The Musician’s Face

Before I could graduate from college, I had to perform my Senior Recital. The only family members who came to it were my brother and his wife. My brother’s comment afterward was that I was making a funny face while I played.

There are NO pretty faces while blowing an oboe. It is physically impossible to look attractive while doing so. You must contort your face so mightily to get that embouchure, the open throat and raised palate, and the diaphragm set to get that air column pressurized and controlled just right. It’s not a funny face. It’s an ugly face. Bassoon players look funny. It’s a slightly different embouchure for that double reed.

Even if you don’t play a wind instrument, chances are, you are making faces while you play. You are making faces while you sing, too. Your body might have to sit or stand just so, but your face is going to be acting out all the emotions your body cannot.

I watched a video of Itzhak Perlman playing John Williams’s theme for Shindler’s List. Sitting there in his chair, violin tucked under his chin, his eyebrows were dancing above his closed eyes; his mouth and cheeks were twitching while his instrument sang in a voice his vocal cords could never duplicate. Yet, it was his voice. He made it his song, his soulful cry. Not only is the music inside the musician, but the musician is inside the music.

That’s about all I have to say about it. A musician is not just a technician placing his fingers in the right places or blowing wind through some wood or metal tubing. The instrument, whether piano, tuba, string bass, or piccolo, is his voice. And if the music is worthy, he is singing to heaven his wordless, but meaningful song. The words are written on his face, and if he is swaying in his seat, his soul is also dancing.