octav tremolo

[drazh]

hi
what is thebest technic for octave tremolo
arm motion,  wrist motion or only finger motion?
I know all of them involved but which one is dominant?

[drazh]

no help?

[awesom_o]

You shouldn't have to move very much of anything to play an octave tremolo. Remember, you're trying to move the hammers. Not your wrist, arms, and fingers!

Make sure you are not striking the keys from above. Try instead to play directly in the keys themselves. This will give you the most control.

Can you show us a video of your playing? That would help me to give you more specific advice.

[drazh]

dear awesome
 I will try to send video. I have dificulty to send video but I will try.

[indianajo]

This sort of question belongs in the student section, if you are still learning pieces, not performance.
The statement "play in the keys themselves" makes no sense to me. Keys don't have holes in which you can insert your fingers like some rifle triggers. 
I have a right hand octave 64th alternation in a piece I work on, and I wiggle my wrist with my forearm.  At my age (63) there is no way I am able to go fast enough with fingers only.  I was really bad when I started it two years ago, but after years of practice I am merely bad.  By contrast, the 64th oscillation in the base notes at the end, I can do that fast enough with my stronger left arm and wrist.  

[dima_76557]

drazh

Either one gets this very simple technique from the start ("by accident") or one is forced to think about the mechanics/ get a lesson or two from people who understand the mechanics and who can help with metaphors and precise exercises to solve your problem for your case (hand size and its general level of development, for example, may also be a factor for picking this or that approach).

In terms of body control, it's a combination of:
1) perfect rotational freedom, which will most likely have to be trained to achieve it;
2) activity of the fingertips/pads (and their reaction to the mechanical workings of the key), which certainly has to be trained, felt, experienced, thought through.

As soon as you understand the simple mechanics, concentrate on the point of sound, not on jamming into the keybed. Listen for the sound result and use your energy to get what you want with intention: pre-listening, expecting each and every tone you want and correcting its quality accordingly. The faster you go, the more economic your movements will have to be, but nature tends to take care of that rather well.

Patience is also a factor. You cannot force this. I would say that if you want really quality execution of such a tremolo and not some random shaking to and fro, then there is certainly a correlation with how well you do usual, simple trills with all finger combinations. Expecting much more than that tempo within a certain time limit is simply not realistic.

Find a teacher!

[awesom_o]

This sort of question belongs in the student section, if you are still learning pieces, not performance.
The statement "play in the keys themselves" makes no sense to me. Keys don't have holes in which you can insert your fingers like some rifle triggers. 

I had a fantastic teacher who used this phrase. He was one of the best players I have ever seen.

Remember that the piano action is around one centimeter deep. On a grand piano, the keys do not even have to return the entire way up in order to be repeated. By 'playing directly in the keys' we are using small, powerful movements to control the hammers directly, rather than using larger, more inefficient movements to strike the actual keys themselves. 

[nyiregyhazi]

I had a fantastic teacher who used this phrase. He was one of the best players I have ever seen.

Remember that the piano action is around one centimeter deep. On a grand piano, the keys do not even have to return the entire way up in order to be repeated. By 'playing directly in the keys' we are using small, powerful movements to control the hammers directly, rather than using larger, more inefficient movements to strike the actual keys themselves.  

This is true, but especially in a tremolo, inexperienced players will always be stiff when they start concise.

I'd prescribe a mix of rotation and lifting of the fingers followed by a slow and deliberate movement. Rotate the finger towards the key, but always move the finger slowly and deliberately out, during the entire rotation, so the hand is opening and not getting squashed shut by the key. It's basically Taubman plus finger action. If rotation squashes the hand, it offers nothing but strain. Firming a finger simply means tensing it, which is no better than drooping. Only steady but simple movement in the finger eliminates the droop that would be caused by rotating into a finger, with genuinely low effort.

