Technique..I'm stuck

[liszt-essence]

I have a problem.

First let me say, I have no teacher, I learn from books and other people over the internet.

That said, I just have to admit that I'm at the moment a bit.. helpless..
It seems that I have figured out the 'right' way for me to play piano..

This is, in a nutshell

- Let gravity play
- Learn to relax the muscles as much as possible
- HS practice, 'fragmental' practice, practice at performance speed or higher
- Thumb over movement

Basicly a lot from the book by chang 'piano fundamentals' I believe it's quite a universal teaching, Berhnhard uses it alot, and Im sure many here understand what Im talking about.

But somehow... It doesnt all come together, well actually it does.. SOMETIMES

That is the strange thing, there are nights when I really get the hang of it, and other times I don't.. It fluctuates too much.. for too long now.. I believe over a year or more.. (Before that time, I played but with no attention to these matters of technique)

And I always hoped, and heard from others, that there would be a point, when 'you get it'

or 'you understand' it. Ofcourse, I am not saying that you can play anything from that point on, but that you have this basic understanding integrated into your playing.

But with me.. it is so f*ckng fluctional.. It seems that it still hasn't 'hit me' just of yet.. And this frustates me greatly. Sometimes my playing is pretty well, I play lightly and I can effectivly use the gravitiy in my playing, but this is an exception rather than a rule.

The main thing is... it's so fluctional..

Perhaps someone can tap into what im saying and provide me with some support on my way, because basicly.. I'm stuck 

[leahcim]

Short answer : You need a "good teacher"
Good luck finding one.

If you can't find a good teacher, find people who are good, learning and watch them / play for them / talk to them in person.

My advice for what it's worth - I'm in a similar dilemma TBH, so take my advice with that in mind - don't do what I have done because it hasn't worked and that includes not having a teacher and reading posts / books etc etc but perhaps you'll be different...]

Record what you're playing and write down how it felt i.e so you know when you thought it was good / when you thought it wasn't.

Later, listen critically back to it, and see if you can hear the difference? Is one musical? If you can't and if not, then what does it matter? If you want to play musically you'll need to move differently from how you are when your playing seems ok and when it doesn't.

If you can, then perhaps you're on to something. OTOH, it might sound more musical when it is/isn't so comfortable? Classic thing where you are playing a piece with expression etc [perhaps causing tension] rather than simply playing whilst focusing on comfort / movements [but not the musical quality] If so, somehow you have to get that expression without adding tension - don't ask me how I haven't figured it out.

I'm guessing, but I generally find x days of trying to play with comfort / sans pain gets somewhere, but it doesn't actually sound musically much better. Trying to play a piece [i.e when dynamics / tempo et al matter] isn't comfortable either.

But I bet I've read every book  / post you have here, possibly more. So, perhaps I'm especially dumb, or perhaps reading these books / posts doesn't help at all...make your own mind up which [I pick both]

IMHO the single biggest fallacy Bernhard suggests is not to watch other pianists. When someone mentions "Gould" in the "Danger, danger!" post explaining why you shouldn't, it's pretty clearly an extreme argument against it. Surely any buffoon, especially someone specifically searching comfortable playing will immediately see that Gould's posture is not worth copying to that end? But there are a million and one other pianists to consider. Youtube should be your friend.

That's not to say that you can't mistake what they are doing when you watch them [or watch someone who is doing something undesirable] - but since it's also 100% absolutely solid gold guaranteed that you'll also misunderstand something of what people are writing [e.g stuff like "flip your pronating supinated floppy fingers and rotate your flanges"  or "Playing the piano is like dropping a breeze block from a bridge onto the M6, it's all from the hips" ] - like what? It makes no difference. There's no perfect source.

So watch them...I say the more you watch and experiment with what you see, the more you'll sort out what's good and what isn't - at least in terms of what feels good / not so good.
[allegedly one of the things that makes us humans intelligent is the fact we can watch someone move with our brain and then our brain can recreate that movement with our body - it's one of the missing abilities for some asperger's / autistic folk - if that's the case it seems a fallacy to throw that possibility away because of Gould's seating position]

But, even so, absolute best case scenario : you'll figure it out yourself, with said videos / posts and so on, after how ever long you have being frustrated with little progress, before you give in or go mad and then you'll think 'Right now about the music...' and want a teacher.

Worst case: you won't and, trust me, going mad isn't as fun as it looks in the movies.

If /when you do figure it out, what then? You're going to want a teacher because,  pretty much every pianist that can play comfortably and technically well, spends years and years with a teacher worrying about music - getting to that stage is [I hope] when the fun starts.

