Music as kinesthetic energy

Mark Dannenbring reminded me once the concept of experiencing music kinesthetically. It's true that actually, I'd characterize my interpretational style as a combination of employing imagery and feeling a sense of energy or motion.

Imagery is something easier and quicker to grasp. Energy, however, is more abstract and also, everyone feels differently. Some people feel more, some less, but when is it too much this way or too little the other way? This is why, for example, that a key element in chamber music is finding people who feel similarly. 

Pedagogically speaking, imagery is a good place to begin if someone is not that far yet in their development, but ultimately, one needs to feel the movement in order to complete the picture. (pun very much intended!) Art is always about going beyond the natural boundaries of that discipline. A photo is a flat, motionless object, nowadays even mostly virtual. Yet a good photo can express movement, depth, a subject can be jumping out of the frame. Music is no different, as a congregation of sounds is indeed a manifestation of energy, often subtle forms of energy.

On top of that, each musical style has a different energy "wavelength". And this is part of our training as musicians - to be in accord with that wavelength, to speak that particular language, all expressed through our unique self.