Open/Closed Kinetic Chains

[hardy_practice]

And I'm obliged to speculate, whether I care to or not?

Basically either you, personally, hear the tone phenomenon Mr Katsaris is illustrating in the vid or you don't - simple as that.    

[nyiregyhazi]

Basically either you, personally, hear the tone phenomenon Mr Katsaris is illustrating in the vid or you don't - simple as that.    

Why is my opinion so important? I haven't listened to it. Nothing I have stated hinges on what my opinion would be. This is a thread about open or closed kinetic chains.

[dima_76557]

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[hardy_practice]

Why is my opinion so important?

I'm afraid I'd have to disagree there!  The question is whether using youtube vids to illustrate this particular acoustic phenomenon is viable.  It's below again - just click, it lasts only seconds.  Just yes or no.   

[hardy_practice]

@ hardy_practice

If you don't feel that the quality changes, let's look at what the digital recording allows us to perceive and let's assume that those are the only things changing:
You say: he simply plays louder. OK. But what else?

There's obviously plenty of 'what else'.  I don't think any posters are interested in kinetic chains and especially whether Mr Katsaris goes from open to closed and if so, when and how. 

[dima_76557]

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[hardy_practice]

Maybe you'd like to posit what he does chain wise?  I just think it could be a good descriptive tool.   -off to work   

[dima_76557]

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[j_menz]

Am I the only one who doesn't understand the point of this thread? 

[dima_76557]

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[brogers70]

No, certainly not. I'm with you on this. There doesn't seem to be a point, just like in all the recurring threads on "tone", some threads about "technique", etc. Yet another provocation if you ask me.

I agree with you. It's simply a provocation and an excuse to wrangle.

Personally, I do not think there is any aspect of music which cannot be analyzed scientifically. You have an instrument, sound waves, and a responding listener. All of those things can be analyzed in great detail, if you want to. I do not think there is any non-physical magic going on in a beautiful performance (and that does not make a wonderful performance any less wonderful). I don't think there is anything to "swing" except a specific sort of rhythmic timing (and the listener's response to it). So what?

Nobody learns to play the piano by breaking down great piano playing into all the detailed muscular contractions and impulses that go into it and then learn to reproduce them at that fine-grained level. So when people like Katsaris give a master class they don't say stuff like: reduce the tension in your deltoids by 20%, hold a slight isometric contraction around the right first meta-carpal/phalangeal joint for 100 msec, then give a 30% increase in tension in just the flexor digitorum longus for 50 msec, then release.... Instead he uses emotional figurative language and the student gets the idea by trial and error and feedback. In fact, it doesn't matter if the teacher says things which are scientifically incorrect or even impossible, as long as through demonstration, trial and error, and feedback the student gets the right idea. I'm a doctor and if I stopped to argue with my teacher every time she says something that's not quite right about anatomy or neurology I'd be wasting my lessons. And often the stuff she says points towards a better way of playing.

I personally think that it's better not to use semi-scientific language (e.g. "kinetic chain") if you are not doing a scientific analysis, because people tend to adapt that sort of vocabulary to give an air of scientific respectability to ideas that have not really been tested in a scientific way. Still, as long as whatever words you use get the student to play better, it doesn't matter that much. In Wittgenstein's terms, there's a scientific language game and a piano pedagogy language game and you have to remember which one you are playing.

[dima_76557]

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[nyiregyhazi]

Maybe you'd like to posit what he does chain wise?  I just think it could be a good descriptive tool.   -off to work  

You haven't established any reasons to think about chains. I've used a related concept to prove that a well connected finger coupled with length in the wrist can stabilise the whole arm connection without hard work in the finger or a burden of great weight. However a poorly connected finger ruins that and demands more effort elsewhere. But what does open vs closed concept have to say about pianism?  Any held note is a closed chain for that finger (whether that is capitalised on by a well connected finger and lengthened wrist or not). Any finger in the air is an open chain. What does adding a labelling do to add to any understanding?

