Is my teacher's piano the bane of my piano existence?

[flyinfingers]

Boy, if you ever thought you could be discouraged with something that is out of your control, then I have just found it!  My teacher has a Petrof; I, a Technics digital at the moment.  I can play my piano with expression due to the lighter touch of the keys.  She has stated several times that her piano has a very hard touch and most people don't like it or have a difficult time adjusting.  
So I go to my practices (two weeks now with my new teacher who I think is really good) BUT that darn piano kicks my butt so far!  I cannot play the piano soft at all.  It is so hard to depress the keys (and I have pretty strong fingers, as she comments on it) that I am unable to play my songs from pp to ff (well, loud is no problem, but the crescendos and such are) and surely not pp at all.  I depress the key too soft and then there's no sound.  She has tried showing me (today) how I only need to depress the key part way to get sound, but what good does that do me since it's not my piano and no teacher had ever taught me that concept in my youth!  Has anyone else had this problem?  I feel I have hit a brick wall now after finally finding a decent teacher after six weeks.  It's very frustrating and I'm afraid that this current obstacle is going to affect my motivation because I didn't feel like playing when I got home today for the first time in weeks.

[slyfox2625]

practice practice practice, exercise i would suggest getting some finger weights for cheap for a very good help, i did and i have a digital, i got on a grand piano and felt it was no problem, if i were you tho id just exercise those fingers.

[jimbo320]

If it were me I would probably bring my DP and say this is my instrument of preference (lol).
Then again that might cause a riff.

On a serious note (no pun intended) look into finger grip exercisers. Go to a medical supply house and ask. They look something like trumpet valves and fits in your palm and has springs.
When I took physical therapy is were I saw one...
 

[keypeg]

I would opt for technique, asking teacher for the same, and not opt for exercise devices that could possibly cause injury.

[keyboardclass]

There are two types of pianists - the bashers (who play every piano as if it's their home one) and the caressers (who accomodate their touch to each instrument).  The way to become the latter is to be so relaxed and sensitive that your body seems to say to you - Oh, this is interesting let's explore.  i.e. a good piano should entrance you.

[keypeg]

Relaxation is not a solution.  I relaxed myself into hopeless mush with my first instrument and carried that over to piano.  Technique ... knowing what to do ... understanding how the the instrument works and working with it .... is the solution.  The idea of relaxation is misunderstood by many and it was misunderstood by me.

[flyinfingers]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.  First off, I cannot take my piano with me as it is just like an upright piano.  They no longer make these and I am very pleased with my digital piano but it has just sat there for the past ten plus years (was pianoless since '75 to 2001) and we moved it around from base to base every two years (all the while my husband bitching about why are we moving this thing all the time?)  ***  Did a face appear?  Last time I tried, it left that D! ***
Anyway, I agree with the relaxation as I do seem to be a bit tense at times and I think that's why she gave me the Prelude (well-tempered clavichord) because of that reason.  I learned it real well in a week (don't ask me how many hours I played and played and played), and I played it with such beauty (so my husband said) then got to her house and it was a total mess because of all the emotion that should be put into it, and I couldn't execute the piece properly at all, not to mention I still have the nerves going on.  I have yet to play the Beer Dance, Waltz in B flat, perfectly like I can because of the nerves and so I keep it on my list to play until there's no mistakes with an audience.  
Anyway, that's why I'm so frustrated.  Thanks so much for your responses.  I'm not giving up by any means.  I'm just going to lower the volume on my digital and play it harder.  That's what a great pianist has just told me to do!  
What happened to the good 'ol days when they came to your place?  Maybe I should ask her if she's willing to do that (for a fee), especially once I get my new piano!  
By the way, I brought my I. Philipp "Exercises for Independence of the Fingers" AGAIN yesterday because she told me last week (first lesson with her) that it was too difficult and it's for people wanting to be concert pianists!  She made a copy of the first page so that's a good sign.   I have been doing them on my own.  I'm still working on the first exercise since it has taken quite a while to figure out the progression and my brain is getting a workout as well.  These are the exercises I did when I was twelve years old and I recommend them to anyone.  Maybe do a post on that and see if anyone else has used that book.  

