Stop Press: Otto Ortmann Reveals Fallacy of Relaxation Schools!

[keyboardclass]

The fundamental conclusion of Otto Ortmann's famous 400 page scientific study of piano physiology  is half a sentence long - '...The need for fixation during tone-production...'  It is something in the 50 or so previous years worth of calls for relaxation that had never been articulated (as far as I know).  A fact, I assume, few were even actually aware of.

[nyiregyhazi]

I'm currently reading his book. Firstly, he's wrong on this and, secondly, he is using very silly language that is inevitably misunderstood. He should have said BALANCED. However, for much playing there is no fixed fulcrum. There are many useful ways of moving around the key in a circular path or pushing yourself away from it. In situations where the knuckles need to stay in a more continuous position, basic psychology dictates that thinking of 'fixing' them induces excessive effort. It's plain foolhardy of him both to use the term and to overlook the premise itself is not strictly even accurate. The "fulcrum" will regularly move.

Ironically what he probably means is don't droop through depression. That causes severe inefficiency in your playing. However, moving in the opposite direction works far better than fixating against that droop. Ortmann totally missed some key mechanical issues.

[keyboardclass]

I'm currently reading his book. Firstly, he's wrong on this and, secondly, he is using very silly language

I'll stop reading there thank you very much.  The guy was a genius.  If you wish to drag him down to your level go ahead - I'm not interested.

[nyiregyhazi]

I'll stop reading there thank you very much.  The guy was a genius.  If you wish to drag him down to your level go ahead - I'm not interested.

If you want to treat a definably erroneous conclusion as gospel, it's your own grave that you are digging. Extremely efficient acceleration is possible without a single fixed fulcrum. Picture a pole vaulter action. In this type of movement there is no fulcrum (other than contact between pole and floor- but nothing in the body represents a fixed fulcrum). If you are unable or unwilling to think through the fact that this makes a mockery of ortmann's bizarrely shortsighted misapprehension, it's your own loss. The only purpose of "fixing" is to stay prepared for the following notes. But those with an ounce of common sense think in terms of balance instead.

[j_menz]

Yawn. 

[perfect_pitch]

I've stopped caring about what Keyboardclass has to say...

Doesn't seem to respect anyone here, so why should I listen to a damn thing he says... and personally I think he does it just to inflame other users here and to argue with them.

[keyboardclass]

I've stopped caring about what Keyboardclass has to say...

Doesn't seem to respect anyone here, so why should I listen to a damn thing he says...

!?  The thread's about what Ortmann has to say and I certainly have no respect for anyone who has no respect for Otto Ortmann!

[lostinidlewonder]

What is the fallacy? What is Relaxation Schools? What press needs to be stopped?

The fundamental conclusion of Otto Ortmann's famous 400 page scientific study of piano physiology  is half a sentence long - '...The need for fixation during tone-production...'

What is fixation? What is tone production?
Once these are defined: Is it impossible and beyond the realms of reality to not fixate during tone production? Is there not one single example where we do not need to fixate during tone production in piano playing?

It is something in the 50 or so previous years worth of calls for relaxation that had never been articulated (as far as I know).  A fact, I assume, few were even actually aware of.

What has never been articulated?

[keyboardclass]

Fixation is the muscular contraction required to keep the finger/hand/arm shape from giving way when overcoming the enertia of the key(s).

Once these are defined: Is it impossible and beyond the realms of reality to not fixate during tone production? Is there not one single example where we do not need to fixate during tone production in piano playing?

If you drop the limp forearm, hand and fingers into the keys yes, you'll get a sound but it's in no way a useful means - it's totally uncontrolled.  

[lostinidlewonder]

Fixation is the muscular contraction required to overcome the mass of the key(s).

Can there be no combination of natural gravity of the playing mechanism AND muscular contraction to produce a note?

If you drop the limp forearm, hand and fingers into the keys yes, you'll get a sound but it's in no way a useful means - it's totally uncontrolled.  

