What Are You Thinking?

 

What exactly is the role of "thinking" when playing the piano?

Thinking goes hand in hand with talking to yourself. See my post titled "Talking to Yourself" (December 2023). Most of us have thoughts going on in our heads every waking minute of the day. You'd probably agree that, while some of it may be necessary, much of it is just inner babbling.

Discliplines such as meditation, Tai Chi, yoga, Qigong and others aim to quiet the mind. In meditation, when you become aware of the thoughts going through your mind, the goal is to just observe them and let them go. 

You may notice when you have a lot of thoughts, you are less observant of what is going on around you. If you are having a conversation with someone, the ideal would be to focus on them and what they are communicating, and not be rehearsing your response in your head while they are talking. Sound familiar? We all do it.

Some would say to think about what you are doing as you learn a new piece of music, to "process" it, even analyze it. But is that really desirable? If you are thinking then you are talking to yourself, and if you are talking to yourself, you aren't listening, just like in the case of a conversation with someone.

I recently read an article where the author wrote: Control your thoughts to express emotion in your music. He goes on to say the the process of learning music is a mental one, and when someone is not physically capable of executing some difficult music, the mind can overcome it. This is, he explains, how young prodigies manage to play all the big challenging pieces that adults do. Your common sense tells you this can't possibly be correct. A person's mind can't possibly overcome the difficulty of running the 50-yard dash in under ten seconds, or any other athletic feat. It's all physical! Yes, the mind plays a role in having confidence, overcoming self-doubt and visualizing success while in training. But while they are running the race itself? I'd bet their mind is not full of chatter and thoughts. During the race, their mind is only observing.

How would "controlling your thoughts" translate to playing with more emotion? He doesn't explain. You'll find the more you try to control your thoughts, the more they will fight back, so to speak. The only thing you can do is observe them and let them go. In playing the piano, this means your goal is to focus solely on listening to the music as you play. If you are truly listening, there is no room for thoughts to enter. But if you observe you are having thoughts, just return your mind to listening. 

Playing with or without emotion is determined far more by what you do physically (the word emotion has "motion" in it) than it is by how or what you think. If you feel your playing doesn't have enough emotion or expression, it is probably due to several factors: 1) your technique is faulty and doesn't enable you to play with beautiful phrasing and legato, for two examples; 2) you've spent too much time practicing without emotional involvement (the idea that you "learn the notes first" and add expression later); 3) you've spent too much time doing exercises which train you to play mechanically; and, 4) not really listening.