10 years ago by
A Pianist
Alan helped me with the opening of Debussy's Reflets dans l'Eau. My fingers were too "set." He coached me in "mashing" the chords. It sounded contradictory to good structure, but for me the likelihood of "setting" my hand in chords is greater, I suppose, than not sounding them effectively because my knuckle is collapsing.
If you "set" your hand (in other words if you stiffen your fingers so that they are tense, immobile appendages wielded by your forearm-clubbing-tool) your fingers lack mobility and don't have as much capacity to compensate in chord voicing. If your fingers are really moving while in the act of playing chords, not just being held out there as a rigid unit, they can meld to each note and you are able to play the chords more fully because the fingers feel what they have to do. When you are tense anywhere, mostly you feel yourself instead of the Other.
I started practicing with mashing in the finale of Chopin's Barcarolle. Of course, these chords are louder and go by faster than in the Debussy. Therefore, it's very easy for me to resort to the error of "setting" my hands in the chord formations, and playing in that way isn't very accurate. However, if I practice mashing the chords (man, it sounds horrible to anyone listening, but that's okay) I get such a great sensation of where I am on the keyboard. Cultivating this feeling keeps me on the keys longer so I feel where I am more readily. My fingers are more mobile after I practice mashing, so they find the chord positions more readily. And the sound is more sonorous because I'm filling out and voicing the notes more securely.
I'm not so presumptuous as to claim to have mastered it. Here's the one who mastered it; Krystian Zimerman. I don't know for a fact that he approaches it the way I'm describing, but it sure does sound great. The chords in the Barcarolle finale are rich, sonorous, never bangy, and he doesn't miss a note. It is so scary, I have to hide under a table when he gets to that part.
Jai Jeffryes
