Genre: The Performance

This encompasses the performance and everything that goes into it - the piano, the player, the music, and anyone that might be listening. As the performance may change depending on who is playing, what they’re playing, where, on what piano, and who they’re playing for, so may the genre of writing depend on its audience, purpose, rhetor, etc.

 

Tools/Writing Itself: The Entire Piano

The entire piano represents the tools. What is a pianist's performance without the piano? Likewise, what is a piece of writing without tools like language, thought, and writing itself? As the piano is the means to communicate the music, writing is the means to communicate thought. The piano itself can also be out of tune, which negatively affects the performance. In the same way, tools/skills may be “out of tune” (like a writer having a small vocabulary, therefore repeating the same words too many times, or someone not knowing rules of good grammar or spelling), therefore negatively affecting the entire piece of writing. Out-of-tune pianos represent tools and skills which can be worked on or perfected.

 

Reflection and Metacognition: Hammers and Strings

As the hammers and strings work hand in hand, dependent on each other, so do reflection and metacognition. Neither the hammers nor the strings alone can create the sound of the piano, even with the pianist. The hammers need something to hit and the strings need something to hit them - they are dependent on each other. In order to improve a piece of writing, one must figure out how to improve (using metacognition). To find how, one must reflect, or look for where they can improve. But this reflection is worthless if the writer can’t actually recognize where to improve when they come across it, utilizing metacognition, and then know how to improve it.

 

Revision: The Sound

The hammers and the strings work together to create the sound, as do reflection and metacognition to create revision. As music cannot be created without sound, effective writing cannot be created without revision. Revision (the sound) is dependent on reflection and metacognition (the hammer and strings) which are part of the overall tools/writing itself (the piano).

 

It’s important to note that sound can be created, but doesn’t always sound good (notes that don’t sound good together, etc.). In the same way, revisions can be made to writing, but won’t necessarily make the writing better. To make the writing good, you need to make good, correct revisions that enhance the work rather than take away from it.

 

Context/Purpose: The Music

In a performance, the music dictates the style of the playing. Music from different periods should be played following specific rules about dynamics or trills, as well as being more articulated or more legato, stricter or more lenient with the time signature, etc. according to the time period and the exact piece. For example, playing the average Chopin piece like you would a Bach fugue, even if you played all the notes correctly, would result in a terrible Chopin performance. The audience would not leave with a good understanding of Chopin’s intentions for the piece.

 

Similarly, the context and purpose of a certain piece of writing dictates its style (formal vs informal, specific word choices, structure of the piece, etc.). For example, when writing an email to your boss asking for time off, you will want to be much more formal than if you were texting a close friend. We follow certain standards for writing according to the purpose of our writing.

 

Also, whenever you are hitting keys on a piano, you are making some kind of music, or at least sound, even if it isn’t pretty. In the same way, no matter what writing you are doing, it always has some sort of context or purpose, even if you don’t know explicitly what it is.

 

Prior Knowledge/Biases/Personal Experience: The Specific Piano

Even if the different parts of a piano are all essentially the same (strings, hammers, pedals, keys, soundboard, etc.), how they are put together and how they are specifically made according to the rules of each brand greatly affects how they function (Steinway vs. Yamaha, uprights vs. grands). In the same way, different writers may use the same tools, but personal experience could change how those tools are actually used (students with more practice writing could probably create better writing faster than those with less experience, those who always use correct grammar will not have to overcome that obstacle later in their writing, etc.).

 

As each different piano can very much affect its sound and feel, so does a person’s prior knowledge and experience affect their writing. This can be either good or bad. For example, a Steinway grand positively affects the performance, making almost any player sound good and also making it feel easier for the pianist to play. On the other hand, a Yamaha upright will not sound or feel nearly as nice to the pianist, and therefore to the audience either. Comparatively, a person with extensive knowledge on a certain subject may find it easy to write about that topic, and will be more likely to create better writing about it (before acquiring new knowledge on the topic) than someone with less or incorrect knowledge on it. Bias could be considered bad knowledge on a topic because it usually exists prior to knowing all the facts.

 

 

Rhetor/Audience: The Pianist

What is a performance without someone to perform? Likewise, a piece of writing is always written by someone. The pianist brings their own voice to a piece of music, and a writer to any piece of writing. Also, since a pianist may just be performing for themselves, they also represent the audience. A pianist must be constantly listening to themselves performing, deciding what to do differently in their playing as they go along. Their own taste as their own audience may dictate how they play certain things. If I personally like songs that are more lyrical and passionate, I may translate that over into any type of music, even those that don’t particularly call for it.

 

However, the audience is also anyone else who may be listening. When pianists are performing, they are demonstrating a piece to the audience. The audience does not know what the piece sounded like the millions of times we practiced it, even if we played it better one of those times than during the actual performance. They only know what we play that time. In the same way, a reader does not know your thoughts, they only know what you write down your thoughts to be. So both the pianist and the writer must carefully consider the audience to ensure that they are giving the impression they wish to give with either the music or the writing.

 

Acquired Knowledge: Practice

A pianist can perform a song after looking it over only a few times, never really practicing it, but it’s a terrible idea. They won’t be familiar enough with the piece to give a good impression of the music. Similarly, a writer can throw something together without any acquired knowledge, but they probably won’t be familiar enough with the topic to make a convincing or effective piece of writing. The more and better practice a pianist gets, the better they can communicate the music in a performance; and the more and better knowledge a person acquires on a subject, generally, the better they will be able to communicate their thoughts on that subject through writing. Though a performance is possible without practice, and writing is possible without any sort of acquired knowledge, neither will be as good as they could be with those things.