Only after freeing yourself up over each key can the movement easily start to become concise without also being stiff and disconnected between the keys and the arm. I'd also practise rotating without moving the keys but instead keeping both fingers contacting the key surface. When you rotate away from one finger it again needs to expand away from the hand in order to stay with the key. If you don't learn how to do this first, staying on the key surfaces will simply prevent any chance of rotational freedom. The hand needs to learn how to open itself via movement of both thumb and fifth before anything can follow on.

[drazh]

so you mean thumb and little finger should always be in contact with the keys

[awesom_o]

That is correct. 

[pianoman53]

That is correct. 

Do you even do that even playing a slower tremolo, like Pathetique?

[awesom_o]

Yes.

[pianoman53]

And how do you practice it? Just slowly and close to keys, and then gradually make it faster?

[awesom_o]

I don't practice octave tremolos. 

In general, practicing slowly, staying close to the keys, and gradually building up speed is a sound method of practicing just about any passage!

I spent several years focusing on the development of the hand under an extremely strict teacher, who made me play absolutely everything from the key surface.

It was extremely challenging at first, as I had developed a very 'slap-happy' technique of striking the keys from above, and was having real problems controlling the sound. I got used to it pretty quickly, however, and my control of sound quickly improved.

[nyiregyhazi]

I don't practice octave tremolos.  

In general, practicing slowly, staying close to the keys, and gradually building up speed is a sound method of practicing just about any passage!

I spent several years focusing on the development of the hand under an extremely strict teacher, who made me play absolutely everything from the key surface.

It was extremely challenging at first, as I had developed a very 'slap-happy' technique of striking the keys from above, and was having real problems controlling the sound. I got used to it pretty quickly, however, and my control of sound quickly improved.

I think you have to remember that you started out in Taubman though. This is all about freeing yourself over the top of every finger by rotation away from the key and then rotation back. They don't word it exactly this way themselves, but rotation practise teaches you to OPEN yourself and stand on each finger (with the arm lengthened out behind) before rocking to the next. If you don't have that background, trying to stay on every key can be absolute disaster. In my own case, the goal did me more harm than good. It easily squashes you down and leaves the fingers playing from a poor posture, with very little freedom to move or to link the arm properly.

These days I'm approaching it from both ends. There are still many places where my fingers are underconnected to a depressed key and drooped. There's nothing better than lifting a finger (aided by rotation too) in order to get myself properly opened up around that prior finger and freed up back down the forearm. I can then allow the finger to come back to the key and play from contact, in order to get the best of both worlds. But if I simply think that I need to stay close, my hand will get stiff as a result of trying to move keys from a "drooped" position that never gets to be improved upon due to the idea of having to stay close at all costs, rather than first expand out to make space and room.

I have to say that this particular advice was especially disastrous in rapid tremolos- until I did practise with the most outrageously extreme lifting around both thumb and fifth finger, to free the hand and arm around the point of contact. Step one is to do whatever it takes to stand up on fingers and totally eradicate droop. Only then did intending to stay close begin to be a positive rather than a source of tension and restriction. It's very little different to the old idea of a 10p on the back of the hand. A pro should be capable, but try that too soon and it causes nothing but the most extreme stiffness. To create the initial freedom, not only did I not stay on the keys, but I went so far as to spend time lifting the thumb vertically over the fifth and the fifth vertically over the thumb- feeling gigantic semi-circles with the whole hand around the finger that contacts the key. The absolute opposite extreme was the biggest secret to learning to play close- not simply deciding I was going to stay on the key at all cost from the outset. That had never produced anything but tightness and restrictions.

[awesom_o]

I think you have to remember that you started out in Taubman though.

I also started out in Suzuki.... and let's just say it didn't exactly help me to become the excellent sightreader that I am today


I'm not suggesting that by simply staying close to the keys, one can develop excellent technique.

Nothing is that simple in music, and doing anything with stiffness is very bad.

Being legitimately relaxed at the keyboard while playing advanced repertoire takes years of professional training. Extremely precise aural skill and rhythmic understanding, as well as having incredibly supple and powerful physical technique, are necessities for playing professional-level chamber music.

This type of musical relaxation is so very different from what amateurs typically think about 'playing with relaxation'.