[nyiregyhazi]

I agree with you. It's simply a provocation and an excuse to wrangle.

Personally, I do not think there is any aspect of music which cannot be analyzed scientifically. You have an instrument, sound waves, and a responding listener. All of those things can be analyzed in great detail, if you want to. I do not think there is any non-physical magic going on in a beautiful performance (and that does not make a wonderful performance any less wonderful). I don't think there is anything to "swing" except a specific sort of rhythmic timing (and the listener's response to it). So what?

Nobody learns to play the piano by breaking down great piano playing into all the detailed muscular contractions and impulses that go into it and then learn to reproduce them at that fine-grained level. So when people like Katsaris give a master class they don't say stuff like: reduce the tension in your deltoids by 20%, hold a slight isometric contraction around the right first meta-carpal/phalangeal joint for 100 msec, then give a 30% increase in tension in just the flexor digitorum longus for 50 msec, then release.... Instead he uses emotional figurative language and the student gets the idea by trial and error and feedback. In fact, it doesn't matter if the teacher says things which are scientifically incorrect or even impossible, as long as through demonstration, trial and error, and feedback the student gets the right idea. I'm a doctor and if I stopped to argue with my teacher every time she says something that's not quite right about anatomy or neurology I'd be wasting my lessons. And often the stuff she says points towards a better way of playing.

But what when it doesn't work? The problem is that what a great many teachers get wrong actively compromises how their students develop. For this reason, I think there should be far greater background understanding among teachers. It makes sense to reduce things to practical terms. But when incorrect attempts to explain the process are given, that does annoy me. By taking such incorrect advice at face value, I've been greatly harmed. All the things I discovered through analysis can be taught in simple practical based ways. It's just that nobody is harmed by taking them at face value.

[dima_76557]

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[timothy42b]

I personally think that it's better not to use semi-scientific language (e.g. "kinetic chain") if you are not doing a scientific analysis, because people tend to adapt that sort of vocabulary to give an air of scientific respectability to ideas that have not really been tested in a scientific way.

Amen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[hardy_practice]

Sorry folks.  This was never meant to be a thread about tone at all.  I just thought open/closed is an interesting way to classify movements - very big in the sports world.  stuff like this:

'Initially, when the cyclist stands up to drive downward on the pedal, his
body may momentarily move away from the pedal, until the arms counter the
upward movement of the body - turning the movement into an open chain
movement as the pedal descends away from the body. The same scenario can be
developed for a boxer punching an opponent in the head; the chain is closed
upon contact, yet opens as the force of the arm overcomes the momentary
resistance created by the head (a concept I am very familiar with by the
way!). This is why boxers can be seen doing both open and closed chain
exercises in their training programs, if their coach knows what he is doing'

As Dima posted a vid, and Mr Katsaris illustrates different methods, it's a good opportunity to see how his different methods could be classified using open/closed.   I thought there must be plenty of sports or physio experienced posters - but maybe not.

[timothy42b]

 I thought there must be plenty of sports or physio experienced posters - but maybe not.

I also regret the sidetrack into tone.

Kinetic chains make a great deal of sense to me, particularly in the precise timing of proximal to distal momentum transfer.

I just didn't see how adding the closed to open distinction had application to piano. 

Even in the sports field there is considerable disagreement over whether various exercises are closed or open chain.  I would argue that the piano is essentially a closed chain, given that the object is immovable and body motions are small; others may say the resistance of the key is so small the distal end of the chain is scarcely impeded, therefore it is open. 

One of the claims by athletes is that closed chain exercises lead to less injury.  That would be impossible to prove given that there is not agreement over which exercises are which.  Certainly piano leads to a huge amount of injury so it really doesn't matter. 

[hardy_practice]

I would argue that the piano is essentially a closed chain, given that the object is immovable and body motions are small;

Well, that's a start!  I'd venture if you keybed and on the way through to the keybed you make no distinct changes of coordination - it's closed.  If you don't keybed it's open.  Though I must confess being a novice at this!

