Having just returned from an inspiring performance of Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto, with Emmanuel Ax weaving magic through the melodies, sending them soaring majestically through the night air, I contemplate how to transmit the understanding of these kinds of experiences into the being of each of my piano students. It is through the playing of an instrument that one truly learns to listen and appreciate music's expressiveness. Here is where the art of musical performance begins: through the understanding of and ability to commandeer compelling expectations for what is coming next and to communicate in the process the many patterns, varieties, and subtleties of emotion.

Here also begins the teacher's job – a crucial one in setting the course of exploration of sound and emotion through which students learn to perceive and respond to the many aspects of musical style indigenous to formal structures. This essay attempts to explore how to transmit the awareness of and communicability of music's powerful expressiveness to piano students by fostering in them self-directed learning of creative musical performance.

Creating music's expressive capabilities at the keyboard is much more than producing sounds. It is the successful deployment of the extensive vocabulary of sounds available at one's fingertips within the constraints of the music performed that leads the performer as listener into an emotional realm. However, in the learning process, the overwhelming task of producing those emotional realms through technical mastery of the keys often creates levels of anxiety and self-doubt in the eager student. Some say that the piano technique of young artists today is better than ever and perhaps it is in terms of producing note-perfect performances. But technique, if coupled with understanding of form and style, should also enable them to create "magical" sounds and feelings of spontaneity. Note-perfect performances are not the exception but the norm in music schools and concert halls. As this becomes the goal, many young students focus on just playing the correct notes, creating so much anxiety over making mistakes that they are unable to become emotionally engaged with the music they are producing.

While students are often quite adept at reading and playing the notes on the score, there has been a decline over the last two decades in their ability to hear and understand nuances that shape a musical phrase (Riley-Butler, 2001; Riley, 2005; Riley & Coons, 2005). Recent research shows that these expressive aspects of performance are neglected in music education. In fact, most teachers spend more time on technique than on expression. Along with technique comes the need to achieve confidence in one’s ability to "speak" the stylistic norms inherent in the language of music on the instrument. This is accomplished by developing a sensitive ear to hear and understand the subtle nuances in interpretation in order to produce them in tandem with good solid technique. As with language, one cannot repeat what one does not hear.

One way to cultivate the student’s ear to perceive and understand musical style, and to couple it appropriately with technique, is to have them listen to and try to imitate performances of master keyboard artists. Performance analysis allows for insight into a performer's fidelity to the score, as well as an understanding of the intangible factors that he or she brings to the performance. The written score indicates the essential contours of the music. The performer’s role is to perceive and understand the sound behind the contours of symbols on the page and bring them to life.

The study of performance had its beginning with the work of Carl Seashore in the 1930's. He pioneered the use of acoustic analysis to derive a performance score that displayed precise measurements of timing and dynamics. He had three purposes in mind for the study of the performance score: first, to gain familiarity with the relationship of the performance scores to the notated scores; second, to compare performances of different pianists in terms of technical skill and personal interpretation; third, to examine specific elements of performance in detail (Seashore, 1936). The notated score cannot possibly convey the nuances of rubato, accelerando, legato, staccato, portamento, chord asynchronies and dynamic levels that an artist employs to bring the style of a Chopin nocturne, Bach prelude and fugue, or Beethoven sonata to life.

Today, instruments such as the Yamaha Disklavier allow for the recording of live performances that can be played back "live" over and over again. Music sequencing technology allows for the creation of a "performance score" in the form of a piano roll graph. Timing is measured precisely and displayed in note bars. Some sequencing programs display the note bars in colors indicating dynamic levels. Students can analyze in detail artists’ performances and replicate certain phrases with the aid of auditory and visual feedback from the Disklavier and piano roll graphs which are shown simultaneously on the computer screen.

One of the most frequently used tools in teaching students how something should be played is aural modeling, or student-teacher imitations. Modeling has limitations in that the student often does not know what to listen for or how to technically reproduce it.

Another popular teaching strategy focuses on performer's emotions, believing that these emotions will translate into sound (Woody, 2000). However, the performer's simply feeling an emotion is no guarantee that it will be communicated to an audience. There is a large discrepancy between students' perception of sounds being produced and what is actually produced.

The use of feedback has been successful in helping pianists improve technically difficult passages quickly (Tucker et al, 1977). Working with the playback of the Disklavier, students often study the movement of the keys, discovering differences in technical approaches. Seeing and hearing the left- or right-hand part separately allows the students to hear the voices in the left-hand part more clearly. Analyzing the piano roll score helps students pinpoint specifically where a performer took a rubato in a phrase or where a crescendo began.

Disklavier is an excellent feedback teaching tool for students between early and advanced intermediate levels. As they listen to playback of their playing, they can follow the score and make marks indicating where they did not like their sound, for example, too loud, too slow, erratic timing, and wrong notes. Teachers may offer assistance by highlighting the score only when the student has overlooked something in listening to the playback.