I don't doubt that my foundation in Taubman as a child gave me a strong basis for studying virtuoso technique later on as a teenager.

When I first began studying with the 'key-surface-at-all-costs teacher', I was already quite advanced. For example, I could play five or six Chopin Etudes, all four Ballades, several Beethoven Sonatas, several P&F's from the WTC... real virtuoso music. I wasn't playing it like a virtuoso, however. My sound was much too clumsy.

[nyiregyhazi]

I also started out in Suzuki.... and let's just say it didn't exactly help me to become the excellent sightreader that I am today


I'm not suggesting that by simply staying close to the keys, one can develop excellent technique.

Nothing is that simple in music, and doing anything with stiffness is very bad.

Being legitimately relaxed at the keyboard while playing advanced repertoire takes years of professional training. Extremely precise aural skill and rhythmic understanding, as well as having incredibly supple and powerful physical technique, are necessities for playing professional-level chamber music.

This type of musical relaxation is so very different from what amateurs typically think about 'playing with relaxation'.

Precisely. When you strive to stay close, you must have a very strong foundation in expanding the arch out AWAY the piano. If you don't, droop is as good as assured due to relaxation intentions. But everything comes from an unstable position and the arm clenches to compensate. Only the hand that knows exactly how to keep itself actively pushed open (by pushing back away from the keys - not with generic tightening against nothng) will thrive. Especially because talk about relaxation is done in such misleading ways, the inexperienced hand is always inclined to slump down and then stiffen to stop it falling into a cluster. To learn to feel properly expanded out into freedom over every finger, it's much easier to go through a phase of letting the other fingers disconnect and move. The more they lift out and reach, the year more you open around the last finger. At this point you can let them freely hang back down from an elevated knuckle, and discover a position that is both powerful and prepared (rather than simply fixed or drooped).

[indianajo]

so you mean thumb and little finger should always be in contact with the keys

That "playing in the keys" mantra makes more sense as "play on the keys".  I don't ever lift my fingers above the keys; I'm fairly astute as to the working of mechanisms, and realized very early that motion above the keys was lost motion.
At this age, hitting the keys harder from above would just bring the tendon pain to the fore that much earlier than 2 1/2 hours.  
And I don't play grand pianos with action that will work below the rest position; that is an expensive pastime that my lifestyle doesn't support.  There is a grand piano in a fellowship hall in the next county I am permitted to touch, if I don't mind removing all the seasonal decorations all over it, and tuning the note with the loose pins.  Plus doing the 13 block walk from the bus stop.  

[awesom_o]

Perhaps.

But I fear that by suggesting to play 'on' the keys may result in people focusing too much on manipulating the actual keys themselves.

I would rather they focus instead on using the keys to manipulate energy in the soundboard itself.

Either way, the preposition is of secondary importance to the music itself.

[nick]

I think you have to remember that you started out in Taubman though. This is all about freeing yourself over the top of every finger by rotation away from the key and then rotation back. They don't word it exactly this way themselves, but rotation practise teaches you to OPEN yourself and stand on each finger (with the arm lengthened out behind) before rocking to the next. If you don't have that background, trying to stay on every key can be absolute disaster. In my own case, the goal did me more harm than good. It easily squashes you down and leaves the fingers playing from a poor posture, with very little freedom to move or to link the arm properly.

These days I'm approaching it from both ends. There are still many places where my fingers are underconnected to a depressed key and drooped. There's nothing better than lifting a finger (aided by rotation too) in order to get myself properly opened up around that prior finger and freed up back down the forearm. I can then allow the finger to come back to the key and play from contact, in order to get the best of both worlds. But if I simply think that I need to stay close, my hand will get stiff as a result of trying to move keys from a "drooped" position that never gets to be improved upon due to the idea of having to stay close at all costs, rather than first expand out to make space and room.

