Piano Phrasing by Ilinca Vartic

A New Perspective on Piano Phrasing by Ilinca Vartic

Second Revised Edition

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The articles in this book are for educational purposes only. The intent of the author is to offer information and advice that will help you understand and develop the art of piano phrasing. Nothing in this book should be considered personalized piano practice advice. If you have questions or comments, please submit them in the comment sections on PianoCareer.com (or contact the author via email, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn). In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the author assumes no responsibility for your actions. 1

FOREWORD

Piano playing doesn’t have to be a continuous struggle. It doesn’t have to be boring, lifeless - and it certainly doesn’t have to be painful and full of stress.

Piano playing has to be a lifestyle. A lifestyle that will allow you to create, to express yourself, to find your balance and your unique place in this world. A lifestyle that you will truly enjoy!

There are many things - I call them magic ingredients - that can bring a spark of life and a sense of fulfillment to your daily practice and your performances. One of them is correct phrasing.

Unfortunately, phrasing is often neglected or misinterpreted by most piano beginners and intermediates (and even their teachers). However, this little ingredient can make the difference between a mechanical, raw and boring performance - and a beautiful, meaningful and captivating one.

Piano phrasing is not difficult: things only seem difficult when we lack proper information. Phrasing gets easy and fun once you understand the basics! That’s what I plan to do in this eBook – reveal the basics of correct phrasing and spice up the recipe with several secrets that will considerably simplify your practice!

For writing this book, I synthesized:

• the phrasing principles used in the Russian piano school for achieving a flowing performance full of awareness, inspiration and musicality; • some useful insights from the Western musical tradition; • the experience of my wonderful piano teachers - Lia Oxinoit and Ludmila Vaverco; • and, of course, all the phrasing tricks and secrets that I learned the hard way during 32 years of studying and playing piano, and 15 years of teaching.

The eBook is structured as a step-by-step guide with many examples, metaphors, images and exercises. I hope that it will offer you a new perspective on piano playing, show you the way to a new level of piano mastery, and - the most important thing - help you enjoy the entire process!

PHRASE AND PHRASING UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE

When words leave off, music begins. ~Heinrich Heine

Have you ever witnessed a 3-year-old kid reciting a poem?

Yes, he is probably really sweet - but he pronounces the words mechanically, without understanding the meaning of each sentence. He takes breaths between lines or whenever comfortable, not taking into account the beginning and end of each idea. Have you noticed that the same thing happens with most piano beginners (and even intermediate students)?

Just like poems (or other types of written and spoken text), musical works are formed of certain thoughts and ideas - musical phrases - that together form a piece: a Sonata, an Etude, a Prelude, a Fugue, a Nocturne and even a complex Symphony movement.

In the realm of music theory, there are many definitions of a musical phrase. These definitions usually sound like this one: A musical phrase is a succession of notes (or even motifs and figures) that has a complete musical sense.

For an easier understanding, we can always compare a musical phrase with a spoken or written sentence. A sentence is a thought, an idea that is expressed via our language. A musical phrase is also a thought or an idea - the only difference is that it’s expressed via musical language: sound and silence, rhythm and dynamics, and an infinite variation of pitches and timbres. However, as many poets, philosophers and musicians noticed throughout history - the music’s power of expression goes far beyond the possibilities of our verbal language.

When you’re 3 years old, it’s normal to be unaware of the meaning of a certain sentence or phrase. However, as you get older, you begin to speak with awareness, modeling your intonation and making logical accents (or pauses) according to the meaning of the idea you’re trying to communicate.

In musical performance, this is the essence of phrasing: it’s the ability of the performer to express a musical phrase, to shape it, to bring it to life and transform it into a convincing meaningful message with a clear structure (beginning, culminating point and ending) by using the specific technical possibilities of the instrument (may it be piano, violin or oboe).

So, in playing an instrument, phrasing is also a special technique (personally, I think of it as an art) that allows the performer to transform the notes written in the score into musical sentences.

Phrases are present in all kinds of music, regardless of style and genre: instrumental and vocal, baroque and classical, romantic and impressionist, folklore and pop... even the experimental atonal music of the XXth century has its specific phrases!

Musical phrases exist whether you can understand and express them or not.

My eBook is dedicated to the art of bringing these phrases to life in piano playing (or the art of piano phrasing).

