I did a solo on my fiddle today at our church during the offering. Afterwards, some people were asking me what the name of the the tune was. I told them it was Hymn to the Saviour, and that it did have any lyrics. Some were surprised because they saw me move my lips a lot, and thought I was mouthing the words. How embarassing! ;( Do any of you find yourself making lots of facial movements whle playing?
I used to make a lot of facial expressions, and my wife was the one that clued me in. When I checked, I was making some really goofy looking faces, with no idea how I looked. Since then, I try to look like a normal human being. I see this happen with others at jams, and find it pretty funny.
It's nothing really to worry about. It's quite common among solo instrumentalists at all levels right up to the top, and is a side effect of the concentration being put into the playing. Some players are the opposite and have expressionless stone faces while they play - which can be equally disconcerting to the audience ("is the guy really caring about what he's playing?" etc). If you're aware of facial movements when you're playing and try to control them while you're playing that's going to affect your concentration and hence your performance, so ignore it and concentrate even more on the music.
I've got a viola-playing friend at school who plays classical music. She's a lovely person, and a good violist, but she is constantly gurning when she plays. When she's playing well, she has a look of intense concentration on her face, and at the slightest hiccup, it morphs into an expression of despair mingled with horror, like she's watching an autopsy or something. It's quite fun to watch.
"Motor overflow refers to the involuntary movements which may accompany the production of voluntary movements. While overflow is not usually seen in the normal population, it does present in children and the elderly, as well as those suffering certain neurological dysfunctions." (Hoy, et al., 2004)
it's often referenced in terms of cognitive or developmental disability, but i think it also applies in a more mild way to people who are focusing intently on some complicated motor activity. it's like your body's focus on the one activity "spills over" into other motor areas, very often the face.
note Michael Jordan when he'd dunk. He wasn't making faces on purpose, I think (could be wrong), he's concentrating really hard.
i tend to stick out my tongue when i play banjo, so maybe I just making up excuses...
Another effect of concentrating when playing music is sub-vocal sounds unconsciously produced by the player. These are not deliberate attempts to sing along with the music but sound like random little moans or groans at the back of the mouth or in the throat. I know one or two people in sessions who do this without realising it, but it's fairly quiet and you have to be sitting almost next to them to notice it.
I think it's due to part of the brain, not being under conscious control, trying to sing the tune but not having any effective control over the vocal chords. An example of this is the famous cellist Pablo Casals (possibly the world's greatest-ever cellist). If you listen to almost any of his recordings you'll hear, perhaps several times in a recording, mysterious cthonic groans. He was quite unaware of it, and presumably the recording producers didn't dare to raise the matter with the great man.
In Casals’s later years, when he was doing more orchestral conducting than cello playing, you could sometimes hear his characteristic groans coming from the direction of the conductor's podium in the quieter bits of the music.
If you listen closely to recordings of the classical guitarist, Christopher Parkening, you can sometimes hear him groaning involuntarily. I used to have a cat who liked classical guitar music and would sit in front of a speaker grooving on the sound. When Parkening started to groan, the cat would cock his head and talk back to the groaning.
Of course, Glenn Gould is famous for the vocalising, and there are recordings of John Coltrane where Elvin Jones's drums are augmented by a sort of guttural "ah-ah-ah-ah" in time with the music.
Funny, I'm noticed it before, but never connected it to the involuntary facial tics. Makes sense, though.
Alfred Brendel also. Though he went through an intensive period at the beginning of his career to control it. The argument being that it becomes a feature of the performance and so a distraction to the audience. Though you can still hear him moaning occasionally on close miked recordings, and I do find it distracting.
But as for such top players as Brendel, I'm not convinced it's related to motor function. Yes, when a child or a struggling musician is finding a particular motor function difficult to execute, I can accept the theory of the brain losing control of other motor functions. But the last thing a top player is doing is struggling with technique. They're not gonna be grimacing when they hit a bum note, quite the reverse, they may be grimacing when they play a really good bit.
I reckon the two are far apart, neurologically, as crying when you're in pain, and crying when you're happy.
(I might also mention that because this music is relatively simple as far as motor functions are concerned, it should be relatively simple to progress from the first scenario, where the pain of getting it wrong makes you cry, to the second, where the joy of getting it right makes you cry.)