The keyword is "limp" when we completely turn off any muscular control and allow our body to fall towards the earth due to gravity. A combination of this AND muscular control however will produce a more relaxed technique.

[keyboardclass]

Obviously.  It is the key to good playing - the more work you get gravity to do rather than muscle the better.

[nyiregyhazi]

Obviously.  It is the key to good playing - the more work you get gravity to do rather than muscle the better.

This is exactly what ortmann disagrees with elsewhere in the book. Gravity offers no free energy. The muscles work even more to charge up gravitational potential energy-much of which is wasted. That means that using gravitational energy is slower and requires more overall muscular work. One of ortmann's strongest messages is that what you state does not hold true. If you're going to pick and choose, I'd aim for the accurate parts rather than his errors regarding the need to fixate (which in itself totally contradicts the above assertion). What ortmann missed is that while allowing something to collapse down is harmful to efficiency, you can push or pull it UP in a way that is more profitable than stiffening.

[keyboardclass]

This is exactly what ortmann disagrees with elsewhere in the book.

In which case I'd rather see his words.

[nyiregyhazi]

In which case I'd rather see his words.

Then read them. While his points tend to be rather well hidden among an excess of details, he could scarcely have gone to greater lengths to contradict the idea that the more work gravity does, the better. I'm bemused as to how how you might possibly have missed that. It's trying to get away from the inefficiency of permitting gravity droop which caused him to make his error about fixating (by missing that there's a third option of movement in a mechanically positive direction- rather than sagging down with gravity).

[keyboardclass]

Then read them.

page no.? Quote?

[thalbergmad]

While his points tend to be rather well hidden among an excess of details

Sounds fascinating reading.

Thal

[birba]

I have to confess my ignorance.  I've never heard the name.  I'm curious, though, and want to look into it.

[keyboardclass]

Here's an interesting extract:

[ajspiano]

As with all pedagogues thoughts - I tend to lean toward he's right, and has been, or is easily misinterpreted. Fixation is a terrible word for what I suspect he means here. I havent read the book, so you'll have to take me with a grain of salt here.

As N. is saying, there is activity in the various muscles, as in, we do not just flop a relaxed arm/hand/fingers into the keys, which is what ortmann is likely pointing out by saying there is a need for fixation - but - I do not agree that the joints/muscles go into a "fixed" unmovable position which is what ortmann's language suggests.

I don't think he's wrong - he's just difficult to interpret unless you already have an idea about the topic.

But again, that can be argued against depending on your interpretation of fixation. The word makes me think I should go rigid and put tension into aspects of the apparatus in ways that will result in severe negative effects to my playing facility. For others it may give them exactly what they need at the lesson.

Its note worthy that in the quoted passage ortmann says "within a single lesson" - which could mean that it took an entire hour of elaboration, further explanation and instruction after observing the students attempts to properly explain what was actually meant by the initial statement "there is a need for fixation during tone-production"

[nyiregyhazi]

ch is what ortmann's language suggests.

I don't think he's wrong - he's just difficult to interpret unless you already have an idea about the topic.

I think you're being very generous. Even if he meant something other than rigidly fixed in space, simply by using such a foolish description (and failing to provide a specific practical description that would clarify the difference between balanced and rigidly fixed) he would have to be seen as wrong. If a pole vaulter were to leap around a stick, in order to depress a movable platform, nobody would  describe a single part of that as being "fixed". It instantly disproves his premise. In the book Ortmann's introduction of the premise is founded on unproven assumption. He backs it up with no science, but merely with casual observations- about how it's easier to play loud with a fixed hand than a limp one. He forgot that joints can move in two opposite directions.

