Different ways of organizing force

This is a great thread, guys, with hardly any wandering and rambling. Have skimmed some of it but got the gist of it... I liked Michael's initial post a lot. To my mind all of his first three posts to this thread are valid ways of approaching the act, and each one produces a specific quality of sound, a specific character of expression. None of them should be dismissed. Virtuosity means mastering them all, not selectively focusing on certain ones that seem kinesiologically advantageous. Don't close yourself into boxes, man! About stabilization: I believe the Feldenkrais approach to stabilization is the following: to make it functional, you have to make it fluid, not fixed. This may seem paradoxical and even a complete contradiction, but this is the beauty and elegance of the concept. Just go away now for awhile and get lost in the question: how could this be so, and what might it look like, feel like? If you keep this in mind, you can safely throw 99% of what most pianists mean by stabilization out the window. Not only do they mean the "fixed" kind, they mean the inert kind. So not only is it not moving, it's dead. In a way, this gets very close to the essence of how I'm differentiating my approach from all the others - because I then go down the relaxation road. It's alive and its movement is educated by structurality, by structural design. Those weird walking wind machines on the beaches of the Netherlands echo this in an eerie way... Goodnight, AFF

Hi Alan, thanks for commenting. I feel I'm just beginning to explore what stabilization means. I've noticed something that seems like progress. By habit, for much of my life, my fingers are really stiff and tense. With practice I am learning what it feels like to play with a soft hand. But now something else is emerging. I am learning to "do" something new to me, something I unconsciously figured out because I can't say I "know" how to do it-- but it seems to be a kind of stabilization. I notice my hand "stiffening" although it's a different quality of stiffening than my habitual tense hands. It makes my hand feel more stable. I think it must have to do with skeletal support. I think it has to do with using the muscles-- NOT to provide the rigidity by tensing-- but to provide the stability by guiding and aligning the skeleton. It's particularly noticeable in the improvement of my 5th fingers, since those are the least stable. What do I mean by least stable? They are the hardest to feel connected into the rest of the arm and feel like arm movements are transmitted into the key through the finger. But I am also using the muscles for slight movement. Maybe one way to explain this is-- say I practice depressing a key very slowly with my 5th finger. Say I aim to feel secure and stable all the way through the press. say I go slowly enough to accomplish that. When I do that, my little finger is not in a fixed position. I think it extends slightly from the top of the motion to the bottom. But that movement is not just any extension-- it is special because it feels so securely connected into my arm. Then I can play faster and notice the improvement. But lots of room to grow... back to practicing...

About stabilization: I believe the Feldenkrais approach to stabilization is the following: to make it functional, you have to make it fluid, not fixed. This may seem paradoxical and even a complete contradiction, but this is the beauty and elegance of the concept. Just go away now for awhile and get lost in the question: how could this be so, and what might it look like, feel like? If you keep this in mind, you can safely throw 99% of what most pianists mean by stabilization out the window. Absolutely. There's a very strong correlation here between the sensory explanation and the mechanics. Cross referencing some of the things you showed me with the concepts in physics has made me realise that I'm still at the stage where any time I think "be stable" it's virtually guaranteed that I'd be better off replacing that with intention at an opposite movement. I've only just come to see quite how far this goes. I think that the level where simply thinking "be stable" breeds the level of efficiency required for virtuosity is for a select few indeed. Anything that stays truly still when a force is introduced either started rigid, or must beyond any doubt have changed its activity in a remarkably precise and intricate balance. Even the stiffest hand would therefore waste some energy into give- whereas one that activates just enough to move positively could seal off the lossage with far less effort. It would be interesting to see what Feldenkrais wrote about defending against oncoming attacks in Judo. I'm guessing that this concept would likely play a very big part? Logically, the physics would suggest that the most stable people would be those who respond to oncoming movements with opposing movements- not those who strive for a kind of premeditated immovability. Did Feldenkrais look at it along those lines? I think I'm understanding more and more the idea of the unstable equilibrium and how widely this applies. I'm not necessarily looking at this with regard to upright balance- but rather in terms of how ANT balance can be so fine that it only just exists as a balance at all.

If you keep this in mind, you can safely throw 99% of what most pianists mean by stabilization out the window. ... any time I think "be stable" it's virtually guaranteed that I'd be better off replacing that with intention at an opposite movement. I agree with you but I just wanted to make a distinction. I don't a sense of security. What guides me is discovering what feels right. Of course that can be a problem if one is relying on habit, because then "what feels right" is the habitual thing. But that's when an idea from Feldenkrais ATM shows up and makes the difference---consciously exploring options.

