Alan Fraser?

[soitainly]

 I watched a series of videos on YouTube yesterday with Alan Fraser, mostly a master class where he describes his main principle of a supported skeletal structure. It all made sense to me. Are there any detractors to this way of playing? I found it strange that players of pretty high caliber would need such basic technical advice, what were their teachers thinking.

 I noticed in my own playing that I was letting my hand drop and collapse quite a bit, but i am self taught. I had started out with the basic principle of an arched support, but over time must have been less aware of what I was really doing. I see all kinds of hand positions watching other players, it seems all of the old school famous people had some kind of arched support, even if there hand was rather flat and fingers rather straight like Horowitz. I did see a few modern players whose structure seemed to break down, even though they were great players. I guess there is no definitive wrong or right, I just would like other peoples opinions.

[keyboardclass]

I watched a series of videos on YouTube yesterday with Alan Fraser, mostly a master class where he describes his main principle of a supported skeletal structure. It all made sense to me. Are there any detractors to this way of playing?

Yeh plenty, including me.  His technique, for what it's worth, works for him because he has big hands.  He neglects muscles and ligaments without which the skeleton falls apart.  Have you seem the looney Mozart playing?

[pianisten1989]

Worst. Mozart. Ever!

I've seen a few of his videos, and he can't play at all! And he obviously has no tonal control..

[richard black]

Ooh, I rather like that. Well, in a limited kind of way. It's not exactly my taste but I like the fact that he's making his own piece out of it and there's plenty of character in the playing. The technique looks eccentric to the point of wilfully bizarre, but he's clearly got excellent control of the keys and is achieving what he wants to achieve.

[pianisten1989]

Ooh, I rather like that. Well, in a limited kind of way. It's not exactly my taste but I like the fact that he's making his own piece out of it and there's plenty of character in the playing. The technique looks eccentric to the point of wilfully bizarre, but he's clearly got excellent control of the keys and is achieving what he wants to achieve.

If by "excellent control" you mean random accents and obviously no control at all, then yeah, he's got excellent control!

[richard black]

Sure, random (random-sounding to most of us) accents, but he clearly means them all. And when he's not dropping in random accents he's actually exceptionally even, hence my assertion that he does indeed have very precise control.

[soitainly]

 Back to more what I was really asking about was on the techniques he was teaching in the master class, are they legitimate or off base. I understand that his own playing may be eccentric, but it's hard to judge technical foundations from a teaching perspective on how a guy plays and interprets music. In this case, are any of the things he teaches unsound.

 All this leads me to believe that there is no right way to play piano. If it works for you then it is right. Hopefully you won't get injured and can play everything and interpret things how your muse leads you.

 This is one reason why I haven't actively pursued a teacher. I just find too many different opinions on what is good and bad. Not in just piano teaching but nearly everything. The students in his master classes obviously reached a certain level of proficiency, I assume with teachers, yet had some flaws that seemed that their own teachers overlooked.

 Here is a link to the first part:

The class is rather lengthy, an hour or so with the first student. If you have the patience watch it and comment on whether you think it makes sense what he is saying.

[richard black]

I only dipped in but I couldn't find him saying anything that struck me as fundamentally wrong, still less dangerous (in the sense that it could lead to injury or something). The trouble is that there's no one way of doing it, in fact there is an infinite number of ways of doing it because:

1 There's plenty of choice of technical approaches to achieve a specific result and

2 No two commentators (players, teachers, listeners) are even going to agree on what that specific result should be!

So you're bound to get conflicting advice and opinions every step of the way.

One of the great things about having resources like that masterclass on YouTube is that you can watch, listen, think about things and draw your own conclusions. To that extent, anyone trying to learn is spoiled like never before - you don't even have to go to the concerts or masterclasses any more! Of course, being there is preferable, but in the comfort of your own home, at little or no expense, you can watch hour after hour of fine playing and high-level teaching and for anyone of intelligence that's bound to yield useful results.

