To Stand Or Not To Stand

I had the chance to work with Alan during his recent visits to New York. I have some lingering questions about standing on the fingers. Should I or shouldn't I? In my first session, I played Schubert's Op. 90, No. 3 Impromptu in G-flat major. He worked with me to float my arm and he discussed unstable equilibrium. I took this to mean that my arm was to remain suspended, releasing only the infinitesimally small amount of arm weight necessary to be able to drop my fingers and activate keys. In other words, don't stand on my fingers. I practiced that and I found that applying no pressure into the keybed increased my kinesthetic sense of the keys themselves, with the sensation extending from the hand up into the arm. I also found that I had greater freedom in the execution of ornaments, particularly when other fingers were sustaining notes. I floated my arm on the sustained notes, and the active fingers on the ornaments seemed freer when I'm not standing on the sustained notes. My next session with Alan was encouraging with regard to the G-flat major Impromptu. However, when it came to passagework, like the scaler passages of the Impromptu Op. 90, No. 2, I was less successful. It seemed like the message was that I needed to release more arm weight, improve the stability of the arch in my hand, and activate my full finger grasping more (as opposed to my tendency to rely on curling). I like the lightness and freedom of applying no keybed pressure when playing rapidly and softly. However, it seems not to activate sufficient structure in my hand in other contexts. Playing too lightly also appears to make it all too easy not to insist on absolute legato, with a detriment to musical quality and a loss of the structural benefit of weight transfer. So, is it the case that I should release more arm of my suspended arm weight and stand more on the fingers? I don't want to go down a wrong path if I misunderstood the instruction. Thanks, Jai Jeffryes

So, is it the case that I should release more arm of my suspended arm weight and stand more on the fingers? I don't want to go down a wrong path if I misunderstood the instruction. Personally, I'd just expand the question. Why only to stand or not to stand? In a sense everything is "standing" of a kind- merely to keep the key down. It's just a drastically less weighted type of standing- rather than case of throwing it out 100%. Rather than think of it as merely standing or not standing- why not try to perceive every fine increment in between? Surely it's a vast sliding scale than a simple yes or no question? Why not explore the whole range- including everything in the middle as well as the outer extremes? Also, sometimes I find it helps to reverse the perspective. So if I'm doing a great deal of release, I might still try to notice the small amount of withholding that likely remains. Similarly, if I'm withholding a great deal of weight, I might still try to notice the tiny remainder of release that keeps the hand stable and settled enough to play (even if it's nowhere near as grounded in the keys as in some other passages). I find this gives much more sophisticated awareness of a fuller picture than when you stick to the more obvious perspective alone. It's rare that anything goes all the way to one extreme, rather than lying somewhere in the middle of the scale.

Thanks Jai for a really pertinent question, sorry it took me so long to get to it... have been on the road a long time and still am in fact! First of all, you will remember that in the first lesson I never said "release the arm weight only a little bit" and in the second lesson I never said, "now release it more." I am really glad you posted this because now I know the background commands you were giving yourself to succeed in my direction - that's important! In my own experience of playing the way I showed you in the G flat impromptu, which, by the way, you did absolutely exquisitely, I don't think about the weight of my arm at all. I am experiencing all the subtle sensations of my fingers, and I rely on my arm to guide my hand into a position where it can function ongoingly in this exalted way. When we did the subsequent, much more rigorous work in the passages of the E flat impromptu, remember that I gave you those vigorous finger movements (a more evolved version of what you can see in chapter 8 of the film) to address the rather severe compression your were expressing down from your arm through your hand which was deforming your fingers and preventing them from working. If you had succeeded in transferring the feeling of your fingers in the G flat to the E flat, I never would have had to give you the lesson. To my mind, I taught you to use a lot LESS arm weight in the passages of the E flat. Your fingers are now working so vigorously that they cannot behave lazily, they can no longer allow the arm's weight to impinge on their structure and function. Reach out to open a kitchen cabinet - how does your arm's weight participate in this movement? Verily verily I say unto you, we are totally screwed up and obsessed with this arm weight business! Now for your original question, to stand or not to stand: in the G flat you were not standing at all. You were hovering above, and lowering your fingers until they made sublime, subtle contact with the keys. In the E flat passages, you were most definitely standing up, and it is right to perceive it as such. When I dangle from a rope under a hovering helicopter and reach out my foot to touch the ground, I am not thinking about my torso weight. And when I am on the ground and stand up, I am not thinking about my torso weight either. It is simply a fact, gravity is a fact, and in the background of my experience there is always a complex process of harmonizing with gravitational forces and using them to my advantage. Not at all the same as thinking about arm weight or releasing my arm... Thanks for once again adding fuel to the fire of this age old question! All best and congratulations once again Jai on your really stellar understanding of piano technique, AFF