While I'd like to think Ortmann meant something other than truly fixed, I'm not convinced he fully knew himself what he meant. While he is extremely detailed on some issues, he spends no time going into the mechanics of issues that relate here. Fixed is totally the wrong word- as the real issue is basically about whether something is expanding or collapsing. If it's collapsing it causes inefficiency but if it's expanding it actively adds to efficiency. Theoretical fixation would just be neutral- neither helping nor hindering the energy transfer. The problem is that full fixation is neither possible nor healthy. Even the stiffest fixation cannot be perfectly stiff- meaning that there will still be some loss. All if takes is it MOVE in the productive direction and a negative turns into a positive. Ortmann clearly had not realised that there's a third option- other than allowing destructive movement/bracing against it. It's a staggering oversight to make in an attempt to analyse scientifically.

[ajspiano]

Well as I said - I haven't read it so my opinion isn't really worth much.

To add to the debate though - I do remember edna golandsky talking about problems and errors in ortmanns book during one of the taubman lectures. And there is a section where dorothy discusses aspects of her own method comparitively to ortmanns thoughts and states her opinion to be that it is next to impossible to know whether ortmann had similar ideas to her because she found it far too difficult to accurately interpret his book..

In saying that, they also regularly quote him in agreement with certain aspects of his work.

[gvans]

I have to confess my ignorance.  I've never heard the name.  I'm curious, though, and want to look into it.

Birba: Otto Ortmann was a Johns Hopkins guy, director for a time at Peabody Conservatory, who obsessed on piano mechanics, sitting for years in his laboratory measuring, taking X-rays, studying visiting virtuosi, trying to come up with basic rules of piano technique and hand physiology during 1917-1942. His 400-page book, Physiological Techniques of Piano Playing (1929) is out of print, and, as thalbergmad suggests, pretty dry stuff.

As far as I can tell, some people love him, others think he was a fool. Most probably, the value of his work lies somewhere in between.

I'm not aware of any physiologists duplicating his work (the gold standard of the scientific method), although it's possible. Whenever I read of those enthralled by his scientific approach to art, I think of what Hans von Bulow (the guy married to Cosima Liszt and cuckolded by Wagner, a conductor who made his orchestra memorize their parts--another odd duck) said to a member of his audience at a concert who complained there were not enough seats on the left of the auditorium, allowing visualization of the pianist's technique:

"One plays the piano, madam, with the brain, not with the hands."

Glenn

P.S. After enjoying your Kabelevsky and Ginastera, I don't think your technique needs much help from Ortmann.

[j_menz]

"One plays the piano, madam, with the brain, not with the hands."

Reminds me of what Horiwitz once said to Barenboim in a masterclass when Barenboim asked how to produce a particular effect:

"You have to will it."

On another matter, if the work the subject of this thread was written in 1929, the "Stop Press" bit of the thread title seems a little quaint.

[keyboardclass]

Fixation is the muscular contraction required to keep the finger/hand/arm shape from giving way when overcoming the inertia of the key(s).

I did define fixation earlier for those perturbed by the term.  Obviously it is only just enough contraction to meet the resistance, and no more.  Here's Schultz: '...fixation beyond a needed amount constitutes a waste of energy, and a waste of energy needlessly hastens fatigue.'  

edit: here's Ortmann: 'All joints between the point at which the greatest part of the motion occurs and the fingertip, must be fixed sufficiently to transmit the desired force, without loss, to the piano-key.  For piano degrees the fixation is slight, for forte degrees, it is considerable.

[keyboardclass]

Reminds me of what Horiwitz once said to Barenboim in a masterclass when Barenboim asked how to produce a particular effect:

"You have to will it."

On another matter, if the work the subject of this thread was written in 1929, the "Stop Press" bit of the thread title seems a little quaint.

To just 'will it' is the aim.  Technique is learning to allow your body to use the most efficient means to carry out the will - it's also the boat you leave behind after you've reached that shore.  It's the same with any martial art.

As for the stop press - it's pretty much new news here!

[nyiregyhazi]

I did define fixation earlier for those perturbed by the term.  Obviously it is only just enough contraction to meet the resistance, and no more.  Here's Schultz: '...fixation beyond a needed amount constitutes a waste of energy, and a waste of energy needlessly hastens fatigue.'  

edit: here's Ortmann: 'All joints between the point at which the greatest part of the motion occurs and the fingertip, must be fixed sufficiently to transmit the desired force, without loss, to the piano-key.  For piano degrees the fixation is slight, for forte degrees, it is considerable.

