A Comparison of Three Approaches to Teaching Expressiveness

We learned last week that having more to say expressively with the music we’re playing could increase the likelihood of experiencing more flow states in performance (here, in case you missed it). But this study looked at a bunch of different strategies and classes that were spread out over 6 months.

Are there faster ways to help students play more expressively?

Like, what about the sorts of things that our teachers did for us when we were students? Like demonstrating certain passages in lessons, so we’d have a clearer model to aim for (or having us listen to recordings, or encouraging us to go to concerts).

Or using metaphors or images to help us understand the mood or character of a particular moment more clearly.

Or simply telling us what to do - like explaining how short the dots should be, or where exactly the accelerando should start, etc.

Well, lucky for us, a 2006 study compared these strategies to see if they worked - and if any of them was more effective than the others.

Get all the nerdy details (and musical examples and links to additional resources and related podcast episodes not included in the audio version) here:

A Comparison of Three Approaches to Teaching Expressiveness

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