Have You Ever Worked With Alan Fraser?Share Your Experiences

If you've ever worked with professor Alan Fraser,feel free to leave your comments.

Well, I started this thread, and I study with Alan Fraser so I am going to share my experiences with all of you. I met Alan in my first year at the Novi Sad Academy of Music. The day before my entrance exam, I was practicing Chopin op 25.no 10 in one of the practice rooms. Suddenly somebody walked in the room and said, “Hey you, you are not supposed to play that etude like that,” and while I was wondering what’s wrong with my performance, he sat down at the piano and started playing that etude. Wow, what a performance! He simply blew me away. I’ve never heard anything like that before; it was the most powerful and alive performance I’ve ever heard. Each one of the octaves was singing for itself and sounding like an orchestra. He put all his strength into the piano, but not in a rough way, no, it was so powerful! …and musical but also gentle and extremely nice. Even then, I noticed that his connection to the piano was unique, allowing him to play extremely powerful and strong but without hitting the keys. “That’s how you must play” he said, “Shake the piano”. I felt like wooooou, and in that moment I knew that he was going to be my piano teacher. In the years that followed, I learned so much. He used to give me lessons twice a week, but those were no ordinary lessons. They were more like half-day piano sessions where you receive so much information that you feel like the ground is shaking. I felt like that many times, especially after I finally got into shape and got used to his energy. We started from the very beginning. The first thing he did was to bring my hand to life. You know, I thought my hands were in pretty good shape, and that I could play almost whatever I want, but I soon realized that there is a way to make my hand play better, and Alan was ready to teach me. He said that my hand is like a strong cathedral and the fingers are pillars which support that. You can’t play with a limp hand. Nor with limp fingers; if you hadn’t noticed, your finger starts from you wrist, so why don’t you use all of that? It seems as if we cut off our fingers and forget about all the muscles in there. Our hand is full of muscles but we have no idea how to use them in performance. That’s what Alan tried to teach me. If you want to walk you have to stand on both of your legs, right, so if you want to play piano, you have to stand on your fingers. What makes you stand like a human being? Your bones and muscles know how to cooperate together perfectly. It’s the same thing with a hand. That was only the beginning. A physical approach is very important, especially if you have any difficulties in playing. Alan told me that I have to understand the way my hands work in order to get the maximum out of them. If you think I’m done, oh no, I’m not, there is a second part to the story: musical approach. As you can see, his book is divided into physical and musical sections. I can tell you this from first hand experience; I’ve never seen somebody playing so honestly, with such deep understanding of the music and musical texture, as Alan. If you don’t believe me, just go to the downloads section of the Maple Grove Productions website and see for your self. I would like to show you all how amazing it is, you will be able to see him playing in the DVD demo or the DVD itself. While he is playing, he is so concentrated you can almost smell it in the air. He gives so much attention to every note and every phrase with the joy of a little kid. When you look at him, you realize that he is actually playing with the music, always exploring new ways, new colors, different touches. That is no doubt the most beautiful thing about playing the piano. He is giving you energy and aspiration and the will to sit down the piano and do it for yourself, to explore the music, to…play… to enjoy. I think that every excellent teacher should be able to do that. Yeah, that would be short description of how this guy is teaching piano, and if you want to hear it for yourself, go to and try to find the beauty in his playing, if you know what to listen for… Jovan Haji-Djurich

I got the DVD today and was fairly underwhelmed TBH. It felt a bit like those videos where someone can clearly do something well, but at the same time it feels equally clear that they didn't learn to do it using the material they are presenting to teach others with. (well obviously they can't have watched their own DVD, but I hope you get the idea) Not quite as a bad as those 'easy' methods we've probably all laughed at - where the guy shows you 3 chords and in between each chapter he's swinging boogie woogie and throwing out jazz pieces that blow the viewer away but how to do that is not discussed. 'practice' will probably be his magic word '...then you can watch me play octaves like this...see how good you could be if you'd had my talent and not just my dvd' The worst moment is when I only learn that Alan has big hands - that exercised my eyebrows as I lifted them in surprise Perhaps that is why though. I just wish I'd been struggling to play op. 25 10 when someone walked in. As it is, I struggle to play twinkle twinkle little star without making an awful noise. Oh, of course I can hit the notes and grate my way through a few bars of that and a few more difficult pieces, but I can't play one piece well or musically. Now I saw this on you tube while I was waiting for Craft to arrive :- v=1d7ElvHCSQU (had to remove blurb for site policy) I figure he has it about right - as he says, he can play with "bad" movements if he wants. Whereas, if your playing sucks like mine does, these methods will, at best, just make you play just as badly with (arguably) good, natural - call them what you will- movements. Of course, I get pain in my right arm too, which is another reason for looking for some better way. That seems to be the same reason the guy in that video changed the way he played. Unlike him though, I'm also looking for something to make me be able to play the *** thing in any way, good or bad movements, so it sounds good. Perhaps if your so-called 'difficulties' are virtuoso material - maybe you get more from this stuff. (E.g the bloke in that video above clearly played until his 30s with 'bad' technique - his difficulty wasn't playing the piano per se) That's my first impression. I'll give it a go but.... All the above said, playing piano is not as difficult as making a post here that doesn't contain a URL with it complaining that it does...some so-called 'cures' are worse than spam, that being one of them.