[dima_76557]

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[timothy42b]

Well, that's a start!  I'd venture if you keybed and on the way through to the keybed you make no distinct changes of coordination - it's closed.  If you don't keybed it's open.  Though I must confess being a novice at this!

Well, here's the thing.  All the movements that I've seen discussed in connection with open and closed chains involve very high forces and sometimes high speeds.  The injury potential is caused by those forces.  

Piano is a very low force environment and injury is caused by repetitive trauma.  

Between your finger on the key and your finger on the keybed is only a distance of about a centimeter.  I guess technically you're open until you ground out, but for all practical purposes you didn't really move.  

I have a digital with an interesting feature, an additional sensor in the keybed.  After you bed, if you continue to press, you can trigger an additional voice, or a crescendo.  Just one more of the myriad ways a digital is superior to the acoustic.

[timothy42b]

I'm sorry to have obviously derailed the thread then. I had hoped the topic would be about musical performance and not about athletics again, something that could have been posted in the "miscellaneous" or the "anything but piano" section.

But I think there is an application to technique, so maybe it's not strictly athletics.

Do we play with just our fingers?  Or with the muscles of buttocks, torso, shoulder, forearm, wrist, and fingers (the kinetic chain involved)?

[hardy_practice]

I have a digital with an interesting feature, an additional sensor in the keybed.  After you bed, if you continue to press, you can trigger an additional voice, or a crescendo.  Just one more of the myriad ways a digital is superior to the acoustic.

Now you gone and done it! digital...superior.... - not in the same breath please.  There's a geezer in Germany who does a control surface keyboard which I've always wanted - just a flat pane of glass.  That would have some interesting connotations.  Chopin actually mentions how foolish a flat keyboard would be.      

[dima_76557]

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[hardy_practice]

You need strong legs and you should play from the stomach.

Funny, in a previous life I had a tag - Sing from the Belly!  Play from the Belly!

[timothy42b]

Injuries are mostly the result of practising technique in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with music or with achieving an artistic image.

I'm not sure I agree with this. 

Piano is an inherently risky activity, involving long hours of relatively immobile incredibly repetitive motions with no recovery time. 

I doubt there is a safe way to practice, only relatively safer ones.  Pretty much all performers report injuries enough to have limited either their playing or their other activities. 

Some physiques may be more resistant.  But I don't think any amount of musicality can immunize you from CTDs. 

[dima_76557]

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[hardy_practice]

We need to bear in mind Chopin's need for an Erard and its ready made tone whenever he was indisposed.  An Erard you play upon, a Pleyel you play.  On the Pleyel you are always searching and that would be mf and below - you'll find wonders there.  I think piano injuries could date from the era of formed piano tone - about 1850 onwards?

[dima_76557]

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[hardy_practice]

I would have thought pre-Paganini injuries were minimal.  It's around then everything starts to get louder - presumably as audiences (halls) got bigger.

[j_menz]

I would have thought pre-Paganini injuries were minimal.  It's around then everything starts to get louder - presumably as audiences (halls) got bigger.

Not familiar with organs, are you. 

[dima_76557]

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[hardy_practice]

I'd rather say that people lost it and injuries started happening mostly because of the "Industrial Revolution" with its ideals of "standardization through mechanization".

Yeh.  The industrial revolution did a lot of harm.  Not just mechanization but also alienation.

[timothy42b]

You make it sound as if injuries is something specific to piano playing, but if you look through history of music performance as a whole, injuries started happening all over from the moment people lost the connection with music and art, and started classifying movements and teaching athletics. Of that I am 100% sure.

I just don't believe the artistic connection is sufficient to protect anyone.

Musicians have to be obsessive dedicated practicers to perform at the higher levels, and that is inherently risky.

