How to fix an unsound technique that has been baked into playing for years?

[mediocrepianist123]

I’ve been playing piano for around 8 years now. I’m a high schooler who is looking to major in piano performance. However, my left hand technique is very poor as a result of years of bad playing. My fingers constantly collapse and so do my wrists(going below key level). This makes it very hard to play certain passages in my left hand in which I have so far managed to survive by “faking it”. How can I completely take apart my technique and rebuild it when it’s so baked into my body. My teacher is helping me with this but I would also like to know other people’s opinions.

[quantum]

Deliberate, methodical and disciplined work ethic.  There will be challenges, it will take time, but if you stick to it you will be rewarded.  Don't try to take shortcuts, rather aim for steady consistent progress.  Don't look at all of this as a bad thing, if you are diligent in your studies, you will come out with a far deeper understanding of technique. 

One of the main challenges is to stop yourself from defaulting to bad techniques when playing, especially in more stressful situations like live performance where one tends to go to things that are comfortable and familiar.  For a time you may need to make a concerted effort to catch yourself if you revert to bad technique.

There are people with very natural good technique, that find it difficult to articulate and explain it to their students because they have faced very few challenges - they have very little experience on what bad technique feels like.  On the other hand, if you have experience on both sides of the coin, you would have far better personal perspective on identifying technical faults and teaching good technique to your own future students. 

[jamienc]

From what you have described, it sounds as if it is not your fingers that are collapsing, but the support system in your palm that should remain above the keyboard to allow the fingers to access the keys. It took a while for me to change this aspect of my playing along time ago, but it was well worth the effort because I had the same problems as you have at the moment. My suggestion first off would be to analyze your body away from the piano so there are no distractions with playing notes and falling into the trap of being unaware of what your body is doing.

A good finger support system will look like this: hold your hand out flat in front of you so that you can see the position from a side view (in other words, you will be looking at your thumb and your index finger with a flat hand position). Now bend your fingers downward a bit at the large knuckle so that your hand position looks like a distant mountain top. This is the proper hand position for anything that you will play. Now, to build that position for when you are playing, it is important to practice this consciously away from the piano with something that will elevate your hand and allow you to feel the sensation of activating the finger without the typical tension that creeps in when you are playing the instrument. I would find something thin but sturdy (like a dry erase marker or something like that) and rest your hand on it by placing the top of it directly in the center of your palm. Balance your position until you are comfortable, and then gently wiggle your fingers without allowing tension to invade your palm or wrist. This is the very sensation you should feel when you’re playing the piano. It gives you immediate access to the key and will improve your finger independence for passages that require a little bit of precision.

When you want to try that technique at the instrument, start out with perhaps some easy five finger patterns or slowly play some of the Hanon exercises all the while maintaining that mountain top in your hand position yet allowing the finger to independently activate each key. One of my older teachers always placed a quarter on the top of my palm when I was playing exercises and waited to see how long it would take for the quarter to fall off of my hand when I was playing. If you are able to keep that coin on the top of your hand through several exercises, then you are definitely on the right track! What that indicates is that you are using less of your arm and wrist to play technical things on the instrument and are using more of the finger, which is what you want. See if this helps any!

[ranjit]

There is a lot of discussion regarding good piano technique which you can find in books, videos etc. Instead, I'll try to talk about how to change a technique which has been baked into your playing. I've been trying to do something similar recently.

Firstly, it's very important that you be aware of the exact movements that are incorrect which you would like to change, if possible. The more detailed or specific the idea is that you would like to execute, the better. Try to create a solid mental image of the sound as well as how it looks. That is, ideally you should be able to tell readily if you're using the new technique or not.

You would want a teacher who knows how to teach technique well, such teachers are relatively uncommon and you will want to seek them out. It is possible without, but this would help a lot.

Try to figure out the movements on a table or on a silent keyboard in addition to normal playing.