I feel that maybe you should not rush and think that this method does not work at all. Professor Alan Fraser does not offer hotfixes in the sense that in the next second you will be playing like Richter or Horowitz.If you have been struggling with the piano there are other reasons in the background that are lurking and that need to be eliminated. You need to find the optimal aligment of feeling yourself.Having a proper self control of your muscles.Of your whole body.If you read the book (which by the way may actually be used as a companion to the dvd),you will see that professor Alan spends a lot of time talking about proper hand aligment,elimination of chronic tension in specific parts of the body and general many small other details. Now about the rotation example ,i assume you mean the campanella example,i think that professor actually wants to show us what is possible with our hands.You can NOT -and should NOT)- play that part by moving your forearm laterally left to right and vice versa. The key point of la campanella in that part is rotation.In that extreme example of Liszt -(maybe the next most difficult rotation example of Liszt is in the Don Juan fantasy where there is a huge rotation pattern with both hands in some place)- is to actually rotate your hand and forearm and start from that strange position that professor uses in the video. If you have read the book you will understand why this position is needed.And professor clearly states that maybe in performance it would not be possible to use it unless someone has large hands,but in practice yes,it offers a magnificent way to understand the proccess of rotating your arm,and how to play notes in this strange position.Even if you cant reach you have to rotate here!If you go with lateral forearm move left to right and vice versa then you are doomed and you will be tired and fatigued in just some miliseconds.The example is exaggerated just to prove you how this pattern should be played.Now i feel sorry for the fact that you have small hands,but many virtuosos had very small hands and played campanella and other pieces,because they followed the correct way to play the piece. I do not have the dvd yet but i have acquired the book and i always read through the book.It has offered me a lot of help in rediscovering my self and control of my body. Please i believe that you should buy the book if you have not already and really spend some time with it. Best regards

Professor Alan Fraser does not offer hotfixes in the sense that in the next second you will be playing like Richter or Horowitz. Ah, yes that's my mistake. I had thought watching the film would make me play like Horowitz. Although TBH I would have watched it twice for that, I don't expect miracles I'm glad that's cleared up. If you have read the book I hadn't, and haven't...and TBH I'm not convinced that paying for the DVD was merely an advert to now go and buy a book that explains what I thought the DVD was going to explain. Although your advice that I should have spent the money on the book instead is welcome, it's nevertheless slightly too late, but thanks anyway.

Professor Alan Fraser does not offer hotfixes in the sense that in the next second you will be playing like Richter or Horowitz. Ah, yes that's my mistake. I had thought watching the film would make me play like Horowitz. Although TBH I would have watched it twice for that, I don't expect miracles I'm glad that's cleared up. If you have read the book I hadn't, and haven't...and TBH I'm not convinced that paying for the DVD was merely an advert to now go and buy a book that explains what I thought the DVD was going to explain. My advice regarding the fact that you cant expect hotfixes was simply to point out that you need to work more on your self with the help of the material on the dvd. Now many amateur musicians and pianists simply have no control of their apparatus.Don't expect to simply see the video and then be able to play better.You have to intergrate those instructions in to your technique.Simply watching it and then to feel dissapointed is not the option.You have to try a bit harder i think.How many hours have you spent trying to integrate those new instructions? I think you need to try for a period of few weeks before you can say that this worked for me or this did not work.Even if you changed your technique completely you cant expect in a few hours to change everything. Although your advice that I should have spent the money on the book instead is welcome, it's nevertheless slightly too late, but thanks anyway. I never said that you should have spent the money on the book.What i told was that you should consider to buy the book as it is excellent. Like i said i do not have the dvd yet but from seeing the demo of it i can understand that it is a highly professional work and it must be very very good. Best regards

Don't expect to simply see the video and then be able to play better.You have to intergrate those instructions in to your technique.Simply watching it and then to feel dissapointed is not the option. With respect, but to be blunt as sarcasm didn't work - if you're still in doubt - clearly only a f**kwit would think that watching a dvd would make them play better. If you got the impression that's what I was saying then you didn't understand my message. Indeed your questions about how many hours I've spent etc seem to show that you haven't even understood what 'first impression' meant - assuming you read that far before clicking 'reply' with your post? As you say you haven't seen the DVD but as you demonstrate that hasn't altered your opinion of how good it is. Might I suggest that kind of opinion is wasted in a forum? If you sell it to Andrex they make a special perforated paper to print it on which would be a practical use for it, so all is not lost Good luck.

um, see the answer below where I figured out how to do a quote...