When I dangle from a rope under a hovering helicopter and reach out my foot to touch the ground, I am not thinking about my torso weight. And when I am on the ground and stand up, I am not thinking about my torso weight either. It is simply a fact, gravity is a fact, and in the background of my experience there is always a complex process of harmonizing with gravitational forces and using them to my advantage. Not at all the same as thinking about arm weight or releasing my arm... To be honest, I'm not sure if this analogy quite works. The problem is that almost as soon as you contact the ground in any meaningful way, your full body weight is pretty much going to express itself in full. In this situation, it's simply impossible for how the person thinks about weight to have any influence. To simulate what we can do with the arm, you'd have to be in control of the rope for yourself and capable of making some spectacularly intricate adjustments. If someone were hanging just a mm above the ground with their legs extended and stretched their foot out, they'd had a very hard time moving a pressure pad. But only here is weight an issue. If their legs started even slightly bent and ready for action, you could start a mm off the ground-but the instant you contact it your full weight is going to express itself however you approach it- unless you're controlling some unbelievably complex compensations at the rope. You wouldn't need to consider weight as it would be literally impossible for it do anything other than express itself in exactly the same way, regardless of how you act. Basically your weight is pretty much "on" or "off" in this situation- unless you are in direct and remarkably sensitive control of the rope. The moment you make a meaningful muscular action with the legs into the floor, the rope might as well not exist anymore. It will instantly bunch up and stops supporting at all- guaranteeing that your entire body-weight comes into it, regardless of any possible mindset. There's no need to think because there's no means of control available anyway. The equivalent in piano-playing would be if we had no choice but go straight from a completely supported arm to a completely flaccid corpse-like arm, as as soon as a finger began to act on the key. In terms of what the upper arm can do, I think a closer comparison would be if a person were squatting and then standing up, but they had instantaneous control as to whether they were holding some extra weights or holding onto a collection of helium balloons- and with the ability to change how much weight/assistance they were carrying at any time during the act of standing. It would vary how hard their legs work when performing the stand and how much force their otherwise identical motion applies to the ground. Actually, thinking about it, it's probably better to ditch the weights. Let's just say that doing it unassisted is like a 100% released arm and using helium balloons to help is like using the muscles to lighten the arm- which could leave as little as 1% of the natural weight to push up, if so desired. Unlike with the helicopter, you have total willful control of how much weight you are pushing up at any time- in a way that specifically determines how productive the muscular action is into the floor. I'm not saying that this level of sensitivity and variety cannot be learned subconsciously, but I do feel quite sure that what goes on in the arm is vastly more complex than a situation in which a rope simply lowers a person onto the floor- especially if the person does not have direct control over a stunningly sensitive and intricate winch mechanism.

"To be honest, I'm not sure if this analogy quite works. The problem is that almost as soon as you contact the ground in any meaningful way, your full body weight is pretty much going to express itself in full... 'If their legs started even slightly bent and ready for action, you could start a mm off the ground-but the instant you contact it your full weight is going to express itself however you approach it- unless you're controlling some unbelievably complex compensations at the rope... 'Basically your weight is pretty much "on" or "off" in this situation- unless you are in direct and remarkably sensitive control of the rope. The moment you make a meaningful muscular action with the legs into the floor, the rope might as well not exist anymore. It will instantly bunch up and stops supporting at all. There's no need to think because there's no means of control available anyway. The equivalent in piano-playing would be if we had no choice but go straight from a completely supported arm to a completely flaccid corpse-like arm, as as soon as a finger began to act on the key." This quote shows exactly where you are wrong in your whole understanding of arm weight. Let's say I am dangled from a rope at a height 5 mm. below where I would have to be for my legs to touch the ground if fully extended, flat foot. It is ridiculous to say that if I now touch ground my legs will instantly be bearing 100% of my weight. No, I can touch the ground with my feet, begin to straighten my knees, and feel how I gradually take the weight off the rope a little bit at a time. I don't need a sophisticated winch and pulley system that is controlled by my mind: if the rope was hanging an old fashioned spring scales I could even gradually reduce the weight showing on the scales to any number I wanted between 0 and slightly under 200 lbs., controlling all that with my legs and feet. The situation is exactly the opposite of what you describe. It's also exactly the opposite of the squatting analogy you use next. The whole elegant beauty of a person squatting and then rising to full height is that he doesn't helium balloons or extra weights to "help" or hinder his rising to fully erect verticality. The function of standing alone can be controlled to the finest degree with the muscles in the legs and feet themselves, and it is the same with the muscles of the hand and fingers in pianistic standing on the keyboard. Your fingers/hand can stand up into any degree of unstable equilibrium without your needing to either let the arm hang or pull it up or back. Your whole point of view is based on a fallacy. Yes, "what goes on in the arm is vastly... complex." but you yourself utterly fail to recognize the elegant beauty and simplicity of effective movement function inherent in that complexity when you put it into the context of the hand and fingers. Humbly submitted, AFF

