How to handle technically difficult works when nervous?

[keyboardclass]

Couldn't this discussion be settled with each of you posting a video of yourself playing something technically challenging, like a Chopin or Liszt etude, in tempo, and then others can judge if your ideas about technique can be used?

Hardly.  It's your thread, I'm happy to bow out.

[nyiregyhazi]

Whatever their technique I've never seen anyone's hand fall of the keyboard.  It just isn't an issue.

Obviously. That's the whole point I am making. Nobody is willing to fall off the piano or collapse their palm into the keys etc. So, whether the efforts that STOP these things from happening are large efforts or small efforts is a very significant issue. Do you prevent it with small efficient efforts, or does your subconscious leap to any old means to prevent it?

Very basic physics illustrates that there is less effort when the hand contributes to support. If suspension bridges were only connected at one end, they'd have to be as stiff as hell to stay up. Outstretched structures require large efforts to be kept in place- UNLESS a second point contributes to support.

[nyiregyhazi]

Couldn't this discussion be settled with each of you posting a video of yourself playing something technically challenging, like a Chopin or Liszt etude, in tempo, and then others can judge if your ideas about technique can be used? Preferrably in another thread While your discussion deserves its space, with all due respect I think it has strayed from my original question in the topic and should continue elsewhere.

You're struggling with arm tensions? This is precisely the issue I raised (before being bombarded with nonsense about "adding" tension). Inefficient approaches to movement specifically require arm tensions to stop your palm crashing down into the keyboard- particularly if you use active whole-arm pressures. If you use such a style of movement, the tension serves an essential purpose- ie. to stop your hand playing clusters before slipping off the piano. That's why it's essential to find a style of movement where balancing efforts are distributed efficiently and where tensions simply are not needed in the arm. Major tensions are rarely random. They are caused by using a style of movement in which they serve a necessary balancing purpose. Your subconscious is not willing to allow palm clusters, so it leaps to whatever means of prevention is available. Sadly, the subconscious is not terribly efficient however (unless it is trained just right already). If you want to eliminate the heavy efforts, first you must set up a style of movement in which such emergency efforts never become required. From then on, it's merely fine tuning.

Here's a Chopin Etude, although I'm afraid the style of movement is far from a model worth following. I still have many technical issues to work on.

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[mcdiddy1]

What is funny is if you watch the Alan Frasier DVD he actually mentions this whole particular argument. He describes the school of though which rely  on the idea of having relaxation in the hand and the school of though of having a more structured hand of relying more on grip which was common in classical pieces.

I honestly believe there is validity in both arguments , it just depends on what music you are  playing. You would want to rely on bone structure and maintain some contraction of the muscles for pieces such as Mozart because the notes are more rapid, closer together and best served with that type of technique.

Alan Frashier puts more emphasis on skeletal structure rather than muscle contraction and demonstrates if we totally play with no contractions of muscles in our hands, we would not be able to stand, much less hold our hand up ( which he demonstrates by actually falling flat on the ground!). I absolutely agree with the argument , we should not add tension but going to the other extreme of having complete relaxation makes piano playing impossible also.

 I believe true wisdom is admitting you do not know everything and having a willingness to listen to the other persons point of view. I believe what you are both saying valid and true and in teaching my students I would mention either schools of though depending on the what the music demands.

 At the end of the day what matters is the results, not necessarily the looks.  When you listen to the video, I hear a very warm and relaxed tone, strong voicing of melody, rapid notes played easily and freely, quick finger dexterity and I would venture to say it does not appear he is under strain or is experiencing difficulty playing this way, ( which I doubt considering he made a whole DVD about his view of piano technique). If the music does not suffer, the player does not suffer what is wrong with the technique.

 Horowiz and Glen Gould do techniques we are told never to do but the result is musical and works for them. Rather than name calling, in my opinion it would be better to accept both points of view are  two sides of truth about piano technique and find places in music  where the two techniques can be best used and where it does not work so well.

[nyiregyhazi]

Horowiz and Glen Gould do techniques we are told never to do but the result is musical and works for them. Rather than name calling, in my opinion it would be better to accept both points of view are  two sides of truth about piano technique and find places in music  where the two techniques can be best used and where it does not work so well.

I'm open minded about anything that is possible, provided it is not done dogmatically. I'm not arguing for a side- I'm pointing out the whole spectrum of reality. I believe that using the absolute minimum pressure to keep a key down is absolutely right in some instances. What I have absolute zero tolerance for is the nonsensical insistence that anything other than this has no place and for arguments that smear alternatives based on factually inaccurate (and indeed ill-considered) premises. For a start, there's no way to keep a key from rising back up without some form of muscular activity in the hand (particularly if a person claims the hand should support literally no weight at all- which is impossible anyway). So to say muscular activity in the hand should cease after the note has sounded is simply not accurate- without even going into the muscular releases that this permits the arm to use, without it being possible to fall from the piano.To pretend that a sliding scale of possibility is simply a situation where effort is on or off is the thing I have a big problem with. It's a completely false portrayal of a reality where the only functional state is somewhere in the middle. I'm arguing for ALL possibilities that are indeed possible- not a polarised extreme, that is based on completely overlooking indisputable facts and refusing to acknowledge perfectly credible alternatives.

"A grip is tension.  To be done and finished with in the millisecond of key depression.  You don't prepare/hold it - that's just nonsensical."

The above is totally in error. The right level of grip may not feel   like a big effort. However, it's perfectly possible to use too little- which is why such overwhelmingly subjective assertions can be extraordinarily dangerous when portrayed as if grounded in objective reality. Such thinking frequently causes pianists to alternate between excessive effort and dysfunctional levels of relaxation and collapse- which is exactly what we see in the poster's own playing.

[keyboardclass]

"A grip is tension.  To be done and finished with in the millisecond of key depression.  You don't prepare/hold it - that's just nonsensical."

The above is totally in error.

You see?  I agree to bow out and he posts this?  Really poor netiquette - someone who obviously just doesn't give a damn.

[thalbergmad]

I think that in secret, you two love each other

Thal

[nyiregyhazi]

You see?  I agree to bow out and he posts this?  Really poor netiquette - someone who obviously just doesn't give a damn.

I give a damn about piano technique and having aims that are consistent with possibility. If "etiquette" involves humoring short-sighted thinking that can be objectively proven as bullshit, then you'll have to count me out. Simply to hold a key down (without the palm collapsing) requires muscular activation. The only reasoned argument is over the extent of that.