January 27th, 2010
I’m visiting for a few days at my friend and colleague Jens Schlichting’s studio near Heidelberg where I will be giving a master class next month (last weekend in February). He’s been telling me about some of the posts on one of the German piano forums which are rather amusing. Apparently there has been a big kafuffle because I say in my film that monkeys cannot oppose their thumbs, but actually some of them can. Some people on this forum are ready to dismiss my whole approach because I got that one detail wrong. Some ask why am I talking about monkeys at all because monkeys obviously have nothing to do with playing piano!
Actually, whether the statement is accurate or not, I said it to make a valid point – that thumb opposition is a key hand function, and that although it doesn’t appear to apply to piano technique (the keyboard is flat, how could you grasp it?), the function is actually present virtually all the time we play.
Finally one scientist wrote in with a detailed list: many monkeys can’t oppose their thumbs at all, some can to a certain extent – one species can oppose 17 degrees, another 28 degrees, another 35… but none of them can do as much as humans. He was really great, extremely precise and complete in his account. So as it turns out, I was indeed more or less right when I said it in the film!
Jens also mentioned his gym teacher who told him to “grasp the parallel bars not like monkeys, thumb and fingers together, but to oppose the thumb.” Again, whether monkeys can oppose or not, they do use their hands differently in one of their fundamental actions…
Fun and games…
I am reminded of a similar “missing the point” in a couple of emails from pianists who’ve said, “When I rotate my hand sideways I can’t stretch an octave, my hand is too small!” And I’ve had to spell it out for them in my response: “Yes, but could you reach a larger interval than you can with your fingers splayed horizontally the way we usually do?”
Oh yeah!
How about that?
AFF
Tags: classical piano technique, craft of piano method, craft of piano playing, Feldenkrais & Piano, piano forum, thumb and piano technique
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December 20th, 2009
The other day one of my students who is by now already VERY familiar with all my ideas about hand activation, structural function etc, brought me Chopin Op. 10 #5 (the Black Key etude) and yet again he had no real sound, the playing was uneven, his thumb chronically raised and tense. I obviously needed another strategy to help him get what he already knows.
I squatted down on my haunches and started trying to walk around the room – with some difficulty of course. I told him, “This is your fingers on the keyboard.” I then very slowly and dramatically straightened my legs to raise myself to full height. “This is what they need to do as they play. On each and every note your finger should feel this inside it.”
He instantly got it. His sound improved, the musical flow suddenly had a sparkling, vivacious regularity and verve, and his hands suddenly looked capable.
I reinforced the visual image by standing near a wall, beginning to lean towards it until I was falling towards it, then catching myself by sticking my arm out against the wall and straightening it to push myself upright again. I was like a pendulum but with my feet attached to the floor and my upper body swinging, my arm pushing against the wall each time to swing me upright.
This image helps because it is more fluid – I’m not continuously attached to the object I’m pushing against, but refresh the feeling of ‘push’ each time I come into contact with it. Perhaps this is a little closer to the state of affairs in our fingers as we play…
I told him not to play fast for now but to only go as quickly as he could while maintaining this tangible inner ‘feel’ of standing up on each note, of pushing up from the key bottom on each attack. This was great because it stopped him feeling that his attacks were physically ‘down’ into each key; instead each attack became filled with a vital ‘up’ feeling. The ‘down’ generally contains an insidious hidden collapse; the ‘up’ effectively prevents any such thing happening.
I never said a word about his chronic raised thumb, which I have focused on previously. I picked that particular strategy because it seemed to resonate with his self-experience, how he experiences himself as he plays… We’ll see if it bears fruit!
AFF
Tags: classical piano technique, craft of piano method, Feldenkrais & Piano, hand arches and piano technique, lumbricals in piano technique, piano lessons, piano pedagogy, piano teaching, Piano Technique, thumb and piano technique
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December 16th, 2009
I was given a graphic lesson the other day in just how crucial sheer strength is to a well-developed piano technique. Kemal Gekic was trying out the pianos for his recital on Monday in Novi Sad, and he asked me to play a bit because it was difficult to decide between an old Steinway that had a noble but tired sound and a new Kawai that had a beautiful set of upper partials but somehow sounded like a toy beside the Steinway.