[liszt-essence]

Short answer : You need a "good teacher"
Good luck finding one.

If you can't find a good teacher, find people who are good, learning and watch them / play for them / talk to them in person.

My advice for what it's worth - I'm in a similar dilemma TBH, so take my advice with that in mind - don't do what I have done because it hasn't worked and that includes not having a teacher and reading posts / books etc etc but perhaps you'll be different...]

Record what you're playing and write down how it felt i.e so you know when you thought it was good / when you thought it wasn't.

Later, listen critically back to it, and see if you can hear the difference? Is one musical? If you can't and if not, then what does it matter? If you want to play musically you'll need to move differently from how you are when your playing seems ok and when it doesn't.

If you can, then perhaps you're on to something. OTOH, it might sound more musical when it is/isn't so comfortable? Classic thing where you are playing a piece with expression etc [perhaps causing tension] rather than simply playing whilst focusing on comfort / movements [but not the musical quality] If so, somehow you have to get that expression without adding tension - don't ask me how I haven't figured it out.

I'm guessing, but I generally find x days of trying to play with comfort / sans pain gets somewhere, but it doesn't actually sound musically much better. Trying to play a piece [i.e when dynamics / tempo et al matter] isn't comfortable either.

But I bet I've read every book  / post you have here, possibly more. So, perhaps I'm especially dumb, or perhaps reading these books / posts doesn't help at all...make your own mind up which [I pick both]

IMHO the single biggest fallacy Bernhard suggests is not to watch other pianists. When someone mentions "Gould" in the "Danger, danger!" post explaining why you shouldn't, it's pretty clearly an extreme argument against it. Surely any buffoon, especially someone specifically searching comfortable playing will immediately see that Gould's posture is not worth copying to that end? But there are a million and one other pianists to consider. Youtube should be your friend.

That's not to say that you can't mistake what they are doing when you watch them [or watch someone who is doing something undesirable] - but since it's also 100% absolutely solid gold guaranteed that you'll also misunderstand something of what people are writing [e.g stuff like "flip your pronating supinated floppy fingers and rotate your flanges"  or "Playing the piano is like dropping a breeze block from a bridge onto the M6, it's all from the hips" ] - like what? It makes no difference. There's no perfect source.

So watch them...I say the more you watch and experiment with what you see, the more you'll sort out what's good and what isn't - at least in terms of what feels good / not so good.
[allegedly one of the things that makes us humans intelligent is the fact we can watch someone move with our brain and then our brain can recreate that movement with our body - it's one of the missing abilities for some asperger's / autistic folk - if that's the case it seems a fallacy to throw that possibility away because of Gould's seating position]

But, even so, absolute best case scenario : you'll figure it out yourself, with said videos / posts and so on, after how ever long you have being frustrated with little progress, before you give in or go mad and then you'll think 'Right now about the music...' and want a teacher.

Worst case: you won't and, trust me, going mad isn't as fun as it looks in the movies.

If /when you do figure it out, what then? You're going to want a teacher because,  pretty much every pianist that can play comfortably and technically well, spends years and years with a teacher worrying about music - getting to that stage is [I hope] when the fun starts.

Thanks for your advice man, it's really helpful.

I'm a bit afraid that indeed my progress will remain so little without a teacher. Hm.. sigh.. somehow I always wanted to manage without a teacher, perhaps because I always want to do things 'my way'.  But I have to face the facts, I could have gone - miles, miles and miles - further than I have now and that seems like a waste of time doesn't it?

It's good to hear that you have read [almost] every book, and probably all posts here (I have read some) and that it still didn't work. You clearly have explored more on this subject than I have so I'm ready to take your word for it.

Well that leads me to a new problem obviously, finding a new teacher but there's another board for that.

Thanks a lot for your comment, it really means a lot to me, more perhaps than an outsider can see. It feels like an ending of a journey, a 'death', and the rise of new hope.

[m1469]

Post a video of yourself playing something slow and easy .

[liszt-essence]

Post a video of yourself playing something slow and easy .

and then ?

[m1469]

and then ?

Why don't we just find out .  If you don't wish to post it, you can send it to me privately.  Or don't bother at all if you would rather -- I won't be offended and could probably manage to find other things to do with that time .