SHORT INTRODUCTION: TWO LEVELS OF MUSICAL PHRASING

The ability to express a musical phrase resides simultaneously on two levels - mental and physical.

On the mental level, phrasing is the art of visualization.

It is the capacity to see ahead of you, to imagine HOW a musical idea (phrase) should sound before actually playing it. It also means visualizing the outline (shape) of the phrase - knowing where it begins, where it leads (its culminating point), and where it ends.

On the physical level, phrasing is the art of making your vision come true. It comprises the knowledge and the skills that allow you to transfer the visualized phrase to the instrument, so that what you imagined becomes a reality.

To make a comparison - it means thinking before you speak, and then speaking by using the speed, intonation and attitude that best match your thoughts and your intentions! This way, you’ll avoid saying something stupid and you’ll make sure that your thought is delivered to the listener in a comprehensible manner. Simply put, in order to express a thought, you have to know what to say and how to speak.

In time and with enough practice, we learn (or at least we should learn!) to do both things simultaneously. In the end, these skills are two inseparable parts of a whole - our ability to express ourselves. The same can be said about music!

PIANO PHRASING - STEP 1:

ANALYZING THE PIECE: KNOW YOUR DESTINATION! OR THE MENTAL LEVEL OF PIANO PHRASING

A Little Story: Avoid Learning a Piece the Hard Way!

Most things in life are much easier than they seem. Piano playing is not an exception. However, we (humans) have this annoying tendency of doing things the hard way: we complicate everything and then we complain about lack of time, excessive difficulties and stress.

How does this relate to piano phrasing?

Before diving into the depths and particularities of phrasing, let me give you an example - a little story that will probably sound extremely familiar:

Imagine that you have been assigned a new piece. What do you usually do? You go home (or to a practice room), you sit at the piano, you place the score in front of you and you start reading the piece by taking it one note at a time.

Such an approach is similar to hacking your way through an unknown jungle with a big knife, without even knowing if you’re headed in the right direction! Yes, eventually you will find a clearing or even the end of the jungle, but you’ll lose lots of time and effort in the process!

Avoid doing things the hard way! Playing piano is not easy, but we certainly don’t have to make it more complicated than it is!

For a better understanding, let’s take a closer look at the usual steps of the ‘hard way’ method, which is unfortunately still being ‘practiced’ by many piano students:

➢ Sight-reading the notes (hands separately for beginners, hands together for advanced players). Please pay attention: I’m not saying ‘sight-reading the musical text’. The text is a complex term that includes notes, rhythm, durations, rests, fingering, dynamics,

articulation, character, pedal... I’m saying ‘sight-reading the notes’ - which means figuring out where the notes are on the keyboard and ‘hitting’ them (without thinking about all the other elements of the text). ➢ Learning the text in a mechanical manner, without thinking about its meaning: you repeat the notes many times, until you can play them on ‘auto-pilot’ - a boring process that feels like walking around in a dark room and trying to memorize your steps. ➢ Going to class, where the teacher has to correct all your mistakes: many wrong notes, incorrect fingering, inaccurate rhythm... not to mention the inexistent dynamics, articulation or sound balance! ➢ Going home and trying to correct these mistakes... which is not an easy process, because your fingers have already memorized everything the wrong way! ➢ Fighting with your old habits, and repeating your mechanical mistakes each time your mind wanders... then remembering to look in the score from time to time, where your mistakes have been marked with fat red circles by your teacher… ➢ Getting tired of this frustrating process - especially when you have to learn several such pieces for your next exam - and taking a break... which can last many days (after all, you’re so busy!).

You lose several weeks or even months trying to figure out the text and (hopefully) the dynamics/articulation. When you take a look at the calendar, you see that your exam is in two weeks!!! Panicked, you start to push your way through the text even harder, attempting to memorize it as fast as possible, so you can play it without mistakes at the exam.

The result is not hard to imagine: frustration, anxiety, headaches, hand injuries related to incorrect practice... and the list can go on!

Does this situation sound familiar? Or, if you’re a teacher, do most of your students suffer from this ‘piano condition’?

Of course, in such circumstances it’s difficult to talk about sound quality, musical expression or learning the art of phrasing.

Now, let’s make things easier!

Fortunately, there is an easy way of avoiding this incorrect method of learning a piano piece. I will give this method a simple name - “Before going to the jungle, find or draw a map!”