I played a few things that he had tried so he could hear the repertoire in question and I realized quite quickly that although I played well, with a differentiated, well-orchestrated sound that had real buzz and shimmer in it, my sound simply was about half the volume of his. I attempted to jack up the volume and quickly found my hand scrambling to maintain its optimal organization. There was a tendency to return to a less sophisticated hand in the attempt to squeeze more sheer volume out of the instrument though I knew that in fact the more sophisticated hand would do a better job.
It was nice to have a practical situation in which the necessity to integrate quickly what I have been cultivating lately was literally forced upon me!
By the way, interestingly enough he picked the Kawai and played one of the most wonderful recitals I have heard from him over the years. An incredible plethora of colours and expressive worlds, no forcing, no overblown statements and yet incredibly daring in the way he would stretch a phrase to make a point.
AFF
Tags: alan fraser, classical piano, craft of piano method, Kemal Gekic, piano performance, Piano Technique
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December 10th, 2009
I just received an email telling me about this video on Feldenkrais method.
http://thewgbhlab.org/nova_video/nova-becoming-true-human-being
I watched it, and it got me thinking about things. As there was space for comments underneath, I ended up adding my own, which I offer you here as well…
“After the first year of my Feldenkrais training (1988) I remember feeling, ‘Now I am mySELF; I wasn’t before, but I didn’t know it.’ I was significantly more human and have continued to become so through my years of working with Feldenkrais. This means that I run less on automatic. I am more aware of what I do and how I do it. I am more in control (but not more ‘controlled’ in the negative sense). Chronic patterns of anxiety and physical tension (Moshe called them ‘parasitic contractions’) have melted away, leaving me more capable to ACT in life instead simply manifest the end result of a bunch of habits – of thought, movement and feeling. I am more aware of those around me.
‘The human body has an incredibly sophisticated design which allows us to stand fully erect on only two legs, the only mammals that do so. When we do this well, we are in ‘unstable equilibrium,’ balanced and fluid rather than held stiffly upright. The skeleton does most of the work, leaving the muscles free for movement and fine adjustment. Unstable equilibrium also evokes a particular state in our brain – the vast contrast between points of excitation and inhibition is reduced, and we are more harmonious neurologically. Most of us unfortunately live far removed from this ideal state, and Moshe Feldenkrais devised his method to help humanity return to its birthright, to become fully human through a process I call ‘primordial learning.’
‘The sense of being fully human has a physiological basis, and I know of no other method that cultivates this so overtly or effectively as the Feldenkrais method. Yes, Feldenkrais has many practical applications, improving the work of dancers, actors, athletes, stroke victims and many others – and helping me personally to develop a whole new approach to piano technique. But it is this basic capacity to make us more fully human that I see as the Method’s greatest benefit.”
Alan Fraser
Tags: Feldenkrais & Piano
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November 12th, 2009
I recently asked a student to watch the Horowitz silent movie of Chopin’s Etude Op 10 #8 in F major
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbq-laOlYbc&feature=PlayList&p=E92A23B073119C01&index=18 )
and then imitate his movements. This was a very revealing exercise. Horowitz ‘cocks’ his fourth finger and then has it vigorously strike into the key as his hand goes over the thumb in the descending passages. His wrist stays virtually even. It looks like there’s an undulation of hand, wrist and arm but this actually only occurs as a passive result of the vigorous finger activity.
My student however took the visible undulation to be the main element, and left his fingers, especially the all-important fourth, virtually inert. This was of course this student’s classic habit, the one of which I have been trying to cure him for years. I was struck by the degree to which his habitual pianistic self-image overrode the perception of what Horowitz was actually doing, and rendered this potentially rich learning situation barren.
When I pointed out what he had done, and guided him to eventually really do what the film shows – THAT was real learning. What a change in his sound and his sense of capability!
AFF
Tags: adult piano, adult piano instruction, adult piano lessons, classical piano, classical piano technique, craft of piano method, craft of piano playing, Feldenkrais & Piano, honing the pianistic self image, piano and the body, piano lessons, piano pedagogy, piano performance, piano teaching, Piano Technique, Vladimir Horowitz
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November 7th, 2009
This week I have had the unexpected pleasure of a few days in Montreal, my home town, and the even greater pleasure of meeting with my old mentor Phil Cohen. He gave me a lesson and it was an exciting refresher course in everything he planted in me all those years ago. Many things were clearer to me now than then.