[richy321]

This is, in a nutshell

- Let gravity play
- Learn to relax the muscles as much as possible
- HS practice, 'fragmental' practice, practice at performance speed or higher
- Thumb over movement

Let's focus on the first two items as examples:

It's well and good to know to "let gravity play" and "learn to relax", and these are important principles, but knowing how and if you are doing it is a different matter.  It takes an experienced external observer, with hands-on (literally) contact to tell if you're doing it properly or not.  It cannot be done by yourself.  It would be just like trying to do psychotherapy on yourself -- it can't be done.  A separate, disinterested observer is needed.  And the more trained and skilled in pedagogy, the better.

Like you, I made the mistake of trying to do it by myself, in my case, due to a certain streak of arrogance in my personality -- I thought that since I never had a good teacher as a child, such a thing did not exist and I could do a better job by myself.   As a result, I spent most of my adult life reading books about technique, thinking about it analytically, and putting in endless hours of practice.  The end result was frustration, meager improvement and a serious shoulder injury to boot.   It was only as a last resort, due to the injury, at the age of 67 that I sought out a teacher.  I have been studying with a Taubman-trained teacher for about 3 months and the results have been most rewarding.  It is expensive, but absolutely worth it.  Now I would give up a lot of things before I give up my lessons.

By the way, forget about "thumbs over".  To begin with, it is a complete misnomer.  The thumb never goes over another finger, as Chang himself has admitted.  The term is retained only as an attention-grabbing gimick, IMO.

Rich Y




 

[ramseytheii]

Your situation sounds most complicated!  I don't know what your teacher situation is, but this is important: if ever you ahve had a good teacher who showed you a comfortable way to play, you will never forget the sensation, and you can eventually play all kinds of different passages acheiving that same comfortable sensation. 

I was blessed and cursed with a very charismatic first teacher, who could get his students to do all sorts of things beyond what should have been their skill level.  He was unable to explain anything in a systematic way, and he was better with some techniques than with others.  That meant that in the future, I was seemingly unable to advance: I didn't have the charismatic guidance, I didn't have a foundation of knowledge, and I didn't have an awareness of a huge host of techniques (couldn't play most music after Brahms, and most of Liszt).

So I asked myself, well, Mr Ramsey, what now?  You're too obsessed to quit.  You don't have the situation to get another teacher, and any other one would probably be a disappointment (my problem, not other teachers').  So after a period of trouble, trying to learn Mephisto Waltz no.1, I went back to all my old lesson notebooks, to all those old repertoire pieces, and tried to find what made them work.  Why should the old pieces feel so natural, and new ones so filled with tension and discomfort?

I searched through a lot of physical analyses of piano playing, from ones on here, to Chang's book, to various books like the Lhevinne, Gieseking, Neuhaus, Berman, Cooke, Sandor, and other books.  I had moments of clarity, moments where I thought I knew "the answer," or at least, I thought I could explain how a certain body part worked, for instnace, how the shoulder contributed to playing Chopin op.10 no.7, or the back to Liszt's Mephisto Waltz octave and chordal passages.

Then, going to perform those pieces, those passages which led me to physical revelation and experience tended to fall apart.  I'm critical enough of my self, and hopefully clever enough, to realize that the times it didn't fall apart, were more attributable to luck. 

How could this be?  How could the sensation be so clear during practice, so clear as to explain itself, but not be reproducable?  I think the answer lies in my first observation: we only have to know the feeling of playing comfortably.  Then, the technique has to be put behind. 

That's why I always feel physical descriptions to be not only not all that helpful, but verging on - and actually being - harmful.  People become fixated with the description, as if it were a mantra, and try to fulfill it on the tight-rope of performance. 

I can't stand it when people repeat cliches like technique must serve the music, but in this case we have a concrete example of what happens when you focus on technique to the detriment of music.  The outcome will be a disaster!  You will feel perhaps heavy, unable to play, unable to connect with the instrument, awkward in your body, self-conscious, stiff, enclosed.  This is the result of focussing on technique to the detriment of music.

In reality, we only have to discover the feeling of playing different problems in a comfortable way.  We don't have to call up the exact feeling ever again on command, in performance or otherwise.  In its place, we have to focus on the melodic aspects of the music, in all the voices, and on the logical progression of sounds (logic here doesn't mean something objective, but critically logic to the performer).  If we were ever successful in achieving a level of comfort with a difficult passage, the answer will come again through association with the music, not with physical directions.

This is the true meaning of physical memory.  Most people use physical memory in the most superficial way: they just generally know what it feels like to play a piece, and can never transpose it, can never play it in a different octave, can never play one part withoutp laying the other, can never start from the middle, only from a pre-determined begnining.  This is superficial and useless.