[keyboardclass]

By the way, I brought my I. Philipp "Exercises for Independence of the Fingers" AGAIN yesterday because she told me last week 

Do read the forward.

keypeg, relaxation is somethimg you do instantly after tension.  It's a consistent switching - the key won't go down without tension, but you mustn't hold it.  There's no constant 'mush'.

[flyinfingers]

I'm confused by your post and your quoting my philipp exercise book.  Are you familiar with this technique book? 
These are foreign nuances to me at this point, e.g., relaxation, tension, etc., that were never emphasized in my youth lessons and maybe rightfully so as maybe as a youth one cannot relate, but, nonetheless, how can I relate this to my teacher's piano?  You made some statement about the piano being an "entrance" to me, but I would bet you couldn't play this piano with the emotion you may evoke from any other piano.  Believe me, I took lessons from two previous teachers on two other pianos in the weeks preceeding (nerves and all) these last few weeks and didn't feel this same feeling on the keys.  This piano is a different animal. 

[keyboardclass]

This bit:


By 'entrance' I meant if it is a good piano and you don't allow any tension your body will be entranced by it.

[flyinfingers]

Are you doing these exercises and, if so, what is your opinion of them?  I'm still not relating to the "entrance" thingee but give me some room to grow as I have just taken up piano again after being nonexistent except for a few Xmas songs and such since -- well, I'm still trying to determine when I quit and i have googled my old piano teacher of my hometown of erie, pa, to determine just when it was that I made  -- yes, me soley alone with no support from the parents --- the decision to quit the piano!  Pisses me off to this day that I made such a stupd decision, but I did become a successful court report -- big deal -- laywers -- YUK!

[keyboardclass]

Entrance is what I mean.  I don't really practice but I know (and have used them) the Philipp are some of the best around - just don't do them mechanically.

[keypeg]

keypeg, relaxation is somethimg you do instantly after tension.  It's a consistent switching - the key won't go down without tension, but you mustn't hold it.  There's no constant 'mush'.

Sorry, only with a teacher.  I'm undoing a major mess with my teacher's help. You need observation and feedback.  I'd venture to say that nobody should use the Internet for that kind of advice.

[keyboardclass]

Sorry, only with a teacher.  I'm undoing a major mess with my teacher's help. You need observation and feedback.  I'd venture to say that nobody should use the Internet for that kind of advice.

I don't think attempting to learn relaxation on their own will hurt anyone.

[nyiregyhazi]

Do read the forward.

keypeg, relaxation is somethimg you do instantly after tension.  It's a consistent switching - the key won't go down without tension, but you mustn't hold it.  There's no constant 'mush'.

If we're defining tension as being muscular activity, you must indeed hold it. Otherwise the key comes straight back up. If you pretend otherwise, it just means you have no awareness and hence no means of determining whether the ongoing activity is being applied efficiently and sensitively, or whether you're keeping the key from rising by bringing in stiffness. Alternatively, if we're defining tension as being stiffness, it has no value anywhere in the action.

My recently published blog post goes into how little is to be learned from trying to analyse things in terms of tension and release (even if you acknowledge that most activities lie somewhere in the middle). Obviously a person should know how to relax and obviously a person should not be tensing up.

The problem is that looking at tension and release scarcely even scratches the surface of why severe negative tensions occur. The main reasons why people resort to stiffness lie in altogether different issues.

[keypeg]

I don't think attempting to learn relaxation on their own will hurt anyone.

I could connect you with a number of people whom learning "relaxation" did hurt.

[nyiregyhazi]

I could connect you with a number of people whom learning "relaxation" did hurt.