Phil has unique ways of thinking about and experiencing music performance, and transmitting that way in his lessons. The lessons look like physical choreography lessons at the keyboard. They make you feel like a total beginner again (some don’t like this). It’s like learning to walk all over again. But if you examine these choreographies more closely, the hidden musical intention begins to come to light.
Phil is always honing in on a musical aspect of a phrase: a rhythmic impulse point, the direction of the phrase, its peak, its resolution – how do you reach that peak, through one long line building to it or through a series of lilts upward? But instead of speaking only in those terms, he goes on, with his vision, to show you a choreography that exactly produces the desired musical phenomenon.
Many now speak about choreography but in all my travels worldwide I have never come across someone who does it with this particular brand of sophistication, exactitude and elegance. It’s Phil’s own unique expression of a highly refined musical intelligence, and to me it’s gold.
A lot of what I do in my own teaching and writing grows out of my years of experience with Phil. You could say mine is a watered-down version of his work, or you could see my work as an attempt to de-mystify what he does. I think I lose something in the process, but I also might reach many people who may be put off by the esoteric, looking-for-a-needle-in-a-haystack aspects of his brilliance.
In any case, it’s a rare privilege for me to have a few precious hours with the master, a humbling and inspiring experience.
AFF
Tags: classical piano technique, craft of piano playing, honing the pianistic self image, piano instruction, piano lessons, piano pedagogy, piano performance, piano teaching, Piano Technique
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October 24th, 2009
Some of the simplest tasks are the most effective. The 3rd movement opening of Moonlight sonata, a student plays each 4-note 16th group with the standard “arm out to the side” movement to shape the group. But this pulls her thumb off the board so it’s not ready to play the first note of the next group. Then the arm movement she does make to play the next thumb note is so big that her thumb feels no need to work on its own, and becomes inert.
I kill two birds with one stone by having her play the first five notes very quickly and overhold the last two. try that now: play G#-C#-E-G#-C# and hold on to your fifth finger G# while standing firmly on your thumb C#. The two outside digits of your hand make pylons that stand your hand right up like a bridge. The movement was so quick that your arm had no time to do its normal garbage but went straight to the goal. It moved your thumb in towards the backboard instead of pulling it away. And the arrival on the thumb’s C# was so sudden that it galvanizes your thumb into potent activity. The thumb really moves to save itself from collapsing!
One more thing: I noticed my student moving her thumb mostly from the middle joint. When I told her the joint from which the thumb should move is at the wrist, this helped it immediately become effective in its action.
Voila, problem solved – I wish they were all that easy!
AFF
Tags: adult piano, adult piano instruction, adult piano lessons, alan fraser, classical piano, classical piano technique, craft of piano method, craft of piano playing, Feldenkrais & Piano, finger curling and piano technique, hand arches and piano technique, honing the pianistic self image, Horowitz, Horowitz Steinway, interosseous and piano technique, legato in piano technique, lumbricals in piano technique, Misha Dacic, piano and the body, piano performance, Piano Technique, Skeletal piano technique, the craft of piano playing, thumb and piano technique, Vladimir Horowitz
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October 19th, 2009
Awhile back I wrote about my experiences on the Horowitz Steinway – I am happy to announce that a couple of clips are now up and running on YouTube. For instance there’s
Mozart sonata K. 283, 2nd movement Andante
… or this one,
Chopin’s slow, elegiac A minor Mazurka
It was interesting to watch myself, to see to what extent I ‘do what I say,’ and to what extent I do something else. One of the main reasons I developed my approach was to solve my own set of bad habits – on the Horowitz Steinway you can see me instinctively reducing those habits to a minimum. I overmove a lot less than usual – I HAD to reduce it to gain the finest control over the instrument. But there are still some moves that, if reduced further, internalized more, would open up the finesse of my phrasing even more.
As a work in progress, these clips fascinate me… I hope that musically they will please you.
