Technique and Music

[jolszewski]

thanks~

[bipabew]

Here is my understanding of it:

If you try to focus on creating a certain sound at the piano instead of what your body is doing, your body will find the most comfortable way to create the desired sound.  And that will be your technique.

So focus on getting peices to sounds good and don't worry about playing every single arpeggio or scale or exercise for X number of hours a day. 

I read an interview with Horowitz, perhaps the same one you read, and I totally agree with his views on technique.

I hope this helps.

[morninglory]

I so sympathize with your quandry.  I think at some point in the early of stages of piano playing, just focusing on technique is useful, but probably not later on.  And if you are playing a sufficiently wide range of repertoire, wouldn't you be practicing a wide range of techniques just by playing the pieces? 

But just in case some techniques get left on the wayside for a long time because the pieces you're currently working on don't require them, why not supplement your routine with some etudes (intead of just technical excercises)  that cover  those techniques so you keep them up?  And these can be played musically, thus avoiding what Neuhaus warned against - playing anything unmusically. 

Good luck - sounds like you're well on your way to success!

[alhimia]

Dear Joiszewski,

Since you write that with working on the music you start loving to play I think you already know very well what to do: work on the music.  I think this should be our main focus. This way there will never be a limit and you will continually improve your playing, providing you have proper guidance. For me, love for music while playing is one of the main elements an artist must have. If there is only 'fast fingers' or 'good ears', it is certainly not enough. The spirit of music is what me, and the audience, attracts to listen a musician.
Of course, playing with efficient body motions is very important too, to prevent injury and to comminucate your musical message in the most natural and direct way.  I think these things must go together.
Since you write that you have no technical problems, I don't see why anyone has to practise scales and all the stuff. If you have technical problems in certain areas, analyse what you are doing and how you are doing it and try to find logical solutions. However, it always must feel easy and comfortable.
If you already have the feeling that playing the piano comes easy and natural to you, forget about technique and work on the music.

Alhimia

[ramseytheii]

A young person should get to know as much repertoire as possible, and only worry about technique when the issue actually comes up in the music.  I don't believe in exercises in the abstract, by which I mean, exercises that don't pertain to a specific thing at hand, even for the simple reason that they waste time from learning repertoire.  You should get familiar with all the styles, the complete piano works of many different composers, and there you will find your own weaknesses and strengths.  There is no one technical study that works for every person, because everybody has natural weaknesses and strengths.

Right now, you shouldn't waste time trying to play all major and minor scales in sixths at quarter=200.  How is that going to help you?  You should instead be reading and practicing Brahms Paganini Etudes, or his second concerto.  Those pieces have problems like that, and they aren't abstract; they're real.  Then, if you want to master the Paganini Etudes, you can start thinking about what you need to do to have for instance, better sixths.

Repertoire, repertoire, repertoire.

Walter Ramsey

[alhimia]

Here is my understanding of it:

If you try to focus on creating a certain sound at the piano instead of what your body is doing, your body will find the most comfortable way to create the desired sound.  And that will be your technique.
 

I am afraid this is not true (at least not in all cases). I know a lot of pianists being able to create to most beautiful sounds on the piano, but, unfortunately, with very inefficient body motions. There are a few famous examples of this, such as Leon Fleisher, Glenn Gould and many more. I agree with you that one has to focus on the sound and on music and in many cases the music will come out naturally this way. However when some passage is not coming out while having a very clear logic concept of the sound in the mind, it will not help very much to change your 'concept of sound' in that passage. When you play with efficient body motions, your desired sound will come out most naturally.  

[michel dvorsky]

Gould's technique was hyper-efficient.

His fingers are glued to the keys and his wrists are kept flexible/loose.  There are no extraneous motions. His hands look pretty much like those of Michelangeli or any other really good pianist.  He sat low...but it worked for him.