Myself included. Learning HOW to relax is fine. But associating dysfunctional relaxation with specific actions in piano playing just causes tension. When I believed fingers should relax after each key (rather than avoid any discomfort from the very outset) I used to be as stiff as hell. Being capable of relaxation wasn't a problem, but striving to literally relax in the wrong places can cause a very large amount of unwanted tension. Appropriate use of comfortable activity in the right places resolves tensions elsewhere. Blindly striving for maximum relaxation just means you relinquish control over where tension will manifest itself.

[keyboardclass]

You obviously had poor guidance.

[nyiregyhazi]

You obviously had poor guidance.

Perhaps. But it was specifically the tension/release concept that caused my problems. Since I dropped that approach and focussed on comfortable but CONSISTENT contact with the piano, my problems have been resolving themselves. The most important realisation I ever made is that in the vast majority of playing, anything which must be consciously released after the key depression is something that should never have been there DURING key depression. If you don't have time to relax between notes in fast playing, it's no use relaxing between notes in slow practise of that passage.

[keyboardclass]

And this is where you make your mistake.  If you allow it to happen it happens at a non-conscious level - much faster.

[keypeg]

You obviously had poor guidance.

"Obviously" means that you are basing yourself on evident things.  Since you have no knowledge whatsoever about my history or the kind of guidance I have or haven't had, you cannot make such a statement.  Furthermore, in response to my statement that a number of people have had problems, my guidance has nothing to do with their problems.

Be that as it may --- Internet advice is NO guidance.  For physical matters of this nature, it is prudent to work with an expert who knows what he or she is doing.  That expert watches and assesses the person.

[nyiregyhazi]

And this is where you make your mistake.  If you allow it to happen it happens at a non-conscious level - much faster.

I STOPPED dysfunctional relaxation from happening. The problem in my former playing was the fact it DID happen. I only learned to play faster without forearm seizures because I stopped telling myself it's okay to relax from discomfort after it already happened. It isn't. Where I still have technical problems, it is almost without fail in places where my knuckles droop and collapse. It's these dysfunctional relaxations that I continue to have to eliminate - not "allow".


It's not about "allowing" anything, but recognising the fact that good quality movements leave no discomfort- which is why they allow people to play quickly without constant tension. Until you post some films of yourself playing at least moderately fast, you have no business speaking about what works in advanced technique. The things you are promoting specifically limit your own ability and perpetuate the fact that you cannot play fast with control.

[keyboardclass]

That's all anecdotal and, therefore, means nothing.

[keypeg]

Give me a teacher any day who works with what is happening, rather than with what should theoretically be happening.

[keyboardclass]

...and one who teaches rather than blogs about it.

[nyiregyhazi]

Give me a teacher any day who works with what is happening, rather than with what should theoretically be happening.

That's a strange dichotomy. How can any teacher succeed without reference to both? There's no teacher in the world who does not have views about what should theoretically be happening- otherwise they'd have nothing to teach anybody. The best teachers have such a wide understanding of what should be happening, that they are able to single out the most important omissions.

I taught a student today, who is very musical but who only recently took an interest in developing real technique- rather than playing through pieces. He's used to pressing hard with the arm through a stiff hand. In the end, one of the most useful things of all proved to be getting him to stand up and play scales very slowly, with the feeling of the fingers reaching out through the keys, to push the knuckles up and away from the squashed and stiff position he had been putting them in. in the end, he was no longer bracing his hand and wrist stiffly and had began to actually move his fingers freely and easily into each key (without arm pressures that he hadn't realised were occurring, until he felt what it's like to remove the burden, by playing while standing). Obviously you have to adapt to every case, but what should theoretically be happening is of paramount importance in guiding that. Without any idea about that, a teacher is either just repeating 2nd hand information or guessing. It's equally important both to see what position a student is in and to know what should be happening for them to do better.

[keypeg]

That's a strange dichotomy. How can any teacher succeed without reference to both?