True physical memory is the sensation of achievement: the sensation of being able to conquer a problem once is a memory to last a lifetime.  The physical memory will act on its own, will call itself up, when you concentrate instead on the musical values of the piece at hand.

I don't want to make it all sound eaiser than it is.  Of course, if you play the piano for 8 years using only a technique that employs the fingers, you will find it very difficult, even after experiencing the sure way to use the elbows for isntance, to employ the elbows.  But the answer is not to find a physical position that works and try to repeat it later; the answer is not to find a physical direction that works and try to repeat it later; the only answer is to let your body do the work, and concentrate on musical values.

Eventually, you will associate certain motions with musical expression.  For instance, in the wild passage in Mephisto where the right plays, very fast, a single note, then an octave at a leap of an octave away, while the left hand is leaping left and right: if you play it correctly, both hands will be making circular motions, one clockwise (left hand) and one counter-clockwise (right hand).  Dont try in a performance to tell yourself: "All right, it might be presto, but my right hand has to go coutner-clockwise and my left hand has to go clockwise..."  No: instead, learn to associate the motion with a musical meaning, in this case, a wild, circus-type music that is restless, jumpy and all over the place.

Once the motions are experienced in a meaningful way, and usually you will know when that is, you should associate them with specific music values, and forget about trying to reproduce them.

I hope there is one piece of information in that mass of words that will help!

Walter Ramsey

[dan101]

Watching a good teacher's hand manipulate a keyboard is priceless. If you can't find one, then search online for video demonstration. Some good ones are out there, although the drawback is that you don't have instant feedback to questions. By the way, take a deep breath and have fun. Learning an instument well takes time and you should pace yourself. Good luck!

[counterpoint]

I have a problem.

First let me say, I have no teacher, I learn from books and other people over the internet.

That said, I just have to admit that I'm at the moment a bit.. helpless..
It seems that I have figured out the 'right' way for me to play piano..

This is, in a nutshell

- Let gravity play
- Learn to relax the muscles as much as possible
- HS practice, 'fragmental' practice, practice at performance speed or higher
- Thumb over movement

Let's try to say some words to these:

Let gravity play

Using gravity can be helpful in some situations, and it can be problematic in other situations. So if you get aware, that using gravity doesn't help - just try something other. I tried very hard for many, many years to use gravity for everything I played, and it didn't work out. Sometimes the fingers should move independant from arm movement and arm weight.


Learn to relax the muscles as much as possible

This is generally a good advice. But when you want to play a note, something has to move (finger, arm, body(?) ) So muscle work is needed. And you have to decide, how fast or slow (and how wide or small)  the movement should be to produce the desired sound.


HS practice, 'fragmental' practice, practice at performance speed or higher

Let's skip "HS practise", I never do that. Then practising slow is much more important than practising fast. What you didn't learn in playing slow, you will never learn in playing fast.


Thumb over movement

Not only this. Every unconventional sort of movement, that helps producing the sound and motion you want to produce should be tried out. Use what works and don't use, what only fulfills some dogmatic doctrines without being of real help.

[teresa_b]

People have said many interesting things here, and it seems to show that not every technique works the same way for every pianist. 

I agree strongly with recommending slow practice.  It helps me tremendously.  (In fact, I don't know how you can learn a new piece at a fast tempo without playing it more slowly first.)  I think it's good to try it at tempo to see what sort of movements you are going to be making.  But if you don't practice slowly you are not going to correct repeated trouble spots effectively.  Slower practice also improves evenness, as long as you focus on that.

There is a place for HS practice, especially in counterpoint!  Or, when you identify a troublesome passage, where is the problem?  You may note that it's some specific difficulty with a movement you are making in one hand or the other.  If you don't take it out and try to solve that problem, then you won't progress.

Once I have the notes down, I really focus on "being" the music.  Sometimes little technical difficulties melt away when I simply let go and allow the music to "take over".  It's like one of those direct meditative experiences--your whole self just goes "AHA, I get it!"  Hard to describe, but requires a sort of relaxation which can only occur after the grungy slogging part! 

Teresa

[liszt-essence]

Thank you all so much for your advice.. it's very generous of you to help.

m1469, I will send you a video of a short and slow piece. Thank you for your offer to help, don't mistake my question for an expression of ridicule or cynism, I was just wondering

After reading that some of you have also tried on your own and didn't make much progress, I have really decided to get a teacher. Especially richy's story, (67 years old!) has won me over.

