ABSTRACT

“Phrase-storming,” the author’s term, is the musical equivalent of brain-storming in order to generate and explore interpretive ideas and nuances. The practice-without the word-was described or practiced by Galamian, Lhévinne, and Eugène Ysaÿe. The value of this practice lines up nicely with the findings of a 1976 publication by J. W. Getzels and M. Csikszentmihalyi entitled The Creative Vision: A Longitudinal Study of Problem Finding in Art (New York: Wiley). High-level creative problems are more discovered than given. If one is only trying to solve a problem given by others, interesting areas outside the defined problem won’t be seen.

The rise of literalism in music performance, something that was documented as early as 1911 by Ferruccio Busoni in his Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, has fostered a preoccupation with technical accuracy at the expense of the cultivation of artistic vision. When artistic values are considered, they are often approached through imitation, either of an admired artist or a teacher. Both of these, however, require no decision-making, which itself is an act that requires practice.

Chapter 8 explores how to embrace exploration, experimentation, and playfulness once the technical exigencies of a work have been mastered. These can release a spark of creative intuition, which in turn can connect with a body of knowledge, experience, and skill. The richer these are, the richer the possibility of high-level creative and artistic expression.