Teaching Expressivity at the Piano: History, Signs, and Strategies

Abstract

This monograph explores the development and variety of signs for musical expression and discusses strategies for identifying and teaching them, enabling students to communicate musical expressivity. Chapter 1 provides a background for this study, including a brief survey of how writers from ancient times to the present conceived of expression, along with findings from recent psychological research into the connection between emotion and music. Chapter 2 delves into the signs themselves and proposes how students can learn to recognize them at different levels of study. An overview of musical topics and structural features that contribute to musical expression leads to an analysis of the expressive states in the first movement exposition of Mozart's Sonata in C minor, K. 457. Chapter 3 discusses particular strategies for connecting the discovered signs with performance at the piano. To help their students communicate expressively, teachers first need to guide students to a recognition of musical signs, then help them to highlight expressive features through deviations in tempo, dynamics, and articulation. Instructors can use a variety of strategies ranging from metaphors and specific language through aural and physical modeling. Additional work with Hevner's mood wheel, supplemented by student projects in the visual arts, writing, movement, and drama, can create a connection between students and musical expression.