"This quote shows exactly where you are wrong in your whole understanding of arm weight. Let's say I am dangled from a rope at a height 5 mm. below where I would have to be for my legs to touch the ground if fully extended, flat foot. It is ridiculous to say that if I now touch ground my legs will instantly be bearing 100% of my weight. No, I can touch the ground with my feet, begin to straighten my knees, and feel how I gradually take the weight off the rope a little bit at a time. I don't need a sophisticated winch and pulley system that is controlled by my mind: if the rope was hanging an old fashioned spring scales I could even gradually reduce the weight showing on the scales to any number I wanted between 0 and slightly under 200 lbs., controlling all that with my legs and feet." I wouldn't claim that would have to be 100% of your weight. The problem is how far you can go with equivalent actions on a piano. Where is the equivalent of fortissimo here, or even a healthy single forte? The variation in scenario is based on how much you withhold dangling weight. It contains no equivalent for using a single positive muscular activation into a key! How can that possibly be used for comparison? Equivalence would require something like starting with bent knees and then pushing up- to represent an active hand motion. As soon as the knees so much as begin to straighten and apply pressure to the ground (just as the hand applies pressure to a key) 100% of the weight gets involved in an instant. It need not even be a remotely vigorous press. The rope bunches up at once and weight is released in full. But I'm not advising 100% weight release for the pianistic equivalent, necessarily. This is my point- why would we want 100% of weight to be involved whenever making any kind of serious contact? The analogy could only be comparable to a total release of arm-weight to match every single finger action. Clearly we'd need a control that permits something a lot more sophisticated than partially holding back your feet from dangling against the ground, or connecting 100% of your weight. Basically, for the analogy to transfer, the equivalent would be an arm that slumps 100% of it's weight with no means of control, outside of the hand- whenever we play even faintly loud. When playing the piano we have the additional variable of the extent to which the arm is released or withheld- which applies when in balance (not just during the more obvious situation of a fall). We could not fail to employ differing levels of release/witholding from the upper arm. It's literally impossible for only the fingers to determine the weight of force on their own, unless the arm hangs as if dead. The arm simply cannot be any kind of a constant unless it hangs as inertly as the dead rope. For it to be a reflective analogy, it would still need a very sophisticated winch (or helium balloons that provides variable levels of support that can change in an instant). This would allow meaningful use of strength from the knees without them having to act against the full released body weight- just as the fingers can act into a key without having to bear 100% of the released arm weight slumped on top. "It's also exactly the opposite of the squatting analogy you use next. The whole elegant beauty of a person squatting and then rising to full height is that he doesn't helium balloons or extra weights to "help" or hinder his rising to fully erect verticality. The function of standing alone can be controlled to the finest degree with the muscles in the legs and feet themselves, and it is the same with the muscles of the hand and fingers in pianistic standing on the keyboard. Your fingers/hand can stand up into any degree of unstable equilibrium without your needing to either let the arm hang or pull it up or back. Your whole point of view is based on a fallacy." I'm not passing judgement what is required for a squat though. I'm pointing out that for a hand that "stands-up" to be equivalent to a squat it would have be the case that we cannot exert control over the shoulder in any capacity- and that the arm's weight is either on or off as a constant (ie. either corpse-like or locked rigidly in position). We need to reflect this significant variable in the analogy or it does not provide an accurate point of comparison. I can agree that this aspect can be developed unconsciously, but personally I've found it essential to make this a part of the conscious focus. It's only by coupling this with the focus on my hand that I've finally been able to straighten out my right wrist and start making the hand actions optimally productive in a maintained way. The bunched up right wrist and perpetually bobbing arm of old is only just ceasing to be a problem (although I still have to pay extremely close attention to maintain it over long periods and still need to get it truly internalised as the norm). I just can't understand why this sophisticated mechanism for balance might be treated as if we have no control over it. What I'm realising at the moment is that many of my problems stem from either being "held up" too much, or slumping down/pressing too much. I never matched it to the hand with the slightest sophistication and my instincts never started covering it of their own accord. Learning to have a whole spectrum of possibilities that can be specifically matched up to what my hand is doing (so it can get on with acting in good balance) is working wonders for the sense of "connection" to the keyboard (in a way that feels neither flimsy between hand and key nor in any way compressed). This has been absolutely indispensible work for me. It's not an alternative to the hand's actions but an inseparable twin to them.

