"The only reason for mastering technique is
to make sure the body does not prevent the soul from expressing itself"
Russell Hughes - choreographer, dancer, poet, anthropologist
The PianoWell© system connects a physical approach with musical ideas.
It demonstrates how sound imagination and a singing approach, when aligned with efficient hand movements, help improve piano technique, expressiveness and clarity of playing, avoiding playing-related injuries.
I believe that piano technique cannot be improved solely through a physical or musical approach. It begins in our mind where we create and structure music, is conveyed through internal singing with our own voice and only then expressed through correct hand motion
Put simply, if you are lacking any of the following you will be inhibited in your technique and emotion:
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efficient hand motion & posture, aligned with the musical score
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a clear sound idea about each note, along with the harmony, dynamics and voicing written in the score
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the ability to sing internally, intonating each interval written in the score
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the ability to feel and express arm weight through intonation
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a clear sense of the phrasing structure and the formal blocks in the piece
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the ability to project confident energy when performing in front of an audience
Most importantly, you should have an efficient system when analysing and learning a new piece that lets you focus simultaneously on all of the above without losing any aspects of playing, such as tone, touch, time, musical structure etc. And correcting one aspect without losing any of the others.
That is to say:
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focusing on technique without losing the musical side of your playing
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focusing on the musical side of your playing without losing technique
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focusing on the musical ideas without losing posture
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focusing on hand motion without losing musical expression
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playing piano or forte without changing articulation (softening accents or staccato, or sharpening legato)
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playing articulations without changing dynamics (playing accents or staccato louder)
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changing dynamics without altering tempo (increasing tempo with cresc, decreasing tempo with dim)
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changing dynamics without losing voicing
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focusing on voicing without losing phrasing
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playing piano without losing arm weight
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increasing arm weight without increasing dynamics
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focusing on hand motions without losing musical expression
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playing more expressively without losing control over tone
The list is endless...
"I never play a single note when my concentration is no longer at its height,
for to do so would be to fall into the trap of playing mechanically"
"A Life in Music" by Daniel Barenboim
You play because you hear, rather than hearing because you play.
And as long as you feel a lack of clarity about every note in a piece, about phrasing, harmony, dynamics, form, character, timing, etc. you become locked within the same mind set. This will inevitably be reflected in your playing. Liszt's famous advice "Think ten times, play once" suggests that unless you are able to play vividly in your mind you will never feel comfortable while playing.
Piano practice is based on mental practice.
Over time, any inconsistent, unfocused practice is ultimately unproductive and harmful. In the worst case scenario it can lead to playing-related injuries and emotional health problems.
You may well be accustomed to practicing for 8 hours daily, letting your fingers and muscle memory do all the work without any mental focus. For this reason, when you begin to practice mindfully and with focus, keeping your active attention on all the set tasks, you will almost certainly find it to be overwhelming.
Teaching yourself to think before you speak or play is a mindful process.
You may initially find that you can only actively focus on tasks for just 10 minutes. When practicing you may find that you frequently lose your focus. But with patience and determination you will gradually train your mind to maintain that focus for longer periods. The optimum time for daily piano practice is about 2-3 hours. This is the maximum amount of time that your mind can remain focused.
When analysing and learning a piece in an efficient way you will come to realize just how little time is needed to prepare the piece. So there will no longer be any need to practice for 8 hours a day. I promise!
Mental practice
"Technique is the ability to produce what you want. The presupposition is that you want something. So before going to the piano and practicing, training your muscles which is a waste of time [...] because it's not in the muscles, it's in the brain, it's in the inner ear. Artur Schnabel used to say it - 'Hear before you play. If you play before you hear what you’re going for, it’s an accident, and everything is built then on an accident'. So, want something, hear it, go for it"
Leon Fleisher
Workshop at Carnegie Hall 2010
In the last 10 years I have been reading more and more about pianists and coming to the realisation that not all technical problems in playing are caused by the absence of efficient hand motion, finger strength, or practice time. There is probably something else that has been missing from teaching for centuries: our imagination. The imagination which creates new paths in our brain which in turn affect the performance of our muscles.