When Gould played slowly, he swayed, conducted with the free hand, did finger vibrato...and all that weird stuff, but none of it got in the way of the technique of actually playing the instrument.  They were natural gestures to aid in the creation of the sound rather than affected devices to weird people out.

[alhimia]

Gould's technique was hyper-efficient.

His fingers are glued to the keys and his wrists are kept flexible/loose.  There are no extraneous motions. His hands look pretty much like those of Michelangeli or any other really good pianist.  He sat low...but it worked for him.

I agree that his playing seemed to be efficient for the stuff that he was playing. However, the same speed, accuracy, control of tone etc. could also be done with more efficient body motions and this is my point: Gould's technique was limited. I remember an interview with him where he said that he was horrified of octaves and big chords etc. For what he did, he could get away with his motions and posture, but it limited his playing unnecessarily. Moreover, Gould complained about having pain in his hands and arms.

[goldentone]

I have not practiced any technique for several months now but not only has my actual play become infinitely better but I can still do most of the technique that I used to do just in a different manner.

I think you have answered your question.   Now you are loving it, your playing is so much better, and your technique hasn't suffered.  If you can, post a recording in the audition room.  There are ears around here that would like to hear you.

[gerryjay]

dear j:
you don't have to apologize for your post: moments of crucial decisions in our life are just like that, and it's interesting to read an in-depth description of your interests and concerns.

basically, i think that your answer is already above my lines, but i must add two considerations about technique.

first, and paramount, technique is a means for achieve something in a more effective way. it doesn´t exist alone, hence it's pointlessness when considered by itself. notice that i don't propose you give up your technique studies, nor i say there is one way or another: i believe very badly that when an artist turns its preocupations, and efforts, and body, and soul to pure technique, s/he becomes - all in a sudden - a non-artist.
in the other hand, our metier - especially if you points toward a career as a performing artist - asks for a highly developed level of technique, a varied and complete one, which allows you to play anything you need to, from byrd to ferneyhough.

however, there is something that makes me think a lot. why this need for precise and absolute technique, for difficult repertory, for things like that? well, i'm not that naive to minimize the importance of public and recording labels and all that is linked to a performing career, but - here is my real question - why do someone get into this? i mean, why someone needs to play a faster chopin etude, or another cycle of liszt's etudes, or the n+1 prokofiev sonata? yes, i do like all of that, but i don't really understand the fetish among pianists about this hard and fast and precise stuff.
i say that from a strange point of view: the last of my problems in playing is speed. i always think that is very strange a comentary such as: "oh! i love his playing...he's so fast". what difference does it make? furthermore, i didn't attempt at the piano the harder works (beethoven's 106, prokofiev's late sonatas, ligeti's etudes) but i did that at the guitar, and there is nothing particularly wonderful there.

of course, that contradict the accepted notion of virtuose, but to me it's quite simple: it's rather irrelevant if someone is playing, for example, brahms' klavierstucke opus 118/1 or his third sonata. i can find genius or the absence of it in both, and to me, very honestly, there is really nothing more special about a great performance of the later. i know that people judge a pianist for this whole: if someone play an outstanding version of the sonata, s/he must be a greater pianist than someone who did play an outstanding version of the opus 118/1. to me, there is no difference at all.

so, why i'm writing all that? to give one simple and precise advice: whatever you want to pursue, make it your very very own. from your repertory through your technique to your expression, don't emulate: be!

best wishes, and very good luck in your plans!

[faulty_damper]

I agree that his playing seemed to be efficient for the stuff that he was playing. However, the same speed, accuracy, control of tone etc. could also be done with more efficient body motions and this is my point: Gould's technique was limited. I remember an interview with him where he said that he was horrified of octaves and big chords etc. For what he did, he could get away with his motions and posture, but it limited his playing unnecessarily. Moreover, Gould complained about having pain in his hands and arms.

Off topic, but not only was his technique limited, it also made certain things impossible - he couldn't play chords or extended octave passages because of his technique.  He even resorted to over-dubbing octave passages (played with both hands) and combined two recordings to form one "flawless" performance.  Recording artist, indeed!  I'd like to see a concert artist get away with it.