I should explain what I mean.  this is not only in music.  In teaching we get theories: people of a certain age think a certain way in certain stages; this social group thinks in that way; this (whatever) is a problem that is always fixed in that way because everybody's body / mind / ears function the same way.  We get handy rules of thumb in pedagogy.  The danger comes when this becomes rigid.  If you expect things to be a certain way you may see what you expect to see, or not see at all.  You can dismiss anything you see or are told which does not match the theories that you hold.  I've seen it happen both as student and as teacher.

[lostinidlewonder]

There is NO special technique to deal with pianos that has an action that feels extremely heavy to you. You merely need to practice playing with heavy action pianos. There IS a difference in how you need to approach them but that comes with understanding your economy of action with your technique (this can be trained on both light and heavy action pianos, but it is easier to notice if you are going wrong with heavy pianos since they tire you out a lot quicker if you have inefficient technique).

The catch 22 is however, although it is easier to notice you are going wrong with heavy action pianos it is difficult to practice for long periods of time to solve the problem as you get physically taxed very fast, however with a light action piano, although you can practice for longer periods without becoming too tired you may in fact be able to get away with inefficient movements and the subtle difference between efficiency and inefficiency with regards to technique can become very close together.

Playing on very light pianos can be forgiving to your technique, i.e you may get away with inefficient movements without being punished with fatigue especially with rapid notes like long runs, arpeggios, trills, tremolos etc. I grew up playing with a Bechstein which had extremely heavy action and because I was a child and not fully developed I thought it was the reason why I did feel lactic acid burning in my hands/arms when I played sometimes. I still find that piano much heavier than almost all the other pianos I play and it still taxes my energy more so than any other piano, but I have learned to deal with it and save energy to deal with tiresome passages.

Points of relaxation and points of exertion in pieces are very important to notice and I can recall very strongly how it helped me deal with my old Bechstein as a youngster. For example when I studied Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata 1st Movement I would find the LH octave tremolos points of exertion because as a child with small hands it was certainly a challenge to try to maintain comfortably! Often I would feel lactic acid burning in my arm but as soon as I escaped those tremolos my LH was encouraged to try and rest while playing, this allowed me to gain some stamina in the hand/arm before having to deal with tiresome sections again. I found when you are playing passages which are less physically demanding you need to learn to relax as much as possible to try and recover some energy. I remember watching a science documentary on this using rats swimming in a bathtub. They would let them swim until they drowned which is terribly cruel, but the rats which they allowed to rest for 30 seconds or so then when they where forced to swim again could swim a lot longer than those who had no chance to rest. This means, points of rest replenishes more energy than points of exertion take from you.

In the end, just practice more on heavy action pianos, they are useful to learn from since your technique and economy of energy is forced to walk a thinner tightrope. You will come across many different pianos in your lifetime that are less heavy than your teachers but still more so than the one  you play at home, but you will not feel too discouraged because you have had experience playing on your teachers one which is much more difficult. Growing up with a heavy action piano for the first 15 years of my playing certainly gave me the confidence to play on any piano, where I have noticed students of mine who grow up with feather light action digitals are horrified when they come across a heavier action piano so much so that it makes them think much less of their ability! It certainly can be a shock and demoralizing, but take it as a challenge and just realize one more point, that you should predominantly play the pianos that you feel comfortable with but puzzle over how to deal with others. It is good to have a strong preference in what action you prefer, this means when you ever go out to buy a piano you merely have to play them to know if it is the right one for you.

Why not go visit a piano store and play on the pianos. Find out the different action of each piano. Which one feels close to your piano at home, which ones might be lighter, a little more heavier and those that resemble your teachers and perhaps even some that are even heavier than that! It is curious to discover at all of these different type of action pianos, I find it interesting at least, each piano feels unique in some way (ignoring the sound it produces).

Certainly do not turn away from your teachers piano, things that feel difficult in life often teach us a great deal more than if we remained in our comfort zones. So please don't feel discouraged and press on!

[flyinfingers]

Thank you for all of your responses.  Seems like I started another coffee guy debate, which wasn't my intention, but makes for intersting reading especailly with your coffee!

