How to restore full colour to your over-practiced, now gray-sounding concerto, in 7 steps

Written by Tiziana Pintus
Published: November 18, 2015 at 7:03 PM [UTC]

You know the feeling when you discover a great recipe and you can’t stop making the dish… You share it with friends, everyone coming to your home for dinner has GOT to try it.

Until… you get sick of it.

A bit like when… whaaaaat? Mozart concerto… again?!? … whew… here we go… Before you know it, you’re practicing on automatic pilot… and you end up stuck at a sub-optimal level from which you don’t seem to be able to move. Frustrating. But most of all: BORING!

Like the recipe too, the solution is very simple. Just add a new spice :-)

What are the spices in music? Moods, Emotions, Characters, Colours.

BONUS: by adding and experimenting with different expressive possibilities, you will be preparing for ‘performance mode’ in a much more effective way.

When performing you need a clear picture of what you want to express and if that has become grey, you can bet your rendition will sound grey too.

Here the 7 steps to exciting, fresh and spontaneous performances:

1. Pick the excerpts you would like to work on.
2. Assign to it a new emotion, mood, character, colour (the more options the better).
3. Set up the recording device.
4. Choose the emotion, mood, character, colour you want to put in the music.
5. Go for it!
6. Listen to the recording: can you hear the expression you wanted to convey?
7. Go back to nr 4. choose a different emotion, mood, colour and give it another go.

The idea is that by daring to try a new and different interpretational option, you will give the over-practiced piece, and your performance, a new, fresh life.

Tiziana Pintus

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Tiziana Pintus is a violinist and performance coach. She helps musicians overcome stress so they can excel at concerts, auditions and competitions. Tiziana is an active and versatile chamber musician who encourages audiences to feel as much a part of the concerts as the performers: only then can magic really happen.

www.tizianapintus.com

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