Usually, things are even easier than that: the composer already did this job for you! Each musical score (especially if it’s written by a great composer) is a well-structured map: all you have to do is open your eyes (initially - with the help of your teacher) and learn how to follow its directions! Guess what – by doing this before diving head-first into reading the notes, you will make your life much easier!

Here’s what I mean:

If you’re a teacher, don’t tell your student to read an unknown piece without playing it for him/her first. Even before playing, analyze the piece together: explain a few things about the epoch, the composer and his style, about the artistic concept and message of this particular piece, about its main characters and structure. Before sending the student home to practice, show him/her HOW to read the piece. It’s even better to begin reading it during the lesson, and allowing the student to continue at home. In other words - draw a map of the musical piece!

If you’re a student (or you’re learning to play piano by yourself), don’t start reading a piece without at least looking at it from beginning to end, and trying to understand the main elements: message, character, tempo, rhythm, dynamics and structure! Listening to a good recording while looking in the score is even better (especially for beginners) - this way you’ll learn how to make direct associations between what is written and how it sounds. After listening to a recording or to your teacher, you’ll know how this piece should sound even before playing the first note! This will dramatically increase your learning speed, allowing you to concentrate on important things like sound quality and phrasing!

In case of small children, this process has to be focused on intuitive feelings rather than rational understanding. Even though the child is not capable (yet) of understanding the structure of a musical piece, he or she can certainly feel it and imitate the teacher’s

playing. The teacher has to focus on developing the little pianist’s imagination by making associations between musical ideas and the child’s environment: weather phenomena (sunshine, rain, thunder), animals, people and so on. Imagining a story behind the music that explains the structure of the piece is a great approach!

Analyzing a piece and understanding its message and structure is the first step toward good phrasing!

Vertical Thinking Vs Horizontal Thinking

Are you familiar with the concepts of vertical thinking and horizontal thinking? These two different methods of approaching and solving problems can be applied to all areas of human life, including piano playing.

In music in general and piano playing in particular, it’s especially important to be aware of the difference between horizontal and vertical thinking.

Both methods have their benefits in piano practice, and a good pianist must know how to use them according to his/her needs. However, when we talk about correct phrasing, horizontal thinking should be our priority.

When I was still studying, my piano and ensemble professors used to tell me: don’t think vertically - think horizontally! In the Russian piano school, horizontal thinking has a special place. It is an important skill that separates those who achieved a certain level of mastery from those who are still taking the first steps of their ‘piano quest’.

Let’s dive a little deeper:

Thinking vertically means being ‘in the moment’ and seeking solutions according to your present knowledge and resources.

In playing a certain piece, this can be a positive skill (focusing on a difficult fragment and practicing it until it sounds perfect) and also a big obstacle (playing each note or bar without seeing where the phrase is headed, and without understanding its meaning and structure).

The vertical approach has great results when it comes to overcoming technical difficulties. I usually tell my students: Take this fragment, put it under the ‘magnifying glass’ and practice it until it ‘sparkles’! Still, vertical thinking is detrimental when it comes to phrasing: it means playing blindly, statically, hitting each note and chord as they appear in the score without connecting them in bigger phrases; it also means playing without the guidance of your inner hearing, without trying to feel how the phrase unfolds and develops. It can be compared to walking (or even driving!) without seeing the road in front of you!

Thinking horizontally means going beyond what you see or what you know, seeing things in perspective, understanding deeper meanings, reaching new horizons, building a bridge between the present and the future. It is also the capacity of seeing the bigger picture despite all the difficult details that tend to catch and monopolize our attention.

In piano playing, it means imagining and hearing the entire phrase before playing it. It also means being aware that each phrase has a certain destination, and that you need to create an uninterrupted musical flow towards this destination. It is also the ability of thinking ahead even while you play, so that your fingers always follow the mental image (and not the other way around!).

Your mind must be one step (or even several steps!) ahead of your fingers! Don’t allow them to take over - this usually ends up badly.

On a side note: Metaphors and mental associations are very useful in teaching and playing piano. Here’s an example that (I hope) will give you a better understanding of this subject:

If we compare music with water, then vertical thinking (and vertical playing) is a pond with stale water; horizontal thinking (and playing), on the other hand, is a river that flows freely. The river doesn’t skip or miss any details in its journey; at the same time, it knows that the ocean awaits ahead.

