3. Pianist can't name sounding notes in a piano piece or a simple orchestra piece. He can't clearly sing a particular note without relying on a sounding note.
Developing internal timbre ear develops absolute pitch.

4. While listening to a piece, all sounding instruments seem to blend into one general sounding: it's hard to distinguish separately sounding groups of instruments and hear those instruments that are almost unnoticeable at first.
Thanks to timbral ear development, pianist hears-sees the whole timbral texture while listening to a piece (how violins, cellos and violas sound, where brass instruments enter, how polyphony is distributed between instruments). Pianist hears a hardly noticeable sounding of instruments, discovers new nuances in sounding of familiar instruments. Therefore, pianist even better memorizes all timbres of instruments and voices with his internal ear. Pianist feels a great beauty of music with such listening because pianist feels the whole musical texture more completely and finer.
Such concentration and conscious approach to sound allows pianist to hear notes that sound in music. Pianist will soon feel that he is able to distinguish notes and clearly name them. Timbral ear will begin to develop absolute pitch.

Sound Movement
1. Static and tensioned wrist.
The correct position of wrist and internal idea of sound movement, which is coordinated with wrist movement, make the wrist melodious, free, flexible and elastic.

2. While listening to a piece, all sounding instruments seem to blend into one general sounding: it's hard to distinguish separately sounding groups of instruments and hear those instruments that are almost unnoticeable at first.
When concentrating on discerning sound movement, pianist begins to feel timbres of instruments even finer, all music ceases to be static, but begins to revive and move in space.

Polyphony
1. Some notes don't sound in chords, intervals don't sound simultaneously.
Polyphonic ear development (ability to imagine all notes in intervals or chords simultaneously) and the skills of correct sound production allow to control each played sound.

2. Problems with learning polyphonic pieces by heart. Inability to control sounds in several voices simultaneously.
Skills to imagine all voice lines with internal timbral ear allow to quickly imprint a polyphonic piece in internal ear and pre-hear and control several voices simultaneously while playing.

3. While listening to a piece, all sounding instruments seem to blend into one general sounding: it's hard to distinguish separately sounding groups of instruments and hear those instruments that are almost unnoticeable at first.
Thanks to polyphonic ear development, while listening to a piece, pianist sees the whole picture of polyphonic texture, feels a parallel development of voices and can concentrate on several voices simultaneously, therefore, widening perception limits of music.

Performance
1. Wrong sitting position: too much of torso swinging, curved back, detached sitting position that prevents passing of weight to the instrument during performance, raised shoulders, wrong stool height, wrong feet position.
Correct sitting position is connected with an efficient expression of pianist's idea on the instrument, i.e. external movements are coordinated with internal sound idea by certain rules. Therefore, correct sound idea will naturally create correct movements. Sitting position is in the system with MEMs, therefore, it's under constant control during performance.

2. Wrong hand position: collapsing knuckles, collapsing finger phalanxes, wrong high position of the wrist.
Correct hand position (its alignment) is connected with an effective expression of pianist's ideas on the instrument, i.e. external movements are coordinated with internal sound idea by certain rules. Therefore, correct sound idea will naturally create correct movements. Arm movements are in the system with MEMs, therefore, they are under constant control during performance.

3. Wrong position and movement of elbow: it's too static and clasped to the torso or too loose.
The correct position and movement of elbow are connected with the maximally precise and dexterous position changes. All movements are in the system with MEMs, and, therefore, the elbow is under constant control during performance.

4. Problems with leaps, arpeggios, and position changes: playing isn't dexterous, comfortable and easy, there are many unnecessary movements and mishits.
The exact knowledge of where and how the elbow prepares a new position allows developing skills of accurate, smart and planned arm movements.

5. Unnecessary finger movements: over lifting of fingers. Unnecessary arm movements: unnecessary hand, wrist and elbow movements.
Unnecessary finger movements are caused by the absence of tenacious fingertips when it's not enough to simply put a finger on a key to play a note, but a finger lifting has to be done. Unnecessary finger movements are caused by the absence of correct intonation of intervals. This leads to a wrong idea that fingers' dexterity is located in fingers themselves while, in reality, finger's dexterity is in the joints, tendons and muscles of hand.