I have to say that this particular advice was especially disastrous in rapid tremolos- until I did practise with the most outrageously extreme lifting around both thumb and fifth finger, to free the hand and arm around the point of contact. Step one is to do whatever it takes to stand up on fingers and totally eradicate droop. Only then did intending to stay close begin to be a positive rather than a source of tension and restriction. It's very little different to the old idea of a 10p on the back of the hand. A pro should be capable, but try that too soon and it causes nothing but the most extreme stiffness. To create the initial freedom, not only did I not stay on the keys, but I went so far as to spend time lifting the thumb vertically over the fifth and the fifth vertically over the thumb- feeling gigantic semi-circles with the whole hand around the finger that contacts the key. The absolute opposite extreme was the biggest secret to learning to play close- not simply deciding I was going to stay on the key at all cost from the outset. That had never produced anything but tightness and restrictions.

I don't follow how practicing a motion different from the end result motion works. Wouldn't it be more logical to look at ones hand, making sure there is a slight arch, relaxed hand, and when keys are depressed, that same hand position is observed? I memorize all my music that I learn so  I can pay close attention. This way if one saw a drooping as you put it, you correct it immediately. You know what it feels like to have the correct hand position and you maintain that. Interesting that it worked for you but I don't understand. Not a criticism.

Nick

[liszt85]

Interesting that it worked for you but I don't understand. Not a criticism.

You are not alone.

[nyiregyhazi]

I don't follow how practicing a motion different from the end result motion works. Wouldn't it be more logical to look at ones hand, making sure there is a slight arch, relaxed hand, and when keys are depressed, that same hand position is observed? I memorize all my music that I learn so  I can pay close attention. This way if one saw a drooping as you put it, you correct it immediately. You know what it feels like to have the correct hand position and you maintain that. Interesting that it worked for you but I don't understand. Not a criticism.

Nick

The simple answer is that you can't always see drooping or feel the stiffening that the brain automatically tries to fight it with. The smaller the movement, the less feedback there is about tightness or clenching and the easier it is to do it totally wrong without knowing a thing about what is stiff. Bigger movements give much more sensory feedback about the basic action and about tensions that impede freedom. In that respect, they are closer to the final product than a small movement that is done wrong and without awareness of how. Good and bad small movements may look similar on the outside, but it's only when you exaggerate the sense of opening right out and standing clearly over each finger that you expose the severe problems that can lurk underneath incorrect movements. If you can't first learn to stay free in large slow movements, it won't happen in small and abrupt movements. The chance really is zero.

Try the many thumb exercises in the thumb post on my blog. Most students can't even open their hand as in the videos at first. Their arm presses down and the thumb does nothing but stiffen- leaving no room for free movement. The exaggerates opening exercises will instantly expose that. They make it easier to feel where activity is useful (which generic relaxation intentions simply do not help with) and where it is unhelpful to engage muscles. I have one student whose hand looks pretty good, but it's actually stiff and clenched in key places- which came to the forefront when I made her exaggerate and make space to open up. She couldn't open out because she was only used to locking into a tight arch- not in actually expanding into an arch. The arch is nothing if not formed by simple focused opening actions, that do not stiffen but merely strive to open space. I feel this is the one key element that Alan Fraser implies but never quite states in his book. I don't like his grasping anymore but like the idea of expanding outwards into space instead of closing up.

And you can't play a fast tremolo by moving a fixed hand shape into keys. That's too stiff. It's not about "maintaining" a position, but rather learning to be totally adaptable and movable in many positions, with a simple connection to the piano that is not founded upon arm pressure. It's simple focused lengthening and expansion of each finger. Anything else is just too stiff and too slow. Only when I first feel long and slow descents of thumb and fifth very clearly, can I be sure that they'll provide enough movement in the smaller and quicker actions that start from the key (and which keep the hand open after the key is down, rather than relax and let it droop).

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Your index finger is the axis on which your hand turns, so it might help to experiment with extending or curling it.  

And you wanna keep your wrist low and your fingers as close to the keys as possible.  At the edge of the keys too. The less distance your fingers have to travel to make the sound, the less amount of work you gotta put in.  Ideally you want your fingers to touch the keys at all times.  Lifting them is just adding extra unnecessary work.     We pianists are lazy people, we wanna work JUST enough to get the sound we wanna get out.  Just barely scrape by.  So do whatever you can to minimize the work load.  It's a combination of wrist, finger, and arm motion.  Just do enough to barely get the job done.  It's gonna take some experimenting.  Everyone's different.

