Analysis of Repertoire

[VJOFan]

By the end of grad school I was finally really looking at music for how it was put together.

It was like all the years of theory classes (and the one I took in first year masters to fix my gaps especially) and history classes all finally took hold.

Historical practice, melodic direction toward the main moment of a phrase, section or ultimately a piece, how harmony and melody interact all started to be large parts of my thoughts as I prepared repertoire.

I know that I wasn't really taught that in lessons until grad school master classes where the teacher had a philosophy of keeping phrases moving forward to the important arrival points. Before that I was told to play louder or softer, slower or faster or tune this or that in one direction or the other with no discussion of why.

Is understanding the structure of music actually important to successful performance? (Probably yes, at least intuitively.)

Do you teach it? How?

Were you taught it? How? When? Where?

[Doug Elliott]

When I was in school I had a class, required for performance majors, called Melodic Interpretation that covered most of that. I have hardly ever heard any instruction like that in lessons, but I teach that way when I'm asked to work on repertoire or excerpts with a student.... Which is rare because most of my teaching is fixing chop issues.

[VJOFan]

When I was in school I had a class, required for performance majors, called Melodic Interpretation that covered most of that. I have hardly ever heard any instruction like that in lessons, but I teach that way when I'm asked to work on repertoire or excerpts with a student.... Which is rare because most of my teaching is fixing chop issues.

I suppose the conducting class my school had could have been that, but it was mostly about the mechanics of the baton, score reading and keyboard realizations of a score. We seldom talked about interpretation now that I think of it.

[robcat2075]

... Before that I was told to play louder or softer, slower or faster or tune this or that in one direction or the other with no discussion of why.

A crit about some prominent old-school teachers is that their students could play wonderfully... as long as they were playing a piece their teacher had taught them.

I suppose the conducting class my school had could have been that, but it was mostly about the mechanics of the baton, score reading and keyboard realizations of a score. We seldom talked about interpretation now that I think of it.

I imagine a reason that pianists are highly represented in the set of successful orchestral conductors is that "interpretation" is something they have been tasked with since the beginning.

When they are playing the piano, they are the whole show and have to make it work. That is rarely true for us instrumentalists.

By the time a strong pianist gets to that baton technique class, the baton technique is the only missing piece.

[MrHCinDE]

My last classroom theory lessons were at high school and finished when I was 16 years old, I'm pretty confident to say we never talked about the topics the OP raised in those basic lessons.

I was taught about it (though not sure how much remains 20+ year later!) in 1:1 practical instrument lessons, particularly with an exceptionally musically-aware euphonium teacher who taught me from about 13 to 18 years old. With every single piece on the stand, regardless of studies or concert pieces, maybe even some warm-ups, I was encouraged to experiment with phrasing and interpretation. I had other teachers for tuba and trombone where it wasn't really in focus, or at the most was as the OP described with just a bit of faster/slower/louder/quieter with no explanation or discussion.

One other place I picked up a few things was in brass band practice. The conductor was pretty hot on getting a musical interpretation from all soloists. He would happily spend half a practice going through every detail of the solo part and accompaniments for a single piece until it was exactly as he wanted. Note, in that context it was about getting what the conductor wanted rather than the soloist which sometimes caused a bit of friction but raised awareness of these topics for everyone around the stand, particulay the interaction between melody and harmony.

[Wilktone]

When I was in high school and an undergrad my trombone teachers were all very much advocates of playing everything as musically as possible, including something as simple as long tones. While my technical facility at the those times wasn't very strong, I often was complimented on my musicality by teachers on juries and such. Maybe they were just looking for something good to say so their comments weren't just negative, but I never really felt that playing with expression was as much of a struggle for me as others seem to.

In my own teaching I often work with my students on understanding how the music was composed and playing it with expression. With students taking weekly lessons I usually make it a point to address that topic in every lesson. These days more of my students are coming to me for one-shot or infrequent lessons on something in particular, so I address this with them as needed.

My basic approach to teaching this is to ask for exaggeration of all musical devices that you might employ in a given phrase or piece. So if it feels like the line needs to crescendo, for example, I ask the student to exaggerate the crescendo to the point of where they feel like they are doing too much. I find that this usually gets the expressive technique to the point of where it needs to be. Otherwise there won't be enough crescendo (or whatever) to come across from the audience.

There are some simple "rules" you can suggest that might help a student getting to think in a musical manner. For example, when the line ascends crescendo and decrescendo as the line descends. When playing rubato try thinking about speeding up slightly to increase the intensity and slowing down to decrease intensity. I often like to have students try to think of "robbing Peter to pay Paul" when it comes to rubato. So if you speed up towards the beginning of a phrase try thinking about pulling the tempo back a similar amount towards the end. These "rules" are meant to be broken, but by giving students something to think about when playing expressively it gets their creative juices flowing and give them something objective to consider.

It's an interesting topic and often overlooked. Perhaps it's something like teaching instrumental technique. Teachers will often ignore something with a student because they are prioritizing something else for the time being. Sometimes teachers might not be really equipped to verbalize how to play with expression and how the structure and historical practice fits into doing so, so they teach it by modeling instead.

[brtnats]

(General music teacher here)

Yes, but I teach most of it away from the instrument.

I teach my students an active listening framework called SHMRG (Sound Harmony Melody Rhythm Growth) from a fairly young age. The categories get more complicated and nuanced as they get more experienced. Once you’ve isolated those elements, you can apply them to basically everything. Need to know why individual notes need to be tuned differently? Reference Harmony. Need to match a sound concept? Reference Sound. Having trouble matching a style? Reference Melody. Etc.