Ramsey, thank you for your long comment, it is really insightful. It seems that you have really hit the right 'snare' here

" The outcome will be a disaster!  You will feel perhaps heavy, unable to play, unable to connect with the instrument, awkward in your body, self-conscious, stiff, enclosed.  This is the result of focussing on technique to the detriment of music."

You have really given me something to ponder on, because in my heart I already knew that this wasn't going to work. All the feelings that you described are exactly what I felt too.  Deep in my heart I knew it would only lead me to a death-end. But I kept on trying, and trying because hope (false hope?) drove me on.

"Focussing on technique to the detriment of music" ... This is believe a very important point, and I wish to thank you for revealing it now to me, because I have arrived at such an important point for me in regards to the music and life itself, this provides me with more insight than an outsider could perhaps understand, because it stimulates me to go deeper than the superficial layers of what seems to make the things work (things, in this case, is the music, but it also has connections with deeper things in life in general, and with many sports and other activitites where technique is involved)

Also "the answer is not to find a physical direction that works and try to repeat it later; the only answer is to let your body do the work, and concentrate on musical values."
Feels very logical and right to me..

Thank you!

Counterpoint, thank you for showing me the diversity of piano playing. I now realize that it's not a dogmatic and absolute use of gravity that is the key.

" Every unconventional sort of movement, that helps producing the sound and motion you want to produce should be tried out."

This feels very right for me, if I understand you correctly you are saying in your post that it comes down to find out what works and what doesn't, to use the tools as much as you can, but not compulsivly..

To all who replied, thanks.

I will reflect and ponder on it for a while, and hopefully I can proceed soon again on my journey to (re-)master the intstrument and music.

[counterpoint]

There is a place for HS practice, especially in counterpoint!  Or, when you identify a troublesome passage, where is the problem?  You may note that it's some specific difficulty with a movement you are making in one hand or the other. 

Just a few words for clarification 

I don't say, nobody should do HS practise. It's just that it's a waste of time for me personally. What you say about counterpoint: yes, it's very important to look at the separate voices. If there are two voices throughout, then HS practise is a way to do this. But in most pieces, there are more than two voices and they are divided on the two hands from a practical view, not from the lines' logic. Practising HS doesn't help in such cases. But you can play HT and just concentrate on a special voice, while playing the other voices alongside. To be able to concentrate on a special voice, even if it's in a chordal part, is extremely important. There are always some counter figurations hided in the "accompagniment", which should not get lost in the overall noise 

So the brain should be able to isolate the different parts, voices, movements while playing the whole bunch of notes all together.

[ramseytheii]

I think you're basically right, except there is not such a strict definition and contrast between HS and HT.  You mention HS isn't useful if there are multiple intertwining lines; maybe not in the same way as playing a melody-accompaniment figuration (like Chopin op.9 no.2) HS, but it is still helpful to play the lines individually.  This doesn't technically fall under HS, but there is not just HS and HT.

I strongly advise practicing music as though you were a conductor rehearsing a choir.  Sometimes, probably most times, you hear the whole ensemble.  Other times you have to give individual attention to a part or a line.  One way to do that is by playing all the other parts softer, but still playing them.  Another way, equally valid, and sometimes necessary, is to just play a line individually.

Walter Ramsey

[gyzzzmo]

A teacher can be very helpfull yes, especially to really finish a piece.
But if youre very critical to yourself you can get a very decent lvl of play too.
A few advises:
- Dont focus too much on 1 piece on the same time. For example you cant play pieces well without the technical support, wich means you also have to play etudes, and other pieces to relaxe and get a broader technical basis.
- Dont train too much on 1 certain difficult movement, give your brains some time to adept(!!), play something else and then practise that movement again. Else you're wasting your time and you might even start raping the movement.
- Be patient. Pianoplaying is mostly based on automatation, not on short-memory. That means give your brains time to adept (i know im repeating myself but its important).

gyzzzmo

[kard]

hey, just a suggestion. 

   watch this. The key point I got from this is the importance of maintaining your hand's arch. I've had about 3 separate people tell me this, and recently it's coming together. I would definitely recommend a good teacher (i want one too    )  but if you are going to continue on your own, check it out.

Also, when you are trying to figure out 'technique' and so on, focus on one concept at a time to see whether it works or not. I used to fluctuate horribly too    but I started focusing on maintaining the arch, then i realized that certain other adjustments had to be made in order to keep the arch's stability. I won't describe exactly, because it I think its an individual process that needs to be felt. ( You wouldn't have to go through all this if you had a good teacher though, nothing replaces experience ).  I'm considering buying that dvd as well.. not sure.

good luck ^^     

[lostinidlewonder]

- Let gravity play
- Learn to relax the muscles as much as possible
- HS practice, 'fragmental' practice, practice at performance speed or higher
- Thumb over movement

But somehow... It doesnt all come together, well actually it does.. SOMETIMES

....