Which fully clarifies that ortmann had indeed made the error of assuming that everything must be immobilised. If you want transmit the force without loss, the muscles simply need to attempt to move in the opposite direction to collapse (in some cases enough merely to balance but frequently enough to move) . This is a totally different issue to having to strain to save your joints from collapsing- with no intention but to fix against the negative direction of motion.

It's not a fixation. It's based on the fact that moving one way is the easiest way to avoid being moved in the opposite direction. Otherwise you end up clenching hard, but achieving less. Instead of repeating this obsolete error ad infinitum, would you like to move on? If you feel that this third option (where ortmann thought there were only two) is unsuitable, please go ahead and debunk it.

[keyboardclass]

Which fully clarifies ... please go ahead and debunk it.

Anyone understand any of that?

[nyiregyhazi]

Anyone understand any of that?

So, you're claiming to understand the intense scientific jargon of ortmann- yet the simple premise that collapse can also be avoided by movement (rather than fixation of joints) is too much for you to handle? Instead of responding with a tedious one sentence wittlesscism, I would like you to stop and think about this premise. Then, in if you feel you have a basis upon which to debunk the third option (as missed by ortmann's false dichotomy), I would like to hear precisely what that is.

[keyboardclass]

If I get it right - you propose to use more effort than is required to preserve the joint's shape.  Which is more effort than is required for key depression which is a waste of effort (and movement).

[nyiregyhazi]

If I get it right - you propose to use more effort than is required to preserve the joint's shape.  Which is more effort than is required for key depression which is a waste of effort (and movement).

No less. It takes substantially less effort to be moving in the opposite direction to collapse than to fixate. Also, this movement actively contributes to creating acceleration- whereas fixation is neutral (and also requires the greater energy of moving the whole arm up and down for every individual tone).

Try lifting your hand in the air and fixing, it before descending like Rubinstein. Then try again- but move your hand to push off during depression. It's the only way to absorb impact. Fixation is utterly unworkable.

[keyboardclass]

No less. It takes substantially less effort to be moving in the opposite direction to collapse

What kind of physics is this?  The joint collapses because there isn't enough effort to overcome the inertia of the key - less effort than that and...well nothing, nothing moves.

[werq34ac]

If it's between collapsing and fixating, then I say

You should be doing neither.

Collapsing places stress on the joints in ways they shouldn't be stressed. It's like bending back your wrist as far as you can. And then going further. Sure, you can be careful about not pushing it back too far, but in the heat of playing, can you really control how much you're stressing your joint?

Although fixating the joint means that your are forcefully holding the joint in place. Which means you are tensing up the joint. Again, not healthy. It's only so long before your fingers get tired.

The last joint needs to be curved in order to support the hand, but fixating that joint actually ends up tensing up the whole hand.

[costicina]

Ehmm, sorry if I intrude in this learned discussion, but in my very modest opinion,  AJ said the right thing.

It's very difficult to translate in words highly complex patterns of motion like those involved in piano playing, and it's very easy to misunderstand a given explanations. 

This is my personal experience:

My past teachers insisted on "articulation", i.e. active fingers, i.e. using ONLY the fingers to play. Hence all the crap about exercises to "strengten" the fingers, or still worse to reach the "indipendence of 4th finger" (a crass idiocy).

Re-staring piano playing after a long, long iatus, I embraced the opposite "relaxation" view, but misinterpreted it as "playing with limp, inactive fingers". Of course the outcome was the disaster described by Ortman.

Moral: relaxation and active fingers are both required; in piano playing there should be a synergy between the two things....

But maybe I'm wrong 

[keyboardclass]

The last joint needs to be curved in order to support the hand, but fixating that joint actually ends up tensing up the whole hand.

Only 'during tone-production'.

