Tech.; also does it matter how I strike keys as long as im playing right?

[brendan765]

I've just recently started studies with a new teacher(very good teacher) and he has made it aware that I have tensional stress in my muscles when I strike the keys. Which I do.I have been off track since sometime after my grandmother passed away 4 yrs ago or so.

I can fix the technique such as: (mindless repetitions, focus the right colors im pieces of different composers by slowing down when needed, and practice small sections, taking hands apart when needed.)  With this matter I have been off track since sometime after my grandmother passed away 4 yrs ago or so ago. The teacher doesn't know I have had these problems.



On the other hand it is very tedious and stressful trying to completely change the way my hands strike the keys because this is how I have played the piano since I was very little, probably been 15 years of playing this way. What he means is that the hand motions I use are wrong. and I have an arsenal of them, and would need to completely replace that arsenal. He found this problem right when we met; stress has built on me with this reverse psychology it would be to change my hand motions.

What should I do.
answer a)Should I use practice concepts (which ones) to reverse my 15 year incorrect hand motions?

answer b) Should I show him I can make a piece sound good with my current hand motions. (meaning just as good as someone with correct hand motions)



Just a little about myself: Studying to perform as Concert Pianist. Building vast repertoire, from brahms to chopin as far as rags to Liszt.

[j_menz]

Answer: A.


Not the one you want, I'm guessing, but the only one that will get you where you want to be.

[brogers70]

I agree with j_menz. Option A. It won't be anywhere near as hard as you anticipate. An easier, more relaxed and efficient approach will feel so much better that after a month or two I'll bet your brain will naturally avoid going back to the old way.

[keypeg]

I am in your situation.  I played piano self-taught for about ten years when I was young without as much as ever seeing a pianist up close.  Then I resumed piano 30 + years later just at the point when I could not have a teacher, knowing I should have one, and finally now, 4 years after that, I am finally working with one.  I knew the importance of technique because just before that I had my first ever  music lessons on violin, got on a bad start with that instrument where technique is crucial, and was starting into remediation when already advanced when my lessons had to stop (and saw the difference).

On piano I could play expressively, but for certain kinds of music one hand started to go partly numb.  Even when that didn't happen, what I was doing stopped me from playing faster or more smoothly, or not have the control I wanted.  I was hitting barriers just like I had with violin.  My teacher and I are working on this now, and fortunately I know how to work as a student.  And no, it's not easy if you have played for many years one way.  The rewards, however, are worth it.

A word of warning.  Some teachers have a set idea of how motions "should" look.  I.e. they have a formula.  The bottom line that I'm told and agree with is that if it sounds right and feels good (and probably looks decent) then it probably is good.  Caveat about "feels good" - whatever you have done for years will feel good and normal unless you're actually experiencing pain.  It is only after you have felt "relaxed" that you will know that you were not relaxed.  Btw, relaxation does not mean limpness - there is "tension" in relaxation in the sense of the gymnast.

Have you yourself noticed any difference when doing the things that your teacher is proposing?  That is assuming that you have spent time sincerely trying them at home.  Are there problem areas where things might be clumsy or awkward or hard, which you have assumed they just are that way?

How you go about practising when undergoing remediation is a question in itself.  Will it be with pieces you already play, or new pieces?  Will you do exercises outside of pieces to get a technique into your body, so that you can then draw on it while practising?  How do you approach the pieces - in sections?

The rule of thumb about learning to use your body differently is that it requires a concentration that you can only maintain for a short time, because it exhausts the brain.  So many short spurts of 15, 10, or even 5 minutes in the beginning are more effective than 30 minutes where you tend to drift back into habit.  I find that working on one thing at a time is more effective than trying to tackle many.  At my end, I'm working right now on what I'm doing with my hands, wrists, and arms, and then back into the shoulders, for playing chords.  Having the weight in my feet and shifting balance while playing in different registers, still being aware of feet and legs, is a second thing that I'm doing because of where I'm at.  Before if I was aware of one, I'd lose the other.  Now they are starting to work together.  And yes, all this is a pain in the #@$ because what you want to do is go off and play music.

Should I show him I can make a piece sound good with my current hand motions.

You might want to do that, and be prepared to have him show you how he can make the piece sound better with other hand motions.  There are a few teachers out there who can mimic their students' motions and sounds, and then show alternatives - not to mock their students, but to show them what is possible.  Seriously, if this teacher is good and trustworthy, what do you have to lose?  Do you want to produce pieces, or learn how to play?

[danhuyle]

If you find yourself straining your arm, or just hurting yourself to play a piece, then you'll have to fix your technique.



Here's professional playing. Me playing Beethoven Sonata Op10 No2 1st movement back in 2007 for a final year exam.

That's how I sit at the piano and how I normally played before... I hate playing this way. It creates too much nervousness.

Do something like that and just play.