I do suspect that the need to specialize has increased problems.  If you play piano AND violin AND sacbut AND etc. etc. you may not be spending all your time on one type of motion and may avoid the cumulative trauma impact.  Many musicians of the past were generalists.  But there is no way to be competitive doing that today.  When there are 1000 applicants for every viola opening, you can't risk leaving that hour of trumpet practice on the table when you know your competition won't.

[dima_76557]

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[hardy_practice]

I think that's what Abby Whiteside was actually concerned with, but I think she simply misidentified the cause a little bit - it's not the finger coordination as such that is to blame but something more essential between the ears. It's high time that her cryptic works be translated into something that makes more sense. There's a lot in there that has to do with healthy kinetic chains if you ask me.

Time I got it down off the shelf again?

re: artistic connection - I really think that's dying, which explains the modern prevalence for injury.

[nyiregyhazi]

Sorry folks.  This was never meant to be a thread about tone at all.  I just thought open/closed is an interesting way to classify movements - very big in the sports world.  stuff like this:

'Initially, when the cyclist stands up to drive downward on the pedal, his
body may momentarily move away from the pedal, until the arms counter the
upward movement of the body - turning the movement into an open chain
movement as the pedal descends away from the body. The same scenario can be
developed for a boxer punching an opponent in the head; the chain is closed
upon contact, yet opens as the force of the arm overcomes the momentary
resistance created by the head (a concept I am very familiar with by the
way!). This is why boxers can be seen doing both open and closed chain
exercises in their training programs, if their coach knows what he is doing'

As Dima posted a vid, and Mr Katsaris illustrates different methods, it's a good opportunity to see how his different methods could be classified using open/closed.   I thought there must be plenty of sports or physio experienced posters - but maybe not.

It's an extremely arbitrary distinction and there's not even a concrete objective way to a categorise many cases. It's worthless to to lump simplistically into a category and then apply a universal rule based solely on a binary distinction that is not even objectively certain. Far more valuable to see each case on its own merits than on simplified categories.

Holding out a long heavy metal bar parallel to the floor is an open chain. Not terribly healthy to do for long without support. Close the chain by gently resting the end on something and you are closing the chain, in a manner that relieves the overwhelming majority of the workload, even when putting a very gentle weight down at the other end. So it's a nonsense to define open chains as healthy and closed ones as hazardous. Seeing the situation itself is far more important than making an oversimplified label and judging on that.

Just aspressups are perfectly healthy when you make room to move away (rather than simply compress hard into the floor without making room to be pushed up by the reaction) it's abundantly healthy to contact a keybed in a way where the reaction  pushes you up and away, without crushing into compression. The closed chain offers easy support without any strain anywhere.

Given that it's impossible to avoid contacting keybeds in even even mezzo forte, the argument is for sticking to open chains is as worthy as one about whether it's better to drive or teleport to work. One option dies not even exist in reality, so we're better off discussing options that are real.

[nyiregyhazi]

Which should then be translated into the right metaphors and with proper preparatory exercises that develop the student's apparatus without burdening him/her with the technical details.

Katsaris is not a teacher in the regular sense, but I'm sure he's got something for any case that a pianist could ever be faced with. Same with Marik I feel intuitively. I think anyone (that's you included, yes ) could benefit from personal contact (not abstract babble on forums like this one) with such wonderful people who really care, although they themselves would rather talk about great art or better even: remain silent, play for each other or together, or listen to the greats of the past.

P.S.: Katsaris told me once while I was in Japan (and he repeated that in an interview that is online) that "there is a lot of crookery in teaching". Man, I believe him when I look at all the "methods" that are online. They all have something to learn from, maybe, but when the ultimate result is not great art, what's the point?

