From your other comments I would think that you’re on the right track. Skeletality seems to be serving you well, and yes, we all go through a stage of “overdoing it”, or having to pay extra attention to it, before it gets integrated into our physical repertoire. This also applies to the arm choreographies we devise to shape the phrase. Although I do find that sometimes by my cultivating a really sophisticated skeletal connection to each successive key, the choreography can start to happening automatically.

Best wishes,

AFF

all the best,

AFF

I’m looking forward to studying your book and DVD, particularly since you say that much of your teaching grows out of your work with Phil.

All the best,

Alan Fraser

Best wishes,

Alan Fraser

2. alanfraser Says:

If you simply explore what a piano can do, those experiences will feed your intuition when you go back to the “traditional musical process” you rightly describe.
I have indeed tried to think about how another performer such as Horowitz would play something. I generally played better, sometimes uncannily so. However, you can’t make it a general practice, or else you start to lose yourself! It’s wonderful as an occasional foray into someone else’s psyche …
AFF

1. javacisnotrecognized Says:

You seem to have turned the traditional musical process on it’s head; usually it’s “Imagine the sound you want to create” then “Figure out how to make the piano produce it”. But here you are just exploring sound in it’s own right; I’m really impressed.
It also gives me a crazy idea: You’ve mentioned before peformances and sounds that you’ve heard that you can still remember to this day (Such as the Horowitz concerts). Have you tried thinking about those while playing? What’s the outcome?

2. alanfraser Says:

I will soon post a series of pictures of Wanda Landowska with a similar “collapsed arch.” She also had great technique. Also look at Kemal Gekich videos on YouTube; many times his arch looks relatively flat. So I totally agree with you, indeed there is more to the collapsed arch technique than meets the eye. And this is an especially apt way of putting it, because it’s the internal function that may belie the external look…
This discussion is an excellent example of our need to be inclusive rather than exclusive in our understanding of piano technique. It was obvious to me that Emilie’s teacher was asking her to do something anti-functional or dysfunctional. Collapsing her arch made her tense and unable to play. But do I say the examples of Kemal, Wanda or Rachmaninoff are wrong? No!
What I DO say is that they can allow their arch to fall because its internal functionality is assured. When the external appearance of their arch looks fallen, their sound indicates that the lumbricals/interossei are still working fine – this shape does not in any way impinge on the free activation of the fingers. I write it elsewhere: once the function of activating the finger is fully learned, you should be able to do it in any position.
Also take a look at my film, chapter five, where I have you mash the palm of your hand into the key, hyper-collapsing that same arch. This is to cultivate increased freedom and moveability within the hand itself.
So all in all, yes there are many instances where a “fallen arch” can be useful. But generally you must have a relatively highly evolved technique in order to do this successfully – most often I see fallen arches drastically limiting a pianist’s sound and facility, because the internal functionality is absent… And I myself went through a period where I imitated Kemal’s relatively flat arch before I had developed the necessary internal activation, and I did suffer!
Thanks for this comment, a good opportunity for clarification!
AFF