[richard black]

I'm afraid there isn't a definitive, one-size-fits-all, answer to this. Almost every possible route to achieving mastery has been advocated in print by some famous pianist or other. The finest pianist I ever obvserved at close quarters, John Ogdon, didn't even have a technique that I could discover, in any conventional sense of the term. He just sort of waved his hands around somewhere near the keys and in the process made some rather astonishing music. (And he was reportedly pretty useless as a teacher in the conventional sense too, though his pupils learned plenty from listening to him play.)

We humans are very different from each other. Just look at the variety in running styles between, say, 100m sprinters. That's a pretty simple activity compared with playing piano! The real genius teachers are the ones who will quickly work out what's efficient for you and will advise you accordingly. If you've an open, enquiring mind you'll be able to work out most of that for yourself anyway - give it a try!

[gerryjay]

Almost every possible route to achieving mastery has been advocated in print by some famous pianist or other.
(...)
If you've an open, enquiring mind you'll be able to work out most of that for yourself anyway - give it a try!

100% agree.

[michel dvorsky]

Off topic, but not only was his technique limited, it also made certain things impossible - he couldn't play chords or extended octave passages because of his technique.  He even resorted to over-dubbing octave passages (played with both hands) and combined two recordings to form one "flawless" performance.  Recording artist, indeed!  I'd like to see a concert artist get away with it.

Not true. Gould found octaves with large skips difficult (in places like Liszt-Beethoven Symphony 6 4th mvt), probably as a result of his low seating position.  But the guy had totally fabulous wrist octaves that nobody seems to talk about.  Gould's octaves in LB Symph 5 1st mvt 4:48 onwards are more than up to par with traditional virtuosi like Katsaris, Villa, and Scherbakov.   Also, your point about "overdubbing" refers to his OWN piano transcription of Wagner's Die Meistersinger, where it would have been impossible to play all the parts with two hands.  I don't know why anyone would be put off by the thickening out of the recording for the sake of making the transcription work.

Recording artist, indeed!  I'd like to see a concert artist get away with it.

Your comments here are frankly an embarrassment to those who fully comprehend Glenn Gould's contribution to pianism, interpretation, and the art of recording.  When asked who one of his greatest inspirations is, Boris Berezovsky names Glenn Gould, because "he is among the greatest of improvisers".  The interviewer seems flabbergasted. "...Glenn Gould, an improviser?" Boris perceptively points out that Gould carried into the recording studio dozens of conceptions of any individual piece, and essentially used the medium of recording to preserve whatever conception he thought best at the time.   (Proof:

&feature=related)

About not being a concert artist: I have several recordings of Gould playing live and they are nothing short of stunning.

[m]

Off topic, but not only was his technique limited, it also made certain things impossible - he couldn't play chords or extended octave passages because of his technique. 

 

You must be joking, right? Just take a listen to extremely tricky octaves in Brahms Concerto No.1 live, which Gould plays fabulously, with great ease and lightness. He doesn't seem to have any problems with chords and octaves in Prokofiev No.7 Finale, either. Or Beethoven 5th Symphony? Or La Valse?

What are you talking about?

Recording artist, indeed!  I'd like to see a concert artist get away with it.

 

You must be joking, right? Just take a listen to his mindblowing live recordings, so no questions will be left.

Best, M

[michel dvorsky]

Yay!!! 

It feels good to be right.

[sharon_f]

Yay!!! 

It feels good to be right.

Just because someone agrees with you doesn't mean you're right. However, in this case, you are absolutely, undeniably right.

Wow, did I actually agree with you?!! 

[aewanko]

Just because someone agrees with you doesn't mean you're right. However, in this case, you are absolutely, undeniably right.

Wow, did I actually agree with you?!! 

I thought I saw a paradox in your statement, sharon.