Playing as fast as Argerich

[youngpianist]

Hello again forum. I'm pretty good at playing for my age, playing gigs and so on. However, there is a difference between being a good pianist at the level of studying at your average conservatoire, and the holy crap level good that pianists like Argerich are. Have you listened to some of her recordings? Her scales, arpeggios, scales in thirds are SO fast and SO clear. How is it even humanly possible? I know this is just a forum so maybe nobody has the secret. But HOW do you get that good? What is she doing differently that enables her to be so fast?

[mad_max2024]

practice

[anacrusis]

I think her technique has been very deliberately trained, so that both she and her teachers knew exactly what they were doing. There are, after all, many top pianists who can play very fast, so I wouldn't say Argerich is unusual per se (please don't shoot me). But she is at the top, sure!

[jamienc]

The trick to understanding Argerich and her technique is watching her palm when she plays. It is always completely silent, which indicates that everything is being played from the big knuckle where the fingers meet the hand. She attains the speed and clarity she seems to accomplish naturally by disengaging the finger from the rest of the hand/forearm musculature and absolutely never getting struck in the key at any time. She flutters effortlessly through passages because she uses only enough muscular activation to engage the key and gets out as quickly as she went into the key. Hard to describe, but her finger attack is more “through” than “down.”