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Phone: Skype: E-mail: school@pianowell.com |
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| The “PianoWell” System The difference of my system is that I don’t tell you once again how a piece should sound, what movements to do, and how to feel a piece. I find the causes of pianist’s problems and explain how to solve them — what abilities to develop, what and how to imagine in a piece, and how to correctly express the conceived using the correct methods of sound production. All teachers describe the effect, the result of correct playing, sometimes to the smallest details — what height a finger should be lifted to; at what speed fingers should be lowered to the keys; how much weight should be given to create sound of a certain quality; what hand movements should be done; how to position and feel your arms, wrists and fingers to play technically and freely; what technique should be used to play octaves, chords, arpeggios, passages and repetitions; how sounds should sound for the instrument to start “singing”. I’m sure that each professional pianist heard about these guidelines and tips many times. All pianists already perfectly know how to play correctly and how to play incorrectly, what to do and what not to do. But unfortunately not all pianists begin playing correctly having this much knowledge. This happens because teachers only describe the result of correct playing, but no one tells how to correctly find and feel the goals that lead to correct playing. The goals that need to be originally created in your head to later use the necessary methods for their realization. This leads to the fact that pianist, while completing what looks like well described movements and methods, still completes them incorrectly. That’s because there’s a mass of internal sensations that fill the external movements, and these internal sensations are impossible to simply explain and control from the outside. Thereby, pianist can complete seemingly correct movements with hundreds of various internal sensations. And the fact is that only one of them will be truly correct according to the set goal. Only those movements will be correct, which will reflect and express internal ideas of sound, intonation, phrasing, etc. Only under this condition all external movements will begin to be filled with life and freedom because all internal sensations will begin to be dosed and as though adjusted to the internal idea of a piece. I’m convinced that all discomforts that pianist experiences while playing, tension and quick fatigue of arms happen when arm movements don’t reflect the relief of music and stay in disharmony with it. Therefore, it’s necessary to correctly imagine music and then play it so that all movements reflect the musical idea. This should be the main task for pianists training — teach them to correctly set goals. Correctly analyze a piece. Correctly imagine sounds, harmonies and dynamics. Correctly intonate sounds with weight obeying to the rules of phrasing and form. And then explain to students in these frameworks how to correctly express these ideas, what movements to do with the wrist, elbow, etc. This is also necessary to explain because you can’t accurately express your ideas without correct movements. For example, imagining sound of a certain quality will create a necessary touch of a key with your fingertip. But it’s possible only if nothing will interfere (wrong arm and sitting position). And another example, when teachers work with eliminating consequences, but not causes of a problem. For instance, a student doesn’t express necessary and accurate emotional image of a piece through playing. And teachers say that playing should express a certain state, and while colorfully explaining what kind of image music should create, teachers hope that it’ll change the student’s playing for better. They don’t explain what musical means of expression (MEMs) this image should be expressed through while playing. Teachers can perfectly, very convincingly show (tell, sing, play) how the piece should sound, but they don’t explain how to do it. This happens because many teachers are in fact very good musicians and pianists. They play very well, very brightly express intonation, articulations, dynamics, and sometimes even musical speech, phrasing and emotional image of a piece. Unfortunately, they can’t understand and grasp what they possess in order to teach their students things they do very well themselves. Therefore, their advices are limited to describing the results of their own superb playing — what they feel while playing, how their arms and fingers move, etc. It’s impossible to teach anyone to play freely and technically with such methods, but only teach to perfectly imitate the ideas of others. Yet another example, when teachers point out to their student that he doesn’t have a necessary sounding, that he incorrectly completes harmony, articulations, dynamics and phrasing, that he doesn’t express emotional image, etc. And no one takes the risk to begin working on these problems and elimination of their causes. But these mistakes aren’t simply errors in playing. This is an indicator of student’s problems. And these problems have to be solved. It’s not enough to simply ask a student to exert his finger-pad for a melody to sound correctly, or ask him to play that fragment more expressively, or tell him that articulations aren’t accurate and don’t express anything, or tell him that he doesn’t feel and understand harmonies, that pp was already played as mf, or that a piece is played by measures and doesn’t go anywhere. It’s necessary to see the causes of problems, give solutions to these problems and make sure that student accomplishes all instructions absolutely correctly while in the classroom in order not to make the same mistakes in the future. But remember, you studied so many years with different teachers, and all teachers used to tell you in essence one and the same. I’m very sure about it. As there’re only 7 notes in music, and the rest is just a combination of the main notes, and so there’re only 15 MEMs in performance, and all problems and mistakes are only the absence of various combinations of these 15 MEMs: 1. timbre 2. sound movement 3. intonation 4. weight 5. articulations 6. harmony 7. dynamics 8. balance 9. sound texture 10. musical speech 11. phrasing 12. form 13. emotional image 14. meter 15. artistry Plus correct sitting position, hand position and movement to make it possible accurately express the conceived on the instrument. Mastering these MEMs saves from all technical and musical problems. It educates pianist to correctly find the goals and the means of their expression. It develops all necessary aspects of internal ear and muscles in hands. This is the key difference of my system from all other methods. Only my system maximally fully explains all 15 MEMs. Only my system educates pianist to correctly analyze a piece by setting correct goals (what, why and how to imagine) and correctly perform the conceived using necessary means to achieve the goals (i.e. what movements to do to express the ideas). Only my system eliminates the causes of problems, not their results. Let’s also point out that by mastering all MEMs, pianist acquires virtuosic playing skills eliminating all technical problems and professional arm illnesses. Previous | Next |
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| Pro Articles • Hygiene, Health and Training of Pianist’s Hands to Prevent Injury • 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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