Piano Forum

The original thread, https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=24891.0 is very informative and the OP brings up a great observation:  People either can do it or can't - and he wanted to hear from people that couldn't but learned how to.

I am an aerospace mechanical engine, so things like biomechanics, mass, inertia, vibration, mode shapes, etc. are how my thoughts are focused.  Also that piano technique is definitely a Marshal Art - the skill is a triangle of Speed, Strength, and Accuracy.  I know of one elite class jazz pianist that studied Wing Shun and was quite excited when he found out I had made the same conclusion(!)

MY BACKSTORY:  I am 63 and from 6 to my mid-50's, I made progress to about the age of 12 and then hit a brick wall.  I never had good instruction and was never told about tension - I was Mr. Tension - I was doomed.  All the practice in the world had no effect and luckily, I didn't develop carpal tunnel or other damage.

MY PROBLEM:  I and chomping at the bit to practice this technique, but I well know the wrong practice will yield no fruit.  So I'm not willing to horse off and try something that may or may not work.  I'm the engineer talking now - I need to have a model of how this technique works.  I have not yet read Fink's Bounce methods but the word "bounce" makes intuitive sense to me.

ISSUES & DISCOVERIES

THE PIANO ITSELF:   The type of piano is a big deal.  I've played two, mine and a friends, and the one with the stiffer action, is quite faster - it's not totally unlike how you play a snare drum and get multiple strikes with one "whip" of the drum stick.  The light action would be like a drum head that was like a stretch rubber latex glove - obviously the drum stick would not bounce.

WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP:  Genetics has been brought up and since it is well known that Fast Muscle exists and some are blessed with it, that could clearly be a serious factor.

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL:  Brain Speed:  There are some runs in Mussorgsky - Hopak where you rip a 1,2,3,4,5 left hand crossed over right hand, that when played at tempo, I simply cannot hear the individual notes.  My brain simply does not process that fast.  People that speed talk.  Nope, can't do that.  I'm 63, early undetectable stage of Altzheimers?  Who knows.  But I do know that quick draw shootists are very fast and it is a talent that cannot simply be learned.

ARM WEIGHT:  

I just learned about this just months ago.  Sad.  I know.  ROTATION even more recently.  This was stuff I needed to know when I was 8 years old because at that time, I was a true virtuoso and blowing minds of every piano teach I had (4 of them).

Golandsky(Taubman) said a couple of cryptic sentences on this.  The trick was to eliminate tension from the process by using arm weight to push the keys down.  Then there is a bounce/recoil/etc. that is used to get the upstroke ready for the next arm weight relaxation.

This is in line with a study that was mentioned where if you use Boost and Buck (engineering - opposed groups) to produce an oscillatory motion, the nerve/muscle system is not fast enough.  Using arm weight eliminates one side of that.  This makes great engineering sense.

So we have the downstroke (arm weight) - how do we achieve the upstroke?  

Assuming some sort of bounce or recoil, the next question what is involved?  Fingers, hand, wrist, forearm.  Not sure on this one.  Watching Buniatishvili and Wang crush Erlkonig, the forearm does not seem to move that much, however, at high speed, small movement is still high force.  So it is difficult to determine what muscle action is going on.  Of note, Lisitsa appears to use a totally different approach - her hand lays much flatter.  Wang does some groups with totally vertical fingers - so there is no finger action for sure in that case.

My Frogger Practice:  For giggles, actually a relaxation drill, I let arm weight play the keys (does not have to be octaves), rest on them, and then make my fingers/hand/wrist "jump" carrying the "arm weight" payload to the next set of keys.  It is very weird, but I think it is non-destructive and really lets you focus on dead arms during the whole drill - and that can't be bad.  Of course, trying to speed this process up is not easy or intuitive.  I haven't tried a lot and don't know if it would yield fruit.

Bullseye:  Previous to the discovery of arm weight, if I wanted to play loud, I would rest my fingers on the keys and then "whip" them.  Then I concluded that I have to be able to hit them accurately from a great altitude.  This was a pivotal realization and a good practice.

Whip/Slap:  The next exercise for double thirds:  35, 24, 13  (Beethoven variations in Gould's 32 Short Films movie) was to hold the hands above the keys by a couple inches, and then using the wrists, ship or slap the keys, return to the high position and slap the next ones.  Perhaps not the best exercise for speed, but has merit when leaping about the keyboard - I truly love leaping.  

ROTATION:  Nothing here for octaves.

WORDS OF WISDOM:  If you are your teachers best pupil - RUN!   He won't know what to do with you.

HOW TO PRACTICE?

For fast octaves of course.

EVOLUTION?:  Emphasize minimum motion, slow, zero tension, and then slowly increase speed.  PERHAPS on the way, a few epiphanies.  But not guaranteed.  (I might also add SOFT too which really kills tension.  I once heard a great, highly advanced ragtime piano player that could simply not muster any volume/strength.  Back to the Marshall Arts!)

ONE SIZE FITS ALL - NOT:  What may work for some people will not work for others.  This is where a great  teacher/trainer can straighten a student out.  Of course some people get there with what works for them which is totally unorthodox (Lisitsa claims this and watching her technique, I'd have to agree.)
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So that's where I'm at and totally up-in-the-air about how to practice.