If you are playing repertoire material, you're stuck. There's not huge amounts you can do.
According to USA today, the average length of an attention span of a man in America is 23 minutes.
If a professional musician in a symphony orchestra is playing Beethoven. But this particular orchestra have played this particular chestnut so many times, they can play it in their sleep. Does the genius remain present in the music or not?
The spoken form is in fact a very restrained representation of what is possible in the musical language.
So, you can set up an orchestra down this end of the railway station playing one particular area, and simultaneously at the other end something completely different going on. And in the middle they meet, or not, depending.
I recommend my students not to be professional unless they really have to be. I tell them, 'If you love music, sell Hoovers or be a plumber. Do something useful with your life.'