Here's me playing 1st movement Moonlight sonata

I'm that bored. The technique is a bit... something that piano teachers will never teach.

Don't worry, I'm not injuring myself.

[keypeg]

Danhuyle, what is the point of your two videos?

[zezhyrule]

Here's professional playing. Me playing Beethoven Sonata Op10 No2 1st movement back in 2007 for a final year exam.

You know your timing was completely off in many places? 

[keypeg]

Here's me playing 1st movement Moonlight sonata

I'm that bored. The technique is a bit... something that piano teachers will never teach.

I watched it again, lol.  As funny as it is, there's an important point - something my teacher and I talk about a lot.  There is "choreography", where students are made to do exaggerated motions with their arms and wrists, leaning in and out.  It looks affected and often it doesn't do anything.  Sometimes it's for show.  Sometimes it's part of a method for teaching good movement, but somehow it becomes nothing more than some external, rote motions.  Your joke is an exaggeration of all that, and it made me laugh.

Yes, but - when they teach that way they're actually trying to get at something that does exist, like what's behind what good pianists do in miniature.  It's just that this probably isn't the way to get there.  I wonder if I can get at something here:

When I played self-taught I didn't have any give at my wrists, my arms were rather rigid, and the only thing that really moved were my fingers and for larger sounds the arms by themselves.  Atm I have to unlock all that, as well as finding the natural way that they body actually moves.  So sometimes when something is "locked up" I do exaggerated movements so that the arms for example can feel how they can move, and then let it settle down.  That's the strategy at present.  Or when playing in the bass or treble, do a huge lean to the left and right, far more than needed, so that I can feel what it's like to lean.  I'm thinking that when people start as children, they will move in a more exaggerated way because that's what kids do, and because they are little and have to.  Then it settles down by itself.  Sometimes what I do does look like that exaggerated choreography, but it's something that you feel in your body and through the piano - not some imitated motion.  Those are just silly.

The bottom line is that if you were uncomfortable and struggled in spots, and you become more comfortable and hard things become easier, then you're on track.  The principals under which I'm working with my teacher is "If it feels good and has the right sound, then it's probably good."

[ajspiano]

keypeg is giving good advice here..

The principals under which I'm working with my teacher is "If it feels good and has the right sound, then it's probably good.

That is really critical..

Its possible to produce a good sound with poor motions (though obviously difficult) but its infinitely easier to play well with good quality motions. Its also possible to have no idea that there are fundamental problems with your movement - you don't know what you don't know.

Copying good pianists helps, but its a visual thing, and its doesnt address the fundamental need for your body to be balanced and working in the right way because its possible to visually imitate something and completely miss the critical element that is happening..  as a teacher I can show a student how to do something, such as move in a particular way - but the result of that is the student moves in that way without a reference, they can come close but usual its still not quite right. The reality is that you need a model of the right "feel" - where it feels right and everything is easy.. then you just maintain that and allow your body to go where ever is has to in order to do that.

This is why its difficult to teach technique well, and that really its a personal development thing.. the teaching is a guidance, not an actual "this is how", the student has to explore the right things and find the how for themselves. The "try moving this way" that a teacher can give is because we know that that is roughly where the right thing is, and that way a student will find it quicker than if they are left to their own devices either looking in the wrong place or not looking at all.

[keypeg]

Its possible to produce a good sound with poor motions (though obviously difficult) but its infinitely easier to play well with good quality motions. Its also possible to have no idea that there are fundamental problems with your movement - you don't know what you don't know.

Copying good pianists helps, but its a visual thing, and its doesnt address the fundamental need for your body to be balanced and working in the right way because its possible to visually imitate something and completely miss the critical element that is happening..  as a teacher I can show a student how to do something, such as move in a particular way - but the result of that is the student moves in that way without a reference, they can come close but usual its still not quite right. The reality is that you need a model of the right "feel" - where it feels right and everything is easy.. then you just maintain that and allow your body to go where ever is has to in order to do that.

This is why its difficult to teach technique well, and that really its a personal development thing.. the teaching is a guidance, not an actual "this is how", the student has to explore the right things and find the how for themselves. The "try moving this way" that a teacher can give is because we know that that is roughly where the right thing is, and that way a student will find it quicker than if they are left to their own devices either looking in the wrong place or not looking at all.

All of it wise!

An example for exploration.  My wrists were locked, and even when that was loose, I was tight at the elbows and this affected the release of chords.  A slight outward swoop of the elbows is releasing the latter right now.  We see that swoop choreographed.  I don't actually need the swoop itself, and my teacher doesn't do it, but it DOES allow me to feel movement elsewhere in my body so that "whatever" stops locking up.