AFF
Tags: adult piano, adult piano instruction, adult piano lessons, alan fraser, classical piano, classical piano technique, craft of piano method, craft of piano playing, Feldenkrais & Piano, hand arches and piano technique, Horowitz Steinway, piano and the body, piano forum, piano instruction, piano lessons, piano pedagogy, piano performance, piano teaching, Piano Technique, Skeletal piano technique, Vladimir Horowitz
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September 16th, 2009
I am in Miami at present, editing a pretty amazing set of Chopin etudes that Kemal recorded last June in Japan. We got to talking about bench height the other day and he mentioned a new reason for sitting low (which we all love to do). To make the hand’s arch function easily and efficiently on the keyboard, it doesn’t make sense that one side of the arch be horizontal (the hand itself – the metacarpals) while the other be almost vertical (the fingers). Cocking the hand back allows the two sides of the arch to be more equal – if you do it you’ll notice that the fingers instantly move more easily. However, the “cocking” motion itself can create strain – it requires a certain effort. This effort is reduced if the elbow is lower than the keyboard. The forearm now slopes down to the elbow and the hand, even if it is parallel to the forearm instead of being cocked back, already has this slant down from the metacarpal-phalangeal joints to the wrist. Voila, you have the arch available to you without having to cultivate it!
Kemal also mentioned to me the necessity of building the arch of the fifth finger. For years he let the hand lie more “naturally,” that is, with the fifth metacarpal-phalangeal joint slightly lower than the second metacarpal-phalangeal, because this allows the fifth freer movement. However, to get really great voicings in chords it is necessary to build up the angle of the fifth finger to the hand, to build it to a full 90 degrees. This actually necessitates stiffening it slightly, thus reducing its overall moveability. But what you gain in richness and variety of voicing, not only of the top voice but of the inner voices of a chord as well, makes the sacrifice worthwhile.
More later!
AFF
Tags: alan fraser, classical piano, craft of piano method, feldenkrasi & piano, honing the pianistic self image, piano, the craft of piano playing
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August 29th, 2009
Originally posted September 27th, 2007
That’s right… As you sit and read this, move one knee slightly forward. You may notice that it is impossible to do it without a slight movement of the pelvis as well. Lately as I have returned to some thorny passages that over the years have obstinately refused to become easy to play, I notice that although I have cultivated a non-collapsed hand for years, somehow somewhere in there, there still exists some insidious form of micro-collapse. I also notice that as this collapse is happening, I cannot rock my pelvis. I have fallen into Arnold Schultz’s idea of stabilizing the hip joints to provide a fulcrum to the levers higher up the body.
If I overtly rock my pelvis the movement tends to be too big – it disturbs rather than enlightens. But if I attend to the moveability of my knee, it helps my pelvis stay free and moveable without my overtly moving it. So as your hand comes into the keyboard, let your knee ease forward a tiny amount, literally a millimeter or two… Does your hand sense its innate structural potency any more clearly when you do this? Does it better understand how to stand freely, floatingly?
Not only link a slight movement of your knees to the movements of your hand, but also sense that when your finger starts using a non-aligned, effortful action to move the key, the level of tension rises in your thigh, all along the underside of your leg from your pelvis to your knee, and also very often perceptibly in your calf muscle and foot. Release the tension anywhere in your leg by returning to sense your sitz bones and your pelvis’s capacity to ease gently forward or back or left or right on those two points of stability, and simultaneously sensing how your hand could return to its empowered neutral, the point where it freely stands and has its greatest capacity to move in any direction.
Many will dismiss this kind of work as a useless distraction – “Think of MUSIC! LISTEN! All this attention to physical sensation is pouring from emptiness into the void,” they say. I can understand the mindset very well, but I also know that physical sensation is the great teacher for body organization – we are not just losing ourselves in a morass of sensation here, we are attending to specific sensations that educate a certain function, one that will empower our musicianship and ultimately allow us even to listen better!
Even if you want to, you may find that you simply cannot tune in to the kinds of fine sensations I describe. I have years of Feldenkrais lessons behind me where I developed a heightened sensitivity to my own kinesthetic self-image. People new to the game may well become skeptical just because the sensations I describe are imperceptible to them. I guess that’s a risk that comes with the territory…
AFF
Tags: adult piano, adult piano instruction, adult piano lessons, alan fraser, classical piano, classical piano technique, craft of piano method, craft of piano playing, Feldenkrais & Piano, hand arches and piano technique, piano and the body, piano forum, piano instruction, piano lessons, piano pedagogy, piano performance, piano teaching, Piano Technique, Skeletal piano technique
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