But what happens if a student never goes on to know more than this metaphor which was tailor made for them and then comes to be a teacher? And then passes on nonsense which does not fit the majority of students and thus causes considerable harm? Ultimately, it's better to understand a few simple fundamentals about the difference between efficient and non efficient key movement (notably the fact that bracing a hand to transmit arm weight is not truly a way to be efficient or safe, if take literally) than to misportray reality. No metaphor needs to be founded on fallacies. The best metaphors are and constructed due to width of vision, not misapprehension. The way arm weight and arm energy is usually taught isn't even metaphor but rather misinformation. I always clarify to a student when I describe a subjective impression that it probably isn't real. You don't have to be outright misled to try a subjective approach. Metaphor mistaken for fact is never good, especially if even the teacher doesn't know the difference, nevermind the student.

Katsaris is clearly a very fine teacher. He understands well the true role of fingers yet doesn't neglect to teach freedom in the arm. But the reason so many teachers are very poor at training the hand is because they learned by metaphor (that wasn't even portrayed as metaphor but as if objective fact) without ever coming to see reality, and thus gained no wide enough perspective to properly train students from all situations. So they teach the same nonsense to those who will be harmed by it as to those who may benefit, under the mistaken belief that it is literal reality.

[hardy_practice]

VERBOSE POSTS NOT WELCOME!

[nyiregyhazi]

I couldn't give a sh*t whether you can cope with two paragraphs or not. Go and have a discussion on twitter, if you can't cope with that. Any discussion that is founded on simplications that categorise something complex into one of just two possibilities (in a manner that is greatly open to subjectivity) and then define it entirely by that, are bogus and misleading. It's not only as flawed as categorising people's behaviour based on the whether they are black or white, but it's equivalent to taking a person of mixed race and making a completely abitrary decision as to which group to judge them by and then assuming that what was a mere coin flip would define everything about them. Applying a label to something of complexity does not redefine what that complex product actually is, or how it functions.

If it's too complex for you to appreciate that pianism involves actually connecting to the piano (given that it's an ridiculous piece of fantasy to imagine that keys might fail to actually connect with keybeds in anything of even a moderate dynamic), I suggest you stop analysing altogether. If your analysis is based on a premise of such outrageous fantasy, it won't have any value whether you make it simple or complex.

Open chains are not inherently better than closed chains, as proved by the example of holding out a heavy iron bar vs closing the chain by resting one end lightly down. Sorry if it's not as simple as you wanted to pretend it is, but your simplifications yields completely bogus conclusions, falsified by counterexample.

[anamnesis]

It depends on how you define "artistic". I think the essence of music is rhythm. Mechanisation makes rhythm rigid. Instead of feeling a healthy pulse of the music, you move within a mechanical beat with norms and standards imposed upon you by the outside world. This makes movements rigid, but nature didn't intend them to be that way and the system breaks down. Eventually you lose all sense of what you are doing and why you are doing it. Not a very healthy atmosphere to grow artistically.

I think that's what Abby Whiteside was actually concerned with, but I think she simply misidentified the cause a little bit - it's not the finger coordination as such that is to blame but something more essential between the ears. It's high time that her cryptic works be translated into something that makes more sense. There's a lot in there that has to do with healthy kinetic chains if you ask me.

I don't think she actually blamed finger coordination, alone, but simply a neurotic focus on them as well as a neurotic note-by-note musical experience rather than the flow of the entire phrase.  I think that there are at least 3 key insights that make her work much more approachable.

1. A Schenkerian or (more preferably imo a Westergaardian who had an explicit theory of tonal rhythm) understanding of music from the start, and not just at the end to make it all come together.  People focus too much on the physical aspects of her teaching, but ignore the musical aspects. Outlining and the overall phrase rhythm really are the core of her method.  An understanding of the larger structure, at least on the "middleground" level makes things easier.  

