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Phone: Skype: E-mail: school@pianowell.com |
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| About Piano Technique — What is technique? It's dexterity of fingers, it's clean playing without "concomitant sounds", it's flexible, plastic and comfortable playing when arms and wrists don't get fatigued and strained. It is firm and confident playing even in the fastest tempos. This is what technique is. — What's needed to be qualified? Qualitatively play many fast and virtuosic pieces. It's that simple. — So why in reality there're so few pianists with a brilliant technique? I think, each pianist knows what technique is and how to develop it. But unfortunately, pianist meets a bunch of obstacles on the way of achieving virtuosic technique — hands or wrists begin to strain when playing fast, fingers stop moving in fast tempo, the played piece sounds poor. — So what is the cause for appearance of these problems? It's incorrect sound production — when muscles of fingers, hands and wrists develop incorrectly, when there're no essential skills of passing weight to the instrument through intonation. All of this is the cause of unnecessary movements while playing, which hamper technique very much: 1) high lifting of fingers before playing a key; 2) unnecessary movements of hands, wrists and elbows. The first is caused by the lack of tenacious fingertips when it's not enough to simply place the finger on a key to play a note, but a high lifting of the finger has to be done. Also, it's caused by the lack of correct intonation of intervals, which leads to an erroneous idea that dexterity lays in fingers themselves, however, fingers' dexterity lays in hand muscules. The second is caused by the lack of flexible, melodious wrist when pianist has to mechanically do additional movements to free his hands. It's also caused by incorrect elbow movements. It often leads to playing wrong notes in leaps (therefore, pianist begins to strain even more) and playing wrong notes on a regular basis. Therefore, the lack of technique is caused by incorrect sound production — when pianist has no sensations that he "stands" on firm fingers, that his fingertips play in sound, that his wrists are flexible and melodious and that his arms, like hoses, pour weight to the instrument. At a later age, starting from 10 years, it's already impossible to reposition (realign) hands because the practice of incorrect sound production and incorrect movements is great. That's why overcoming the problems with technique at this age is possible only through conscious playing. — What do I mean by the phrase "conscious playing"? It's a correct idea of what pianist wants to say and correct performance of what he wants to say. The latter is very important because pianist, often having a clear idea of what he wants to say, can't express the conceived on the instrument brightly and understandably in full measure. A correct idea and performance of a piece result in conscious playing. Therefore, pianist achieves control over what he plays: how he imagines music and what methods he competently uses to play the conceived on the instrument. Only with such control it's possible to eliminate all obstacles on the way to achieving virtuosic technique. Thanks to properly developed "head to hands" (idea to performance) contact, hand muscles begin to move correctly themselves after a certain time — exert more and relax themselves more. It's called the muscular (or kinesthetic) memory — when you, while correctly imagining a MEM, already begin to internally sense how your hand muscles will perform the imagined music. This moment is very important in developing a fluent technique because, while you imagine music in your head in fast tempo, your hand muscles will already be prepared to correctly play this piece in that fast tempo. Also, I must say that all relaxation techniques for hands, torso, neck, etc. that aren't connected to music are only suitable for a sensation of satisfaction from the first carefully played sounds in slow tempo. As soon as you need to play a virtuosic piece, your hands will begin to strain again. And after trying to relax them, you'll notice that it's impossible to do even with willed efforts. In addition, you'll never be able to play the piece the way you wanted to play it while constantly switching your attention from music to hands. Relaxation exercises will not give the desirable result because it's possible to play with technique only with free hands, not relaxed. Hands should be "smart", and then they'll be free. Relaxed hands have no life in them, and they will strain again with any unreasoned movement. Studying with my system, pianist will acquire the skills of virtuosic technique, thanks to correct sound production, thanks to being able to imagine and play the conceived on the instrument. All of this gives correct sound production to pianist, which is needed to develop virtuosic technique — when pianist has sensations that he stays on firm fingers, that his fingertips play in sound, that his wrists are flexible and melodious and that his free hands pour weight to the instrument like hoses. Previous | Next |
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| Pro Articles • The "PianoWell" System • The First Piano Textbook for Professional Pianists • Typical Pianist Mistakes Related to Incorrect Sound Production and Undeveloped Internal Ear • Unnecessary Tension of Arms • Correct and Incorrect Piece Analysis. About Our Workbooks With Piece Analysis • Mastering the Musical Means of Expression Develops All Types of Musical Ear • The Myths About Piano Education and the Disclosures • Studying the "PianoWell" System as Preventive Measures of "Overplayed (Injured) Hands" • Problems of Piano Methods • About Piano Technique • The Musical Means of Expression • Playing Without Intonation Like Living Without Air • The Correct Sound Production Technique • How to Find a Good Student? Other Articles • About Piano Education of Amateurs • About Piano Education of Children • Recommendations for Beginners From Zero • What’s in "PianoWell" for Amateurs • About the New "The Art of Piano Technique: The Basic Course" Textbook for Professional Pianists Pro-Ams and Teachers |
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