How to Build a Mental Image of a New Piano Piece

It’s not possible to ‘shape’ a phrase on the piano without building a mental image of the piece first.

1. Listen to one or several good recordings. Please don’t listen to amateur recordings on YouTube if your purpose is to learn - life is too short for that! Learn only from the best - from great professional pianists! Fortunately, YouTube abounds in very good recordings as well. Also, ask your teacher to play the entire piece (or separate fragments) each time you need to refresh your memory about how it should sound.

2. Analyze the ‘dramaturgy’* of the piece and its message: What do you think the composer wanted to express in this piece? What are the main images, ideas and characters? How are they evolving? Can you identify a ‘storyline’? What feelings should this piece transmit to the audience? Is there a main idea or a conclusion? Or maybe a deeper philosophical message?

For example, pre-classical composers (especially Bach) express transcendental values in their works: God, the universal balance, wisdom, enlightenment, morality, compassion and serenity; classical composers (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) gradually ‘refocus’ their attention towards the human mind, its rationality and symmetry; the romantic era (Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt) explores the depths and antagonisms of the human heart - conflicting feelings, intense emotions, unattainable ideals; the impressionists capture ‘frozen’ moments in time - an image from nature, a human temperament or a

mythological character. [Little exercise: can you identify such images in Debussy’s or Ravel’s works?]. This list can go on towards post-romanticism, expressionism and so on, and I’m sure that each of you can come up with other interesting examples!

*A little explanation: In the Russian piano school, we use words such as dramaturgy or dramatic unfolding for describing the ‘story’ behind a certain piece: the various musical images/characters, their conflicts and development, the culminations, conclusions etc.

3. Identify each phrase. After forming a clear image of the piece as a whole, it’s time to go a little deeper. If the piece is short (1 or 2 pages), you can simply identify each phrase (first, with the help of your teacher, who will also explain how to identify a phrase). If the piece is more complex (a Sonata, a polyphonic piece or even a longer romantic work), then you need to proceed from big fragments to smaller ones until you identify each phrase. Don’t forget that phrases, in their turn, can be made up of smaller motifs.

4. Analyze each phrase, starting from the beginning of the piece and working your way to the end. Now that you have a clear image of the general structure, you can concentrate on smaller details. Even the shortest phrases (comprising 1 or 2 bars) have a certain ‘shape’ (we can also call it ‘topography’ or ‘outline’). Make sure you identify its beginning, destination (or culminating point) and ending. You should also get a clear feeling of the flow of the phrase.

Because it is rather difficult to explain this term - the flow of a phrase - in written words, I will share another metaphor that will help you to understand what I mean.

Again, let’s learn from water. A river flows relentlessly and implacably: it never stops and it never rests - not until it reaches the sea. When we watch a river, we have a feeling of constant motion toward something: the river is headed in a certain direction, it is going somewhere! In playing a phrase, we should have the same feeling - a constant movement toward the culminating point, a perpetual sense of inner motion (even if the tempo is slow), a sensation that our hearing (and our arms) are being pulled forward by a strange force of gravity, until we reach the end of the phrase. At this point, you may ask: But how do we do this? How do we transfer this inner feeling to the instrument? This is the topic of the next subchapter!

Exercise (for intermediate and advanced piano students)

Develop your score reading and imagination simultaneously! Take new scores (pieces that you never heard before) and read them with your eyes - without the instrument. Try to imagine, as best you can, how this music sounds. Play it in your mind, create a convincing musical image - and then listen to the recording. Remember that imagination and analytic abilities are extremely important for any musician!

Short Conclusion (again, with metaphors)

A new piece is like an unexplored jungle. When you’re lost in the middle of an unknown territory without a clear sense of direction, you stumble on each tree stump while blindly searching for a way out. If you can’t read your map (the piano score) properly, if you don’t have a view from above and a sense of perspective, nothing really makes sense - it’s just a bunch of trees, bushes and dangerous creatures. You can’t see the forest for the trees!

Phrasing is about seeing the forest, not the trees! If we go even deeper, it’s about knowing that each individual tree belongs to a bigger structure - the forest. In music, it’s about being aware that each individual note, chord or motif is an inseparable part of the bigger structure - the phrase. Each phrase, in its turn, is also an inseparable part of the whole - the piano piece.