Let your performance on violin, viola or cello really sing

Most of us are fortunate enough to come equipped with a singing voice for expressing ourselves, the depth of our feelings, for story-telling, for inspiring others, and for the joy of it too. It is a compelling form of communication. Lucky is the instrumentalist who can make their violin, viola or cello sing like a voice – and happy the listener who is privileged to experience the delights of this. Maybe song - in so many genres - is the music most admired, most heard and most desirable to emulate.

Able to run the gamut of expression with a useable range of over two octaves, the singer is capable of creating many nuances of colour and numerous forms of articulation, all delivered at appropriate dynamic levels. To achieve this on an instrument requires a deconstruction of the music on the page and a reconstruction in terms of that instrument with added help from, for example, the bow. And of course the total commitment of the body. We do this already, using our technique and experience.

But the singing voice stands apart from other instruments: it can handle words too, making for a powerfully enhanced mix of sound and communication of meaning. If ‘meaning’ is delivered with commitment together with the beauty of the voice, then the listener must resist strongly if not to be drawn in, engaged, and ultimately thrilled beyond satisfaction. The singer also has the opportunity of engaging the listener visually. More of this later.

At an early age I was taught that music which told a story or by its title suggested a scene or particular feelings, for example, was ‘programmatic’ and that music which needed no title was ‘absolute’ music. Yet, listening to string players – at all levels I must add, given my background in examining – there are those who are able to pull me along by the ears through their performance of music which has no title to betray its intended meaning, never letting me cease to listen and remain engaged and entranced to the final cadence. How can I as a player do this too?

Here is a little experiment you may care to try: choose a piece of absolute music you know well and play it to a trusted musical friend – someone who knows that you would like to hear the truth (as they see it) and not what your friend thinks you would like to hear. Do your best and observe all the technical details, of course. Then play the same piece thinking about a storyline, one you have prepared earlier. It doesn’t matter how silly the story is, but you will probably find soon that there are clues in the nature of the music which begin to tell you what happens next in your story; if the music is episodic in nature, your story could even be disjointed too, flitting from idea to idea. Now ask your friend for an opinion. I don’t think there is any right answer, but you might find that the performance came across as more interesting, more fun, warmer, more human, made more sense, I don’t know. Why? My theory is that performing with the ‘intent’ that a script gives you can convey that sense of intent to the listener, as if by magic. The listener won’t be likely to pick up your actual storyline, so you’re safe there, but if there is a thread of meaning in what you do, I think that she/he will be held till the music ends.

Picking up on the visual aspect of a performance now, pulling faces as one plays is generally considered to be a distraction too far, and swaying around might be inappropriate too. We’ve all seen that, but never done it, of course. However, there is a whole palette of possibilities from still and calm to movement which heightens (the meaning of) the piece you are playing. Maybe listening to a recording of the same piece in private and letting your facial expression and body change and move naturally is a good starting point from which you can develop your own performance. Beware imitating others though, because you need to have ownership of what you play and how you perform it. Oh, and one more thing, smile too! It can make a huge difference to your own feelings and confidence and it makes your audience happy too. The more naturally you respond to your music, the more believable, true and likeable you become to your audience and your performance truly sings to them.