While rubato is often loosely taken to mean playing with expressive and rhythmic freedom, it was traditionally used specifically in the context of expression as speeding up and then slowing down the tempo. In the past, expressive and free playing (beyond only rubato) was often associated with the terms "ad libitum". Rubato, even when not notated, is often used liberally by musicians, e.g. singers frequently use it intuitively to let the tempo of the melody expressively shift slightly and freely above that of the accompaniment.

This intuitive shifting leads to rubato's main effect: making music sound expressive and natural. Nineteenth century composer-pianist Frédéric Chopin is often mentioned in the context of rubato (see Chopin's technique and performance style and his adaptation of the bel canto idiom).

1) You need technical skills to be able to express whatever you want with the piece. Don't let a lack of technical skills make you substitute another way of expressing the music: You need a strong foundation of technical skills to be able to express whatever you desire
2) Listen to a lot of music so that you learn how you want to shape a music and the tone quality you want to produce
Try to sing out each phrases to ensure it all makes sense with the way you want to shape a phrase
3) Be able to recognize and pinpoint the beginning, loudest point and ending point of every single phrases in music
4) Do a small cresc and diminuendo to shape a phrase unless it is specified with dynamic signs such as sforzando, accent, etc
5)Ensure to end phrases with the wrist-float off technique
6) keep working on sound-making by using wrist rotation (How much you need to turn wrist) how quickly relax after stressing, how much arm weight should be needed or forearm movement you will apply
7) Legato touch, Natural shaping; keep working on how to decrease and increase arm weight gradually by doing the exercise that I introduced in the video. Learn the technique to control dynamic skillfully in order to create various musical colors and to avoid unwanted accents or bumps in your playing . Achieve goals of producing colorful tone quality and smooth legato playing
8) Rubato: Tasteful and Natural Rubato not heavy or fake (unnatural)
9) Articulations and Various touches
10) Legato Fingering helps playing in Legato touch: Finger Substitutions
11) Do a mental practice to develop your musical ideas


Session 9 2/1 How to Play Expressively
Session 9 2/2 How to Use Pedal Masterfully
Session 10 How Relaxing Affects on Sound-Making
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