Taubmann, quick reminder?

[Bob]

Not a big discussion.

What's the essence/point of Taubman?

Ease/efficient playing?  That's the whole gist.


I don't feel like searching now.  Or wading through a Wikipedia article.

[hardy_practice]

Since you already wind up your wrist (anticlockwise for RH) as you play you may as well relax (good for you) into an unwind adding extra energy for free.  It was actually Tobias Matthay's discovery - long before Taubman.

[nyiregyhazi]

Since you already wind up your wrist (anticlockwise for RH) as you play you may as well relax (good for you) into an unwind adding extra energy for free.  It was actually Tobias Matthay's discovery - long before Taubman.

I have no more idea as to what this can possibly mean on a metaphorical level than as to what it could possibly mean on a literal level. Even as a metaphor, you'll have to set the scene if you expect such bizarre descriptions to read as anything but gibberish. A wrist is not a spring and it neither winds nor unwinds. What on earth are you trying to convey here?

[Bob]

No arguments please.

Just a short twitter length response. What is the gist of Taubmann?

[dima_76557]

What's the essence/point of Taubman?

Ease/efficient playing?  That's the whole gist.

SAFE pianism seems to be its sole purpose, yes, very much at the expense of anything else. As is the case with any "method", it strikes me as a rigid set of SELECTIVE truths about how the body moves at the instrument, based on SELECTIVE (and sometimes misinterpreted) scientific data.

[j_menz]

SAFE pianism seems to be its sole purpose, yes, very much at the expense of anything else. As is the case with any "method", it strikes me as a rigid set of SELECTIVE truths about how the body moves at the instrument, based on SELECTIVE (and sometimes misinterpreted) scientific data.

284 characters. Two twitter lengths. Fail grade, I'm afraid. 

[kevin69]

Since you already wind up your wrist (anticlockwise for RH) as you play you may as well relax (good for you) into an unwind adding extra energy for free.  It was actually Tobias Matthay's discovery - long before Taubman.

I have no more idea as to what this can possibly mean on a metaphorical level than as to what it could possibly mean on a literal level. Even as a metaphor, you'll have to set the scene if you expect such bizarre descriptions to read as anything but gibberish. A wrist is not a spring and it neither winds nor unwinds. What on earth are you trying to convey here?

I found this the clearest, simplest explanation of Taubman that i've read.
I don't think its metaphorical but literal.
If your arm hangs naturally by your side, your thumb points forward.
If you raise your hand so that your forearm is horizontal, your thumb points up.
In order to play, you rotate your RH counterclockwise.
So relaxing your forearm will induce a clockwise rotation, which you can use to play notes with your little finger allowing you to apply force while your relax.

[nyiregyhazi]

I found this the clearest, simplest explanation of Taubman that i've read.
I don't think its metaphorical but literal.
If your arm hangs naturally by your side, your thumb points forward.
If you raise your hand so that your forearm is horizontal, your thumb points up.
In order to play, you rotate your RH counterclockwise.
So relaxing your forearm will induce a clockwise rotation, which you can use to play notes with your little finger allowing you to apply force while your relax.

Okay, it makes some sense with that clarification but it sure doesn't work in practise. It's like a spin doctor saying that running up and down hills is "easier" than a flat because half the time you're running downhill. The extra work done to prepare yourself for the easier part vastly outweighs that which is saved- either when running uphill or preparing your arm to go with gravity. To speak as if energy there for free is simply missing the point. Not to mention the fact that if we're applying it to what Taubman actually says about rotation, it's supposed to provide the energy for all notes in both directions. Objectively, that's like saying it's less work to trample grapes by repeatedly climbing up a ladder and repeatedly dropping the whole body to collapse on to them, rather than engaging the muscles to tread into them with control via the legs. Only arguing like a lawyer or spin-doctor who merely wants to put up a good sounding case (regardless of whether it stands to impartial scrutiny) try to claim there's free energy flying around (whether you're jumping down from a ladder or slumping your arm sideways). It's a selective picture that ignores the fact that more energy is being expended (not to mention how slow the process is), in order to create a cheap and vapid soundbite.


I got myself into no end of bother by using those kinds of slumping movements before I first learned to engage my fingers. Slumping is not a free source of energy and neither does such a method give any control, unless the fingers have learned to engage in active movement suitably, rather than slump. Rotational freedom is the real issue, not any myth about saving energy (in a situation that actually expends significantly more, to keep getting back out of the slump).

Here's what plopping down with passivity sounds like.

Great as a cure for worse technique still, but really rather poor for musical articulation and control.

[Bob]

Short posts here!  I just want the gist, not a novel.

So it focuses on arm rotation?

And relaxation?  Efficient playing?

And it's basically technique focused?  Not so much with music?

And $500 for DVDs for that?

[dima_76557]

So it focuses on arm rotation?

Not only. Forearm rotation is one of 5 or 6 coordinate elements that are focused on separately during the initial training to be merged later on.

Yes to your other questions.

