should I correct her fingering?

[keyboardclass]

What harm are you expecting? Why would such a simple motion as very slowly and smoothly moving your elbows out to your side and then letting gravity ease them back in (all away from from a piano) do you any more harm than the countless movements you do in life?

The harm will be in habitualizing the tension in your shoulders caused by this 'simple motion' (both in and out).  Once that happens you will no longer feel that tension - bad.

[nyiregyhazi]

The harm will be in habitualizing the tension in your shoulders caused by this 'simple motion' (both in and out).  Once that happens you will no longer feel that tension - bad.

Don't be so bloody silly. The reason you move very slowly and smoothly is so you can remove tensions and perceive what is and isn't necessary in basic movements. What involves less tension- staying still or making slow but continuous movements with conscious intent to release as many unnecessary efforts as possible? Are you also suggesting that Tai Chi movements are dangerous? We should all just wrap ourselves up in cotton wool and lie in bed all day?

The more I do this exercise, the fewer tensions remain. These kinds of exercises have made a collossal difference to the range of motion in my shoulders. Tensions evaporate and leave a vastly more efficient movement in which the muscles role is simply to serve the purpose of balance of movement- not to clench.

The reason the movement is done both ways is precisely so you DO feel the small effort that takes you out and follow it up by feeling how the RELEASE of that very effort is what brings you back in. It improves awareness not only of how to move with minimum effort, but how to perceive the sensation of both introducing and releasing the necessary action to move. The same thing is one of the reasons why weight training is best done with as much attention to the return to the starting position, as to the effort against the weight. Coming back slowly and smoothly improves the sensitivity and control over the release of efforts- rather than just to introducing them.

[keyboardclass]

Don't be so bloody silly.

Don't bloody me!  In Tai Chi (something I studied one-to-one with a master for some years) you are 100% conscious of the movement and stay that way.  In piano technique you subsume any tension - your mind is on other things.  So, as long as you're not sticking your elbow out whilst playing...

[nyiregyhazi]

Don't bloody me!  In Tai Chi (something I studied one-to-one with a master for some years) you are 100% conscious of the movement and stay that way.  In piano technique you subsume any tension - your mind is on other things.  So, as long as you're not sticking your elbow out whilst playing...

If you want to criticise the exercise then read it. I explain in great detail how much awareness must be involved and that it is done AWAY FROM A PIANO. So you can learn the feeling of doing the action efficiently and ingrain that BEFORE being distracted by other things.

If you think you play the piano with zero outward action in the shoulder, forget it. Just as you say- we generally have no awareness of where the efforts lie, due to other distractions while playing. That's why I have isolated this means of perceiving what is used and improving efficiency. If you cannot perceive the actions, you cannot easily control them or perceive where excess occurs. Try playing op. 10 no. 1 with your elbows slumped against your side. It's impossible. That's why an exercise to perceive what actions are used is so important.

[keyboardclass]

I don't think moving your elbow away from the body needs learning -  unlearning perhaps.

[keypeg]

I don't think moving your elbow away from the body needs learning -  unlearning perhaps.

Depends on where a person is at and what is going on.  All kinds of weird situations arise, including the results of misguided teaching.

[nyiregyhazi]

I don't think moving your elbow away from the body needs learning -  unlearning perhaps.

In some cases, yes. If it's overdone, the exercise (which you clearly have not read) is good for that too. It teaches how to do it in a very slow and gradual way, and to reduce the actual size of the movement- until the movement itself is virtually zero. However, a great many pianists have little sensitivity to how much they can vary the weightedness of the arm. This is the simplest means of getting beyond the idea that weight is on or off and exploring what a range of states  is available. There are way too many pianists who simply clench their shoulders to withold weight- especially when playing quietly. Learning the feeling of balancing in the path described makes that very easy to fix.

[keyboardclass]

the exercise (which you clearly have not read) is good for that too. It teaches how to do it in a very slow and gradual way, and to reduce the actual size of the movement- until the movement itself is virtually zero. However, a great many pianists have little sensitivity to how much they can vary the weightedness of the arm. This is the simplest means of getting beyond the idea that weight is on or off and exploring what a range of states  is available.

In Tai Chi we would say empty or full and of course there is everything inbetween.  Tai Chi is better applied to life itself rather than piano - learn to drink tea and brush your teeth with relaxed shoulders, that will transfer to every facet of living including piano.

[nyiregyhazi]

In Tai Chi we would say empty or full and of course there is everything inbetween.  Tai Chi is better applied to life itself rather than piano - learn to drink tea and brush your teeth with relaxed shoulders, that will transfer to every facet of living including piano.

I'm sure that CAN be the case. However, the severe tensions in your Grieg video shows that this will not necessarily follow. Being capable of efficiency and relaxation in simple activities doe not necessarily guarantee it during the complexity of piano playing. Also, not everyone has time to study the whole of Tai Chi. That's why I have created an exercise that specifically addresses the particular means of doing this while playing the piano.

