Three Steps of Music Interpretation

There are three steps to teaching high-level music interpretation.

Step 1. Teach students to accurately read music notation and reproduce faithfully all of the minutiae of a score or part.

Step 2. Explain to students that all of the magic of music-making comes in the subtle ways in which we deviate from the score. Rhythms made fuzzy, pitches tuned to the cent, tempos consistent but also flexible, cutoffs lengthened or shortened by mere milliseconds.

Step 3. Outlive frustration.