Unnecessary arm movements are caused by the absence of flexible and melodious wrist when pianist has to intuitively make additional movements to release his arms. Unnecessary arm movements are caused by an incorrectly working elbow when it doesn't help technically, but creates additional unnecessary movements — obstacles for dexterous and comfortable playing.

Therefore, pianist doesn't spend time on unnecessary movements due to active fingertips, correct elbow movements and correct intonation, and his playing becomes flexible, dexterous, comfortable and fast.

Intonation and Weight
1. Short (not singing) sound: sounds seem separate, they don't flow one into another.
Mastering internal intonation with weight and correct arm movements allows to sing played sounds legato — when sounds flow one into another as though being born one from another.

2. Sound is weak, empty and "clamorous".
Mastering weight and correct sitting position fills torso and arms with free energy that flows to the keyboard through hands filling up sounds with free vibration. Thanks to playing with intonation and weight, sound becomes full, three-dimensional, relief, expressive, colorful, juicy and melodious.

3. All movements are uncomfortable, jerky and fussy.
Mastering intonation allows maintaining a feeling of weight while playing. Weight makes all movements more plastic, free, flexible and dexterous.

4. Arms get fatigued fast. Dexterity of fingers disappears in fast tempo.
Establishing correct sound production and correct work of arm muscles without unnecessary movements allows saving time and energy while playing. The correct "breathing" of arms is developed as well. Thanks to this, arms don't get tired and strained even in fast tempos.

5. Stomping, not singing sound. Upright key touch.
Mastering internal idea of timbre and sound movement and correct wrist and elbow movements allows to develop the correct "sliding" key touch using finger-pads. Further development of intonation and weight makes sound rich and melodious.

6. Playing as though in suspense, restraining weight in hands. Playing not "into the piano" without passing weight to the instrument.
Correct hand position, correct sitting position with straight back, correct wrist and elbow work and the skill of playing with weight (which is passed through intonation) allow playing with weight which is freely passed to the instrument without restraining energy in torso and arms.

7. No control over sound: pianist hears that everything sounds rough, but can't fix it (pianist wants to play a note softer and gentler, but the note doesn't sound; he wants to play a note richer, louder and deeper, but it sounds coarse and clamorous).
Pianist develops the skills of pre-hearing sounds of necessary quality and skills of correct sound production when arms accurately express pianist's ideas allowing to control each played sound.

8. Fingers are not strong and firm, but soft, weak and hollow.
Constant playing with correct sound production(correct arm movements, intonation and free passing of weight to the instrument) gradually strengthens finger and hand muscles. Pianist begins to "stand" on fingers.

9. Hampered energy and constrained torso and arms.
Correct sitting position helps, not hampers, to pass weight to the instrument and allows energy to pass freely to the keyboard removing all unnecessary tension in torso and arms.

10. All passages are hollow, inexpressive, they're played unevenly and "loosely".
Thanks to internal intonation, fingers exert before playing a note and control sound. Sounds are no longer "loose", but sound equally and evenly; all passages are played plastically and flexibly.

11. Octaves are played uncomfortably, arms and wrists get strained. Octaves are played "dirty" in fast tempos.
Idea of timbre with movement, correct sound production(active fingertips of the 1st and the 5th fingers, correct (moderately low) wrist position, correct elbow work in position changes) and skills of passing weight to the instrument through intonation and correct sitting position make playing octaves flexible and dexterous.

12. Wrists get tired in double notes, fingers don't move synchronously.
Hand muscles and tendons begin to develop due to the correct idea of timbre with movement, correct wrist movement, active fingertips and internal intonation of sounds with weight. They, in fact, control finger movement while playing double notes.

13. All dynamic nuances and articulations are done improperly and unnaturally giving pianist even more discomfort and tenseness.
Internal singing with weight of all imagined dynamic nuances and articulations provides a necessary amount of weight in dynamic nuances and correct, accurate intonation of articulations. All nuances begin to live in three-dimensional space, in free breath and that provides comfort and naturalness in playing.

14. The absence of feeling of the finest gradations of intonation, i.e. the smallest rubato, which are necessary for a beautiful and natural playing. (These intonation nuances are almost unnoticeable to ear, but the performer and his audience feel them very well.)
Thanks to intonation with weight, pianist begins to feel space and life between sounds — sounds begin to live by the laws of breath, and this is what provides flexibility and natural beauty to a melodic pattern.

