Explosive Staccato As The Precursor To Legato?

Hi, Just wanted to run a few ideas by Alan, to see if he has any thoughts? I had a very interesting lesson with a student the other day, in which I discovered phenomenal value in using explosive movements for students who struggle to get the fingers performing well. My student has the typical squashed hand problem, coupled with a tendency to push the arm through crushed fingers. I've often used Alan's types of grasping exercises, but nothing has really stuck yet. Her hand easily goes right back again. In many ways I have the same issue myself, where although my hand performs pretty well these days, from time to time I realise traces of collapse sneaking back in, despite my good intentions. Anyway, in the lesson the other day, her hand had gone especially "soggy" and she was really struggling to get through the notes with either any comfort or musical articulation. As an experiment, I decided to play around with doing everything staccato, to kick start the finger movements. I was pretty stunned by how much her hand changed. I used an approach similar to the Roy holmes one. I don't like that his method actively encourages the old fashioned element of fingertip closure, but I've been using an adapted version centred on a near vertical standing finger, with an explosive snap through the knuckle. I always use this super indirect approach first, as there's the least risk of jamming down and then retracting rather than safely bouncing out. Anyway, the difference in her hand came incredibly quickly. I'd never heard her make such a clear and articulated quality before. After a bit of tweaking I also got to her practise springing straight out of the key via finger lengthening, like jumping straight up. We also tried slapping the key from a height with long flat fingers. I was particularly surprised here. I think of this as a very advanced one not to get horribly wrong. But she managed to really ping out of the keys and it looked light, springy and comfortable, with a proper arch appearing in her hand. She made a really clean finger staccato with a quality that reminded of how gekic stings the keys. I couldn't make a staccato that clean and light in all the time I was music college! Anyway, to cut a long story short, after various experiments we went back and did some legato playing. I'd never seen her hand standing up so well after each key strike and she kept the improved quality of articulation. Now, I'm certainly not arguing for throwing out work based on standing up or cultivating legato transfer. But I'm wondering what Alan thinks about the idea that maybe the right kinds of explosive movements could potentially even be more important for a droopy hand, than immediately trying to explore the longer sustainable style of balance? I've been exploring this kind of explosive action out of the key in my own playing and the strange thing is that it currently seems to be doing wonders for my own legato connection, without any conscious work at the quality of connection. I'll certainly never stop approaching it from the other end too, but I'm thinking that ultra explosive work to bounce out of a key is an absolute primary foundation of going on to maintain a skeletal connection.

The barmy thing in the abrsm is that they wait until grade 6 before having a single staccato scale. From now on I'm going to give finger staccato scales to students from the very start. While legato is definitely the foundation of evolved technique, I'm thinking that learning completely free and unimpeded finger staccato out of a key is the foundation of legato. Until the finger is used to employing it's whole range of movement from the knuckle, without any restraint, it stands to reason that it's much harder to hold a key without the arm wanting to press. I think you really have to wake up extreme finger movement (with no experience of any stopping point), before you can trust them to also pin down a key, without the arm wanting to pile in. I remember that my early foundation in staccato was compared to bouncing a basketball. I think this flawed because it suggests a down then an up. To make this work I'm looking purely at the bouncing out of a precise contact against resistance, with no active down movement. At first, this demands a pause, so the arm doesn't flow right back into the next strike, but simply resets ready for another up motion. I used to play my staccato with a blended down and up of the arm on every motion. My fingers never learned to bounce the arm out from contact, in completely free movement, until only the last few years.

I think you're on to something really valuable and effective. It's a dicey because people can take this word the wrong way and slam the crap out of the keyboard. But if done intelligently, as you seem to be doing yourself and with your students, I think it can be helpful in the extreme. Nice! AFF

Agreed, I think it could easily be misunderstood as long distance advice, although it works really well if done in just the right way. I'm finding that the step of pausing to reset after every explosion (to stand on the resistance of the next key) is the really important part, that protects against the kind of bad staccato where people are really just jamming down. I've found that I've almost resolved most of my alignment issues, by zoning in on this part. I'll probably make a video sometime to illustrate the details. By the way, I've found out recently that I've got a cyst inside a bone in my wrist. It's restricting movement in the thumb, but in a way that also stops the fifth finger side lengthening out. I'm pretty sure now that this has been causing me issues for years. Weirdly enough though, using this approach seems to have developed a much easier flexibility and almost resolved the practical problems.

Excellent. AFF