A composition can be analyzed in great detail with Disklavier playback and analysis of the MIDI information. Performances by several pianists can be compared and select performances used as stylistic models for students. Sequencing software allows for separation of a composition into phrases and phrases into voices. Sessions can be tailored to each student's level of musical and technical development, but the material presented should not be demanding technically and should be within the performance capability of the piano students. It is best to initiate an open discussion following their initial sight-readings of the piece and first listening to the prepared performances.

During a comparative performance analysis, the piano roll graph can be displayed on the computer screen while the performances are heard on the Disklavier. For students' ease, position the computer monitor on top of the piano to the right of the music stand and connect it to the Disklavier via MIDI cables.

The Piano Roll

The simultaneous playback on the Disklavier while viewing the piano roll on the screen allows students to become familiar with the performance score, to compare performances in terms of technical skills and personal interpretation, and to examine specific elements in detail. Timing of phrases can be analyzed on the piano roll graph by the length and position of the note bars. The note bars are depicted in bands of color, reflecting different levels of dynamic velocity, helping students listen for different levels of sound. Differences in piano technique can also be seen from the graphs.

Students find the aural/visual feedback in analysis helpful: "The piano roll gave me a picture in my mind of the sound. It helped me to listen more deeply." "The graphs helped me analyze more objectively what each performer is doing and gave a clear picture of what they had in mind."

This aural/visual feedback design serves as a pedagogical model that can successfully guide the student in development of expressive nuance and communication with listeners. As they become more familiar with a piece, we should encourage our students to ask specific questions regarding the use of rubato or increase in dynamic scale. The piano roll graphs of selected interpretations of a phrase can be analyzed, and the differences in approach can then be discussed with the student while listening to the Disklavier. With feedback, students hear and see specifically the beat on which the artist took a rubato in the phrase, where a crescendo began, and how the musical lines wove together. Their own performances are recorded, graphed, and then compared to the artists' performances.

The feedback aids students in understanding that there are often discrepancies between what is perceived by themselves and what is actually produced. Through playback they often hear that their degree of increase or decrease in dynamic scale was not as great as they had believed. To sharpen the listening and performance skills, selected phrases can be presented left and right hands separately. A good exercise is to have students practice a phrase in the following sequence:

• to play one left-hand voice together with the artist’s melody of a selected phrase
• to play two voices (if fitting) along with the artist’s melody
• to play the entire left-hand part with the melody
• to play the melody with the artist’s accompaniment.

Each exercise can be recorded, played back and shown graphically. Students can technically improve the performances of the left-hand with these exercises. They graphically see and hear melodic contour and can distinguish the proper balance among the voices as well as correct wrong notes. Students can then experiment by editing the dynamics of their own playing. This helps them understand the changes needed in their playing to produce the differences they want to hear.

Working with the Disklavier playback and piano roll, significant growth can be achieved over a short period of time in their technical mastery and understanding of various ways to interpret a phrase. As they hear their own playback in comparison to an artist's, they begin to listen more attentively.

Effective teaching must bridge the score to the sounds themselves. The use of the playback on the Disklavier and piano roll graphs during the analysis help to define the structure of the piece and the normative aspects of phrasing, voicing, asynchrony, use of rubato, and dynamic contrasts. This teaching technique helps students discover with their ears and eyes the many rich variations in interpretations. For students, being able to sit and listen over and over again to artists' performances "live" on the Disklavier with graphic display allows for the analyzing and teaching of the normative aspects of performance to students.

Applied to the training of teachers, effective instruction must increase teacher awareness of methods and technical approaches; build confidence in the ability of the teacher to coordinate emerging and changing teaching styles; and effectively aid the teacher in identifying the students' individual personalities and learning needs. The goal is to sensitize teachers to build the foundation of musical creation within each student by weaving together the student's aural, visual and tactile perceptions, as well as fostering expressiveness, artistic growth and development.

In addition to increasing students' awareness and identification of interpretive choices, the feedback teaching techniques described in this essay assist students' coordination of motor control with their perception of sounds. Most importantly however, it increases their awareness and appreciation of style and musical meaning, as the ultimate goal of music teaching is to enable students to improve their own performances and to develop an avenue of satisfying self-expression for the student.

Kathleen Riley Ph.D. is an adjunct professor of piano at New York University where she teaches piano and keyboard classes and conducts research in music performance and education, and the uses of biofeedback in retraining. Through her research she has developed this new multimodal approach to teaching piano as well as assessing and retraining piano technique that addresses the physiology of piano performance. Articles on Dr. Riley's research have been published in many peer reviewed journals, including Medical Problems of Performing Artists, American Music Teacher, and Journal of Technology in Music Learning. She presents seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.