[keyboardclass]

Moral: relaxation and active fingers are both required; in piano playing there should be a synergy between the two things....

But maybe I'm wrong  

But maybe you're right

[nyiregyhazi]

What kind of physics is this?  The joint collapses because there isn't enough effort to overcome the inertia of the key - less effort than that and...well nothing, nothing moves.

If you assume no finger movement, you also assume that every depression is caused by lifting the arm up and down on every note. Regardless if you belive in fixing, upload a film of you doing big arm lifts with fixed hand on landing. I'll upload something tomorrow to show how easy big drops are when the hand moves through the key- rather than seizes up into impact.

[keyboardclass]

If you assume no finger movement, you also assume that every depression is caused by lifting the arm up and down on every note.

!?

[nyiregyhazi]

Moral: relaxation and active fingers are both required; in piano playing there should be a synergy between the two things....

But maybe I'm wrong 

This is true- but the problem is that it doesn't provide the slightest way of understanding what is specifically needed. If you look at movement issues instead, you can pinpoint various key issues. You can identify the sagging movements that hinder and then instigate movement in the opposite direction- to eradicate the ill effects of limpness without stiffness being the alternative. From here, the details start to become fully clear. It's not so much a matter of aiming for some indescribable balance between the two, but simply of judging by a completely new yardstick.

Also, I can't agree regarding the fourth finger. It can never be fully independent, but it can be greatly improved- if you go about it in the right way. The ability to move that finger well is central to playing fast legato thirds, among countless other things. I'd say that I've at least doubled the range of how far my fourth can travel without significant movement from the third (or bracing against it) in recent years. There's nothing wrong with striving for indepence- unless it's done by stiffening other parts.

[keyboardclass]

to eradicate the ill effects of limpness without stiffness being the alternative.

Apart from the breaking in of joints (lack of support) during key depression there are no 'ill effects of limpness'.

[nyiregyhazi]

Apart from the breaking in of joints (lack of support) during key depression there are no 'ill effects of limpness'.

Yes, other than the wasting most of the energy, giving minimal control and requiring an abrupt muscular effort not to collapse into a cluster, yeah no ill effects at all.

So you've gone from preaching that fixation is NEEDED to saying that limpness and collapses are fine, after all. You are a troll. Nobody could possibly have so little intelligence as to state such transparently contradictory premises without realising.

[keyboardclass]

You are a troll.

You wanna make that a hotkey - saves typing it each time!

So you've gone from preaching that fixation is NEEDED to saying that limpness and collapses are fine,

You're obviously quite thick - I've made it very clear (as did Ortmann) that fixation is NEEDED during tone production.  Outside of that limpness is fine - collapsing never when under pressure.

[nyiregyhazi]

You wanna make that a hotkey - saves typing it each time! You're obviously quite thick - I've made it very clear (as did Ortmann) that fixation is NEEDED during tone production.  Outside of that limpness is fine - collapsing never when under pressure.

You made it fully clear that you were talking about issues during tone production, within your "other than". When had this thread been about anything else? You think the moment of tone-production is one of the less important things to be in control of? Funnily enough, I was talking about tone production too when I listed the wealth of additional problems that occur during that time. Why are you seeking to covertly mask what subject that was being referred to? You're just trolling again.

If you want to keep repeating this bilge about fixation, first you have to debunk the alternative I have described to either collapsing or bracing . Pretending it does not exist is not a foundation upon which you can state that fixation is needed. First you must eliminate all credible alternatives. Fixation is a choice. I'll upload a video of this particular alternative to it in action shortly. I'll be expecting a film of yourself performing a similar style of movement  using fixation.

[nyiregyhazi]

Okay, here's a demonstration of what total nonsense it is to claim that fixation is "needed". I should just make a brief disclaimer to say that while I have played the Liszt sonata a great deal, I have not been practising it recently and this is not intended to illustrate technical perfection. This passage just immediately sprang to mind as a suitable example to use.

