When you’ve developed a performance piece, or even just something you’ve learned which you like to play on your own, it may be easy to simply draw on your memory of the way the composition goes, and bring it out and replicate it.
Or it may turn out to be a big challenge to reconstruct all the details in the way you intended originally, and you have to struggle to get it right.
...When I perform, people often ask me how long I’ve been playing the hammered dulcimer. I think they mean this question to compliment my apparent years of study, probably many, you know, to learn from teachers how to develop the appropriate virtuosity on the instrument.
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When we play music on our instruments or when we sing, our ears hear what we’re doing the very instant each sound is made.
Our brains --- consciously or subconsciously --- immediately make an assessment: Is it in tune? Is it exactly in time with the overall flow of the piece? How well are the tone and the volume and the phrasing matching the goals of the performance?
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Throughout a lifetime of listening to Classical music and making my own music in a broad variety of genres, I've come to the conclusion that there are two primary approaches to how the performer relates to the music.
One is experiential: the musician takes the music as it comes to him or her and purposely cultivates an active experience of response to it, living in the present and developing a unique personal event associated with the amazing original art coming out from the page.
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Although these three quotes are all from Classical performers, I think they apply to any genre of music and indeed to many roles in life!
This is an element of my own view of musicianship, as articulated by three of my favorite players. By the way, it's an honor to the Jewish people that all four of these guys are of that lineage (as are many other great musicians).
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