Musical expression is the art of playing music with communication. The elements of music that comprise expression include dynamic indications, forte or piano, phrasing, differing qualities of touch and articulation, color, intensity, energy and excitement all at the service of the composer's intention as best perceived by the performer.
A performer aims to elicit responses of sympathetic feeling in the audience, and to excite, calm or otherwise manipulate the audience's physical and emotional responses. In a great artist, one can feel that it is the soul that is speaking, in lesser artists, the ego. In non-artist performances, one can sometimes sense the soul of the composer in the absence of interpretation.
Expression can be closely related to breath, and the voice's natural ability to express feelings, sentiment, deep emotions. Whether these can somehow be categorized is perhaps the realm of academics, who view expression as an element of musical performance which embodies a consistently recognizable emotion, ideally causing a sympathetic emotional response in its listeners. The emotional content of musical expression is distinct from the emotional content of specific sounds (e.g., a startlingly-loud 'bang') and of learned associations (e.g., a national anthem), but can rarely be completely separated from its context.
The components of musical expression continue to be the subject of extensive and unresolved dispute.
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