But most importantly, dude just RELAX!!!  Nothing will work unless you're relaxed.  That's the first step.  Like dude, as long as you're chill and relaxed and losey goosey, you'll be fine.

Good luck.

[nyiregyhazi]

Your index finger is the axis on which your hand turns, so it might help to experiment with extending or curling it.  

And you wanna keep your wrist low and your fingers as close to the keys as possible.  At the edge of the keys too. The less distance your fingers have to travel to make the sound, the less amount of work you gotta put in.  Ideally you want your fingers to touch the keys at all times.  Lifting them is just adding extra unnecessary work.     We pianists are lazy people, we wanna work JUST enough to get the sound we wanna get out.  Just barely scrape by.  So do whatever you can to minimize the work load.  It's a combination of wrist, finger, and arm motion.  Just do enough to barely get the job done.  It's gonna take some experimenting.  Everyone's different.

But most importantly, dude just RELAX!!!  Nothing will work unless you're relaxed.  That's the first step.  Like dude, as long as you're chill and relaxed and losey goosey, you'll be fine.

Good luck.

Who said that the axis operates around the 2nd finger? I saw that suggestion on a youtube film once. It's possible to approximate that but it's certainly not literally true. Rest your elbow on a tabletop and roll the hand without lifting the arm. The turning axis is the bone that runs down the fifth finger side. When the palm is up, radius and ulna are adjacent. When it turns down, one bone moves around the near stationary other. Notice how there's a limit to how far forearm rotation goes. You need to turn the whole arm from the shoulder to go past that.

Any sense of the 2nd finger being the point it turns around is an illusion created by combinations of actions. But I'd always start by first feeling how the body works in reality, or trying to think in that illusionary subjective way could actually cause a lot of tensions.

Also, from experience of starting by staying close without suitable prepatory work, it's really not low effort unless you get it right. Only when each finger can both stand up and expand notably out from the hand does it become lower effort to reduce movement. General relaxation intentions only encourage the hand to droop into the position where it will be most disadvantaged, unless you have a great technical background. I feel more comfortable after thirty seconds of big movements in moderate tempo than before I start playing, and could easily go on for many minutes if needed. But then I'll start to speed up and let and unnecessary movement fade out. If I go straight into a rapid tremolo without fully getting my fingers working first, I can be tired in seconds. If big movements result in tiredness (rather than a great feeling akin to having had a massage) then something is simply not right in the quality and warrants further explorations. Big movements with lifeless or stiff fingers are not the same as ones where the fingers slowly but deliberately cut through every key with genuine movement. When the fingers move with a slow but powerful quality, it's not tiring at all but actively energising. After getting them active, you don't even need to decide to stay close. You just go faster and let the movement fade little by little, while the fingers continue to move out through the keys.

[nick]

The simple answer is that you can't always see drooping or feel the stiffening that the brain automatically tries to fight it with. The smaller the movement, the less feedback there is about tightness or clenching and the easier it is to do it totally wrong without knowing a thing about what is stiff. Bigger movements give much more sensory feedback about the basic action and about tensions that impede freedom. In that respect, they are closer to the final product than a small movement that is done wrong and without awareness of how. Good and bad small movements may look similar on the outside, but it's only when you exaggerate the sense of opening right out and standing clearly over each finger that you expose the severe problems that can lurk underneath incorrect movements. If you can't first learn to stay free in large slow movements, it won't happen in small and abrupt movements. The chance really is zero.