2. Upper arm/back/shoulder girdle control of the horizontal progression of music is highly linked to proprioception/kinesthesia. She never used those terms, but I highly suspect a lot of what she was saying has more to do with that from my own experience.  There's a huge amount of control and sensory available to you at that level, but most pianists never actively seed the need to engage it except when they have fast large leaps.  I think what she was trying to say was that this type of physical, sensory feedback control must be turned on at all times.  That's why she supposedly made all her students learn this piece:

Its this level of control that is the "physical countepart" of the larger phrase structure, and because it is most directly connected to the torso, it has the strongest connection with one's inner rhythm and sense of timing.  A student (Daniel Stevens) of the late Robert Helps (Whiteside's most noted student), has an abstract that hints at this:

https://societymusictheory.org/sites/default/files/34th_Annual_Meeting_SMT_%282011%29_abstracts.pdf

It seems to talk about Helps' performance of the 45th Godowsky-Chopin study, which to me seems impossible if you don't use this larger-kinesthetic control and flow.  

https://picosong.com/4NYL
https://www.musanim.com/pdf/GodowskyChopinEtude45.pdf

3. The performance state.  Other fields would probably call it the "flow state". The mental state necessary to perform in is completely different from the ones the people struggling to learn piano are in.  The ones who struggle have a neurotic note-by note focus (i.e., those with poor sight-reading and audiation skills). She was focused on having students practice within that state from the beginning rather than just having that only come together in the end.  

[timothy42b]

I think that she also had an appreciation of rhythm and time, and how it could be used to advantage in producing coordination, that was far ahead of her contemporaries. 

The more modern teacher that I think came closest to that (and expanded on it, somewhat) is the saxophone player and brass teacher Carmine Caruso of New York.

[anamnesis]

I think that she also had an appreciation of rhythm and time, and how it could be used to advantage in producing coordination, that was far ahead of her contemporaries. 

The more modern teacher that I think came closest to that (and expanded on it, somewhat) is the saxophone player and brass teacher Carmine Caruso of New York.

Dalcroze Eurhythmics also has similar ideas, although it isn't particular to any instrument.   

[dima_76557]

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[hardy_practice]

If we understand that, then closed kinetic chains (holding one or more notes on the keybed, for example) are suddenly not so harmful anymore and there is no need to be tense, neither in the pelvis, nor in the shoulders, the elbows, or the wrists. What do you think?

Yes, any fixation impedes the flow to and from the belly - which should feel like jelly (there's a reason these two words, jelly and belly, are nearly identical).

[j_menz]

(there's a reason these two words, jelly and belly, are nearly identical).

Yes. It's called coincidence.

belly (n.)
English belg, bylig (West Saxon), bælg (Anglian) "leather bag, purse, bellows," from Proto-Germanic *balgiz "bag" (cognates: Old Norse belgr "bag, bellows," bylgja "billow," Gothic balgs "wineskin"), from PIE *bholgh-, from root *bhelgh- "to swell," an extension of *bhel- (2) "to blow, swell" (see bole). Meaning shifted to "abdomen of a human or animal" (late 13c.) as the old plural form of the noun emerged as a separate word (see bellows). Meaning "bulging part or concave surface of anything" is 1590s. The West Germanic root had a figurative or extended sense of "anger, arrogance" (as in Old English bolgenmod "enraged;" belgan (v.) "to become angry"), probably from the notion of "swelling."

jelly (n.)
14c., from Old French gelee "a frost; jelly," noun use of fem. past participle of geler "congeal," from Latin gelare "to freeze," from gelu "frost" (see cold (adj.)).jelly (v.) Look up jelly at Dictionary.com



Don't make up crap to make your point, or people won't be able to tell the difference

[dima_76557]

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[j_menz]

There may be different underlying problems in different people with bone structures, tendons, ligaments, etc.

 There are people without them? 

[dima_76557]

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[j_menz]

I wanted to stress "different", indicating that everybody is different and we all have different problems to begin with which should be addressed in different ways fitting that particular individual.

I don't disagree.

Seems to me, the ultimate test of a good/great pianist is what comes out of the piano. There are clearly differences between them, but it's all (or at least mostly) good.

Observation indicates that what goes in varies enormously, even for a similar outcome. I would suggest that first off one should concentrate on what you want to do; how to do it will follow. Even if you can do anything, not knowing what it is that is worth doing makes a mockery of that.