Dear Marik,
Did you read the e-mail that I send you at your
personnal e-mail? I'm talking about my struggle with
piano playing since I lost my piano teacher at the age
of 21. May be you will appreciate my difficulties?
I understand very well all you're talking about,
because that's what I learned with my teacher: Produce
a beautiful sound and respect the composer's
intentions.
My problem is speed. I can't play fast. I can control
the sound, beautiful sound but I can't reach the
desired tempo; I therefore conclude that I have a
technique problem.
I am sorry to take up your time and I thank you for
your advice and understanding.
Yours sincerely,
Paul
Paul,
It is obvious that after such a long time of piano playing you should be able to play fast, unless there is some kind of major coordination or motorical disorder.
I believe, there is something wrong in what you are doing, but it is nearly impossible to pinpoint it, or give any advice without actually seeing (or at least listening) what is going on.
The first thing, I believe you need to find a good teacher, who would be able to wisely find out your problem and methodically, step by step work on it.
In any case I will try to explain how it works. May be it will address some areas to pay attention to.
But first, there are three main aspects of piano playing (including ability to play “fast”).
1) Music image.
2) Mental and physical reaction.
3) Physical comfort and relaxation.
All of those are tightly connected and cannot exist separately.
The 1) is obvious—it dictates everything and is the main object.
The 2). You should “think” fast, and have a good motorical reaction, meaning your musical image should be immediately translated into physical impulses, which immediately reach your fingertips. Next step, depending on what you hear, your brain should send a next impulse, and so on. The faster this process, the faster you can play.
The 3). It is obvious the motorical reaction is impossible once there is some kind of tension block. As I mentioned in another message, once any physical tension blocks out the initial brain impulse, the whole mechanism gets completely mixed up.
Try to analyze what is going on when you throw a stone. Your arm is completely free, giving the most of the momentum, and maximum efficiency. Now try to throw the same stone with your arm tense. The stone would not go even half way.
The interesting thing is that when you throw the stone you are completely natural, but most of the time (from what I see from the students) the piano playing is not.
The ability of complete relaxation is a primary tool in a good impulse translation.
I will never forget my dearest teacher Lev Naumov, who unfortunately passed away not long ago, showing me climax in Scriabin’s 10th Sonata. He never played it before. He showed it basically playing with his palms, when it was impossible to distinguish one single note from the set of clusters. But the effect was STUNNING!!! The whole class literally gasped. He knew exactly what musical effect he wanted to create, and the most amazing thing was to watch his hands! There was a feeling they had no bones, like ropes embracing the keys, directly translating his great musical mind into some wonderful cacophony, which explained the character better than thousand words.
Now, the most obvious, the most trivial, but yet, the most important—the way you treat the piano, the way it responds back. At the same time, your mental and physical energies are closely tied together. Any discomfort in one creates discomfort in another. On the other hand their close union “frees up” each other.
The most common mistake, especially for those who were taught with “weight approach” but for some reason did not follow through completely, is staying tight, without releasing energy. I suspect it might be your main problem.
Think about darts. You throw the thing, the needle gets into the target, the whole energy gets released and the dart stays there just hanging—it GOT INTO THE CORE OF THE BOARD—THERE IS NO PRESSURE ANYMORE. Exactly the same way the finger gets into the core of the key (sound) and all the energy immediately gets released—the energy of whole your body, starting from your toes GOT INTO THE CORE OF THE SOUND AND IMMEDITELY SHOULD BE RELEASED!!! That’s it, you are there, there is no point of any residual pressure anymore. This complete release (so much overlooked) is the fundamental of the piano playing, slow playing, fast playing, whatever you have in your mind, whatever your image tells you.
And now we are back to my initial relation between mental and physical approach. Heavy playing, with the weight staying in the keys, results in the fingers “stucking” there, over weighting the music itself, and affects your image in a way of “heavy thinking”.
You completely lose the correlation between your brain impulses and physical responses.
The whole beauty of sound is in its lightness, but yet deep initial “getting in”, with immediate release. Listen to J. Hoffman, I. Friedman, or S. Rachmaninov, to understand what I mean.
The way I understand and teach the physical approach is how to play piano basically resting most of the time. This resting, this release gives you space, air, and time for the thinking about your image and accumulating whole your energy for the next wave of music phrase, which is the main idea and is what you ultimately want to say with your music.
In this respect, I don't see any difference between fast or slow palying. If you do it right you do what your brain tells you. You are limited only to how fast your reflexes respond to it. And now your task is to find what you do not right and where are your limits.
Hopefully all this is not confusing.
Topic: What did Heinrich Neuhaus say?