I've just been doing a few thumb extensions, both on a table-top and at a keyboard. If I start with a very lightly bent thumb and extend it (to raise the palm up), in both situations I perceive a slight necessary adjustment in my shoulder to get maximum results from the thumb action. If that's not there, the thumb feels totally wrong. If release a lot of dead weight throughout the thumb lifting the hand up, the thumb feels squashed and compressed. It certainly wouldn't immediately cause injury but neither is it pleasant. However, if I start feeling my arm is held up and above as if skimming the key and then release nothing, the thumb action scarcely does anything. On a table my arm just gets skimmed away- feeling like there's nothing stabilising it. The thumb action skims the table pathetically. On a key, the thumb feels like a tip-toe poking down at something from a person hanging on a rope. There's no feeling of power. I can't describe exactly what happens when it feels right, but there's a kind of balance. The arm does not bear down enough to compress the thumb hard into anything. I feel there's room for upward movement to occur freely. But it also requires a sense of weight being released in just the right way. There's no fall or collapse whatsoever. The thumb extends vigorously and the hand is kept up. But an excessively held arm that does not respond makes the thumb motion far less productive. It feels weak and empty. I think this is one of those tiny invisible adjustments that is required for it to look like nothing happens. I can't describe it fully but I am most acutely aware of it going on and keeping me settled. For the arm to stay balanced, something needs to let go slightly in the right instant- but not too much! It's no on/off feeling. To develop this I've been doing a lot of practise on doing this in ultra-slow motion on the table. I'm judging the quality based on whether whether the thumb moves freely (or feels squashed) and on whether the thumb's muscles feel like they are clearly activating into raising the palm up (or whether the arm is lightening the thumb's work and helping too much). By doing this extremely slowly and sensitively, I am finding that the more rapid reflexes involved at higher speeds are getting some very good training. At slow speeds, the tiny adjustments required from the upper arm to make the thumb operate right are extremely vivid. These responses had previously been lacking- due to too much of a "held" or "slumped" arm but they're rapidly becoming ingrained into my subconscious responses. The thumb is free to get on with a high quality action that goes into something without being compressed. The means of weight regulation is every bit as important as the thumb action here. It may come naturally to others, but had I not worked on a means to develop greater sophistication, it would never have fallen into place by itself. I'd still be either crushing into my thumb or wondering why it feels so weak when I try to move it. The regulation of weight and thumb activation are two sides of exactly the same coin and I've had to pay equal attention to both. I cannot understand your point about my failing to recognise these "in the context of" the hand and fingers. I have never referred to these issues!!!! These issues are literally meaningless unless specifically matched to hand activation. This is an additional part of the same puzzle- not an alternative way of thinking. In my case it's equally true that greater simplicity in the ease of hand actions has evolved from putting them in the context of more sophisticated weight regulation. It's been very much a two-way street.

