Ingrained

(river sandstone, Tennessee)

I have a student who I find almost impossible to teach. This student has learned the notes, they have learned the interpretation, but they cannot even understand that there could be more. I don't think that anything moves or turns inside of them when they play. If I am lucky, this student at least can feel the tick-tick-tick of the tactus keeping them within a steady rhythm; that alone is a skill of maturity. But how can I teach my student that sickening urgency that you feel in your gut as you play a musical line falling down and down to its cadence? How can I explain to them that a single note entrance can feel like a furious axe-fall or a mournful sigh by doing nothing other than displacing its entrance by a hundredth of a second? And then somehow I have to back-step and teach my student that all of this passionate playing must be restrained so that the bit that escapes from your psyche is swallowed and polished by the room's acoustics and isn't even recognized by the audience. The listeners can't feel the weighless upbeats, or the tiny pushes and pulls of tempo. You've muted the axe-fall to a subtle nuance of your fingers even though the executioner is raging in your head. And all that the audience can contemplate is that your performance sounds somehow more musical than the last, but they don't know quite why.

How can I teach my student that?