Passion of the Beef

I've been playing violin for some years now. I'm much better than I used to, and some of habits and preferences concerning practice and songs I play have changed too. However today (and maybe before too but not to such an extent that I noticed and made a mental note of it) I learned something else about myself and violin: I play better when I'm pissed.

When I mean play better, I mean I take notice of the dynamics of the song (which I don't usually do; forte, piano, crescendo, etc), I play it with a lot more heart (not like a computer might play it... sort of like adding emotion to a piece. Any good violinist will tell you that a piece played exactly like it's written is going to sound like crap), I hit all the notes almost perfectly(which I sometimes don't do when I'm tired or otherwise), and I really dig my bow in and use full bows (which my teacher complains about all the time; I don't use enough of my bow). I don't know why. I guess passion just makes musicians sound better.

I mean, if you look at a lot of musical notation, you'll see a lot of Latin terms like amoroso (loving), magnifico (magnificently) and con fuoco (with fire). As you can well expect, a computer or a robot would not be able to bring any of these fully to bear, just by the fact of it being a machine. However, humans and musicians in particular can experience emotion and passion, things that I believe are required to fully express these musical styles. I guess for me, anger would really make me play con fuoco, and maybe losing a friend or getting rejected would make me play more like con dolore (with sadness). I don't know if this applies to all musicians out there reading this... but it does for me.

So yeah, go ahead get worked up before that piano exam... maybe it'll help you.

kamster