If you have a recital to do, you have to memorize the songs. I never use music when I do recitals. It produces an instant barrier, both for yourself and the audience.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It is important for the musician to learn as much about the composer as possible and to study the music he has written. Then, even a short piece by Brahms or Chopin can be played with much more understanding.
Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.
Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.
Playing music is a lifetime's work. And if you want to carry on with it, you have to try to better yourself. You have to see where the music can take you.
During the songs, you transcend yourself. The best way to be in the performance is to be without pause and be essentially in the moment, in that moment of expression.
It's easy enough to foist your music collection on your kids. Lectures are not required; you just play the stuff while they are prisoner in the back seat on a long drive, or softly in the background while eating dinner.
I may play the same program from one recital to the next, but I will play it differently, and because it is always different, it is always new.
I bring my classical training - some of it, but not all of it - and also my background and culture, to spirituals. And I try to leave room for that unpredictable factor, where the feeling of the song is allowed to come through. The same ethos can be applied to singing Mozart, or Schubert, or Bach. It's not just about what's on the page.
Whenever I play recitals, the part where I talk about music and my experiences of music, audiences always like it. They feel more involved with an artist who talks to them. It's a nice experience for me as well.
In recitals, you are naked before the audience - well, naked with your jacket and tails. The audience sees and hears the real person, not some role you are interpreting.