were nothing left for the music. Goodness knows, I've also felt like that when playing too - gottagetthatright to such an extent that the sense of the melody disappears....
andante-in-c is also right - I suspect if one analyses it too much, it'll be forever elusive. More's the pity, I'd so love to be able to call on the phenomeon...

I think it's about relaxing and allowing the great notes written in front of you to speak of their own accord, listening to the bigger picture and entire piece. When playing in an ensemble having a great ear and thinking 'how can my sound bring out the best in the others?'.

I've had this said about me when I'm accompanying - sightreading or not. I think I pass on my absorption with the music and characterisation of it - plus the fact that I will follow anything the soloist does, so they feel like they are not only in safe hands, but also being aided in their interpretation? Sorry this sounds so show-offy.

tee hee, if you were to follow me down some of my more, erm, aberrant counting, you'd find we'd both grind to a halt .

Just out of interest though, carol*piano - do you also have co-musicians who make you feel as if it's all going most breezily, that you're not having to work supremely hard to keep them on track and make really meaningful music?

Ah, I can lead as well as follow!

I find I can gel with pretty much anyone who's reasonably competent - the better they are, the better we are, as a general rule - though there are, of course, exceptions.


Oh, and I particularly like playing with andante in c and katyjay, because they're both brilliant

Gosh, thank you for that

Hehe, goes without saying .....I've not had so many chances to do so - and it doesn't feel the same when there's the rest of a recorder orchestra there in the backgrount too, but I have at least heard both

there's another thing - how much does having personalities which get on help in the process? I know it's been said that it can happen independently of that, but is it better if one does gel that way too?

I'm struggling to think of anyone I've played with that I haven't really got on with...

I was sitting with Alpha Male Jazz Cat the other evening whilst he pottered about with some ideas for his next recording. Everything he does is fab (OK, so I'm biased) but all of a sudden something really "clicked" - it was utterly amazing. He just looked at me and said "someone else is in the room with us"...quite often he will say (when he's gigging in particular) he feels as though someone else takes control of him.

Weird? Maybe. Spiritual? Yes, very - we both are...Although I don't have 10% of his talent or ability I do make a unique sound (earplugs anyone?) and often wonder just WHERE exactly does it come from....?

Dunno if any of this makes sense to you out there but it does to us....

Dream-Bag x

It's not just music. I've been involved in drama in the past, and there can be a sudden energy in the room - performances lift, everyone is bouncing off each other and at the end you look at each other and go "Wow - what was that?". I've even seen it happen as early as at a read-through. Conversely, when there is the wrong energy it can be like wading through mud.

It happens in all fields of endeavour. When you mix with, practice with, or compete with, people that perform at a higher level then you subconsciously imitate them. Playing soccer, swim training with an elite squad, playing/studying chess (I restrict ,myself to things I know about) ... and of course making music ... the higher that standard of those you mix with, the better you get ... but your conscious mind knows nothing about WHY !!

You say you can't do this yourself. Well those few whose playing "rubs off on you" and makes you play better are simply at a higher level in those subtle, hard to describe skills that turn stings and bunches of notes into music.

I think the answer may have something to do with how well the other players project emotion, rather than skill at the instrument, though of course having enough control to do that projection is important.

We've probably all seen performances where the player is dazzling in their technique, but the whole performance is rather dull - it's not saying anything, there's no emotion being projected. I suspect those "dull" players wouldn't lift another's playing too much as there's little communication going on.

There's a local cellist, who is like a blizzard when she plays, you feel every emotion that she's feeling, whether it's slow and quiet, loud and fast each note is imbued with her "soul." I know a couple of people who've played music with her and they've all said the effect is dizzying. There is an accompanist who although highly trained has been described as "plodding" - his playing is accurate, but he seems to have nothing to say, or feel in his playing.

Both players are technically skilled but only one of them has the openness, or confidence, or training (whatever) that enables her to create the effect the OP talks about. I've seen the same thing with other players - these two were just examples.

I suppose what I'm saying is I'm not aware of having this effect on others, with perhaps one exception: Bagpuss' story reminded me.... I'd been trying to learn a piece which then was way above my level, a Vivaldi "flautino" concerto. I'd bought the music because I liked the slow movement, not realising that it was on the Fellowship syllabus, and had laboriously worked my way through it over months. One day my husband and I were giving the piece a whirl and it just took off, by itself. At that time we were about of equal standard, I reckon, so we must just have clicked musically with both of us helping to lift each other. Mostly though my experiences have been of other players augmenting my ability - most notably during my ATCL exam, when my first piece just soared out, almost by itself, and after that the rest of the programme followed in very similar vein: my teacher was accompanying me and the whole process felt electric, despite there being only us, and an examiner. How lucky for the experience to happen just then....but it's for that reason that I'd love to know how it comes about - it'd be great to be able to pull that sort of achievement out for a concert too .

For me, it correlates very strongly. Most of my best musical memories are of playing with people whom I really get on with. How wonderful it would be to be able to switch it on with anybody, though.

Charisma - it makes you believe in others - actors, musicians, whatever - and sometimes rubs off on one's self. I've also felt this magic moment when even a very young pupil sometimes gets right inside the music.

When you play jazz and you're playing an improvised solo you are completely reliant on your rhythm section. When they're in tune with you and working with you it's such a different experience to a run of the mill play-through. You can build on each other, bouncing ideas off each other - a good pianist will hear what I'm playng and somehow turn it round and presemt it back to me to work with. A good pianist / bass player / guitarist will hear where I'm trying to go with something and support me. They will also hear when I've got myself a bit lost and feed me the cues I need.

The times when I've felt I've played at my best have been when I've really and truly committed myself to what I'm playing, taking risks and pushing things to the extreme. This isn't something I'm comfortable with, I'm generally fairly risk averse. But in taking the risk that I'll crash and burn I open up the possibility that I'll actually play really (as opposed to quite) well. If I'm working with a rhythm section I can rely on I'm much more likely to take that risk.

wow, hats off to you, if risk-averse, for jazz seems to me to be the most risk-taking of all the disciplines I've come across in music . It sounds from what you're saying though as if this is a situation in which you can all give to each other, and build off each others' efforts - all of you augmenting what the others do. To be in such a situation must give you one heck of a buzz, I'm thinking .
It's not the same perhaps, but a bit similar - that genre which would seem so many miles away from jazz, baroque music, also relies on people being able to make stuff up, albeit more tightly restrained. One of the most exciting baroque performances I ever saw, with Rachel Podger and Andrew Manze, playing Bach's double violin concerto, had them firing ornament after ornament at each other, each developing the twiddles the one before had just presented, and again, the effect as a whole was electric. I'd love to be able to witness what you're talking about here, too, Tsax - it must be fantastic to be able to do that .

Aah, but you can still play it safe playing jazz. Keep within well defined boundaries, safe choices of notes, nice 4 bar phrases. Or you can take risks - play "outside", play with rhythms and play lines across bars. It's more exciting to listen to and to do, but you can come a cropper. I'm lucky in that I have a regular playing environment where it's safe to try this sort of stuff out. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And yes, when it does work the buzz is amazing. The first time it clicked for me was back some years ago when the group I play in was much smaller and not complete - we didn't have a full rhythm section, just a bass player. So every so often our tutor would get a couple of his pro friends in to play drums and piano with us. That time we were working on a simple tune - Mr P.C. a minor 12 bar blues. Something clicked with me and I took off. The drummer and pianist were really egging me on - our clarinet player kept trying to come in for his turn (we'd usually play a couple of choruses and then swap over) but our tutor wouldn't let him 'cause he was trying to push me further. It felt amazing, I'm smiling now remembering it!