Try the many thumb exercises in the thumb post on my blog. Most students can't even open their hand as in the videos at first. Their arm presses down and the thumb does nothing but stiffen- leaving no room for free movement. The exaggerates opening exercises will instantly expose that. They make it easier to feel where activity is useful (which generic relaxation intentions simply do not help with) and where it is unhelpful to engage muscles. I have one student whose hand looks pretty good, but it's actually stiff and clenched in key places- which came to the forefront when I made her exaggerate and make space to open up. She couldn't open out because she was only used to locking into a tight arch- not in actually expanding into an arch. The arch is nothing if not formed by simple focused opening actions, that do not stiffen but merely strive to open space. I feel this is the one key element that Alan Fraser implies but never quite states in his book. I don't like his grasping anymore but like the idea of expanding outwards into space instead of closing up.

And you can't play a fast tremolo by moving a fixed hand shape into keys. That's too stiff. It's not about "maintaining" a position, but rather learning to be totally adaptable and movable in many positions, with a simple connection to the piano that is not founded upon arm pressure. It's simple focused lengthening and expansion of each finger. Anything else is just too stiff and too slow. Only when I first feel long and slow descents of thumb and fifth very clearly, can I be sure that they'll provide enough movement in the smaller and quicker actions that start from the key (and which keep the hand open after the key is down, rather than relax and let it droop).

This might be a method you found works for students, but my mind can't wrap around it, no fault of yours. I am into feeling key resistance with only the necessary amount needed to produce an even sound compared to all other fingers. When I say I can observe my hand, that means all fingers, to watch out for non playing finger movement in addition to the hand! I have found concentrating to be the most important aspect of this new practice focus of mine.  I can observe the pinky slightly move when pressing the forth, and concentrate and repeat without that movement. This indicated involuntary muscle contraction that is not only not needed, but impedes efficient playing especially at fast tempos. So to think of an exaggerated movement with the goal movement to be different vastly different in a way other than speed seems weird. Hey, but what works works.

Nick

[nyiregyhazi]

This might be a method you found works for students, but my mind can't wrap around it, no fault of yours. I am into feeling key resistance with only the necessary amount needed to produce an even sound compared to all other fingers. When I say I can observe my hand, that means all fingers, to watch out for non playing finger movement in addition to the hand! I have found concentrating to be the most important aspect of this new practice focus of mine.  I can observe the pinky slightly move when pressing the forth, and concentrate and repeat without that movement. This indicated involuntary muscle contraction that is not only not needed, but impedes efficient playing especially at fast tempos. So to think of an exaggerated movement with the goal movement to be different vastly different in a way other than speed seems weird. Hey, but what works works.

Nick

The above might all seem true, but consider standing up. Is it less effort to stand in a position where you pretend to sit in an invisible chair, or to do the work of pushing yourself upright and balancing there? Then consider that the idea of striving to do the bare minimum can actually leave you in a position of having to work harder, due to having left a position where you need to provide significant forces in order to prevent falling down. Doing the useful work of pushing yourself up and straightening your legs out might be work, but it's not anything like the ordeal of staying put in a less than suitable position (that was created by relaxation of muscles that should have expanding you up and not letting you down).

Fingers are little different. When I spend time exaggerating the sense of getting more upright over every note of rachmaninoff's g sharp minor Prelude, I train my fingers to stop slouching like the legs in the above example and to do enough work to create a lower effort position of balance, that is closer to upright and thus less effort. Then I can play the figures with extreme surges at a similar speed to Horowitz with little effort. But if I come in cold, my hand usually sags. Then I have to work pointlessly hard in order to survive the ordeal, just the same as when squatting instead of standing. And if I do the bare minimum to move a key, I never go into the low effort position. Trying to save energy by doing the bare minimum saves energy in the same way that standing up only half way out of a squat saves energy. It simply doesn't save energy at all, but leaves your muscles working vastly harder to stop you falling down (and to keep keys grounded- which also requires an activity).

In a complex system, striving to do less all round simply forces larger efforts into certain places. Only waking up the most important activities to the full can even begin to release the burden of the most detrimental and counterproductive efforts. It's not a magic world where trying to relax everything makes you more relaxed. Learning to perform the most useful actions with enough clarity of intent EARNS the possibility of relaxation in the muscles that ought to be free.