If you keep this in mind, you can safely throw 99% of what most pianists mean by stabilization out the window. ... any time I think "be stable" it's virtually guaranteed that I'd be better off replacing that with intention at an opposite movement. I agree with you but I just wanted to make a distinction. I don't I think I'm pretty much with you. However, I'm just wondering it there's more stability still and less effort still with a fraction more movement? Will that security stay as you go faster, or will it start to feel like a burden at some point? For example, if I start with a fully straight thumb, I can feel the extension action maintaining stability, should I lift my arm and drive it into the key. However, if I start with just a smallest hint of bend in the thumb and extend that out through landing, my thumb feels all the more comfortable and assured. I've shut off the possibility of anything doubling back in a way that kills the energy transfer- but I don't land with the impact of a static structure. There's room for spare energy to be redirected away from impact. It's just like the cat landing and "catching"- rather than bracing its legs for landing. This tiny sense of extension has made a world of difference to my octaves. It's not about keeping the hand steady- but rather about being in some motion until you've actually finished the movement. I'll draw up some diagrams sometime, as I think it's much easier to convey that way.

I don't believe that prophecies ever fulfill themselves to the maximum- unless they either happen to indirectly push a person into feeling the activities that they personally lack, or if they are consistent with the nature of possibility as a whole.. Hi, great stuff, sorry I only have time to address this, but yes, absolutely. I would say that if you are the kind of person who actively investigates and experiments--who is always trying to dig deeper into your sensations and your options for action--then you are not going to get drawn into a stuck place of self-fufulling prophecy. I don't know if this is the same way you explain it, but that's part of what I learned in Feldenkrais training. Mike

Hi, great stuff, sorry I only have time to address this, but yes, absolutely. I would say that if you are the kind of person who actively investigates and experiments--who is always trying to dig deeper into your sensations and your options for action--then you are not going to get drawn into a stuck place of self-fufulling prophecy. I don't know if this is the same way you explain it, but that's part of what I learned in Feldenkrais training. Well, that's not quite how I meant it (or at least, it wasn't the main part of my point)- but I must stress that I do agree entirely with what you say. What I mean is that if a person sets an impossible goal, it won't be so much a self-fulfilling prophecy but rather a situation where the person either hits the limits of such intentions, or senses how do something altogether different from their intention. The idea of the arm being responsible for fast passage work is a classic example- where either the person gets lost in the limits of big arm movements or figures out how to move the fingers despite pretending that the arm is responsible. Ironically, for those who sense the need to let their fingers activate, the prophecy to fulfill itself. However, for the many who don't, there's no hope of the prophecy fulfilling itself, because it's an impossible intention to start with. As I say, I do agree entirely with your point about adjustments, but I also feel that the more accurate the general overview is for some things, the easier it is train the senses to do something that works. I think the big problems are when a model is implausible or incomplete- meaning that if the senses don't break away and find something radically different, the intentions can only hinder. I'd never want a model to be a replacement for the senses, but rather a guide that helps them converge on a feel for something that works. I want to get away from situations where the senses are forced to overrule implausible information that need never have been confused them in the first place. Personally, my senses never managed to correct the most gaping holes in my conception. However, major adjustments to the mental conception have given my senses the chance to make all kinds of refinements that were previously impossible.

Cziffra, when you talk about oppositional movements keeping the hand stable, are you referring to the technique of pushing the hand upward while simultaneously depressing the key? I know of some pedagogues who have advocated moving up, rather than down, to play fortissimo. Is this movement in the hand during octaves the "wrist bounce" that many pianists (including Horowitz) have talked about? Videos of Horowitz's octaves show that he clearly moves the forearm, but maybe the movement of the hand itself is also a crucial aspect of his technique.

Yeah, that's the type of thing. I'm not denying that the arm might actively causes some of the wrist bounce, but I think the hand end of things is even more important still. It's very hard to keep the hand still without wasted efforts and major energy wastage from collapse. If you're trying to push the knuckles further up by contacting the key, it's possible to be much more efficient. Eventually the movement can be balanced out, to leave almost perfectly stillness- but the intent to move rather than brace against movement is always there.

I see. That seems like a very clever way to minimize motion (as is necessary for fast passages) without devolving into stiffness. If you have the intent of simultaneously moving the hand up while sending the fingers down on the keybed, it makes sense that you can reduce both motions (by having the intent to move without actively forcing yourself to move) to the point where there is minimal, but free movement. The two opposing movements appear to balance each other out, each preventing the other from becoming too large.