Pushing Vs. Pulling

I've been thinking a lot about this recently and am wondering if there are any thoughts on the idea of pulling slightly via the arm's muscles, rather than releasing/pushing? I've been thinking a lot about how pushing basically requires far more complex muscle actions and is very hard to do in situation where the hand is truly active- rather than merely supportive enough to transfer energy from further back. In addition to the approach where the arm "hangs" passively behind the contact between finger and key, I've been realising that additional pulling seems far more predictable and generally superior to pushing- if I want more than fingers and a released arm alone can easily provide. I've finally found that ongoing repeated octaves are possible without becoming rapidly tired. I realised that I had formerly tended to push in a way that would cause my wrist to rise and the whole upper arm to be pressing forward. It's a real problem- for ongoing passages, as once the wrist is up you have used up the scope for going on. A pull could theoretically go on for ages without having to switch to a push, but a push will always reach a limit at some point. I realised now that a cleaner kind of pull (ie. no forward upper arm motion at all) actively helps the wrist to go down and also forces the hand to do something more active in response. Octaves simply don't cause any seizures at all, since I made that change- although the hand really does need to work a lot harder than ever before. I think it would be important to build this really gradually. The pull forces the hand to work its natural actions into the key far more intensely- rather than serving to replace those actions with upper arm impetus, as in the push. Arm energy and finger action both seem to contribute a great deal to the key. I think this has to be how Katsaris does such seemingly unbelievably small movements for his fast octaves. The wrist doesn't go up simply because the arm pulls back, rather than press forward even a trace. There's no way he is pushing, but the pull does seem feasible for that concise motion. Rationally, it's becoming very clear why pushing can easily become more of a dead-end than pulling actions (not to say pushes never have a use, of course). Pushing through the hand "trains" the fingers in the same sense that holding a baby over the ground in an upright position and letting go would "train" it to be able to stand up without falling. That would clearly not be the starting point in a baby's training. I see the finger actions for pulling a key/being solid enough to transfer an arm push as very much comparable. Obviously the muscular actions required to simply remain perfectly stable in the face of oncoming forces are vastly harder to leap straight into. If you train movement against forces first, you can then acquire the sensitivity to simply use the muscles to stabilise at a particular point in the range of that movement. If you start with pushing, simply trying to stabilise the hand enough to transmit energy will tend to lead to poorly controlled collapses/excessive seizures in the hand- because the sensitivity simply hasn't been trained through familiarity with the full range of those muscles actions. It makes sense that training arm pulls can help improve ability to prepare the hand to act well in a push- whereas pushing practise doesn't help the actions of the hand any obvious way whatsoever. I think there could be a lot of importance in analysing the difference between pushing and pulling roles of the arm in this sense. I think it might help explain why some people's hands seem to develop by magic whereas others have to put in more effort to activating fingers. Whether the arm is felt more to pull or push greatly affects how the hand is naturally forced to respond. A technique that is always based on pushing (as mine was) makes it very hard for fingers to create movement against any counterforce- ie. nothing is being trained in the hand. They tend to do nothing but collapse or stiffen. However, when the arm's role is more to pull away from the keys, the fingers have no choice other than to perform their natural functions in a deeply productive way (or you fall off the keyboard). Strangely, the difference between what I'd regard as a pull or push is very small in terms of the feeling. However, the result is massively different in every conceivable respect. I can see now why the type of pushing I used to attempt still left my hands bouncing all over the place rather than stable. I think a pull is inherently more useful as a stabilising action, when the fingers are trying to move through the keys without being repelled. It's also easier to add to use active finger action with a pull. A push seems to make it very hard (if not physically impossible even0 not to end up simply bracing the hand to channel energy, rather actually using it to move.

Incidentally, I have a feeling that it's assumptions regarding the necessity of pushing that have led to people to believe that piano playing is too complex to analyse in mechanics. When the whole arm pushes, it's unbelievably complex. Chaos theory basically comes into it- unless a very large number of muscles perform very specific roles (that can certainly not be viewed as "relaxing"). Every relaxed joint is a source of uncertainty. However, when the finger pulls the key and the wrist is felt to be pulled back at by the released arm (balancing with the finger's action) it really is simple- both in mechanics and in terms of actually doing it. While adding some active arm pull makes it a fraction more complex, it's still an inherently simple action that contains relative few variables and relatively few sources of unpredictablity. Switch to pushing, and a wealth of variables are introduced and countless things have to be performed within a very small of margin of error. The closer the energy source is to the actual key, the less unpredictability you get from all the joints that lie in between. I remember that Abbey Whiteside spoke a lot of the arm pulling as a lever. I wonder if this what she was to describe (while sadly downplaying the finger's HUGE role in this so extensively). It never made any sense to me, but I may go back and see if I can make now sense of what she was trying to convey.