The other side of the coin: I've watched on-line demos by teachers who choreograph certain things in wrist and arm.  I "understand" what they are doing because I have the feeling for these things now - it's in the feeling and not the choreography.  How does one describe "feeling".  It's like when you create a sound with a particular loudness and direct energy at the piano, and want to release that energy, so something happens between your energy, your body, and the resistance of piano keys, and gravity --- all of that will translate into things that can be seen.  Maybe the wrist is springy in the push and release.  So you see the teacher demonstrating the result - the way the spring wrist moves - and the student imitates it perfectly.  THEN you see the same students actually playing in a performance.  All the "right motions" are there yet the playing is ineffective.  You see the wrist move but it doesn't look "springy" - it looks like the student is going through the motions but isn't feeling the keys or hearing the sound.  Another student may have a mini-version of it and be totally unaware, but it's happening naturally.  Or you see  a "still" player like Horowitz or Rubinstein, but the micromovement is there.

Ajspiano, would you say that a teacher will be as much feeling and hearing what his student is doing, as he is seeing?

he fundamental need for your body to be balanced and working in the right way because its possible to visually imitate something and completely miss the critical element that is happening

To me the word "balance" is the key - and the knowledge that everything interrelates.   When my weight is partly in my feet, then my arms are free.  when my fingers are tight, it locks up the shoulders.  But if my shoulders are tight because I'm off balance on the bench, then my fingers can be tight.  You may see a good thing happening in the fingers because of what is happening in the feet.

I have thought of something else - the intellectual part.  If you don't know where the notes are, or are hesitating, then that uncertainty can also have a physical effect.  Supposing that you don't know whether to go left or right, or which finger to use as you start to move.  If your impulse is to do two different things, then your body is fighting itself.  Or if your hand and arm is hovering in the air in uncertainty between chords instead of moving smoothly and landing at the next place, that moment of holding will create effort and tension.  There are SO  many things to learn that I suspect one could continue for a lifetime.

[sucom]

I don't think any tension in your fingers, hands or arms is helpful to piano playing because tension can create a lack of expression, a reduced tone quality and also reduce the ability to play fast passages or any passage that is physically challenging.

I used to get some tension in my little finger when playing trills - for a long time my little finger would rise in the air until the day my new teacher at music college suggested putting a flag on it. (makes me laugh thinking about it, even after many years).  Once I became aware of this little .... problem, I made efforts to stop doing it and eventually lost all the tension there.

Before answering your own question, can you say totally honestly and be 100% certain that changing your technique to lose any tension you have would not improve the sound you are producing, or improve you ability to be more flexible with your fingers, hands and arms in general?  Are you 100% certain that you can achieve exactly the same sound with some tension in your hands as you could with no tension?  In this way, you may perhaps be more easily able to decide for yourself if it is all worth that little extra self discipline it would take to recitfy any problems and reach your highest potential.  At the end of the day, anything we can do to make us better players has got to be worth the extra effort involved. 

Has your teacher demonstrated how or why he believes you need to lose any tension you might have?  When you listen very carefully, can you hear the difference when he demonstrates it? 

[ajspiano]

Ajspiano, would you say that a teacher will be as much feeling and hearing what his student is doing, as he is seeing?

I use sight/sound as a reference to gauge what a student may be feeling.. then if they are having trouble, or are doing something that is mild but may lead to significant trouble and won't just work itself out I will discuss that with them, in reference to the sound they are trying to create.

"looks kind of like you have a little difficulty in this passage - if I do that (demonstrates students current technique) I feel this in this specific part of my hand/arm/body, do you feel that or not? ..You could produce a similar (or different/more refined) effect if you move a bit more like this - do you feel like that makes it easier? did it create any other problems though? does it sound the way you want it to?

Or I might demonstrate or talk about what it should feel like.. which may mean some isolated non piano exercise. I get them to do something on any flat surface that if their technique is insufficient will destroy the stability of the hand, or in other words..  something that is obscenely difficult to do without having a balanced skeletal structure..   it highlights a particular problem, and they know what to pay attention to when back at the instrument in terms of feel...  then the feel is right, so the expression comes out. Physical effort is minimized, focus can go to the sound instead of trying to hit all the right notes while struggling to do the impossible relaxation (impossible to relax because the tense area is serving a purpose in keeping the hand/arm stable)

or something..  I didn't have a teacher that taught me that way, so its a fairly personal approach I suppose drawn from books and personal experimentation. Essentially I just encourage them to be aware of what they are doing, and to experiment with the possibilities regarding what you can do..

..find what works...

The objective is to find what works and practice it, not practice until in works.

[sucom]

"The objective is to find what works and practice it, not practice until in works."

I really like what you said here

[shazeelawan]

Never really focused on how I play as long as the notes sound right,the expression is there and I feel comfortable,but my teacher pointed out that for certain pieces the sounds depends on the fingering; i.e it needs to be played with the fingers in certain positions for the legato effect,etc. Lots of trouble to change,but it's worth it