[keypeg]

I've had a chance to play with the exercise and also read a bit of what is behind it (though I do think this should be a different thread.  ).  I see it as something that creates awareness in a general way, and may not even pertain to elbows and shoulders specifically.  There is the general sense of when we expend effort, when we work with existing forces such as gravity - essentially it is a sensitizing thing.  It is good to see an absence of any formula, since everyone is different and what serves one person may actually harm another.

[keyboardclass]

However, the severe tensions in your Grieg video shows that this will not necessarily follow.

So you say.  Just can't leave the ad hominem cvomments out can you?

[nyiregyhazi]

So you say.  Just can't leave the ad hominem cvomments out can you?

I'm sorry that you take it personally, but I make these points of out of relevance to the subject. You said that Tai Chi necessarily spills over into relaxation in piano playing. Well, it clearly didn't even begin to in that film.

Do you seriously think that's a model of relaxed piano playing or that it's an effortlessly efficient execution? Why are you so intent on lying to yourself? Tai Chi helps make movements less effort, but if your fundamental premise for piano playing is not efficient to start with, it's not going to have you playing with any ease. That's why I am making exercises that are to be done in the same kind of spirit as Tai Chi and Feldenkrais exercises- but which are designed to train the feel for something entirely specific to the fundamental premises which permit the possibility of efficient piano playing. It develops feel AND the essential action you need a feel for.

Unless you develop the right premise, you could be the greatest practitioner of yoga and Tai Chi in the world. Trying to play octaves fast and virtuosically would still cause tensions- unless the basic means for efficiency is developed. These methods can be a massive aid when the fundamental conceptions of how to play are sound, but they cannot override severe problems in that conception.

[keyboardclass]

I'm sorry that you take it personally, but I make these points of out of relevance to the subject. You said that Tai Chi necessarily spills over into relaxation in piano playing. Well, it clearly didn't even begin to in that film.

Obviously not 'clearly' as only you see it.  Just can't play the ball, can you?  (and you're certainly not sorry - God, you know how many times a day I hear that word at work? - it means nothing to me).

[nyiregyhazi]

Obviously not 'clearly' as only you see it.  Just can't play the ball, can you?  (and you're certainly not sorry - God, you know how many times a day I hear that word at work? - it means nothing to me).

If you're not making a point about piano technique in general, I'm not interested. I used you as an example to illustrate a point with regard to the broader subject. Anyone who has seen your films can decide for themself whether living your life under Tai Chi has kept you relaxed in that Grieg excerpt or whether you are remarkably tense.

 I'm not remotely interested in debating your fantasy that you are a model of efficient, low effort piano technique who is beyond criticism. How highly you wish to hold your abilities in your own estimation is of no interest to me. If you want to continue to have a go at me for challenging your delusions of grandeur, feel free. I will have nothing more to say unless it relates to the wider subject- rather than solely to your playing.

[keyboardclass]

I will have nothing more to say unless it relates to the wider subject- rather than solely to your playing.

...a subject (my playing) only you seem interested in pursuing!

[nyiregyhazi]

...a subject (my playing) only you seem interested in pursuing!

I reference your playing exclusively because it provides such a powerful example of how your cast-iron mentality can be seen to impact on your limited piano technique (or in the case of Tai Chi, how this has failed to have a notable impact on the results). If you want to argue that your "relaxed" technique is beyond criticism, I have literally zero interest in joining in. The subject of piano technique is where my interest lies- not in your playing itself. Unless you'd like to bring it back to that subject, I have nothing more to add.

[arturgajewski]

I started playing piano so that I formed chords with 2-3-4 fingering. I got used to it so much that even today I involuntary go into this position even though I have spent hours and hours of painful (only in my head) re-training to use correct fingering 1-3-5.

One of the obstacles for me was learning scales with my weird fingering when all the sheet said 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and I had to convert that to 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, and some other weird stuff like that.

I have big hands as I am 6'6" (198cm) tall. I can hold a basketball in one hand with no problems and have a span of 10 notes on the piano. Playing chords with 1-3-5 feels really cramped, but then again it makes sense for so many of the things.

My opinion: Don't do the same mistake I did. teach you child the way it's proven to work. Don't re-invent the wheel. 

[keypeg]

If that fingering lets you play with ease, is it "wrong"?

[arturgajewski]

If that fingering lets you play with ease, is it "wrong"?

It's easy when I play triads only, but try to play classical with 3-4-5 fingering 

[keyboardclass]

I reference your playing exclusively because it provides such a powerful example of how your cast-iron mentality can be seen to impact on your limited piano technique (or in the case of Tai Chi, how this has failed to have a notable impact on the results).

I think you've contributed enough delusional thoughts re: my technique for one thread, don't you?.

[pianoplayjl]

If her fingering does not affect her playing at all, it does not matter. None the less I think it should be a good idea to change the fingering.