Everything you say is fine but it's not the whole picture. Look at the late Horowitz clips. This is piano playing at its most refined, and he seems to be pushing. Here's how it works: You're absolutely right that each lever in our hand and arm works to move a piano key by flexion not extension. That's pulling. However, there is a way of galvanizing the hand into a kind of internal flexion that generates its healthy arch structure - an vital, internal "standing up" physical organization - that involves not bearing down on the hand from above as Neuhaus did with his students, but of clamping it to the keys while angling it in towards the backboard. Draw your thumb in under your hand and clamp it to the underside of your third finger. Now put all your fingertips, including your thumb tip, on the table top. Push your hand forward so that it slides, as if you were trying to scrape something off the table top. Can you feel your hand instinctively responding to this stress in a healthy way? It instantly galvanizes itself into consolidating its structure big time. I believe this is the internal organization Horowitz discovered in his later years. It's not so patently visible yet in the early videos. The learning progression goes like this: first you discover everything you've been working on in terms of clear, healthy "pulling." When you've learned that organization really well, then you can use it to do the opposite. Every learning needn't be a limitation but a springboard to a greater variety of abilities! So: it's never "just" pulling and never "just" pushing... it's never "just" . Thanks for another thought-stimulating post! AFF

yes, I'm definitely not throwing it out. I'm just increasingly think that active arm forces should be a pull rather more often than a push. I think that a lot of pianists are skeptical that a hand can be strong enough to play forte and think of a push as 'helping' the fingers out. However, it's more the case that it replaces the hand's role and leaves it in a purely supporting one. If the standard idea of helping out were based more on pulling the arm rather than pressing, I think it might be a lot more conducive to training the hand more. I think it's a little like the difference between simply standing still with a weight on your shoulders and actually doing squats. Obviously the latter improves the ability to do the former, but it wouldn't transfer so much the other way. Even when using a very small arm push as a basis for bigger sounds, I think it is inherently more limiting to the hands development. I think it also gives much wider scope for voicing. Years ago I was told about bracing fingers harder or leaving more slack, to transfer different levels of arm pressure. I found this woefully unpredictable. When the arm pulls, the individual fingers can still be involved in pulling the keys themselves, rather than simply in bracing. I think this makes for much wider possibilities in loud chords.

I actually hesitated to post that last entry for exactly the reasons you bring up. You hit it precisely right. The crucial point: the weird kind of pushing I describe but rather consolidates it. But what you describe is what people generally do: weakening the hand because they perceive the push as a way having the arm take over the hand's work. Waittago! AFF

Was going to comment on "pulling" but I see there is no need. I think many pianists does not integrate these movements in/out not to speak of a healthy arch. In this process I beleive the distal phalanxes also are crucial.I once heard a composer who was not a pianist play an etude of Rachmaninoff and the sound was breathtaking. After a while I understood-the guy was an amateur cliff-hanger! When playing octaves I've worked a lot on activating the metacarpal in the thumb. I try to get it "out" and then letting it stand on the "pillar" consisting of distal and proximal phalanxes.It's unorthodox but you can see Cziffra excelling in this also Rubinstein.Gives a tremendous stabilty. Sandor does describe a good exercise to work the thumb metacarpal. In some aspects you can change the hand and this is one- I beleive.