[keypeg]

There is NO special technique to deal with pianos that has an action that feels extremely heavy to you. You merely need to practice playing with heavy action pianos.

There is technique - period - though.   (As opposed to finger strengthening devices, for example, which I was responding to when I first mentioned technique).  Essentially what your "economy of action" is about too, I think.  If we have not learned how to work efficiently with the piano then we also can't apply what we don't know to pianos that work differently.  This is where I am at personally, since I learned to play on my own as a child and now I am actually learning how to play the piano.

[keyboardclass]

Thank you for all of your responses.  Seems like I started another coffee guy debate, which wasn't my intention, but makes for intersting reading especailly with your coffee!

Hey, I'm drinking coffee this minute!

Problem is people press the piano key like it's an elevator button.  You need to live the moment of key depression - It's more like neading dough  (Tausig I believe).

[nyiregyhazi]

I should explain what I mean.  this is not only in music.  In teaching we get theories: people of a certain age think a certain way in certain stages; this social group thinks in that way; this (whatever) is a problem that is always fixed in that way because everybody's body / mind / ears function the same way.  We get handy rules of thumb in pedagogy.  The danger comes when this becomes rigid.  If you expect things to be a certain way you may see what you expect to see, or not see at all.  You can dismiss anything you see or are told which does not match the theories that you hold.  I've seen it happen both as student and as teacher.

Okay, I see what you mean. I'd just say that if a theory only works for some, it's simply a bad theory. While the best teachers ought to be able to take totally opposite problems and help with both (using totally different approaches), it doesn't mean that they don't have a theory about what should be happening. It just means that they have a far more sophisticated means of making that happen.

Personally, I think the lack of clarity about what should be happening is responsible for a very large amount of bad teaching- of the kind that helps certain people in specific situations, but holds back anybody who succeeds in taking it literally. In particular, it accounts for the numerous schools that go on and on about the arm, while neglecting the fingers and hand to the point that you'd imagine that they're the single least important element.

[nyiregyhazi]

There is technique - period - though.   (As opposed to finger strengthening devices, for example, which I was responding to when I first mentioned technique).  Essentially what your "economy of action" is about too, I think.  If we have not learned how to work efficiently with the piano then we also can't apply what we don't know to pianos that work differently.  This is where I am at personally, since I learned to play on my own as a child and now I am actually learning how to play the piano.

Absolutely. While I agreed with just about everything else about the description, technique is everything when it comes to this issue. Heavy actions are a sink or swim situation. At my parents' house there is a Petrof upright piano that has about the heaviest action I have ever encountered (the Renner action is heavier than on most Steinway grands). Most of the time when I had practised regularly on that piano, I had no finger technique and probably did myself far more harm than good- due to attempting to apply energy with my arms, through incapable fingers. That just encouraged stiffness. More recently, it's become an excellent piano to practise on.

The problem with speaking of economy of motion is that it is good technique that enables it. It's not true to reverse it and say that economy of motion produces good technique. On the contrary, held as a goal it often leads to very stiffly repressed movements. One of the good things about heavy actions is that, if you know how to move right, they encourage totally unrepressed actions from the hand (although, sadly, if you don't they are more likely to encourage a stiff hand and straining). Emaciated little prods don't cut it. When I go from my old Bluthner to other pianos, I'm constantly finding that my finger actions are just too half-hearted. It takes a while to be able to adjust. If I were striving to employ a bare-minimum, I'd be screwed altogether.


My most recent blog post explains the basic mechanical background behind why some people strain like hell, whereas others can play heavy actions with seemingly no effort at all. The issues are extremely simple, when you look a layer beneath the surface. Efficiency of action enables economy. What constitutes efficiency should be better understood. The possibility of economy is merely what results from having the ability to employ what really makes for efficiency. Unless other factors are specifically helping to develop an efficient motion (where energy is not drained by collapsing fingers), even a heavy action is not necessarily going to help at all. While it gives greater feedback to a pianist who is already on the right path, it doesn't offer anything to a pianist who is not on the right path.