Listen to jazz pianist Oscar Peterson's old records, you will hear him mumbling along in the background--if you make faces, mouth words, and otherwise do odd things while you play, you are in good company.
I agree with lazyhound... if you've ever seen footage of Jascha Heifitz, it's almost difficult to watch... to hear a Paganini caprice played by what looks like a pull-string doll is disturbing. The other end of that was a guy that I saw play many years ago named Francis Fortier... he moved around the stage and made such facial expressions that it was uncomfortably distracting... it was like he was having a psychotic fit during Prealudium and Allegro.
My problem is the opposite, lack of movement. Often I'll get deep into a tune and space out a little bit. Before I know it I've gone a wee bit slack-jawed and the saliva starts pooling...
I actually find it disconcerting to see players with a 'bored' expression, perhaps they are just being 'cool' but it does make me wonder where the excitement is, I feel its good to be alive, and its one of my biggest pleasures to play trad, and i have no problem with that being reflected in my face, though sometimes i wish i didn't involuntarily hum along!
Joe that reminds me of a lass who played violin at my secondary school but instead if gurning she had the look of someone who's eyes were capable of boring holes through a brick wall...very scary. Very intense facial expression!
And Mehitabel23 what does "nkosi sikelel'afrika!" mean?...it interrupted the swarbrick gig lol though my phone thankfully was on silent..unlike the more drunk members of the audience that night!
Does anyone actually smile? I'll smile and smile and smile...
Until I realize everyone else has their eyes closed or is doing the real serious face, and I give up, thus leading to the dreaded spaced-out slack-jaw, not to be confused with the "I'm too cool to enjoy myself" bored/serious look.
It doesn't bother me a bit. I actually am more entertained by the oddities. If Glenn Gould wasn't humming an apparently different tune or tapping his foot out of time, it wouldn't be the same for me. Oscar Peterson cracks me up, I wish I could hear more of what he is singing. Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg makes great contortions, sometimes she looks possessed. I liked her much better after seeing her play for the first time. I have a classical album where the mic is so close you can hear every breath of the violinist on the quieter pieces. I find it interesting to hear where he stops to breathe.
Interesting point there about breathing points adding to the experience of listening. I love to listen to Mary Black singing "No Frontiers" on "Bringing It All Back Home." You can hear every intake of breath. Bloody sexy, if you ask me.
She was a lot younger then, mind, as indeed was I!
It's the first line of the South African national anthem. In an attempt to p*ss off my very sporty rugby fanatic father, me and my South African friend painted our faces with the flag and spent the day singing the anthem, from beginning to end. Luckily, South Africa won, and my annoyed dad went to the pub, and I texted him, and unfortunately the words "Dad" and "Dan" look quite similar, considering that I am blind in one eye.
Facial movements
Facial movements
I did a solo on my fiddle today at our church during the offering. Afterwards, some people were asking me what the name of the the tune was. I told them it was Hymn to the Saviour, and that it did have any lyrics. Some were surprised because they saw me move my lips a lot, and thought I was mouthing the words. How embarassing! ;( Do any of you find yourself making lots of facial movements whle playing?
Sara
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by Celtic Lass
Re: Facial movements
So i am told! i don't make a habit of practiceing in front of a mirror though so........Maybe i should?
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by the wicked hacker
Re: Facial movements
maybe god was moving your lips?
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Facial movements
LOL. Maybe, but I don't think that was it.
I think it could of been that I was too uptight. 
Sara
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by Celtic Lass
Re: Facial movements
I used to make a lot of facial expressions, and my wife was the one that clued me in. When I checked, I was making some really goofy looking faces, with no idea how I looked. Since then, I try to look like a normal human being. I see this happen with others at jams, and find it pretty funny.
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by nofrets
Re: Facial movements
ive took a couple of videos of myself playing for youtube.
but i discovered that once i get really into a tune, my face starts twitching in an alarming manner...
so i was too mortified to post them.
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by DubChieftain
Re: Facial movements
Celtic we whistlers don't have much choice in the matter LOL
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by Enigma
Re: Facial movements
Just tell them you were "playing in tongues!"