And I always hoped, and heard from others, that there would be a point, when 'you get it'
....
The main thing is... it's so fluctional..

Fluctional. This is when you get to parts you have little experience over. Your difficulties in music is effected by the number of different pieces you have "mastered". It is wrong to beleive that you learn piano by concepts, like the few points you have listed they are axioms of piano playing but their application are very complicated.

There are very subtle differences between playing right and wrong. Very very small differences which I have found are pretty impossible to explain in words and physical direction is the only efficient way. Someone might know in words exactly what to do and completely understand IN THEORY what to do, but when asked to produce it in their hands they believe they are doing what they think but they do not realise their hands are sub optimal. It is a case of "You dont know that you dont know."

You can only gain knowledge of what you don't know by standing on the shoulders of giants, listen, watch absorb knowledge from those much better than yourself. Otherwise you must constantly research and experiment with your technique (this is often too much to ask of most people). All piano experts knew what to do at the keyboard before anyone told them what to do. They all know this small difference in right and wrong technique, they all can absorb ideas just from watching a great musician play. The stories I've read of big gun pianists hiding their fingering so collegues can't steal their ideas

Techinque is also improved as your sight reading and memory improves. So as your increase your rate of learning music you indirectly improve your technical ability. You definately need a good teacher to iron our subtle inaccuracies in your technique, this is VERY VERY VERY VERY HARD to find. I have personally been through so many teachers who can't do this, even world class ones. Most of them say, this is the optimal way to do it, and if you cannot absorb that then you are lost. The best teachers will guide you through improving your sublte inaccuracies, they will make your be able to reassess the way in which you play your piano. They will open your mind to the fact that you didnt know that you didnt know!

[ramseytheii]

Fluctional. This is when you get to parts you have little experience over. Your difficulties in music is effected by the number of different pieces you have "mastered". It is wrong to beleive that you learn piano by concepts, like the few points you have listed they are axioms of piano playing but their application are very complicated.

Brilliantly put!

Walter Ramsey

[leahcim]

hey, just a suggestion. 

   watch this. The key point I got from this is the importance of maintaining your hand's arch. I've had about 3 separate people tell me this, and recently it's coming together. I would definitely recommend a good teacher (i want one too    )  but if you are going to continue on your own, check it out.

Watch that youtube demo by all means, but just my 2p, I wouldn't waste your money on the actual DVD.

It's just a guy showing off, gooning around and doing silly walks to entertain fans off camera, and claiming [incorrectly] that the silly walking relates to playing piano. All it needed was a dead parrot.

But, for example, he'll be pressing his hand into the keys with the other hand in one octaves scene and then in the next he'll be flying up and down the keyboard playing blindingly fast "look at me" octaves - save your money and pay for whatever material(s) / teachers you need to actually teach you to play those octaves for yourself - he certainly doesn't begin to tell you.

The guy in the DVD certainly didn't learn from his DVD and, imo, neither will anyone else.

If you can already play you might pick up one or two snippets / tricks from it. But its title is grandiose and overblown, it's nothing at all like "the craft" of piano playing - it's not even a poor attempt at covering it.

[kard]

lol thanks for the review   I just take what I can get, you know?    There arent that many GOOD accessible teachers down here ... 
But I do realize that it's necessary to discover comfortable ways for each piece specifically, that's what i meant by 'feeling it for yourself'. 
Debussy's Passepied has a left hand part that took me a bit of time to get, but once I got it, I got it lol, but when I jump with that 'technique' to Bach 2 part invention #8, it's horrible. I have to actually remember how the invention feels before I can play it properly.

[pianodude90]

It's just one thing to do to get these problems away: Get a teacher!

He'll help you, and i'm sure that if you get the right teacher, these problems should be away in less than a year.

[Bob]

For what it's worth...

Consistent practice yields consistent results.

That's why I started doing a routine for piano.  Same things each day.  It really ironed out those off days and made me realize what things I could really rely on for abilities.

[cmg]

1) PM Walter Ramsey and ask him for a week of daily, intensive lessons. 

2) Book a flight to NYC.  Reserve a hotel room.

3) Report back to us and let me know if he's really who I think he is -- Claude Frank.

Thank you.