Let’s talk today about something Pride & Practicing hasn’t touched on yet. So far, we’ve contemplated what this is that we’re doing (this thing called practicing)… looked at perspectives and attitudes we might hold towards it… explored what music is made of… considered ways to practice in order to to learn and understand a piece…. We’ve covered a lot, and it is my heartfelt hope that the offerings so far are bearing fruit for you. But there is always more. Some things we haven’t talked much about: our two hands and 10 fingers, our bones and muscles, balance vs. strength, the weight of our arm, gravity. Today, let’s get into technique!
But first… we have to talk about how to spell it. Yes, I mean that, because I still remember the piles of manilla folders in the studio of my childhood piano teacher, Mrs. Mueller. They were stacked to the ceiling, her bold, somehow perfectly characteristic scrawl across their over-stuffed spines, many bearing the word (but is this a word?) TECHNIC. Maybe you have old childhood piano books in a box in the basement that say TECHNIC on the cover, and maybe this is fine with you. Or maybe you’ve wondered all your life, as I have, why on earth anyone would spell it that way, and maybe, upon being reminded here of this nettlesome issue (T-E-C-H-N-I-C!), you find it’s still ruffling your feathers after all these years. As it is mine! It just seems wrong.
Right and wrong…… uh-oh. Down the rabbit hole we go. Perhaps some readers were rankled by the fact that I spelled the word judgement with an “e” last time (and look, I just did it again!). These things do happen. If that particular bee flew into your bonnet: I appreciate your stickler-hood, although a quick internet search defends my right to spell it as I did, right along with your right to write the word without it, and call that right. I like the “e”! And yes, I did intend to place that exclamation point outside the quotation marks. Shall we start this mordent on the main note, or the note above? Do we really have to ask the musicologists? Some things are unimportant enough that each of us should be allowed to retain our absolute right to handle them as we ourselves prefer! Judge my spelling as you will, dear readers, but I cannot bring myself to type T-E-C-H-N-I-C even one more time. I have forced myself to do it in these last three paragraphs, but now: never again. Technique. You might prefer the other way, and that is fine, but here I must respectfully insist: my newsletter, my spelling.
Well, now that we have that settled: what is it, anyway? Piano technique: how we play. How we use our bodies to create these magical sounds on this instrument. How we interact with the laws of physics as we play. How we move in order to align our bones with the piano keys, the right ones at the right times. How we throw our weight around. How we learn, little by painstaking little, to do less and get out of our own way. Exactly what we do, physically,to produce exactly the sounds we hear in our mind’s ear—as close to that as we can come, even on a piano we’ve never played before. How we find our way to physical freedom, as close to it as we can get—which opens things up for musical freedom and expressive possibility. Finding ease. What’s your definition? Technique is fascinating! Technique can absorb absolutely all the attention we can give it; and technique remains a means to an end. Even as we lose all track of time, probing for perhaps hours on end how we “stand” on a single finger on a single key: where technique is concerned, we do well to keep the big picture of what we use it for always, always in mind.
How to spell it…. what it is….. and here’s another question: why isn’t this post, this first Pride & Practicing foray into technique, filed under practice tools? Wouldn’t this seem to be one of the more, uh, technical topics, more useful when sitting at the piano than when in the armchair? Well, it’s because the physical conditions that make for healthy piano technique also make for healthy living-in-a-human body. And in fact you will find a little bonus practice tool here at the end, one you can do right there in your armchair. It’s useful whether you play the violin, or the trumpet, or no instrument at all! And for those who do play, it’s something that can apply regardless of our technical approach. Yes, there are any number of seemingly contradictory schools of thought about certain elements of piano technique. Ahem, there are various contradictory schools of thought about the spellings of certain words, too; and as I hope we have established, it is possible, at least sometimes, for reasonable people to disagree. In any case, today I’m sticking with elements of technique which I hope are fairly universal. Let’s explore a few principles that underlie any physical ability to play the piano, or to do pretty much anything.
Posture: we play better when our bones are in a healthy alignment with one another. “Better” as in, with greater ease. We walk better that way, too, and even sit in the armchair “better!” Wait—I’m not sure about that last one. The psychic benefits of a good, heavy slump, in moments when that is what’s needed, might far outweigh the virtuous energy of sitting up straight…. But I digress, because those moments are for the armchair, not the piano bench! So look alive! The “posture” of our finger, the balance of bones as it stands on the key, is every bit as important as the way our vertebrae are stacked. No part is cut off from the rest! The entire body is in alignment for this activity. Posture is about awareness of our bones. Trusting the structure of our bones is what makes it safe to release the weight of our muscles, whether at the piano or reading the newspaper (as we know all too well, not everything is peaceful in that armchair; tension does creep in). Releasing the weight of our muscles is what it means for us to….