When it comes to practice, I find that it's a bit more complicated than just putting in a number of hours. Every time you try to practice the technique, you should try to focus on a particular aspect of it, this directs your attention. Record yourself, both audio and video.

Focus on how it feels to move a certain way. This kinesthetic feeling is what you work on and improve, and over time it is what will allow you to know whether or not you're performing with your desired technique.

[brogers70]

I’ve been playing piano for around 8 years now. I’m a high schooler who is looking to major in piano performance. However, my left hand technique is very poor as a result of years of bad playing. My fingers constantly collapse and so do my wrists(going below key level). This makes it very hard to play certain passages in my left hand in which I have so far managed to survive by “faking it”. How can I completely take apart my technique and rebuild it when it’s so baked into my body. My teacher is helping me with this but I would also like to know other people’s opinions.

I've been in that situation. One thing that helped was to practice only a short time each day. It is important both to give your brain the experience of making the correct movements AND to avoid giving it the experience of making incorrect movements. So, once you've figured out the right movements and your teacher has given you a few exercises to do to train them, do the exercises perfectly for 15-20 minutes a day, and then go do something else. It takes intense concentration to get the movements correct when you have pre-existing bad habits and if you practice too long you are likely to slip back into the wrong motions. I made a big improvement in my hard-wired bad technique by practicing like this, just a few careful minutes a day for several months. Once the new technique starts to get baked in, you can gradually add time to your practice sessions and start working on new pieces - I'd stay away from pieces you learned while your technique was faulty, too easy to slip back into the old habits. Good luck.

[jamienc]

Focus on how it feels to move a certain way. This kinesthetic feeling is what you work on and improve, and over time it is what will allow you to know whether or not you're performing with your desired technique.

This is perhaps the most crucial point. Judging technique by sound is not a very effective pathway unless you already possess a solid and developed technique that doesn’t require too much attention and occurs somewhat subconsciously. It is very difficult to describe (and maybe some of the veterans here can help clarify) but I find that there is this weird barrier between the physical action of activating the key and the sound that is produced by that action. Most will favor the resulting sound they are getting as an indication as to whether their physical mechanism did a good job. This is problematic since the focus is so heavily skewed fo the aftereffects of the action that it is very likely the case that the performer wasn’t fully aware of how they achieved that result in the first place. Ideally, it should be the other way around. Focus should be greatly skewed toward the action (or the physical sensation) of the passage. Once this occurs I find that students often find their musical and technical problems starting to fade in favor of more fluid technique.

On a side note, I also witness the following… students practice passages repeatedly and struggle with technical requirements (often judged by the sound that results) only to wander around hoping that it will soon work. Then, once they achieve the desired result they seem to say, “I got it!” And then move on to something else. I have to immediately stop them and ask, “guess what just happened?” They are usually taken aback when I tell them that they just practiced it wrongly 20 times and did it correctly once at which time they stopped. No! Once you do it correctly that is where the internalization process truly begins! Now you have to practice that correct method 20 times to ensure it will happen on command.

Anyway, I just thought to mention that nebulous point of music making where the physical action makes the sound occur and how easy it is to base everything upon the aftereffect as opposed to the preemptive gesture, the latter of which should be the primary point of analysis of one’s technique.

[quantum]

Focus on how it feels to move a certain way. This kinesthetic feeling is what you work on and improve, and over time it is what will allow you to know whether or not you're performing with your desired technique.

Attentiveness and focus in the moment is so important.  One can go to a teacher to seek out the proper techniques, but in order for there to be actual improvement one has to execute those techniques. IMO using the right technique is only part of the equation, as it is just as important to possess the state of awareness with regard to the technique one is actually using and if it indeed matches up with the instructions given by the teacher. 

[loveibert]

I'd highly recommend finding a Taubman-trained teacher-even if you have to work online.  For more info, go here:
https://www.golandskyinstitute.org/
I have arthritis, and I can play 98% normally, due to my wonderful devoted teacher:
https://thepainfreepianist.com/aboutalisoncheroff.html