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.

The three interventions are a self-case study and were carried out in three passages from Part I of Enoch Arden: allegretto, langsam and agitato. Each intervention comprised different types of techniques that I tried to apply on each of the three passages. In the first intervention I used given circumstances, in the second the focus was ‘imagination’ – thus, I employed the supposed circumstances, the magic ‘if’ and inner visions –, and the third dwelt on lures for emotions, namely the emotion memory, sensation memory and surroundings.

Below, I explain each of the chosen techniques, and I display my interventions’ forms filled in, my reports and the video recordings.

The “pre-interventions” video recording was made on 2 December, 2021 and the three interventions’ videos are from 9,10 and 11-12 December, 2021, respectively. Thus, the time span between the recordings is short, so to avoid that my playing was different (eventually better) just because I spent much more time practicing the work. In fact, most of the time that passed between the first video and the interventions was used to prepare them and not really to practice.

The process of the interventions themselves was as follows:

Filling out of the intervention form for the passage to be played
Prepare the mental processes that accompany the performance of the excerpt according to the information on the form
Record
Reflect on the result and find solutions to improve it, in case I am not satisfied
Record again, if necessary (repeat these last two steps until a satisfactory result)

This process was then replicated in the next passage.

At the end of each intervention session, I wrote a report about how it felt, with after-thoughts and insights on the process.

At last, to anyone willing to try out these techniques: the ‘given circumstances’ must be applied first, then the ‘supposed circumstances’, but afterwards there is not a prescribed order to use the imagination or the emotions-related techniques.

Note: In the appendix you can find and download for your own use all the interventions’ forms: ‘given circumstances’, ‘imagination’ and ‘emotions’.

4. INTERVENTIONS – techniques’ application on Enoch Arden, by R. Strauss

'Pre-interventions' video recordings':

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