….. you probably think I’m going to say, “relax!” And I am! But first I’m going to say this: we will never be totally relaxed, as long as we’re 1) alive; 2) awake; 3) upright; and 4) actively moving parts of our body through space. We do use our muscles—use muscle tension—to play the piano. Well might a sincere student struggle with the over-generalized idea that “all tension must be released”: it isn’t true. Not unless none of numbers one through four above apply. AND YET….. I’m still going to say it. Relax! Get to know the difference between your bones and your muscles. Create a structure with your bones that can support those muscles, and then: release all that isn’t needed. Most of us carry far, far, FAR more tension in our fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, necks, faces, torsos, even legs, than we need in order to play the piano.
Why is that? Partly through a well-meant but maladaptive intention. Let’s say we are conscientious and motivated, and we know that playing the piano is difficult. We say to ourselves, this piece is hard. We really mean to try, and try we do! Well, you know what happens next. We translate all that trying into physical tension that not only doesn’t help, but actively makes things harder. We quite literally create new physical obstacles, which must then be overcome through physical effort. We meant well, but we ended up spinning our wheels, perhaps to the point of exhaustion.
Another reason for our abundance of excessive muscle involvement, also noble in its own way, is our musical sensitivity: the piece may be emotionally wrenching. The harmonic tension may build to an almost unbearable degree. We feel that! We relate to it in our human way; and also in our human way, we take it on internally. We make that tension our own, in our own bodies. It sometimes happens that the more sensitive and musical a person is, the more that person may find themselves tied physically in knots. (I am thinking back on my teenaged self….)
Little by little, we learn what tension is actually needed. And when the tension we allow in our muscles is needed and in proportion for the physical movements we are initiating, it isn’t even perceived as tension! It’s just muscle activity. Appropriate and healthy muscle use. When our technique is working smoothly, we move through space and around the keys with intention and efficiency. We maintain the degree of tension we need for that—nothing more. The more streamlined and organized our movements become, the less effort is needed! Realizing how little of what we are doing is needed—OR HELPFUL—is nothing short of a revelation. Almost all of it is extra! Letting go of almost all of it (!) is the best thing we can do for ourselves! And yes, dear readers, I am going to say it again: practice mirrors life.
Later practice tools for subscribers will address how we can discover just what effort is needed, and what is extra—and what to do about all that extra. We will go into more specifics over time (and the more specific we get, the more tantalizingly controversial it may all become…..). But to wrap this up for today, here is the promised practice tool that we can do wherever we are. Make an “L” with your left hand by extending your thumb away from the hand, and point your fingers almost but not quite toward the ceiling. Your thumb should be pointing towards you. You’ve now made a strong brace of support, and you’re going to keep it strong, no matter what happens next. Hold the tension that is necessary to keep your left arm just like this. NOW: set your right arm down on this brace. Just plunk your right arm down there. It will be oriented horizontally, held up roughly at the mid-point between wrist and elbow by your supporting (left) arm.
Now what? Notice everything you can. Is your right arm relaxed, do you think? Just try to gather all the information you can about what it’s like internally. This is why this practice tool is good for anything, not just playing the piano—it’s about information-gathering, learning to be aware of what’s going on inside our bodies, knowing what tension actually feels like and recognizing its absence.
The goal is to a) recognize how the right arm feels, whatever that is; and then b) try to relax it as much as possible. When you think the right arm is nice and relaxed, then take the left, supporting arm away. What happens? If your right arm is still hovering in mid-air, please note: gravity is not acting on you. And here on earth, that means one and only one thing: muscle tension! So maybe it wasn’t as relaxed as we thought. Bring the supporting arm back. Place your right arm on the support again, halfway between wrist and elbow, and see what else you can find to let go of. You might try moving the left, supporting arm around a little bit: can you feel the active left arm “carrying” the completely passive right arm? If this is unfamiliar, it might take a long time before you experience the result we’re looking for. But when you get it—when, upon removal of the supporting left arm, your right arm simply falls limply to your lap (or to your side, but I am assuming you are seated in your finest armchair for this)—ahhh! THAT is what a relaxed arm feels like. That can become our starting point. TO that, we can then add whatever tension is needed. Until we arrive at that point, we are doing the opposite: FROM a state of excess tension, we are working to subtract wasted effort, little by little. To be clear, this subtractive process is needed by all pianists everywhere, and I believe for most mortals, it is lifelong. But with each new degree of letting-go that we can find (in our hands, arms, shoulders, necks, backs… MINDS, although that is a different post…..or it it?), our playing grows more free. And we grow more free. And a free pianist is a happy pianist, and free playing is comfortable, exciting, expressive and beautiful. Let go of all that extra! HAPPY PRACTICING, everyone!
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