Advice sought on technique

[shiftygeezer]

Hi all, I'm looking for serious feedback on my piano playing to help me identify the best path to address playing faults and progress my abilities. I am untrained and 'self-taught,' which really means just pressing the keys as my fingers naturally find them rather than following an efficient, highly drilled mechanic needed for accurate play. I want to know the best approach for shoring up the most immediate faults and trying to establish a stronger base. eg. Although I'm overall comfortable with my playing, I'm unhappy with my lack of definition in the fast arpeggios for example, but is just repetition of those few notes the way forward, or is there a better approach?

I'd be extremely grateful for any comments on the following pieces. Be as brutal as you like - I'm here to learn!

[keyboardclass]

I really like the secound one.  You use your hands/fingers pretty well but your shoulders are a mess! Utilize this shoulder technique.  I don't agree with everything she says but the idea of concentrating on one shoulder at a time is fantastic (wish I'd thought of it).

[shiftygeezer]

Just, I'm really hunched aren't I?! Thanks for pointing that out keyboardclass. This probably explains the strains I get with prolonged playing!

[lostinidlewonder]

One thing I noticed is that your 5th is sometimes detached from your hand, I like to think of this finger connected to the entire side of the hand and travelling up the side of the arm, this avoids us from hurting this fragile finger with isolated movements. Feel more weight of the entire hand, this will perhaps negate some of the unnecessary arm movements you have when you try to pick out melodic lines or things you want to draw out in with the 5th. I notice you are using weight to aid the 5th but it is too sharp and abrupt you need to feel more from the hand. When your LH plays repeated patterns it looks tense, the arpeggios the fingers are slaves contorting to a shape they are not flowing and relaxed free to move in any direction, control groups with one position of the hand more will start to target the inefficiency.

If the group is larger than your hand can control in a single unmoving position, then you still can control a single position but feel the movement of the hand through the group. We need to consider where is the center of gravity of the hand while you play larger intervals, which note or notes act and the center of the group that you play, this will help develop the sense for what it will feel to control the group with a single hand position even though the hand moves. Use the sustain pedal to free up your hands more, sometimes you hold notes which are unnecessary because they easily could be sustained with the pedal and produce the same effect.

Overall try to play more lazy, you want to restrict yourself from moving too much and changing the shape of your hand while you play try to remain in a constant relaxed hand posture and not maintain contortions when you don't have to. You do not want to waste energy as you play that is one key to good technique.  I notice many small individual movements which make your playing so much harder but you have trained yourself to control them. Try to control more single positions of the piano and not make it look like you control a position then jump around hitting notes near it. Try to hold larger positions and make less movements.

[keyboardclass]

while you play try to remain in a constant relaxed hand posture and not maintain contortions when you don't have to.

Best advice so far.

[shiftygeezer]

Many thanks for the detailed response, lostinidlewonder. I've read your post a few times and examined my playing, trying to get a full understanding.

In essence, my play lacks control due to some funky fingering, often playing chords with little finger, middle finger, index finger leaving the thumb out, or ring finger, index and thumb, leaving the little finger dangling. If instead I reposition my hand, I'll maintain more control and generate less fatigue. A very prominent example is at 1:04 in my second vid, where I'm playing GBE with the left hand using middle, index and thumb. What I should be doing is moving the whole hand up to cover the chord with little finger on the bottom note, thumb on the top. Right? how much of a pianists playing is conscious position selection from a range of options, and how much is instinctive/behavoural? Is there a fair bit of trying different fingerings when learning a piece to find the best one, or will painists tend to just stick with what works for them?

One thing I'm decidedly unsure of is when you talk about playing the little finger with weight. Do you mean whole arm/body motion? Should this finger be able to play a key from the finger's own strength alone, or should the hand be rotating to apply force, almost keeping the finger rigid? I don't really know how to use this digit to best effect!

[lostinidlewonder]

...how much of a pianists playing is conscious position selection from a range of options, and how much is instinctive/behavoural? Is there a fair bit of trying different fingerings when learning a piece to find the best one, or will painists tend to just stick with what works for them?

Fingering is the basis for your technique, if you play a piece with inferior fingering then the development of your technique will suffer. Often inferior fingering might feel comfortable and something you can practice to feel normal but the point is that when doing this you are controlling an inefficient technique thus ultimately making your playing more difficult.

With your 2nd video example 1:04 part the last chord of the LH just before you go back down to play a base (Bb). Notice your little finger, it has no home, it is close to your body and off the keyboard, it should be above the note it played before (D I believe). Your 5th should stay on its note like it did in the pattern before this example when it stayed in the Eb. This forces your hand to remain straight and you don't have to twist your wrist as you do when the 5th is "away from home".

One thing I'm decidedly unsure of is when you talk about playing the little finger with weight. Do you mean whole arm/body motion? Should this finger be able to play a key from the finger's own strength alone, or should the hand be rotating to apply force, almost keeping the finger rigid? I don't really know how to use this digit to best effect!

This is really difficult to explain in words so its my failure to explain myself properly sorry. Generally you have to eliminate any isolated finger movement and especially with the 5th because it naturally feels weaker and if it moves by itself we waste a huge amount of energy. We can "get away" with isolated movements with our 123 when it starts with the 45 we start to feel quite bad. Always try to connect all your fingers to each other, so when you play a 4 or 5 you feel it connected to your thumb thus the rest of the fingers. Try to feel everything in context of the thumbs position and you will often improve your hand position as you will then treat the hand as a whole and not parts of it moving in isolation. Rotation is key to use the 5th as well and this can come from a knuckle in the finger, the finger  itself, the palm, the wrist, the arm and the whole body even but when we rotate we must feel a center to our hand and this requires that we notice which notes act as a center to our hand and where the max (generally Lh1 Rh5) and min (Lh5 Rh1) point are in our hand. We don't just rotate our hand abruptly and our 5th merely flicks to the side to produce the note, the rotation is felt by the entire hand when the 5th plays the other fingers are reacting as well, some are holding their notes, others act as the center of the hand the pivot point of the rotation, other act as strong balance points for the hand which the thumb takes front stage the majority of the the time.

These are just imaginations but as your technique develops the imagination of rotation from these points effects your physical action differently. The same applies for volume control, it does not simply come from the hands but from the entire body. pppp can come from the finger tips, ppp-p the knuckles as they come closer to your body the louder it becomes, mp the bottom of palm, mf top of palm, f wrist, ff elbow, fff shoulder, ffff back. These are the visualisations that I generally maintain when considering how loud I will play, you imagine the energy flowing from these points.

[swansonjw]

No advice on your playing, but this sure is beautiful music you are writing.  Don't stop!  If you want to publish them, send me your  MIDI files and I'll stick then into Sibelius and send you the MSS.