André Teixeira

The belief that imagination’s engagement and emotional connection with what I play enhance my performance propelled me to do this research. However, these are not systematically integrated in instrumental practice. Thus, it seemed to me that the twentieth century theatre director Konstantin Stanislavski’s ‘system’ would be the perfect basis for such a quest. The starting point were acting techniques from his first book "An Actor Prepares": the "given circumstances", imagination-related ("supposed circumstances", “inner visions”, "magic if”) – and emotion-related ("emotion memory", "sensation memory", "surroundings"). Partly supported by existing literature, these techniques were linked with the instrumentalists' work and tested out in a self-case study through three interventions. The process consisted of making video recordings of the 'before' and the actual interventions, which were guided by the filling out of intervention forms designed by me. The techniques were applied on three distinct piano passages of Richard Strauss’ melodrama for narrator and piano "Enoch Arden". Furthermore, I did interventions’ reports to provide more palpable insights about the experience, namely the effects of each technique on the performer. The outcome was evaluated through a questionnaire filled in by a group of listeners, comprising musicians and non-musicians, and by me. The responses generally show that the techniques were effective. However, the recordings were perceived as very similar. Also, the listeners’ perception sometimes differed from mine. Nevertheless, the reports allow us to conclude that these techniques might affect the performer’s focus, creativity, self-confidence, knowledge about the works and also self-knowledge.

1. INTRODUCTION

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Why this topic?

As a musician I am always seeking to expand my musical world, being it through a deeper analytical, aesthetical or historical understanding, or through imagination or anything happening in life that I find relatable to the music I am working on. Furthermore, I notice that I feel more excited and engaged with a piece when it is connected with emotions, moods, sensations, stories or ideas I relate with, and that the involvement of imagination and emotions enhance my performance. However, these are not systematically integrated in instrumental practice. Besides, it’s a familiar tool for a musician to borrow terms from other fields and use metaphors not related to music.

In addition to this, in my case, the hypothesis I raise is that we, performing musicians, can borrow something from an art that has some common ground with ours: acting. The most obvious common ground is the performative side of both arts, usually in front of an audience, and the possibility to convey emotions.

But, after all, what generated the idea of looking into acting to help me in my musical development was simply my passion for cinema, along with a wish to understand what originates the audience’s feeling that an actor is actually living what’s happening to his part and a desire to bring that to music.

For that, I set myself the challenge of researching the basis of this kind of realistic approach to acting, based on the idea that an actor must live his own emotions, but those must be analogous to the character’s. In other words, I decided to investigate Konstantin Stanislavski’s acting system, in particular his book An Actor Prepares.

My approach:

My goal is not to create a perfect analogy between the two fields. Instead, I will take some specific techniques that I imagine that could also be used by performing musicians and try them out myself in excerpts of the Richard Strauss’ melodrama Enoch Arden, to understand to what extent (or not) they can be useful.

As such, my research question is: Can some techniques from K. Stanislavski’s An Actor Prepares be applied and useful to the musicians’ practice and performance?

'How?' complements that question, in case they are applicable and useful.

Relevance:

Although this research comprises a self case-study, I believe it might be of interest not only to solo performing musicians, but also to chamber or ensemble musicians, since it will emcompass techniques that deal universal musical needs, like comprehension of text and the acts of practicing and performing.

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