What is “enthusiastic” performing?
A more nuanced understanding of facial expressions, body language and other visual cues is important for young performers and their audiences.
Recently a student of mine performed unaccompanied Bach for violin, and received what I thought was unreasonable criticism afterward by some well-meaning family members.
It was a musically sensitive, expressive and artistic presentation. Having heard many attempts at Bach, I felt this was one of the better performances I have heard. It was not mechanical, not merely “correct” and not at all by rote, but rather felt alive and present and totally authentic, not to mention being perfectly in tune and exhibiting technical prowess. His heart and soul was in the music!
Now, this student is also shy. He presents as withdrawn and unengaged whenever he is around people he does not know, and especially when in front of an audience. He is not inclined toward the spotlight. Given this situation, anyone who knew him would recognize an enormous achievement merely getting up on stage, not to mention really saying something with the music.
The comment by well-meaning family members was that he was not very enthusiastic. They worried he was not enjoying it, only doing it because he was told to, and that it was really not much fun for him.
I found that reaction puzzling. I knew from the way he played it that he had really put himself into the music. One cannot do that without buy-in, having a sense of agency in one’s own choices. I know from experience working with students that he wanted to do it.
So where was the disconnection?
Body language in complex tasks
How students present when playing in front of people can easily be mis-read. When asked to concentrate on a complex motor task, children’s faces will often go blank or look “frowny” rather than excited or happy. It is as if all the bodily energy is being redirected to the area of the body being used.
In the second place, putting a child in a situation where they are in front of people they don’t know will often produce a similar retraction of facial, bodily and visual cues. There is a sense of forming a protective bubble around the body. Stillness, aversion of the eyes, hiding behind one’s hair, and so on: these are natural reactions to the risky-feeling atmosphere of being on stage.
Interestingly, there is another more general problem here: our assumptions about a person’s emotions based solely on their facial expressions are unreliable. One comprehensive study of facial expressions concluded thus:
facial configurations are not observed reliably or specifically enough to justify using them to infer a person’s emotional state, whether in the lab or in everyday life. We are not suggesting that facial movements are meaningless and devoid of information. Instead, the data suggest that the meaning of any set of facial movements may be much more variable and context-dependent than hypothesized by the common view.*
Since playing a string instrument in front of people involves both a complex motor task and doing something in front of others, it stands to reason that there will be less visible emotion on the face, less excited or expressive body movements, less eye contact with the crowd, and so on.
Look at the faces of Eric Clapton, Aimee Mann, and Jakob Dylan, to take some contemporary musicians as examples. They play rather than perform. Yo Yo Ma’s face is a delight to watch when he performs on his cello; he is after all a master of his craft and has played for 60 years. Still, his face is not overtly showy; this isn’t the same as grandstanding.
Most of the time (and certainly in the majority of students I have taught) their tendency will be toward a passive face and body while performing. Over time as their comfort level with performing increases, this may change.
It’s all in the sound, not the visual
The first step in appreciating student music performance is to focus more on the music itself. Closing your eyes and just listening is a good place to start. Without all the visual cues your appreciation of the sound will grow.
Practice at close listening will improve anyone’s sense of what a student is playing, and how they executed the performance. We might even practice careful listening at other times, outside the onceor twice-a-year recital we might attend. That way we bring even more listening experience to the table.
If we don’t feel especially motivated to do this, we might ask ourselves whose responsibility is it to become educated enough about music to appreciate it? Children cannot do this on their own; we are there to help them do it. But that means we must become self-educated enough to provide meaningful feedback.
An unreasonable demand
We live in a culture that lifts up a certain kind of media-driven “enthusiasm” characterized by flashy personalities, exaggerated displays, and other visual cues that play well on television.
Given the prevalence of American Idol-style presentations, we have come to demand from children something more than the musical artistry alone. We want them not only to succeed at the craft of music, not only to master their own emotions getting up in front of people, but to do so in a way that attracts millions of “likes.”
Telling a child that they are responsible for an audience’s pleasure and enjoyment is gratuitous. Let’s do a gut check here: are we there for ourselves, to gain a moment’s pleasure, or to support the ongoing development of a child and the art form they are germinating?
This is not to say that students should never try to connect with their audience. I have written about the tendency of some students just to “check the boxes”, going through the motions, and not bothering to make art an expressive communication. We must train with an aim of artistic musical language, which implies listeners. Ignoring the audience isn’t the point.
The point is this: Asking a musician-in-training to do more than their highest artistic ability, is in my view asking too much. It does a disservice both to the artist and to their art form. It says that something essential is lacking in the art form itself. And by implication, in their choice to pursue it. To be given the message that their highest creative ability does not measure up, is to deny a person both happiness and fulfillment on a deep human level.
How children show "enthusiasm" when performing:
Being willing to show up and do it
Showing careful attention to the notes
Poise on stage, bowing afterward
Not giving up after making a mistake
Making choices in the music (such as tempo and dynamics)
Expressive movement (such as bow motion) to produce the sound
Communication with other musicians while playing (with breath, eye contact, body motions)
Sense of euphoria and excitement afterward (or even disappointment as that shows one cares)
How to show them enthusiasm when they are performing:
Careful attention to the sound
Close your eyes and just listen
Ask them what they liked or didn’t like about their performance
Observe and comment on one of the areas above (careful attention, poise, not giving up, making choices in the music, expressive movement on the instrument itself, and communication with other musicians on stage)
Context: Learn or observe what happened in the days leading up to and following a performance. Often this is the best indication of where a child’s heart is.
Acknowledgement of their energy, effort, and willingness, no matter the result
Conclusion: Redefining parameters
Worrying over a child doing something they don’t want to do is valid, and necessary in situations where there may be some unreasonable demand or a questionable practice. But in this case, nothing questionable or unreasonable was happening, in fact just the opposite, there were very good reasons for what happened and the context was positive and healthy.
In light of this, I desire for anyone sitting in an audience for young performers that we:
Adapt a different set of parameters around student performance, such as defining “enthusiastic” and “happy” in the context of execution of complex and/or risky tasks;
Listen closely to the sound, looking for different cues than merely visual ones; and
Become self-educated about music enough to appreciate musical artistry and to give more meaningful feedback.
Doing these things will go a long way to actually supporting students, rather than inadvertently criticizing them and questioning the motives of the parents, based on mistaken notions of how and when children look happy.
It will also ensure a better nurturing ground for the art form itself, giving it the breathing room it needs to grow into something that can truly move people on multiple levels.