15. The absence of deep and relief melodic movement; the played piece seems flat, without space. Music doesn't flow from pianist's heart and soul as it usually does in singing, but simply comes to running fingers over necessary keys on the keyboard. A feeling of not being inside of the sung music, but a detached vision of the piece played with fingers. The absence of feeling of internal singing, internal vibration and life between sounds.
By mastering skills of internal intonation with weight, pianist becomes incorporated with intonated sounds — pianist's voice becomes the beautiful sounding of his instrument, and his fingers simply express the motion of internal singing.

Thanks to playing with intonation and weight, pianist begins to feel that he begins to create music at each moment, at every instant of his performance. Intonation is life. It's music's heart and soul. Without it, music created by pianist will be dead, soulless, colorless and flat. Intonation is what fills each desire, each movement and each musical mean of expression with air, light and life.

16. Pianist can't feel the finest nuances of musical speech, can't do phrasing and form correctly, clearly and boldly, can't fully express musical image and artistry through playing.
Mastering intonation and weight is needed for a competent expression of musical speech, phrasing, form, emotional image and artistry through playing.

17. While listening to a piece, pianist passively hears a set of sounds without boldly feeling the movement and intervallics of melodic patterns.
By actively intonating melodies while listening to a piece and developing intonational-melodic ear, pianist begins to feel intervallics of melodic patterns better and deeper.


MEMs studied in The Advanced Course and problems related to their absence:
• Dynamics
• Balance
• Articulations
• Sound texture
• Musical speech
• Meter

Dynamics
1. The absence of fine gradations of dynamics, approximate mf and mp instead of rich and bright dynamics palette.
The skills to imagine timbre in various dynamic nuances from pp to ff and correctly play the idea on the instrument allow pianist to play all range of dynamic nuances with a greater quality and fineness.

2. All crescendo and diminuendo are approximate.
The skills to imagine all gradations of crescendo and diminuendo with internal timbral ear and correctly perform the idea on the instrument make playing all volume increases and decreases maximally accurate and clear.

3. The feeling of dynamics in playing isn't connected with the ability to pass weight, but connected with even more constraint and discomfort. P is insufficiently quiet, even, transparent and delicate; sounds often disappear. While playing p, pianist constrains even more as though "drawing in" sounds into himself and being afraid that his sound will either "jump out" (sound too loud) or disappear (not sound at all). F is insufficiently rich and loud, doesn't sound in full scale or sounds crudely and hard. While playing f, pianist constrains even more applying more force, but not free weight.
Imagining timbre in necessary dynamics develops skills of extracting just as much amount of sound with an active fingertip as imagined. And the skill of playing with weight allows to play with a full prop. This full prop, depending on necessary dynamics, will be of various quality.

Balance
1. It's hard to highlight a particular sound or voice in an interval or chord preserving synchronicity in playing notes.
Imagining balance with internal timbral ear (the skill to imagine several voices simultaneously in various dynamic nuances) allows to simultaneously control several fingers. And the skill of passing weight to the instrument allows to accurately distribute weight between fingers.

2. The absence of clear, melodious and "floating" melody.
The skills of balance and intonation with weight allow to freely sing a melody enjoying its beautiful, melodious and free sounding.

3. It seems like there're too many sounds in a played piece, sounding isn't balanced.
The ability to imagine the whole polyphony (texture) in a piece on various levels of dynamics and balance develops a finer control of weight and simplifies playing a piece, even one with a very thick texture.

4. While listening to a piece, pianist hardly notices changes in dynamics and doesn't see the whole picture of dynamic nuances.
Focusing attention on identifying dynamic nuances that sound in a melody, accompaniment, bass or passages and focusing on increasing volume in crescendos and gradually decreasing volume in diminuendos, pianist begins to better and finer feel the whole dynamic picture of a piece, he begins to hear dynamics multilayer. With such listening, pianist develops his dynamics ear range — his ear notices both the quietest and the loudest sound nuances and he memorizes the sounding of texture in an accurate balance.