Eric, you are right about the thumb - you may think what you're doing is unorthodox but if things were "as they should be," it would be totally normal procedure! Andrew, just to say that when you add your 'pulling' to my 'pushing' the results are spectacular! So I would reverse the "progression" I noted in my last post: set the hand up on key with my weird 'pushing to consolidate hand structure and function, then add the crucial ingredient: canny little pulls for each finger action. This gives you all the ringing tone, freedom, openness and control you want. But the thumb can't pull like the other fingers. That's why Eric's focus on the thumb's metacarpal is so effective. The thumb has to do a completely "other" movement that is a crucial part of the picture. Without its vigorous, "other" participation, the fingers can be slightly hinderred in doing their job absolutely 100%. I'm thinking of writing a whole book on the thumb it seems to me to be so important. thanks, guys! AFF

Andrew, just to say that when you add your 'pulling' to my 'pushing' the results are spectacular! So I would reverse the "progression" I noted in my last post: set the hand up on key with my weird 'pushing to consolidate hand structure and function, then add the crucial ingredient: canny little pulls for each finger action. This gives you all the ringing tone, freedom, openness and control you want. Yeah, actually I can see plenty of benefit from doing plenty in both ways along the way. To be honest, I rarely use a push to create the hand's structure now- but I think I've developed it enough that I don't need to any more. In one of the lessons we had, I remember how you spoke of forming the structure through the act of moving the key (rather than like a separate position to settle into). I've being seeing it very much in this way- where the finger pulls itself into position and moves the key as part of single act and then simply remains in the balance it has arrived in- with the arm hanging/faintly pulling behind it. This feels very stable now, but with much overall less effort than when I use any pressure to form the structure. However, I can see plenty of use in alternating between the two styles throughout the process of building everything up. For an inexperienced hand, pulling away from the piano might not necessarily be likely to create the stable position yet, if the muscles aren't yet developed enough. In the squats analogy, there's plenty of benefit in spending some of the time simply bearing the weight in balance without moving (as long as you practise moving while bearing the weight too). I think it's a similar thing where both things are very useful- although I do increasingly suspect that the arm's pull is the more neglected side in standard training. While I'm in no way wishing to downplay the value of your focus on developing the hand, I do wonder it the difference between pushing and pulling with the arm can explain some of the people who develop very able hands while looking more at the arm side of things. I find now that if I pull the arm on octaves, the very active squeeze of the hand occurs on reflex- even at tempos that I couldn't even have dreamed of until recently. Is this simply because I've already acquired the action, or it possible that a slight pull could trigger kind of "catching" reflexes in even an untrained hand and lead to development? Maybe this is how Abbey Whiteside got results with her focus on the arm pull, even though she totally downplayed the hand and fingers? I found her book well and truly useless (probably even harmful to my understanding of how to use the arm at the time) but I wonder if her approach, when taught in person, somehow triggered some of the hand's reflexes despite her lack of focus on them? Incidentally, I do feel the thumb very much in the same style of "pull" as standard now. I'm basing most thumb movements almost exclusively on the opposing action, as in your thumb push ups. I've done a lot of work practising scales and arpeggios in a way that involves lifiting all the fingers high in the air after (or rather as part of) every thumb action. This action used to be very weak, but it's this "pull" that I use for almost everything now- by faintly redirecting it so the thumb's action is aimed slightly backwards, rather than straight down. It creates a pretty much identical force to the finger's pull- wanting to draw the wrist forwards and up. The pull from a released arm can balances this release in much the same way as any fingers. However, I definitely use the inward grasp of the thumb when playing octaves and various chords- and certainly continue to maintain the hint of that action to keep the hand generally formed.

By the way, one thing I should stress is that a push and pull can look identical on the surface. I always used to do two notes slurs by pressing through a firm fingertip with an arm action. However, I tend to do it now by pulling the arm forwards from the finger. I often show students how the two look virtually identical- yet one is an active finger and passive arm while the other is a passive arm and active finger. I do wonder if even some actions that appear to be a push are felt as the arm pull. If I want a really big sound on the 2nd note of the slur (unusual as that would be) I feel my arm is much more released. The arm is still pulled forwards in the movement, but there is so much resistance to the fingers attempt to pull the arm forward that the finger produces a really massive sound when moving the arm slightly. I think most people would assume I "pushed" with the arm forward and up, but the feel is entirely of the finger's pull overcoming the contrary pull of the released arm (or sometimes an arm that actively tries to pull slightly backwards for a fraction extra).

It could if the person is attentive and intelligent enough. Unfortunately we can't count on every reader of Abby Whiteside's book being both of those. But yes it's possible she could evoke in her lessons... As for the rest of your comments, yes! The thumb does "pull" but because of its construction it pulls in a different direction. And yes there is a synthesis where push and pull seem very close. All best, AFF