Discomfort and pain at the radio-ulnar joint

Hey Alan! Thanks for the post. Yes i will definitely think about what you are saying. I´m in the middle of your book and just watched your DVD. So many fascinating ideas, and so many that I realized my first teacher wanted to teach me, but didn´t really have the ability to verbalize it and rationalize it with such precision and clarity as you do. I always remember that she told me that Tagliaferro´s technical obsession was the elbow. Her technique, according to my first teacher, was based on muscular relaxation, with the elbows playing a very important role in the process of playing. Tagliaferro used to tell her to forget about the hands and think, first of all, that she had elbows when playing. The hand position, with the wrist placed on a straight line with the top of the arm and top of the hand was very important to her. Gutierrez, on the other hand, doesn´t seem to have default, or home-base, hand position. The form of is hand is CONSTANTLY changing to the requirements of the texture. It´s truly amazing to watch and something I´ve seen very few pianists do. Sometimes he even collapses his nuckles completely, and then in the next passage the arch is super strong. One measure the fingers are flat, one measure they are curved; even in one same chord, he´ll flatten two fingers, and curve two; the hand has complete resilience and strength at the same time, like a bamboo tree, which is strong, yet when the wind blows, it bends with the wind. Gutierrez seems to purposely try to avoid any kind of homogenization of sound or touch, something that something could happen with an approach like Tagliaferro´s. I guess both have something valuable to offer. I remember my first teacher trying to first develop a deafult technique, and then apply it to each piece. Gutierrez wants to develop a new technique for each piece. Of course, I don´t have his genius, so it´s difficult, but definitely worth the try. About my elbow pain, of course, I think you are probably right. DId you have a chance to watch the video I sent you of the Mephisto Waltz. Maybe you can recognize it there. Thanks again for your wonderful knowledge and insights! Josu

Forgot to mention, concerning the elbow, she DEFINITELY meant forward-back looseness, and supposedly Tagliaferro used to teach this very fast releasing movement before any long sequence of chords, octaves, repeated chords or repeated octaves, where one with literally throw the elbow forward super fast and then let it go back to deafult position, all of this super fast, about a fraction of a second before striking the keys, like a kind of impulse-release to loosen that joint before playing. you can see it in her Youtube video playing Mompou´s Jeunes FIlles aux jardin. Cheers¡

Enjoy!