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Topic: High seat position  (Read 1862 times)

Offline maxd

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High seat position
on: December 12, 2006, 05:26:09 AM
are there ANY disadvantages to a high seat position?

Offline Kassaa

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Re: High seat position
Reply #1 on: December 12, 2006, 06:20:56 AM
are there ANY disadvantages to a high seat position?
Playing with your shoulders and arms and playing with high wrist instead of your fingers. Less control over finger movement.

Offline iumonito

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Re: High seat position
Reply #2 on: December 12, 2006, 06:37:11 AM
It also reduces the angles at which you can comfortably play, which in turn reduces the tools for tone coloring.

You gain, though, a good vantage point for playing with power.  Better for Prokofiev and at least one school of thought on the Tchaikowsky concerto 1.

You can color a lot if you are seating low, but then you loose volume.

In the middle, you can have both.
Money does not make happiness, but it can buy you a piano.  :)

Offline cloches_de_geneve

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Re: High seat position
Reply #3 on: December 12, 2006, 08:00:08 AM
I like to sit low (usually the lowest possible with standard piano-chairs). Like this, it feels like my fingers really penetrate the keys. Maybe this comes from playing a lot of Mozart and Schubert, where nuances in articulation are so important.

Who of the big pianists sits high, who low?

Gould sat definitly low and even needed a special chair; so does Lupu.
Barenboim sits very high ...to be continued.
"It's true that I've driven through a number of red lights on occasion, but on the other hand I've stopped at a lot of green ones but never gotten credit for it." -- Glenn Gould

Offline franzliszt2

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Re: High seat position
Reply #4 on: December 12, 2006, 08:00:41 PM
I change my height all the time. I'm sort of in the middle at the moment, but at the start of the year I was sitting high. Without realising the height of my seating position has went down, and I only discovered this when I came home for my Christmas holiday, and my stool (which is never touched when I'm not home) was so high. I couldn;t believe it. I think that the height of the stool should never be set. I just see how I feel.

But take into acount the affect it will have on sound etc.. but that has a lot to do with piano. Apparently some pianists take longer looking for a stool than for th piano. Personally, I prefer to take my stool, after a bad experience where I had to do a concerto on a normal seat, which was too low, and I had to sit on a cushion!  >:(

Offline ted

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Re: High seat position
Reply #5 on: December 12, 2006, 08:55:31 PM
My position is neither high nor low. I think I used to sit a little higher than I do now but not significantly so.
"Mistakes are the portals of discovery." - James Joyce

Offline pianistimo

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Re: High seat position
Reply #6 on: December 12, 2006, 09:01:35 PM
low.  it doesn't hurt your back.  if you sit high - you'll get a hump.  or, pianists 'neck.'  you know - head forward.

Offline timothy42b

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Re: High seat position
Reply #7 on: December 13, 2006, 11:01:56 AM
I use an office chair so I can adjust the height.  I am considering moving it higher, because lately it feels like my forearm wants to be higher and my fingers lower, if that makes any sense.

But I also play some organ, and there you are just stuck.  The bench is fixed height to clear the pedals, and you have multiple keyboards at different heights, so I don't know how you could possibly play "correctly." 
Tim

Offline thalbergmad

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Re: High seat position
Reply #8 on: December 13, 2006, 09:30:47 PM
I tend to use a high seat position for no other reason than i like the view of the keys from higher up.

Thal
Curator/Director
Concerto Preservation Society
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