PS. I only accessed this after lightening up my arms. If it's really more effort to stand up than to stay down, there's probably too much arm pressure. The exercise where you stand on the thumb and wave the fingers is the best. The whole arm should loosen up. If the thumb gets really tired, there is too much pressure on it. No intent to simply rest down with the bare minimum can possibly generate the same effortless freedom in the arm as when the thumb is actively opening the hand out from the keys. There are passages in the Liszt Rigoletto paraphrase which are just impossible due to the burden on the hand, if my fingers strive for the bare minimum, rather than to keep opening the hand. Just one lazy finger is all it takes to place a bigger workload on all that follow. Forgetting about opening is for virtuosos, who simply can't fail to do it, but ordinary mortals need to learn to do a proper job of the basic actions that make freedom and room.

[nick]

I don't get it.
To assume my hand/fingers are lacking if I don't expend more effort doing an action different than the desired action makes no sense to me. To assume using the most minimum effort to produce the sound will cause the hand to droop, collapse etc is not correct. Interesting though. I like thinking so this is good.

Nick

[nyiregyhazi]

I don't get it.
To assume my hand/fingers are lacking if I don't expend more effort doing an action different than the desired action makes no sense to me. To assume using the most minimum effort to produce the sound will cause the hand to droop, collapse etc is not correct. Interesting though. I like thinking so this is good.

Nick

As I spent the whole of last post stating, it's not more effort though. It's less. If it's perceived as being more work it really suggests that something is jamming down and creating unnecessary work. The first step is to observe whatever gets in the way of it feeling easy and learn to get those obstructions dealt with. When I strive to stand vertically on my 5th finger (in my most extreme practise) I make space and room that takes the burden off muscles like nothing I can achieve when simply aiming for the minimum. I really don't work harder overall in this practise but less hard. It's simply a matter of actively expanding my fifth out into clear contact-not of working any muscle hard at all. The premise is to make room and space and only to do work which liberates you of the need to work other muscles needlessly hard. It's very little different to standing out of a squat- in which you also reduce the workload by finishing the job.

As another example, sit in a chair and relax your spine. Let your head droop forwards and then remain slumped. You'll be working harder, not less hard. Put in the effort to become upright again and you'll remove the burden. You can't take the burden off unless you're actively making yourself elevated. You don't have to be literally vertical in the fingers at the piano, but you do need to be actively elevating the knuckles. When striving for a bare minimum, that simply doesn't happen except for extremely experienced players like Rubinstein. Without finishing the job and creating freedom, many other muscles will be forced into tightness, whether this is perceived or not. If creating space and room is an effort, something is causing resistance that doesn't need to be there. It's not what I describe, probably because there's not enough room being made to perform the movement without stress.

[nick]

As another example, sit in a chair and relax your spine. Let your head droop forwards and then remain slumped. You'll be working harder, not less hard.

Your whole premise is flawed logically to me. I not only in the above position am not working harder, I actually fall asleep within 5 minutes! That's how hard I am working.

I am sure you are a fine pianist, I just don't follow the reasoning. Let's just let it go. It is not interesting to me anymore. No offense.

Nick

[nyiregyhazi]

Your whole premise is flawed logically to me. I not only in the above position am not working harder, I actually fall asleep within 5 minutes! That's how hard I am working.

I am sure you are a fine pianist, I just don't follow the reasoning. Let's just let it go. It is not interesting to me anymore. No offense.

Nick

? There's a reason why they don't build leaning towers of Pisa deliberately, you know. If you do not perceive the introduction of greater effort, that doesn't disprove the issue on logical grounds. It shows the limits of human perception. Go ahead and fall asleep like that and then see how your neck feels when you wake up!

The more we learn to perceive unnecessary efforts, the more we can be freed of them. If you can't feel it sitting down then stand up and relax, so your whole neck cranes forward. Still more "relaxed" than if you put the small amount of work in to become upright? The idea that doing less always equals less effort and that doing more always equals more effort is simply not true, in a complex system of interrelated muscles. Unless you're certain that you have perfect technique, doing larger movements in a slow and smoothly controlled fashion (not unlike tai chi ) is how you expose and free yourself of wasted efforts.