Dear Michael, Welcome to our forum! I am sorry you were underwhelmed, but I am glad you bought the DVD, and not just because it earned the company some money. I really do think it could help you, and will respond to just a couple of your comments. '...then you can watch me play octaves like this...see how good you could be if you'd had my talent and not just my dvd' The worst moment is when I only learn that Alan has big hands - that exercised my eyebrows as I lifted them in surprise I actually developed many of my ideas about technique precisely because I myself had lousy technique. There are still thousands of pianists who play way better than me. I could never play those octaves like that until I had spent years, no, actually decades figuring out why I couldn't. I had to put some clips of me playing on the DVD or else it risked being insufferably boring. But the message is not, "Hey, just do these techniques and then you'll play like Horowitz," but rather, "if you really study the DVD you will at least move in that direction. Your ability will improve, GRADUALLY, as ability generally does." As for the rotation chapter, you missed the point, which is not to stretch an octave but to stretch a good deal further than you can horizontally. EVEN YOU can do that - try it! Also try to feel how much more malleable and moveable your hand becomes when you let it acquire this unusual way of relating to the keyboard. You have to approach these exercises speculatively. They are designed to open up possibility, not to instantly have you play this or that... So yes, this DVD is to get you "closer to that stage..." best wishes, AFF

I had to put some clips of me playing on the DVD or else it risked being insufferably boring. But the message is not, "Hey, just do these techniques and then you'll play like Horowitz," but rather, "if you really study the DVD you will at least move in that direction. Your ability will improve, GRADUALLY, as ability generally does." Actually I'd hate to play like Horowitz. Oh yeah, I'd like to play the pieces as well as he did, but without needing a butchered piano with an over light action and, to my mind a very unelegant style, but that's by the by. He's got the chops. I just feel having watched someone else playing his piano that I'd probably react if I'd met him something like in that joke you may have heard when someone tries someone else's glasses on and they say "jeez, you must have good eyesight to see through these" - similarly, I feel he must have been good to play on that piano, but why didn't he just learn the technique to play a real one? He clearly had the talent As I said in the first post, I'm sure there's a difference between elegant playing So one thing I think your DVD lacked was any reason for the exercises to link them to either earlier or later clips, pieces, sounds or whatever else. Saying it's speculative and unrelated to the pieces has, to my mind, just taken even more away from it. Is it to get a particular sound? To avoid injury? These questions are rhetorical by the way - please don't say 'buy a book' or write posts here answering them for me. What I'm trying to say is my impression having bought and watched a film. If someone else has read a book, had lessons with you, looked at a forum, or just wants to say it's a great DVD without watching it, perhaps they won't look at it and think 'well yeah, if you just saw my advert on youtube or one the forums I've posted it to, bought the dvd and watched it, what would you think? If you'd never heard of me and my book? Does the dvd explain itself, is it self contained? Is there a context for these exercises, a way of the student that tries them knowing that he's improved, that he's doing them correctly? Is the premise at the beginning that these will help injuries or any of the other claims made actually explored in the film?' The clip I linked to There was no 'before' or 'after' no 'here's a passage with legato the way that some play it' 'here's with my method - see how much better it sounds' Lots of stuff about walking - the problem I have with these is that I've never tried to walk in a way that would make some steps piano and others forte, nor by using different groups of toes. Hence I suspect that has more to do with why we don't see people trying to walk in various comical ways. That's not to say that the dvd doesn't have some points here, it's just that playing the piano isn't like walking or running, if it were I'd be s**t hot already having done the latter for nearly 40 years No students doing the exercises I think this would have helped because it would have people at different levels of ability, perhaps even doing the exercise wrong and you correcting, different hand sizes / shapes etc. In a lot of ways I found the video that was posted of you teaching more informative than the DVD because of that. As for the rotation chapter, you missed the point, which is not to stretch an octave but to stretch a good deal further than you can horizontally. EVEN YOU can do that - try it! Well, to be specific and pedantic, using that method isn't the furthest I can stretch. What you mean is, using the fingers that you used I could get further, not as far as I can stretch using different fingering, but further with those fingers. This is key because I can stretch more than an octave to begin with - and because la camp requires those notes to be played in some way and that, whether it was your point or not, is Listz's and it is an octave So in the sense that you could say 'here's a way to play this bit of la camp' you had a point albeit one that I dismissed for me because my hand can't do it. Now you say it's not about that, the point disappears entirely AFAICT. Why? Well, to play La Camp I can't use that technique ergo I'd need to do something else. So hopefully if I've been clear you will be ahead of me now, but to spell it out - if I have to do some other method to reach an octave with those fingers then I could use that same method for the 'less than an octave' you claim I can reach with your method. Ta dah...So what do I need your method for again? Yes it might be useful. But my dear departed Gran had shedloads of stuff she stuffed in cupboards that she always said might come in useful too. As it turns out it wasn't and it was all burnt or buried a bit later than she was. Nah I'm kidding, that's just a joke - but I hope you get the point, maybe I expected too much perhaps when I wanted a piano method to have a clear point to what it's teaching - that is at least what other piano methods, etudes and exercises, some of which your dvd criticises at least appear to have. Of course, students might choose to use things in different ways and not use your material in isolation, but I don't think that's enough to say 'here's some exercises that might be useful in who knows what different ways' Anyway, that's enough blather, as you say, you've got the money, I've got the DVD and what's on the DVD I've got isn't going to change - so that's more than my 2p worth. But don't sweat it, I've no doubt whatever method / teacher I find wouldn't suit everyone, as you say somewhere loads of roads lead to Rome, I guess I'm on a different one.