Articulations
1. Articulations are inaccurate and unnatural: accent is too slack or hard; tenuto is shallow and unnoticeable to ear; staccato is inaccurate, not too sharp or too jerky. All articulations are uncomfortable to play; arms and energy stiffen even more on articulations.
Mastering intonation and weight is the foundation of correct and comfortable playing of all articulations. Correctly distributed weight and speed in intonation of articulations allow all articulations to be played accurately. And correct playing allows weight to pass to the instrument without obstacles and tensions. It's impossible to successfully play articulations without the skills of intonation and weight.

2. Articulations don't express anything in intonation of musical speech. It all comes down to a short, long or sharper key touch.
It's possible to feel the meaning of an articulation only through intonation and musical speech (the skills of musical speech make articulation sensing even brighter and clearer). Only then articulations will supplement the meaning of a played piece. Simply imitating sounding of articulations will do harm to pianist's performance by creating indistinct sounding and unnecessary tension in his mind and arms.

3. While listening to a piece, pinaist doesn't pay attention to how articulations are performed, they don't express anything for pianist in music.
By intonating the melody together with the performer, pianist feels how differently it's intonated: where intonation is with an accent, or a light staccato, or a plangent tenuto, or a soft legato, or a clear non legato. Pianist feels the multilayered texture (for example, a simultaneous legato and staccato intonation). Such parallel intonation of melodies together with the performer develops a good skill of correct intonation of articulations.

Sound Texture
The absence of feeling of "finger that grows through the key". The absence of deep and sonorous sound.
Development of three-dimensional and deep sound idea allows muscles of fingers in the hand to begin working even better making muscles even more plastic, elastic and strong. Such key touching adds softness and fullness to sound. Such imagining of deep sound influences the quality of sound singing and makes intonation even more spacious.

Musical Speech
1. Pianist doesn't feel any emotional meaning in intervallic steps. He doesn't feel any difference between them and between ascending and descending intervallic steps. For example, pianist doesn't know what a third or a second speaks about.
Mastering musical speech on the basis of intonation develops intonational-melodic ear, which allows to emotionally feel the difference between various intervals.

2. The absence of live musical speech while playing a piece — everything sounds flat, not relief and boring. Music doesn't express anything, there's no breathing, free motion and beauty in it.
Thanks to a fine feeling of meaning in intervallic steps, intonation finds the main thing — emotional texture. All melodic patterns are finely and flexibly intonated expressing the smallest nuances of changing emotions in intonated intervals.

Pianist begins to feel that by intonating intervals he discovers a musical form of speech — musical speech. Pianist begins to speak using sounds: his speech transforms to intonated intervals, and his voice transforms to sounds of the instrument. Thanks to musical speech, pianist is able to express the finest nuances of human speech through playing.

3. All agogical deviations related to musical speech are played and sound unnaturally and farfetched without providing any pleasure.
As soon as pianist masters musical speech, all rubato in pianist's performance become natural and beautiful because intonation of sounds with musical speech makes intonation itself more expressive, deeper and finer. And that's what affects hardly noticeable tempo deviations in intonated melodies.

4. Pianist confuses a fourth with a fifth or a fifth with a sixth by ear, can't always sing these intervals clearly. While singing a familiar melody, pianist doesn't feel intervals, but simply sings familiar sounds.
By internally intonating musical speech and developing intonational-melodic ear, pianist notices that all music is filled with intervals — pianist clearly feels them in pieces played by others as well as in his own singing.

5. While listening to a recording, pianist can't always identify whether melody goes up or down, can't clearly identify on what interval melody goes, or what it is that sounding intervals express.
By developing intonational-melodic ear, pianist begins to feel musical speech in intervals through intonation (their direction and emotional texture) and no longer passively percieves sounds by ear. Such intonational listening to music develops melodic ear well because it's trained to decode a mass of musical patterns typical for musical speech.

Meter
1. Pianist can't always choose the needed tempo, in which he is going to play a piece: it's too hurried and fussy or too listless and "stagnant".
By developing a sense of pulse (internal sense of meter), pianist feels pulse and meter that reflect the piece's musical image. Therefore, pianist always chooses the right tempo.

2. It's hard for pianist to keep a strict and single tempo while playing a piece. A metronome has to be used often for even tempo and meter.
By developing metro-rhythmical ear and working out internal sense of meter, pianist feels and keeps a single pulse while playing, combining it into a system with all other MEMs.

