10 years ago by
A Pianist
I'm a piano intermediate/beginner, having played badly (and with bad habits) for five years in childhood. I'm taking it up again and want to do it right this time. I had one amazing lesson with Alan via Skype. We focused on using pelvic movements to shape phrases. The simplest notion would be rocking with the beat, emphasizing downbeats with a roll forward that raises the arms and shoulders slightly in preparation to play the downbeat.
We focused on that because Alan observed my pelvis was almost totally frozen when I play.
I have extensive Feldenkrais experience so I "get" what he's saying. I get the reason for it, and I'm ready to put it into practice right away. During that lesson, when I made my first attempts to involve my pelvis, the playing transformed from stiff to real expression. Alan and I were delighted.
However, Alan's schedule doesn't allow many lessons, and in any case I am coming on some financially hard times and not sure I can even afford lessons. I want to see how much I can learn from books, DVDs, and videotaping myself, along with observing master pianists.
So my first question is--how can I explore more about the uses of the pelvis in expressive playing through books, videos, etc. Alan's seem to focus more on the hand, from what I've read. Actually "All Thumbs" starts with an ATM done with the sitz bones, but that wouldn't have led to the breakthrough for me. What I needed was someone to point out how the action of playing makes me stiff--i.e. I can do beautiful pelvis rolls all day, but what happens when I actually start to play? And I needed someone to suggest that I could make pelvic motion musically expressive. I'm just wondering if there's some way I can take this further on my own.
Mike