Note in the slow demonstration, there is nothing being fixed at all. There's just movement via the hand in a useful direction (rather than counterproductive movements that are caused by flopping or pressing through a limp and inactive hand, to collapse it). Not a single joint is being immobilised. It's MOVING in the opposite direction to unwanted movement. That is not fixating.

When it goes into quavers, the video shows how movement can be used to bounce the hand away, without any arm pressures. In the faster rendition, it is abundantly clear that the hand is not fixing itself into a static position. The fingers are always moving through the keys, not fixing. I need to work on getting vastly more movement still, as this isn't even a fraction of what can be achieved at the highest level. However, if I had the deluded mindset of trying to fix the hand, it would be 1000x worse. It would yield vastly worse results for a lot more effort. Immobilising the hand takes vastly more muscular force than moving it- which is why I need to work on achieving far more movement still. Movement creates freedom whereas fixation bogs everything down.

I would now like to see keyboardclass illustrating his immobilised hand in practise for loud octaves, both at slow speeds and at least at a moderately fast tempo.

[keyboardclass]

You've fixated the RH pinky knuckle otherwise that whole pinky side of the hand would collapse.  What you are demonstrating is my flick but with collapsed finger joints:

[nyiregyhazi]

You've fixated the RH pinky knuckle otherwise that whole pinky side of the hand would collapse.  What you are demonstrating is my flick but with collapsed finger joints:

It's there is because that's where the completed movement leaves it. It did not start there and was not fixed there during depression. I thought you were talking about DURING depression? Yet you post a photo of AFTER? Even here it is not fixed, but has evolved through movement into balance. Would you say that a person who begins squatting and then stands up does so with fixated knees? It would be a ludicrously inappropriate term to use, while they are moving. Even in standing, a person who stands in good balance should fall over if you kick the back of their knee. Balanced and fixed are two different things. Fixation is a truly inept term to describe this- and simply click encourages severe clenching.


Also it's not your flick. My arm moved as a passive response. The hand produced the key movement and the arm movement followed in response.

[keyboardclass]

It's there is because that's where the completed movement leaves it.

Yes, but it's the whole hand (from the wrist) that's moved.  The actual knuckle is fixed - if not it would be sunk in at the end of the movement.  it's your old friend - the strong arch structure that Fraser always talks about.

[nyiregyhazi]

Yes, but it's the whole hand (from the wrist) that's moved.  The actual knuckle is fixed - if not it would be sunk in at the end of the movement.  it's your old friend - the strong arch structure that Fraser always talks about.

Take some screen grabs of successive frames DURING key depression. The fingers are lengthening. They are not fixed, but are moving. If movement occured from the wrist and the hand were fixed, the knuckles would be falling through every movement. Otherwise the key could not going down. The knuckles don't fall because the finger is lengthening and the space between thumb and second is expanding. That's a movement-not a fixation.

[keyboardclass]

If you want me to get technical it's what Schultz calls trans-fixation movement - 'movement caused by muscular contraction with a moving base of fixation'.  If you did the same but kept your wrist still you'd find the knuckle doesn't move either.

[nyiregyhazi]

If you want me to get technical it's what Schultz calls trans-fixation movement - 'movement caused by muscular contraction with a moving base of fixation'.  If you did the same but kept your wrist still you'd find the knuckle doesn't move either.

Would you mind clarifying what this jargon means? I'm not interested in non-standard undefined terminology, but in what it specifically refers to. What is a moving base of fixation supposed to mean? And who said anything about keeping the wrist still? None of this requires a fixed wrist either. When I am saying what nonsense the need for fixation is, you can take that at face value. Not as implying that the wrist should be fixed still- if you drew such a bizarre interpretation. The knuckles can still be bounced up. It's just that they are not allowed to collapse during depression-due to movement that sends them in the reverse direction.

[keyboardclass]

 A trans-fixation movement is simply one where the fixated joint is moving.  In this case the knuckle (the fixated joint) is moving because it is attached to the hand which is moving at the wrist.  Do the same finger movement with the hand held still and you'll find the knuckle is also still.