3. Crescendos are played with a small acceleration of tempo, and diminuendos — with a deceleration (all of which is wrong). It's hard for pianist to enter the original tempo after a tempo deviation (rubato). All ritenuto and accelerando are played inaccurately and not timely.
Keenly feeling with internal pulse all necessary tempo deviations, pianist always accurately calculates all accelerations and decelerations and easily enters the original tempo. All tempo changes are natural in pianist's performance because they are connected with his breath.

4. Pianist experiences difficulty feeling meter emotionally while listening to a piece.
While listening to a performance, pianist can always feel the pulse of music — his own pulse and breathing tune in to the performance and allow him to submerge deeper into the piece's emotional image. At this moment meter stops being just a metronome and begins to express music — it becomes energetic, active, excited or calm, not just fast or slow.


MEMs studied in The Final Course and problems connected with their absence:
• Harmony
• Phrasing (motifs, phrases, sentences periods)
• Compositional form
• Emotional image
• Artistry

Harmony
1. Pianist doesn't emotionally feel changes of harmonies and deep and three-dimensional texture of harmonies. If asked to show the tonic or a bright and colorful harmony with more expression, pianist will do it artificially in the form of rubato or dynamic nuances, but won't feel harmony with his own internal vibrations and won't be able to express harmony coloring through sound and performance. This "show off" harmony won't give pianist any pleasure and comfort while playing.
The ability to imagine timbre in emotional coloring of harmony and feel various vibrations in various harmonies makes intoning finer, prettier, deeper and more diverse and fills it with a greater meaning and expressiveness. All smallest agogical tempo deviations that are related to intonation of harmonies sound naturally giving pianist even more pleasure and freedom.

2. All harmonies sound the same with the same vibrations and colors. It's boring and tiresome to listen to this performance; the listener's ear has nothing to catch on and nowhere to rest. There's a feeling that this music expresses the same mood all the time and that sounds have the same color.
Pianist who's able to imagine harmony and clearly express it through playing gives his audience a possibility to feel all nuances of intonation and sounding harmonies. Such playing is always interesting to listen to; music shows relief, logic and development.

3. Looking at a chord in the score, pianist can't hear its harmonic coloring with his internal ear.
Pianist isn't able to clearly distinguish harmonies while listening to a piece, he confuses the dominant with other chords and often can't even distinguish the tonic. Pianist can't clearly distinguish major from minor. Pianist can't name the piece's tonality by ear.
Thanks to developed harmonic ear, pianist is always able to feel harmonies in scores and performances using his internal ear. Trying to catch all harmonies while listening to a piece, pianist better feels all harmonic changes and colors. He begins to clearly distinguish tonic, subdominant, cadence, dominant, diminished chords, deviations and modulations to other tonalities.

Phrasing
1. Pianist's performance seems like an incoherent and endless speech. If he wants to somehow demarcate this endless and collaterally unsubordinated sound stream and give it a certain completeness, then it's expressed in performance only through the usage of artificial rubato and dynamic nuances that imitate natural phrasing. Pianist doesn't feel the breath of motifs, phrases and sentences, doesn't feel the natural beauty of completeness of musical speech in them.
By mastering correct phrasing, pianist masters the main thing — correct weight distribution in sound blocks. Completeness of musical blocks lies in this hierarchy. It adds wholeness, logic, unity and completeness to vivid musical speech. A similarity to verse rhymes is felt here — there's always one main (stressed) word that unites the structure together, and all other words yearn to this word.
When pianist feels (through intonation of musical speech) the hierarchy and integration of intervals in the motif, motifs in the phrase, and phrases in the sentence, then pianist's musical speech obtains flexibility and completeness. Therefore, all agogical tempo deviations start being played absolutely naturally within beautiful phrasing. Playing becomes very convenient and easy because the integration of intonation comes out in more unnoticeable arm movements (all movements become very small, they are dosed within performed phrasing) and more unnoticeable weight distribution (it's also dosed within performed phrasing).