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by atftb
Re: Facial movements
Yes, I do. I find that it gets worse the more tense I am. It looks like I'm mumbling to myself.
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by Murph
Re: Facial movements
Worry about it only if you make facial expressions on purpose. It's one way for your ego to find its outlet. Be honest now!
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Facial movements
I used to drool over my fiddle...
Learned not to do that anymore
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by Fanning
Re: Facial movements
At least not in public.
# Posted on October 21st 2007 by Fanning
Re: Facial movements
ligg!!!!! haha
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by ecidralla
Re: Facial movements
It's nothing really to worry about. It's quite common among solo instrumentalists at all levels right up to the top, and is a side effect of the concentration being put into the playing. Some players are the opposite and have expressionless stone faces while they play - which can be equally disconcerting to the audience ("is the guy really caring about what he's playing?" etc). If you're aware of facial movements when you're playing and try to control them while you're playing that's going to affect your concentration and hence your performance, so ignore it and concentrate even more on the music.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by lazyhound
Re: Facial movements
I've got a viola-playing friend at school who plays classical music. She's a lovely person, and a good violist, but she is constantly gurning when she plays. When she's playing well, she has a look of intense concentration on her face, and at the slightest hiccup, it morphs into an expression of despair mingled with horror, like she's watching an autopsy or something. It's quite fun to watch.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by Joe CSS
Re: Facial movements
I think it might be called "motor overflow":
"Motor overflow refers to the involuntary movements which may accompany the production of voluntary movements. While overflow is not usually seen in the normal population, it does present in children and the elderly, as well as those suffering certain neurological dysfunctions." (Hoy, et al., 2004)
it's often referenced in terms of cognitive or developmental disability, but i think it also applies in a more mild way to people who are focusing intently on some complicated motor activity. it's like your body's focus on the one activity "spills over" into other motor areas, very often the face.
note Michael Jordan when he'd dunk. He wasn't making faces on purpose, I think (could be wrong), he's concentrating really hard.
i tend to stick out my tongue when i play banjo, so maybe I just making up excuses...
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by dirtyheel
Re: Facial movements
Another effect of concentrating when playing music is sub-vocal sounds unconsciously produced by the player. These are not deliberate attempts to sing along with the music but sound like random little moans or groans at the back of the mouth or in the throat. I know one or two people in sessions who do this without realising it, but it's fairly quiet and you have to be sitting almost next to them to notice it.
I think it's due to part of the brain, not being under conscious control, trying to sing the tune but not having any effective control over the vocal chords. An example of this is the famous cellist Pablo Casals (possibly the world's greatest-ever cellist). If you listen to almost any of his recordings you'll hear, perhaps several times in a recording, mysterious cthonic groans. He was quite unaware of it, and presumably the recording producers didn't dare to raise the matter with the great man.
In Casals’s later years, when he was doing more orchestral conducting than cello playing, you could sometimes hear his characteristic groans coming from the direction of the conductor's podium in the quieter bits of the music.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by lazyhound
Re: Facial movements
yea, i do. this guitar player i jam with sometimes laughs at me because my whistle bounces in my lips.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by rob_handel
Re: Facial movements
If you listen closely to recordings of the classical guitarist, Christopher Parkening, you can sometimes hear him groaning involuntarily. I used to have a cat who liked classical guitar music and would sit in front of a speaker grooving on the sound. When Parkening started to groan, the cat would cock his head and talk back to the groaning.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by Bob himself
Re: Facial movements
Of course, Glenn Gould is famous for the vocalising, and there are recordings of John Coltrane where Elvin Jones's drums are augmented by a sort of guttural "ah-ah-ah-ah" in time with the music.
Funny, I'm noticed it before, but never connected it to the involuntary facial tics. Makes sense, though.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Facial movements
Alfred Brendel also. Though he went through an intensive period at the beginning of his career to control it. The argument being that it becomes a feature of the performance and so a distraction to the audience. Though you can still hear him moaning occasionally on close miked recordings, and I do find it distracting.
But as for such top players as Brendel, I'm not convinced it's related to motor function. Yes, when a child or a struggling musician is finding a particular motor function difficult to execute, I can accept the theory of the brain losing control of other motor functions. But the last thing a top player is doing is struggling with technique. They're not gonna be grimacing when they hit a bum note, quite the reverse, they may be grimacing when they play a really good bit.