[keyboardclass]

This is one reason why I haven't actively pursued a teacher.  I just find too many different opinions on what is good and bad. Not in just piano teaching but nearly everything.

I'm the same about viola playing which I started a few years back - who actually knows what they're talking about?   Fraser described using arm weight as total anathema to him years ago then waxed lyrical about it after having a series of lessons on it himself.  His contribution amounts to a few personal 'tricks of the trade' which we all pick up over the years with dabs of Tai Chi and Feldenkrais neither of which he has much understanding of.  It's not a pedagogy (a way of playing the piano).  The only real danger is if you imitate his stiff way of using the fingers.  The whole playing mechanism should be relaxed when not in the act of depressing a key - I don't think he ever achieved that himself.    nyiregyhazi on this forum is one of his train wrecks.

[pianisten1989]

nyiregyhazi on this forum is one of his train wrecks.

and we're on.. Probably an other actual discussion that will get ruined by you and nyiregyhazy.

Anyway, the fingers seem to be more or less slapped into place from the wrists which doesn't seem that great to me. There are too many pieces where that wont work. And whenever he plays with his 5th finger, the hand completely lies down. Again, too many pieces where that will destroy the whole thing.

I don't believe in those fixed positions he's nagging about. We can move our entire body, why would we make it fixed so that we can't?

Normally, I'm not like "if he plays well, that means he's a good teacher" (cause that doesn't make any sense), but mr Fraser can't play a scale in a normal way, when he tries to fix his hand.
And look at him! He's at least 2 meters tall, and he can probably reach from c to f without any major difficulty. Everything he has to do is making him smaller, if he doesn't want do destroy every piano he's playing, so that might be the reason why it works for him (as some people say it does, though I don't think it doesn't)

THIS IS MY PERSONAL OPINION, AND SOME PEOPLE MIGHT SEE THIS IN A DIFFERENT WAY

[keyboardclass]

One thing he is is a supreme self publicist.  He has his own forum, web site etc.  There's pages and pages on the website where he 'evaluates' every major school of pedagogical as if the contiguity with the great and good will bring some kudos to his own ideas - it doesn't of course.

[hankee]

I'm new to this site and find the discussions very interesting! I had to comment on Alan Fraser's work, because I just attended his Piano Institute for a full week. I'm a pianist and teacher who has studied many DVD's and books on piano technique and strive to always keep an open mind. I liken the variety of opinions on piano technique to "The Blind Men and the Elephant" poem; each man has only one part of the elephant and insists that he's right about what it is, even though none of them can really see it. Perhaps the people that dedicate much of their musical lives to trying to understand and explain piano technique are the "sighted" ones, but even the sighted can never see the whole elephant at once.

That being said, it pains me to hear people who have studied this topic a great deal being dismissed and/or dissed. Alan Fraser is a fantastic teacher; passionate, committed, and unique in terms of his decades of Feldenkreis teaching. I know that the Mozart video is unusual; for what it's worth, he didn't play that way even once all week at his Institute; in this case, he's really just exploring Horowitz's piano, almost playing as though he's improvising the piece and trying to find out what this particular instrument does. He has other videos of his concert performances (Scriabin, Liszt, etc.) that are very good and obviously prepared versus the impromptu Mozart rendition.

Fraser worked with students at all levels and did what all great teachers do; he listened and addressed each person's strengths and weaknesses, integrating his own beliefs about technical options based on the repertoire being played and any physical inclinations that might get in the way. His books are extremely well thought out and well written, and although he definitely has strong ideas about how the body is designed to work he is not dogmatic.

So, please don't judge people who are trying to do good things for other pianists based on cursory glimpses at their materials - give them a chance! In the cases of Seymour Fink and Alan Fraser, both of whom I've seen dissed here, they have done considerably more homework than most people and deserve credit for that.

[frankpiano]

His technique, for what it's worth, works for him because he has big hands.  He neglects muscles and ligaments without which the skeleton falls apart. 

