Technique and methods

My piano teacher is giving me a lot to work on, but it's too much at once. She's never heard of successive approximation apparently. The big issue right now is dynamic control. I just don't have that much dynamic cont...

Just written a post that may be of interest- particularly to anyone who has suffered any kinds of injury. I'm not yet going too deeply into the practical issues within this preliminary post, but I hope this provid...

In Beethoven's Moonlight sonata Mov 3, there are parts where you must hold an octave with your thumb and 4th finger, while playing a trill with 4th and 5th fingers. This is almost impossible for me due to my small hands...

How can I gain speed with my left hand? I would say my right hand is a lot faster than my left.

I just found found two interesting things in my mailbox today. The first package I opened contained The Art of Piano Playing by Heinrich Neuhaus, and the second The Craft of Piano Playing by Alan Fraser. A notice from t...

Hi, I don't know if I'm posting correctly here about this, but I just wanted to have your advices about one pianist Hiromi Uehara. Just one example, but you will find many on Youtube : I have heard her on Youtube th...

I've been doing some experimenting on my own. Perhaps my question here is covered or addressed by the Craft of Piano book as a whole (I've only read the first few chapters). What I notice is that their are a lot of wa...

Speaking of the fun of practice, I read an essay about practicing which I found on this website: "Majoring in Music" The article points out that practice requires discipline and one can do it in a smart way. Bu...

I have recently read the first post from Andrew's blog - pianoscience or whatever- and found many interesting philosophies that resemble very much Alan's way of seeing the mechanics of the arm in piano tehnique. Anywa...

There was a Feldenkrais ATM that I did with Alan, which involved sitting and leaning slightly to one side. Although the body naturally tends to put more weight on the corresponding buttock, the exercice involves resting...

I am experimenting on the computer keyboard as well as piano. I'm noticing something right now as I type-- I'll have to try it at the piano, too. It has to do with relaxation. My hands are quite tense by habit. Tha...

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 I...

I have particular difficulty on double notes trill and double note scale. At least for the right hand, I'm actually up to speed for a short Mordent. But I cannot play the two notes at absolutely the same time. At least i...

Arg! Okay, so the problem is that I "clunk" the pedal at the top of its travel (when my foot comes up). My teacher complains about this during my lesson. Now, she has a grand piano. For practice, I only have an up...

Here are a couple of videos I've uploaded to illustrate the points I made in the thread about standing: Now, as Francis Bacon said, experiments often tend to "prove" what they set out to prove. There's certa...

Does raising the wrist cause tendonitis

I've recently been working on scales and arpeggios from a variety of different angles - integrating rotation, experimenting with feather light legato and exploring maximum articulation of the fingers. I've started this t...

Just written another post regarding a second realistic way to be able to avoid "keybedding". It also contains an illustration of how some very simple changes to the conscious mindset can rapidly bring about massiv...

I've been thinking recently about the role of the thumb recently, after working through some of the ATMs in Honing. In particular, the one about moving the thumb and feeling the breeze that the movement creates has been...

Just encountered this concept for the first time: It's interesting to relate it to keybedding, as well as with the concept of fingers that only support pressures from the arm. Strictly speaking, even the most skel...

Just saw that this article has been quoted on the piano technique site. Funnily enough I'd stumbled across it a few days earlier. I wasn't quite sure what to think. My first inclination was that it sounded like wi...

Just found a rather interesting application of the difference between pure finger pulls from the knuckle and acts of extending the finger out. While I've been experimenting with both, I hadn't yet found any particularly...

I want to share my enthusiasm for something I'm working on, and that's playing on the bones. I like the Liszt "bicycle spoke" exercise from "Honing." I think it brings home the point that you can have fingers like ste...

Just written a post categorising the two basic unison scale fingering (which comprehensively covers 22 out of all 24 keys plus the two exceptions required for B flat and E flat). This a slightly edited version of a docum...

I had heard about one finger practice before and didn't appreciate its full potential. Here are some of the benefits I notice. 1. Evenness - It is much easier to get even tone when playing with the same finger. You...