Materials of Music - Expression

The essential nature of expressiveness in music is illustrated by trying to playing from sheet music exactly as it is written, with little variation in tempo, slavishly following every note and rest. Many MIDI files sound like this because they can be made mechanically from sheet music. It is obvious to the most untrained listener that something is missing. That something is the nuance of expression which comes from the emotional feeling of the performer to the music, and by analogy with text, what is written on the page is not the spoken word, especially effectively spoken as by a good actor or reader. So music needs the same expression. Just as the speaker emphasizes words or pauses or lengthens his speech just a little, so the competent musician uses variations in force and rhythm to add expression. Composers try to shape this roughly by indicating phrasing, accents and other emphasis, but there is still a wide latitude in interpretation and feeling.

Even though the "serious literature" of music has more spelled out for the performer in notation and he or she is expected not to improvise much, if at all, there is still wide latitude in exactly how the notes are to be played. The best way to know this is to listen to different performances of the same piece. Sometimes it is amazing how different one performance can be from the next of the same piece even though you are looking at the same sheet music used in each. One can learn a good deal about a piece of music this way. More on this.