I give up. You are totally obsessed with arm weight, it is totally screwing you up, and I can't do anything about it. My advice to you: forget the fact that your arm weighs anything now and forever. I know you won't take this advice but what can I do about it? It pains me to see you wasting so much time with this and really hurting your playing. You are limiting yourself bigtime, creating a technical obstacle for yourself that you will never overcome. Why do you insist on doing this in the face of all the evidence that you are on the wrong track? With my really sincere best wishes, AFF

I give up. You are totally obsessed with arm weight, it is totally screwing you up, and I can't do anything about it. My advice to you: forget the fact that your arm weighs anything now and forever. I know you won't take this advice but what can I do about it? It pains me to see you wasting so much time with this and really hurting your playing. You are limiting yourself bigtime, creating a technical obstacle for yourself that you will never overcome. Why do you insist on doing this in the face of all the evidence that you are on the wrong track? With my really sincere best wishes, AFF I'll try to upload a film of op. 10 no. 2 sometime soon. I'm no virtuoso still, but my hand actions have never been so evolved. My goal is not to bog the hand down. You're assuming totally different intentions to what I'm referring to. It's setting up a situation where the hand is neither burdened by weight nor making flimsy and superficial contact due to inadequate support. Only the right state of the arm makes that possible. I have never previously been capable of aligning my arm and wrist anywhere near as well or moving my fingers with anywhere near as much ease. I'm not wishing to take anything away from the importance of hand actions or how much I've been learning from you in that respect. However, the more I have complemented that by thinking about how I am setting up my arm behind that (as an additional point of focus and not as an alternative in any respect) the more I am developing the ease of movement in my hand. For the first time, I'm starting to be able to forget about the arm when playing through pieces- because of the attention I'm paying to getting it right in practise. In the past, I couldn't help but notice the awkward places my shoulder ended up and my hand couldn't fail to be hampered by the poor alignment. The thing that strikes me is that I want to be in a position where I can think of it as being as simple as a person doing a squat and standing up like it's the most simple thing in the world. The problem is that ignoring my arm would formerly have caused a wealth of different situations that stopped it being simple. You can simulate the simplicity of that situation if the arm makes very sensitive adjustments- but my arm had never figured out how to do those before. It was like I was alternating between having a sack of bricks or being in a situation where I was too light to act into the floor. The more I'm getting used to this and internalising it, the more I can just think of a simple act of "standing up" in the hand in a way that's almost as if the state of the arm has nothing to do with it. I want to master the arm's role so it's to forget it. How could perceiving the whole spectrum of what can go into balancing the arm possibly be a negative? Previously, my level of sophistication veered between locked or slumped. Now I have a massive range of interactions with the hand- including the ultra-light. The only respect in which I disagree with you is that I want to look at the bigger picture of how hand and arm are related. It's basically just about noticing how different level of support cause a passive arm to react to the hand's motions. It has nothing to do with the arm-weight school of thinking in any respect whatsoever. And, really, my fingers have never been working better!

Just to add to that, I've been taking the advice about perceiving a light arm very much on board. My goal is certainly not to be "heavy" but to have a large range of possibilities and to observe what is going into the setups where the hand can work best. When thinking about the ultra-light arm today, I did find a number of places where everything was working very well and where the fingers were able maintain a feeling of proper legato and connection. However, I also continue to find a number of places where my wrist ends up in a poor alignment and gets held there. This is happening less than before, but slight tendencies remain and can often be detected only by watching very closely in a mirror. At this point, I have to stop and feel the arm releasing just enough to pull back the wrist into a decent alignment. However, if I were performing in a pressure situation and unable to stop, these moments could be disastrous. If I don't pay attention to maintaining balance in the arm, it's still very easy to get pulled out of position and stuck there. This is my problem with the weightless arm idea. It's certainly my long term goal to acquire a means that would enable the arm to be perceived this way at all times. Also there are certainly many places where this way of thinking can be a great aid to me already. However, at present, if I take this as a global mindset, there are many passages that become deeply problematic and bring some of my long-term problems to the forefront. I don't believe I can afford to view it solely as a "light" arm or as a "heavy" arm. I need to get the exact balance that keeps the wrist comfortably in alignment, so the hand can operate well. If my wrist gets pulled forwards and stuck there, clearly something needs to pull it back again (and ideally should have maintained enough balance to stop it getting pulled out of position to start with) Thinking of being weightless is useful in many places, but there are still many situations where it can leave my arm being "held" into a poor alignment that interferes with freedom of movement. These are exactly the kind of situations in which my instincts automatically want to compensate by instigating the heavy arm pressures that start bogging things down. I can end up going straight from one extreme to another. I just don't believe that this is useful to 100% of people 100% of the time- or that the instincts can necessarily be trusted unless they've already been adequately trained to make the sensitive adjustments. Also, is it not possible that what you perceive as "lightness" is exactly what I'm trying to perceive as responsive "balance"?