Mental practice seems to be the missing link in the whole approach to piano technique. And while much general advice is given about practicing in your imagination or visualising your playing, there are no clear, concise and efficient instructions regarding precisely what should be imagined and how this is connected to piano technique.
So what exactly is mental practice?
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mental practice is the ability to imagine the musical score in your mind. This is not just experiencing a general feeling or hearing the tune in your mind. It's about developing an accurate image of each note - even in dense polyphonic texture - which is imagined in a certain quality of sound, motion, colour of harmony, dynamics and voicing
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mental practice is also about connecting sound imagination and correct hand motion so that the hands only serve as a bridge between your intentions and the keyboard. Sound imagination is then reflected in correct tone production
About sound imagination
"If you have in your ear the sound of the oboes, or the sound of the violin, or the sound of the chorus, or the sound of the flute [...] it doesn't have to be that hard Beethoven's orchestra [...] the mere fact that you have that in your ear, and you have that sensitivity and the understanding of how that flute sounds in that register, will allow you - if you have the necessary manual control - to produce a sound that is much more interesting and more imaginative than the sound that is produced by simply bringing the keys down".
Daniel Barenboim masterclass 2005
About sound motion and glissando in sound imagination
"When you control things you play then you can create the illusion of playing a glissando on the piano [...] then you dream every note between the notes. That is kind of a hypnotic thing, because people are going to hear those glissandos, if you do hear it.
They will say themselves that it doesn't exist, you can not play glissando on the piano. But somehow I hear it, from where I sit it sounds like a glissando. It will be like a rainbow: the rainbow doesn't exist, the rainbow exists only where you are".
György Sebők masterclass 1987
About hand motion
"You think that you have to play the piano with your fingers. That's a big mistake. You play the piano with your hand. That [playing with fingers] is very difficult, it's like driving the car very fast in first gear. So switch gear.
Playing the piano has to have some kind of dynamic feeling, The motion of the music has it, it has the same kind of dynamic feeling like things moving in space [...] like the wind blowing, coming and turning".
György Sebők masterclass 1987
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mental practice is the ability to feel and create music between the notes. Creating music between notes by training inner singing is the gateway to expressing arm weight, articulations, dynamics, phrasing, character and the form of the music, as well as confident energy when performing on stage
"I tell the young people 'Sing! Sing inside'. You have no voice - that doesn't matter. The best voice - if you feel singing in you".
'Arthur Rubinstein at 90' interview
"You must sing if you wish to play"
Frédéric Chopin. Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger: 'Chopin: Pianist and Teacher as Seen by his Pupils' 1986
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mental practice is also about mastering the ability to identify structure within a piece. That's to say, the length and contour of motifs, phrases, sentences and elements of form
"All this should be better structured. I think the more a piece of music has many different characters, colours and attributes, the more it's important to think of it strategically. In other words, to know that because of this and that I am going here. So you never find yourself in the situation where suddenly you are manipulated by the music. When you have a clear, new beginning of a sequence, like when you write and you start a new paragraph, it has to be very clearly enunciated".
Daniel Barenboim masterclass 2005
"The next step would be not to phrase in a childish way. Child phrases are short. Like children recite poetry. Instead of separating the phrases, now connect them".
György Sebők masterclass 1987
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mental practice is also the simple ability to choose and feel the correct pulse throughout a piece, and being able to 'pull and push' timing without losing the heartbeat of the music
"Sometimes I am missing a pulse. You have the beginning element, which even though it is pianissimo and it's only an arpeggio, it must have already a substance. There is a basic pulse which you can alter as the music requires, but I think if you find it in a strict sense than all the expressivity will be even stronger".
Daniel Barenboim masterclass 2005
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mental practice is also about feeling the different levels of energy in each section when you approach a new piece of music. Nurturing this ability to create, feel and express different colours and intensity of energy is generally something that has been missing in piano training. Instead, it has often been replaced with confusing advice to play with more emotional intensity which in turn creates compulsive tension in body and mind