Performing arts: brain vs. heart

Which one do you create with?

Ever since the time when I began to mature in my artistic life, I have often thought about this question. Do performing artists reach their purest and highest-quality performances with their hearts, or with their brains? In the process of practicing, how do these two contribute? How do artists who can use both manage to do so? Is one superior to the other?

As artists, if we cannot put our hearts into our work, it is impossible to touch the souls of those who watch, listen to, or read our art - whether in the performing arts or in the creative process itself.

But something produced only by feeling, or simply because that is what we felt like doing in the moment, risks falling apart and collapsing if it is not supported by a framework that has been carefully built beforehand and continuously strengthened.

So how should we practice? How can we develop these two qualities within ourselves? Or how can we bring more of our heart into our work without ignoring the theoretical knowledge we have already acquired? As a violinist, I will approach this through the performing arts - but I believe it applies to all branches of art.

Working with the Brain

For us professional classical music performers, from the very beginning of our education there is always a teacher standing beside us. Instrument teachers already have a difficult task, but the task of this first teacher is even more demanding: since our musical brain in the early stages is not yet capable of standing on its own feet, the teacher must patiently demonstrate not only theoretical knowledge but also the motor-skill side of the craft, constantly correct our mistakes, and gradually instill in us the discipline and love of practice that will allow us to improve ourselves even in their absence.

Over time, we begin to gain the ability to control and refine technical skills such as our posture and how we hold the instrument. In this way, our brain gradually starts to take over the role that our teacher once fulfilled. The motor skills we acquire become automated, and we begin to build the bricks of our artistry upon a stable foundation.

In the later stages of our education, our teacher also begins to train us in correct phrasing and stylistic awareness of different musical periods. These aspects are directly connected to the technical side of the work, and a good teacher can show you how they are done. But an even better teacher will explain why they are done - by establishing cause-and-effect relationships, drawing connections, and providing examples. In other words, rather than catching the fish for you, they try to give you the skill to catch it yourself. If you have a teacher who approaches art and performance in such a holistic way, you are truly fortunate.

Beyond all this, two important qualities must develop in an artist: artistic independence and simultaneously, the ability to take in other artistic inputs. Although these may sound contradictory, they actually support one another and can coexist within the same artist - but perhaps that is a topic for another time.

At a certain point, your logic and knowledge - both theoretical and practical - reach a level where they can sustain themselves. Eventually, you begin to use your own wings. You may find yourself trying to understand the phrases in a new Mozart sonata, the differences between articulation techniques (for example, between staccato and keil), how the slurs in a Bach partita should be played, or realizing that the ricochet passages in a Paganini caprice have become automated motor skills.

The Heart

Now imagine that you want the art you produce to affect people deeply. You do not want merely to spread your wings and take short flights over the city - you want to rise truly high, to see and experience what lies beyond the atmosphere, and to be able to tell the audience about what you have seen. Can this be done solely with the theoretical knowledge you have accumulated over the years?

This is where the artist’s heart enters the picture. A work - or a performance - produced only through theoretical knowledge and logic is not enough to touch the souls of those who come to experience your art.

You also need your heart.

Our number one task as performers should be to deliver whatever the music itself is expressing to the listener in the purest and most unadulterated form possible. Of course, as performers, the education we have received, the school of playing we belong to, our personal life experiences, and our artistic personality will inevitably form a filter through which the music passes. Music cannot exist without the performer, so the performer is also part of the equation. However, our filter should not distort the essence of the music; on the contrary, it should enrich it.

At our core, we are all the same as human beings. Therefore, as artists, we must first learn how to descend into the depths of our own hearts if we wish to touch the hearts of others. To achieve this, we must not lose our connection with ourselves. We must keep the childlike spirit within us alive and strong, and learn how to protect it from the interruptions that may come from the outside world. Every great artist I know possesses this quality in one way or another. Take, for example, the great Turkish violinist Ayla Erduran, whom we lost in January of this year. Even in her advanced age, she managed to preserve that pure and creative spirit within her. The art of many others whom I unfortunately never had the chance to meet reflects the same quality.

Only in this way can we truly understand what the music wishes to express and become a pure bridge between the music and the listener. Of course, in order to do this, there must first be sufficient credit accumulated in the “bank of effort” in which we have invested for many years.

“In the sublime music of Mozart or Beethoven, you cannot separate spirit and intellect. The ideal is their coexistence.” - Anne-Sophie Mutter