I reckon the two are far apart, neurologically, as crying when you're in pain, and crying when you're happy.
(I might also mention that because this music is relatively simple as far as motor functions are concerned, it should be relatively simple to progress from the first scenario, where the pain of getting it wrong makes you cry, to the second, where the joy of getting it right makes you cry.)
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Facial movements
When I play the flute, I can often hear an involuntary groaning - trouble is, it's not coming from me ...
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by Ottery
Re: Facial movements
I wish I knew the joy of getting it right. No need to confirm that for me either, Michael.
Affectations are the things to avoid.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Facial movements
My facial expressions are apparently very entertaining (to my friends at least) when I play.
Unless I sing as well - then they're hilarious.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by RockyRoader
Re: Facial movements
Listen to jazz pianist Oscar Peterson's old records, you will hear him mumbling along in the background--if you make faces, mouth words, and otherwise do odd things while you play, you are in good company.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Facial movements
I agree with lazyhound... if you've ever seen footage of Jascha Heifitz, it's almost difficult to watch... to hear a Paganini caprice played by what looks like a pull-string doll is disturbing. The other end of that was a guy that I saw play many years ago named Francis Fortier... he moved around the stage and made such facial expressions that it was uncomfortably distracting... it was like he was having a psychotic fit during Prealudium and Allegro.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by pastrings
Re: Facial movements
My problem is the opposite, lack of movement. Often I'll get deep into a tune and space out a little bit. Before I know it I've gone a wee bit slack-jawed and the saliva starts pooling...
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Facial movements
"Some players are the opposite and have expressionless stone faces while they play" (lazyhound)
- I will never forget Joe CSS's expression when some chaps came up to talk to us while playing on the south bank...truly terrifying :p
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by mehitabel23
Re: Facial movements
I actually find it disconcerting to see players with a 'bored' expression, perhaps they are just being 'cool' but it does make me wonder where the excitement is, I feel its good to be alive, and its one of my biggest pleasures to play trad, and i have no problem with that being reflected in my face, though sometimes i wish i didn't involuntarily hum along!
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by the wicked hacker
Re: Facial movements
Joe that reminds me of a lass who played violin at my secondary school but instead if gurning she had the look of someone who's eyes were capable of boring holes through a brick wall...very scary. Very intense facial expression!
And Mehitabel23 what does "nkosi sikelel'afrika!" mean?...it interrupted the swarbrick gig lol though my phone thankfully was on silent..unlike the more drunk members of the audience that night!
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by D.J.F.
Re: Facial movements
Does anyone actually smile? I'll smile and smile and smile...
Until I realize everyone else has their eyes closed or is doing the real serious face, and I give up, thus leading to the dreaded spaced-out slack-jaw, not to be confused with the "I'm too cool to enjoy myself" bored/serious look.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Facial movements
It doesn't bother me a bit. I actually am more entertained by the oddities. If Glenn Gould wasn't humming an apparently different tune or tapping his foot out of time, it wouldn't be the same for me. Oscar Peterson cracks me up, I wish I could hear more of what he is singing. Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg makes great contortions, sometimes she looks possessed. I liked her much better after seeing her play for the first time. I have a classical album where the mic is so close you can hear every breath of the violinist on the quieter pieces. I find it interesting to hear where he stops to breathe.
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by monkey440
Re: Facial movements
Interesting point there about breathing points adding to the experience of listening. I love to listen to Mary Black singing "No Frontiers" on "Bringing It All Back Home." You can hear every intake of breath. Bloody sexy, if you ask me.
She was a lot younger then, mind, as indeed was I!
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Facial movements
It means "Lord, Bless Africa"
It's the first line of the South African national anthem. In an attempt to p*ss off my very sporty rugby fanatic father, me and my South African friend painted our faces with the flag and spent the day singing the anthem, from beginning to end. Luckily, South Africa won, and my annoyed dad went to the pub, and I texted him, and unfortunately the words "Dad" and "Dan" look quite similar, considering that I am blind in one eye.
Blame Dan Foster for hijacking the thread!
# Posted on October 22nd 2007 by mehitabel23