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.

Interventions’ reports

Emotion memory

Process of application of the techniques:

- Dividing the passage in musical actions and defining in each (an) emotion(s), based on the poem and on the music.

- Remembering an analogous situation in which I felt the same and defining lures to access those emotions, based on my sensation and emotion memory.

- Mental practice the sequence by imagining the music along with the lures to access my analogous emotions.

- Record

- Reflect on the result and find solutions, if necessary, to achieve a more satisfying result

- Record again

Applying the ‘surroundings’ techniques:

- Choose from where to draw inspiration from my surroundings (the chairs, the floor, the noise, the lights, etc.)

- Imagine how it will make me feel and how it will influence the music

- Record

- Answer the questions on the form about the surroundings

- Reflect further on it and find solutions to a better result, if necessary

- Record again

Observations:

This time I felt that sometimes not thinking about the music’s ‘physical actions’ worsened the clarity in my touch. Partly it could have been because I did not practice the piece between the previous intervention and this one. On the other hand, a solution was naturally found, since sometimes, while playing, my brain jumped between the emotions’ lures, the ‘physical actions’ (in music: the sound itself, its shapes and the movement it draws in space and time, and, in practical terms, how I want to shape it) and the circumstances of the piece.

But I found a justification for this in Stanislavski’s ‘system’ itself:

During every moment we are on the stage, during every moment of the development of the action of the play, we must be aware either of the external circumstances which surround us (the whole material setting of the production), or of an inner chain of circumstances which we ourselves have imagined in order to illustrate our parts. (Stanislavski, 1989, p. 69)

- The fact that the music itself helps getting into its mood and emotions makes it its own mise-en-scene:

(…) an actor looks for a suitable mise-en-scène to correspond to his mood, his objective and that also those same elements create the setting. They are, in addition, a stimulus to the emotion memory. (Stanislavski, 1989, pp. 198-199)

- In the allegretto it was particularly difficult to understand how to apply the techniques: there were too many emotions and related to different characters. At first, I created a series of unrelated emotional events. But then I understood that it is much easier and more logical if the events are linked. I tried to remind myself of those emotions but imbue them in the characters’ circumstances, so to keep being each character and not start acting myself. However, since here there are too many characters for such a short time, it seems to me now that the best would be that my character is the narrator and the emotions are always the narrator’s, even when introducing each character.

- Langsam felt easier.

- Agitato more complicated. I've never been through such a situation. Depends more on imagination. Still, I feel I can empathize with the character a lot. Thus, I describe below how I explored the application of this technique in agitato.

Agitato - my ‘inner film’:

Because I’ve never been through anything like this, it was necessary to use imagination. The first version, which is not the one on the video, was this one: I’m a single mom with 3 children, one is sick. I’m in the living room, it’s a complete silence, and I go to take a look on the sick baby and I find him dead (the image of the dead baby from the film Trainspotting pops up in my mind). In short, I feel grief, then despair and loneliness.

However, in the version of the video recording I imagined something more likely to happen in my reality:

First, despair for giving everything for someone and having no return, losing that person in the end – (unusefulness of love/kindness). I imagined I had given everything I could for my loving girlfriend and received nothing in return. In the end there were only two people I could go to get comfort from: my parents. → Differently from the first version, this one sums up to despair and hope.

Surroundings – what I decided to get inspired by:

Allegretto:

Surroundings 1: wooden floor → Enoch’s ship; purple of the chairs → Annie’s character; studio lights weaker that day → Annie’s tiredness

Surroundings 2: low lights → repercussion: I felt that the focus was really on what was being said by the music; even with no audience I felt as if the whole room was paying attention, and that made me also more focused, also because there were less visual stimuli.

Langsam:

Surroundings 1: low lights

Surroundings 2: blackness of piano (death, tragedy) and black curtains with sea-related texture (Enoch dying in the sea)

Agitato:

Surroundings 1: use nervousness of not knowing if I’ll be interrupted again in the recordings, since I was twice in the previous takes.

Repercussions: I felt less stressed out by the interruptions since that feeling suddenly made part of the music

Surroundings 2: no lights except for the outside rainy-day lights (which allowed me to imagine more easily Annie’s house and find myself inside it).

Last comments:

- In the ‘surroundings’ the weaker lights helped a lot to feel that I was being heard, putted the focus on the message, helped focusing on the sound but also gave the warm feeling that I was actually recounting something special, as if there was an audience super engaged with what I was going to do.

- In this intervention I also felt super focused, and engaged with the challenges. There were more difficulties to overcome, probably because most of it was new in my practice. Nevertheless, I felt that I was grasping the possible meaning of the music, or at least getting in touch with a layer of it that is commonly ignored. Thus, the connection with the music seemed deeper. Also, for being in contact with my own emotions, I felt my self-knowledge was increasing. At last, it seemed very logical to be aware and engage stimuli from the senses with the musical experience, since they are anyway present in it, but many times unconsciously.

Tip

Tip