Taubman Ideas

Hi, I've recently been watching a few youtube clips of Golandsky talking about Taubman ideas and I'm just wondering what other people think of these. Personally (while I can't exactly knock the fact that a lot of people seem to have been helped by this), what I have seen has largely made me highly skeptical. I like the idea of 'curving' rather than 'curling' (if I remember the terms in the right order) as a general basis and one or two other points. Having often tended to find myself landing on the nails of my second fingers (causing extremely painful bruising, at times), over the last few days I have been finding that properly gripping with the final joint of the finger can enable me to get into a flatter position (where the fleshy part is in contact with the key), without losing balance or strength. However, some of this stuff really does sound like absolute clap-trap! I've just been watching the bit about rotation in scales and I can hardly believe that this is taken seriously! If this produces results then that's great, but clearly anyone who believes that the arm is rotating back and forth before every note at speeds upwards of ten notes per second, say, is kidding themselves. How about this idea? How the hell do keys open your hand opened your hand. What on earth is the point supposed to be here? Is this just an extremely indirect way of stating that a full outstretched hand ought to relax a little, after having landed upon the keys, rather than carry on straining? If so, why not just say so? Have many people tried this method? Perhaps I'm being rather harsh, considering the benefits that have certainly occured for some, but is this really as grounded in science and anatomy as it seems to claim to be? Surely anyone who studied physiology in depth would come to the conclusion that this rotation at speed is utterly implausible (or am I grossly mistaken)? What exactly are the benefits supposed to be anyway? If the movement is reduced to a neglible degree, any added impetus from the rotation is (presumably) going to be reduced to a correspondingly negligible degree. In any case, why would you want to apply the extra force of these movements in quiet scales? As far as relaxation goes, I see no reason why rotation might enable the armweight to sit upon the fingers any more effectively than a simple sideways motion of the arm. Does the method offer any ration explanations as to why this rather odd manner of playing scales is even supposed to be of benefit? I'm sure that this is better than the average manner of teaching which passes on zero technique, but I find the uniformity of the method highly worrying. Are these snippets particularly representative of the whole? Presumably they don't want to give away the game for free, but from what I've seen on these clips, I wasn't exactly enticed towards the idea of paying the ludicrously extravagant price for their DVDs. It seems tailor made for those who have no intention of thinking for themselves and would prefer the ease of being spoon-fed a doctrine that claims to have all the answers that they could need.

Andrew, We could spend a long time arguing theoretically about the possible benefits of any approach to piano technique. (This can be great fun with a bottle of good wine around.) The final argument has to be whether it works. I think the closest one can get to a positive answer is to find good performers that claim that they are practicing the technique. My favorite exemplar is Ilya Itin. See Ilya is in the faculty of the Golandsky Institute. Assuming you agree that Ilya is good, one can still say that Ilya is only imagining that he is being helped by the technique. That he is good just because he is a natural, because he had early training in the traditional Russian technique, etc. Or we can take him at his word. I like the Taubman approach because it is just that: a specific approach. (I like things to be well-defined and explicit, therefore my screen name.) I have had piano teachers that had no idea what they were doing: "just practice it a couple of hundred times and it'll work itself out". A Taubman teacher will tell you, very specifically, how you are supposed to do it. Most of the time I have found the advice incredibly useful, but I am not an advanced player. On rotation at speed: when I have asked Taubman teachers whether rotation is possible at high speeds, they have answered that it is there "underneath". I have no idea what that means. On the DVDs: yes, they are outrageously expensive. If you are curious, you could try finding them in a university library. I have not bought them. ocd

On rotation at speed: when I have asked Taubman teachers whether rotation is possible at high speeds, they have answered that it is there "underneath". I have no idea what that means. ocd Don't you see, though, this is my primary problem! Much as I respect all the good results, shouldn't there be a vastly better explanation than this? I'm not knocking any of the achievements at all. It's just that, with so many people apparently willing to take it as the beginning and end of all about physical technique (nb. there's nothing I find more sickly than hearing someone describe themself as a 'Taubman pianist'- A 'Taubman teacher' is all very well but when I see that a person actually refers to themself as a 'Taubman pianist' I feel like shouting at them to go and get a bloody personality and mind of their own) should anyone really be willing to casually suspend their disbelief on so fundamental an issue? How can a person be so brain-dead as not to be even slightly bothered about such a comical concept as the idea that rapid scales feature not only turning before the next one- regardless of how much this is supposedly reduced (or more likely 'omitted' when at speed)? Two wrist turns per note in rapid fire scales?!!! Of course, simply telling a student to play something over and over again etc. is really infinitely worse and Taubman teaching is undoubtedly likely to be superior to at least 95% (perhaps even 99% or more) of all technical training. I'm just concerned that there are apparently such big issues left unexplained by rational thought- coupled with the fact that my understanding is that Taubman teachers tend to be rather restrictive about teaching the method, rather than encouraging of free, open thought (which should surely be fundamentally attached to all attempts at functional technical development?). Are all of these teachers really regurgitating exactly the same method (complete with exactly the same inconsistencies), rather than using their own minds to refine the approach in their own personal way? Nothing's perfect, but when something is presented as a universal doctrine no matter how good it may be overall, any noticeable holes tend to stand out somewhat and raise suspicions (at least for me).