[hardy_practice]

Your $500 would be best spent on a good teacher - quite where you find one of those is another matter.  The vid posted by Mr N shows just how hideous some playing can be.  Taubman, at present, seems a route devoid of art!  The girl wants to sort her neck out as well.

[dima_76557]

The vid posted by Mr N shows just how hideous some playing can be.

Actually, I found that clip a bit of an unfair example; at the time this clip was shot, the woman was on her road to healing from a severe case of focal distonia, so it is actually a miracle that she could do what she does there!

A better example of artistic essentials (musical intonation with the fingerpads) missing in the technique/performance of a healthy young person would be this clip of Chopin's 2nd Scherzo. While the young man has sufficient command over the keyboard (in a "horizontal" sense), he has no contact with either the instrument or the music:

[hardy_practice]

Sadly, he comes across as a rather hamstrung by their movement dictums.

[philolog]

In my opinion, Dima hits the nail on the head when he categorizes any method as restrictive. Yes, certain generalities, even helpful ones, can be gleaned through perusing them and I'd admit to using some such insights in my own playing. In the end, though, I believe that playing the piano is far too involved and complicated an activity to be neatly analyzed. Science has its limitations: imagine an apparatus that successfully tracked very physical component of virtuoso playing along with the precise muscular force expended per fraction of time. Assuming such a device was possible and generated an accurate graph reflecting every element, how would you assimilate the conclusions? Observation combined with intuition and even osmosis (in the sense that we can learn by watching accomplished performers), using as relaxed a mechanism as practical that's enlivened by musical comprehension seems to me to be the way to go.

[Bob]

I might be able to borrow it from someone. I'm wondering if it's worth the effort.  I wouldn't pay $500 for it.  At least not right away.  I hunt for the info online first.  This site probably already has enough of the gist of it.  It just takes more work to pull it out.

[dima_76557]

I might be able to borrow it from someone. I'm wondering if it's worth the effort.  I wouldn't pay $500 for it.  At least not right away.  I hunt for the info online first.  This site probably already has enough of the gist of it.  It just takes more work to pull it out.

You can also get a VERY good idea of the method for free by visiting the following YouTube resources:

Choreography of the Hands: The Work of Dorothy Taubman - Part 1
Choreography of the Hands: The Work of Dorothy Taubman - Part 2
Choreography of the Hands: The Work of Dorothy Taubman - Part 3
Choreography of the Hands: The Work of Dorothy Taubman - Part 3

Edna Golandsky YouTube channel
The Golandsky Institute YouTube channel

[hardy_practice]

I might be able to borrow it from someone. I'm wondering if it's worth the effort.  I wouldn't pay $500 for it.  At least not right away.  I hunt for the info online first.  This site probably already has enough of the gist of it.  It just takes more work to pull it out.

You may be able to get them through inter-library loan.  The problem with such things is they don't start from where you are.   You need to be assessed first.

[Bob]

How many sets of DVDs are there?  It looks like there's an older and slightly new set?  Different topics or just an updated version?

[hardy_practice]

Death by Taubman DVD?  Rather you than me buddy!

[louispodesta]

Not a big discussion.

What's the essence/point of Taubman?

Ease/efficient playing?  That's the whole gist.


I don't feel like searching now.  Or wading through a Wikipedia article.

After reading your other posts, I now make the following recommendation, as I have many times before:

1)  All the very pricey Taubman/Golandsky CD's are available for free through interlibrary loan.

2)  Finally, how DARE YOU!! disrespect the classical pianists most intelligent posts on this forum by your "twit-like " responses.  If you really (?) want to find out what Taubman is all about, then you get a free copy from your library and go from there.

[Bob]

Are there two series of Taubman DVDs?  Older and newer?


Oi... *Bob is confronted with the challenge of having borrowed the DVDs from someone, running out of time, not actually having watched them, and now having to return them.*    Haha.... Geez.    "Good, interesting, thought-provoking approach, I think my playing feels different somehow after borrowing these DVDs, thanks... and maybe I could borrow them again sometime?  I wasn't quite following all the comments."   I need some lines to tell this person so I don't have to say I borrowed their DVDs and never got around to watching them. 

I had Taubmann, right there in my hands... but it slipped away.

[j_menz]

Just rip them. 

[Bob]

I don't know how to do that.

[lazyfingers]

Just as quickly as the title, the Taubman method never produced a world class famous pianist.

[outin]

I don't know how to do that.

Do you have a computer with writable DVD?

[Bob]

Yep.

[outin]

Yep.

Then you also probably already have the software needed. If not you can get one from the internet. Just go to the store and by some empty DVDs. You can also make disc images now and burn later.

[Bob]

I thought they had software protection on all that now.

[outin]

I thought they had software protection on all that now.

Some do, but not all. And you can crack those too... Just try to make the disc image and you'll see.

[kevin69]

Just to confirm, you are talking about the "Virtuosity in a Box: The Taubman Techniques" dvd series, aren't you?

[Bob]

I think so.  Whatever the Taubman DVDs are.  I searched just a little and saw something about new and old ones.  I don't know which I borrowed.  Older version probably.