Hello, I was browsing the Internet and came across this - just thought I would add my two cents' worth... I would not agree that I neglect muscles and ligaments. It's rather the other way around - I add the "missing ingredient" of many other approaches, the skeleton, to the mix - finally the muscles and ligaments are related to what they move - the bones...

Kind regards, Alan Fraser

[frankpiano]

Sure, random (random-sounding to most of us) accents, but he clearly means them all. And when he's not dropping in random accents he's actually exceptionally even, hence my assertion that he does indeed have very precise control.

About that Mozart: I must say that I myself don't like all those physical moves I do. Also, I think the accents are overdone, although if they had been moderated a bit, I think they would help express Mozart's architectonic structure...

Why did I allow it to be posted, then? Mostly because of the sound of the piano - it was a precious moment for me and I felt that, although the performance would not be to many people's taste, perhaps it would touch a few...

[awesom_o]

Do you compose and improvise much, Mr Fraser?

[frankpiano]

His contribution amounts to a few personal 'tricks of the trade' which we all pick up over the years with dabs of Tai Chi and Feldenkrais neither of which he has much understanding of.  nyiregyhazi on this forum is one of his train wrecks.

1) Hmmm, I completed a professional training in Feldenkrais Method in 1992, followed it up with 20 years' experience. Could you advise me on what I need to do to gain a better understanding of the Method?  
2) "nyiregyhazi" has indeed attended several of my Institutes. He is actually the student in chapters 7, 8, 9 and 26 of my book, All Thumbs. However, his contact with me was never consistent or lengthy enough for us to achieve the goals we had set in terms of his playing. Like many student-teacher relationships, it's a "work in progress."

[frankpiano]

I don't believe in those fixed positions he's nagging about. We can move our entire body, why would we make it fixed so that we can't? Mr Fraser can't play a scale in a normal way, when he tries to fix his hand.

This illustrates the difficulty of communicating anything. I am the last person to advise any sort of fixes position... it all needs to be moving. If you see me fixing my hand to play a scale, then I'm doing it wrong!
I've had this problem before. I've written three big books on piano technique, and at the beginning of the first one I talk about the structural power of the hand's arch. I have the student stand up into the arch and feel its solidity. I thought I made it clear that this is a preliminary didactic strategy, and I spend most of the next three books showing how to make that structure move effectively. Then I get people (on other forums) saying I teach pressure technique.
You can't win!

[frankpiano]

Do you compose and improvise much, Mr Fraser?

I wish I had time! The last thing I composed was a Nunc Dimittis for a Magnificat that I wrote over ten years ago. It remains untexted because I am too busy teaching, performing and writing books...

[awesom_o]

You can't win!

You can win by making amazing recorgings of standard repertoire!

[nyiregyhazi]

1) Hmmm, I completed a professional training in Feldenkrais Method in 1992, followed it up with 20 years' experience. Could you advise me on what I need to do to gain a better understanding of the Method?  
2) "nyiregyhazi" has indeed attended several of my Institutes. He is actually the student in chapters 7, 8, 9 and 26 of my book, All Thumbs. However, his contact with me was never consistent or lengthy enough for us to achieve the goals we had set in terms of his playing. Like many student-teacher relationships, it's a "work in progress."

Apparently this guy is a fellow Canadian of yours who studied with Grindea and who's said that he once had a lesson with you, if that rings any bells? Speaking of "train wrecks", this is where what he describes as years of lessons with Grindea got him:

I heard that you're running a course in London sometime, btw? Is that coming up next year?

[awesom_o]

I'm Canadian.  The Canadian style is intense!

[thalbergmad]

You can't win!

Not in this place you can't.

Thal

[awesom_o]

Though I am not a fan of the bizarre, percussive accents (Mozart said that his music should flow like oil....oil is very smooth when it flows), Mr Fraser didn't appear to be making them unintentionally.

I do have a great deal of respect for him for referring to piano-playing as a craft!