I must say, I'm also pretty skeptical of taubman. In fact I'm skeptical of stuff commonly accepted as part of an "ordinary" piano technique. For starters, I take issue with "forearm" rotation - the basic unit which Taubman is based on. When I rotate my forearm back and forth as rapidly as some people claim that certain passages (Such as tremolos) would require, the results are the same at the piano or in the air. I start to get a burning/tightning sensation towards the inside of the elbow after a minute or so. Anyone, however, can clearly discern that there are no pianists with a "natural" technique that ever rotate their forearms - it is all a rotation of the whole arm, from the shoulder down, as correctly surmised by Alan's book, Chang, and no doubt countless others. As for the rotations being Underneath" a scale, I fear this may be another beast altogether - a psychological construct that allows someone to play the scale, even though they are not really doing all of the rotations. It is somewhat like passing the thumb in fast arpeggios - you will stop doing it at high speeds, but it will still feel like you are. Ultimately, the only test is a slow motion video of the technique in action. They have their own board at , no doubt we can get some interforumnal dialogue going ?

i WILL say that all the methods i've come across start with a single basic technique that governs the entire method. for instance, with alan's method, it would be the structure of the hand (the dome-like structure as seen in the dvd). i decided to take a lesson with a taubman specialist in boston a while ago AND i've read about the technique as well. taubman technique comes from the basic concept of forearm rotation. everything else seems to sprout out from that basic motion. they say that, even at the fastest tempos in scales, forearm rotation is still required, but it is so subtle that it becomes invisible to the eye. now its important to note that many of the methods out there have a lot in common. but its the differences that are key to finding your success as a piano player. i am not one to say that taubman technique is wrong or anything like that, BUT, i'm learning (through some research on piano technique and other related fields) that what one should really pay attention to is the abstract concepts and see if those ideas better your playing (and your physical comfort) or hinder it. personally, i prefer gyorgy sandor's book as well as alan's (and his dvd). these people aren't just throwing instructions at you, but they back everything up through anatomy and such... things just make sense. i just could not get into taubman, maybe its because i'm a less experienced/professional pianist. but it wasn't working for me. another important book is thomas mark's "what every pianist needs to know..." good luck... i know i need it.

I sometimes think of the Taubman method as an analog of the Ptolemaic geocentric model. It was based on the wrong premise, it was complicated (all those cycles and epicycles), their orreries were Rube Goldberg devices, but the system could predict where the planets were going to be. I find the language used by Taubman teachers to sometimes be physically (as in physics) and anatomically preposterous, at best, poetic, the Golandsky organization to be culty and rigid. (It reminds me of martial arts schools where one does not ask questions, just does what the master says.) However, while we wait for the Copernicus of piano technique (or the equivalent of modern "mixed martial arts"), Taubman is the best school I have been able to find (and there is a Taubman teacher a half hour from where I am). I am very happy that they are around. ocd

The key issue for me is WHY we are supposed to believe that it is required, in the first place. If they have some good reason for suggesting it, I'm still really not aware why it should be desirable to have invisible (not mention 'impossible') rotation at speed. Their forum sounds interesting, but if Taubman fans are anything like I suspect them to be, I'm guessing that they wouldn't take terribly kindly to my pissing into their aquarium. The Thomas Mark isn't one that I've tried yet, so I may pick that up soon. My most recent acquisition was Seymore Fink's, but after having skimmed across a few chapters, I'm afraid that I put it on the shelf (where it is likely to remain indefinitely). What kind of language does Thomas Mark use? Is it easy to absorb? Or best left for the medically trained? PS: What a remarkable approach to a forum!

OK here we go... Time for me to jump in... I am not going to answer everyone in detail but just ramble a bit... Rotation in scales at high speed: I believe that the benefit of believing such an implausible claim is that a neurological release of some sort happens that keeps the hand and fingers loose enough to move well at high speeds. The residual image of the rotation, which, as I say in my film, has the positive effect of releasing some other holding tensions that were inhibiting free movement (just as in a flexion-extension Feldenkrais lesson, adding a little bit of spinal twisting at some point will make the flex-extend improve), stays in the brain and influences the way it organizes the virtuosic fast scale. But if you try and rotate at high speeds of course you'll screw up big time. The Taubman school uses language that at times is so similar to mine that I wonder why we seem to be in two such different camps. The idea of coordinate motion, for instance... Ilya is a fine pianist (and was before he ever met Dorothy or Edna) and I have heard other really great pianists who swore by Dorothy. It just goes to show that each person's mental and physical process is unique and some conceptual frameworks dovetail well with some pianists while being anathema to others. Watching the Taubman films was one of the big impetuses spurring me to write my book and get my ideas into the public arena. If you read my page of Pianistic Aphorisms at you will see many of the ways in which I am trying to "repair" what she presents. That page is basically transcribed notes that I took while watching the films. Last summer I worked with several Taubmanites in NYC - in each lesson we had a lot of fun exploring what Dorothy really MEANT when she said this or that. I found I was able to clarify her principles and help each student apply them a lot better - so the lessons were really successful and fun all the way around. The contextual framework of functionality which I have developed and which arose out of Feldenkrais really helped. I think Dorothy was on the right track, but Moshe Feldenkrais's understanding of human movement was so much more profound than any of ours, that I gain a significant advantage in clarity and accuracy simply by following what I learned in my 4-year training and the 15-year apprenticeship that followed. Not to toot my own horn - the refreshing thing about those lessons was that they were all completely lacking in animosity, recrimination, blame, or mocking. We explored the issues facing us in an attitude of respect and mutual inquiry - that was nice! AFF

Hi cziffra, You should also check out . It may help you understand the importance of rotation in piano playing. Best, pp16

Hi cziffra, You should also check out . It may help you understand the importance of rotation in piano playing. Best, pp16 I didn't question benefits of rotation in all cases though. I have no doubts about how beneficial it can be (in cases where rotating from side to side can help to lead directly towards the next notes eg. in Alberti bass). What I was questioning was the reason for wanting to believe the forearm rotates back and forth within a fast scale- when the notes go in a single direction. My point was about the nature believing the idea that the arm can not only rotate into the note, but rotate back to prepare for the next note.