"Can you play it a little less angry?"

One thing I have been working with my students on is playing lead sheets (ie. right hand playing the melody line and the left hand playing chords to accompany). One student is learning his first lead sheet for "Are You Sleeping." It's a good first lead sheet, by the way. Repeated patterns in the melody line and only two chords for the left hand to keep track of. Anyway, after he figured out the melody line and played the chords, he was putting both hands together. When he was playing the chords, it was super loud and all the notes were somewhat disconnected from each other and loud. All correct, just loud. So I asked him, "Can you play it a little less angry?" "What?" So I demonstrated what I was hearing while singing in an angry way: "WAKE UP RIGHT NOW! WAKE UP RIGHT NOW! 'CAUSE YOU SNORE!..." After a good laugh, he tried again and played it in a much calmer (and quieter) manner. This story is meant to illustrate that correct notes at the correct times does not equal a correct interpretation. "Are You Sleeping" is not an angry song, but it can come across that way. We need to listen to ourselves play and adapt what we hear to serve the purpose of the music. Notes on a page or translated to pitches and rhythms are not what makes music. The interpretation is the music. Interestingly, following everything it says on the page, will guide you correct interpretation, but it's your ear that will tell you if you are interpreting correctly.