Violist and Colburn School professor of chamber music Jonathan Brown shares advice for chamber musicians looking to take their playing to the next level and teachers coaching ensembles
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At its heart, chamber music is learning to be truthful under the imaginary circumstances described by a given piece. To play chamber music well is to learn how to express clearly your honest beliefs about a piece while at the same time allowing your partners to embody their own musical truths. Learning how to listen and respond while maintaining the integrity of your own voice is one of the deepest challenges a chamber musician faces, and how you find this equilibrium is shaped by how you practise, rehearse and study a given work.
1. Develop a shared understanding
Playing chamber music is, I believe, above all a question of developing a ‘language’ between the members of the group – a common understanding of the parameters of the piece as well as a sensitivity to what ‘message’ each member is trying to send to the others at any given moment.
One of the miracles of great chamber music is that each voice has its own distinct personality, while still being part of a larger whole. In order for the totality to be coherent, the group needs a common understanding of the basic structure of the piece, within which each voice has its own role and space. The first task, in other words, is to understand the form of the piece, or the chain of events which leads from one sound, phrase or chapter to the next.
In Classical repertoire, the steps are most clearly delineated by the bass line and finding a common understanding of the harmonic rhythm is fundamental for establishing the basic framework of the interpretation. Exploring the characteristics of each step is critical: are we reaching for a new tonality or is a cadence being established? Is the harmonic movement steady and predictable or surprising and unsettling? Which voice contributes to these different qualities and how?
2. Practise communicating without words
Although words are a necessary tool for communication between chamber musicians, they are inevitably limited: no series of verbal descriptions ever captures the full meaning of a musical event. At best we can describe relative tendencies in a piece, therefore I find that musical exercises in which we play rather than speak are much more helpful than explanations.
I encourage groups to rehearse faster or slower than ‘as written,’ often with fewer ‘ornamental’ notes, playing pizzicato rather than arco, or separate notes instead of slurs – all ways of learning to hear the piece together and how to read each other’s musical signals. Rather than establishing a series of orders or instructions which each member is required to follow on stage, I find that a performance will be much more alive if the musicians have developed a shared way to hear to the piece and how to shape sounds in a communal way.
3. Teachers, perform with your students – and vice versa
Of course this process of discovery and mutual sensitivity is not easy and inevitably involves friction between members, especially since it requires a degree of vulnerability and openness which are often very uncomfortable. I know of no better way to develop these attributes than for younger and older musicians to play together. Rather than pronouncing judgements from the outside, we faculty can lead by example, making ourselves vulnerable to mistakes and misunderstandings, and lead students towards a more productive resolution of tensions and disagreements.
By playing together, students can see that we too are on the same continuum of learning, measuring ourselves against the masterpieces which we have the privilege to perform. We can teach by showing how our way of playing can allow our partners to be their best, most expressive selves.
I find that these concepts are virtually impossible to encapsulate in a single recipe, but when playing together, hopefully students will become more aware of how the specific way in which we relate to each other affects our colleagues on stage, when we most need them to be alive and spontaneous.
4. Study the music of today
Nothing can substitute working with a living composer; finally we can witness first-hand the choices a composer makes, bringing us closer to understanding the ever-slippery relationship between page and sound. Working on new pieces brings us back to the essence of what we do: to serve as best we can the composer’s vision as expressed through the score. Free of inherited half-truths and biases, playing new music stimulates an openness and humility equally necessary for performing works from the canon.
5. Learn from your audience, perform in the community
Just as individual practice and group rehearsal are necessary, you also need to learn to play in front of real people, how to believably realise your vision of a piece when others are listening. The question is not only what we as musicians can offer to society, but rather what we can learn from performing in front of others. I find that we gain the most from audiences who have the least experience in traditional concert halls – their reaction is often the most brutal when unconvinced and the most emotionally engaged when a performance is alive.
When an ensemble has a common sensitivity and understanding, the result can be quite dramatic – each member is able to be his or her best self, while encouraging the same in his or her partners – to the listener, the music seems to be created in the moment, rather than prefabricated. Learning how to be a truthful musician never ends and one of the great joys of teaching is to observe students’ discovery of the transformative nature of making music together.
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