When “Serious” Music Changes How We Play
Recently I worked with a conductor who was preparing Bach chorales for a DMA choral conducting audition—and something surprising happened when he sat down at the piano.
As a high school choir director in a strong music program, he had years of experience using the piano to lead chorus rehearsals.
Yet when he sat down to play a Bach chorale, something changed. He began to struggle—it seemed that he was trying to become a pianist rather than a choral conductor who used the piano as a tool every day.
After talking for a few minutes, I learned that he changed his approach because Bach felt like “serious music.”
Bach is certainly intricate, but this musician’s respect for his compositions led him to discount the skills that he used in his work every day, instead of using them to his advantage.
In a chorus rehearsal, it’s impractical to try to play every note on the page. Instead, we need to move fluidly from part to part, playing whatever the singers in front of us need at that moment. Sometimes that means outlining harmonies. Sometimes it means emphasizing a single line. The approach is flexible and responsive to what we hear.
In our lesson, we used that same approach with the Bach chorales. Instead of trying to play everything at once, we focused on the harmonic structure. We worked on clearly outlining the harmonic rhythm—noticing when chords changed and how they moved. Once that underlying structure was solid, it became much easier for this student to add in more notes.
We then added a real-life scenario–I asked him to play as if the basses were having trouble. He immediately played clear harmonies with the bass line voiced over them.
What struck me most was how quickly things changed. Once his mindset shifted, we were finished with the chorales in about twenty minutes.
He realized that he didn’t need to practice more notes—he needed to practice a strategy.
With that clarity, even a short daily practice session can be extremely effective.
We don’t need to change our approach to the music when we have a performance or an audition coming up, but we so often do. Here was a musician who already had the skills needed for the task, yet he assumed they weren’t appropriate for “serious” repertoire.
I’ve felt this myself, especially during my years in school. I had experiences as an athlete and as a church musician that could have supported my musical development, yet I treated them as irrelevant—or worse, something to keep quiet. Somewhere along the way, I absorbed the idea that only a narrow set of behaviors counted as legitimate musicianship.
What is it about serious music that makes us feel as though we need to subtract ourselves from it—when we’re the very thing the music needs?
I have deep reverence for Bach and many other composers, but I’ve learned that when I remove myself from the equation, the music suffers. I can’t imagine that was ever the intention. More often, it feels as though the music is asking us to engage more fully, not less.
This lesson reminded me how powerful a shift in mindset can be. If this conductor had held onto the belief that Bach required an entirely different version of himself at the piano, no amount of extra practice would have helped. But by allowing himself to use what he already knew, the task became manageable—and he played quite musically.
It makes me curious about where else we might do the same. For years, I approached French repertoire with a great amount of tension, treating it like something fragile that might break if I touched it the wrong way.
I wonder what would happen if I returned to that music with a different mindset.
For me, this experience connects closely with the Alexander Technique. My AT practice isn’t about adding something new, but about noticing how I may be interfering with what already works—much like this conductor, who already had the skills he needed.
When you play certain repertoire, do you leave parts of yourself behind? And is that helpful—or does it interfere with your strengths? Let me know in the comments below.
If you’d like to explore this kind of approach further, you’re welcome to download my free PDF for piano teachers.