2. Pianist doesn't feel the breath of motifs, phrases and sentences while listening to a piece. All sounds seem like an endless stream.
By delineating sounds of melodies, feeling how smaller blocks are united into bigger blocks, gradually structuring phrasing from motifs, phrases and sentences, pianist develops his architectonic ear.
By listening to a performance with intonation, musical speech and phrasing (could be started with finding motifs), pianist begins to intonationally feel the hierarchy of intervals — they start joining towards the culminating intervals creating a sensation of completeness of motifs, phrases and sentences. By listening to a piece this way, pianist practices to decode motifs — combinations of iambs, trochees, dactyls, amphibrachs, anapests, he trains himself to correctly identify culminations of motifs in the score. Pianist learns to see the structure of motif, memorizes all possible combinations, trains to correctly distribute weight in phrasing by intoning all culminating intervals with more weight and expressiveness while listening to a piece.
Then, focusing attention on motifs' hierarchy, pianist begins to see phrases and even sentences. He begins to sense which motifs and phrases are intoned with more weight and are culminating. Pianist gradually learns to see, grasp and retain large blocks of a piece with his thought and learns to feel their completeness.

Form
1. It's hard for pianist to grasp the played piece and distribute energy in it. The whole piece is played on a single energy level — either on a low level or a high level. There's no plot development, it seems like the performance doesn't go anywhere.
Pianist doesn't correctly calculate the climax, doesn't reach it (makes an energy slump where it's necessary to continue gaining energy), and therefore, doesn't play the climax brightly and passionately enough.
By mastering the sense of form (the ability to correctly construct the dramaturgic composition of a piece) and the ability to express form through intonation of musical speech while playing, pianist can always correctly calculate energy to the climax, and the climax itself is played brightly and really culminating. Pianist can grasp the piece by large blocks and develops a large-scale breathing.

2. While listening to a piece, it's hard for pianist to draw its compositional plan in the head: to see how many large blocks are in the piece, and how climaxes are arranged in them.
By listening to a piece and (at the same time) intoning it and feeling the size of sentences in it, pianist comprehends the entire piece or its major part because he can plan the dramaturgic composition (introduction, beginning, development, complication, rising to climax, climax, conclusion) by sentences. By such attentive listening, the entire plan of the piece is gradually arranged in the head. This plan is united by one bright culminating part. This feeling is similar to the feeling of joined motifs, phrases or sentences. But it's of a different scale here.
Such intellectual attentive listening to a piece is an excellent training for pianist's architectonic ear, i.e. the ability to imagine and retain form of the piece in the mind.

Emotional Image
1. While performing, pianist tries hard to express all of his feelings and beauty created by the music. But this emotional storm has a little effect on his sound and performance. It only impedes pianist's playing giving him new tensions and complicating his facial expression and pantomime — raised brows, grimaces, loud breathing, torso swinging with high rate and amplitude, expressive lifting of arms and head, feet shuffling, etc. Pianist can't express everything he feels through the performance and, therefore, often feels dissatisfaction from it.
After mastering the ability to express the piece's emotional image through musical speech, pianist himself becomes this image, becoming its energy that leads him. It's a wonderful feeling — pianist disappears, only the pure energy of image remains that leads music and controls intonation of sounds and all movements. This is a complete freedom and a deep meditation. Pianist moves to a new performance level in such moments.

2. Pianist sometimes has trouble accurately defining the piece's emotional image and understand what the music is about. He can't feel the music deeply enough, feel all emotional nuances in it.
The piece's emotional image is created from harmonies by 90%, therefore, attentive listening to harmonies makes emotional picture of the piece maximally relief and understandable.

Artistry
During a stage performance, pianist loses himself, slightly panics and feels constraint while playing, as though someone or something prevents him from completely and freely opening up to begin playing confidently. Pianist always plays less successfully on stage, than to himself. He is left with a feeling of dissatisfaction after playing.
By developing the sensation of artistry (imperiousness and confidence of expression), pianist tunes in for a successful performance. And by mastering the ability to express the sensation of artistry through musical speech, pianist includes this MEM to his system of performance. Thereby, pianist masters the main thing — the ability to retain his artistry during a performance. He always performs maximally confidently and brightly on stage performing all musical means of expression in full measure.

Pianist will love the stage and the next performance will give him a feeling of an anticipated bright happiness and a confidence about his own performance on stage, when pianist controls his own performance, when he leads the audience, and together they create such a tremendously powerful composition that just can't be completed when playing without any audience.


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