A talk Alan gave during MTNA conference in Spokane, WA. How did Alan come to connect the ideas of tensegrity and piano technique and what it all means to us.
Born in Montreal in 1955 Alan Fraser studied piano but also delved into composition, cello, classical singing and had several stints as a pop musician. Alan’s main pianistic influence was the pioneering research of Phil Cohen who studied alongside Ronald Turini, Andre Laplante and Janina Fialkowska with Yvonne Hubert, who had been Cortot‘s assistant in Paris. Alan spent several years with Cohen after an apprenticeship with two former Cohen students, Alan Belkin and Lauretta Milkman.
The idea is for our skeleton to take over the work of the muscles. Also, a bit of background on Alan and his journey.
Spine isn't just a stack of bricks. Alan also explains how tensegrity ideas relate to our bodies
So what we are looking for is good kind of muscular tonus not plain old bad kind of tension
Arm weight isn't bad really. What's important is the way it's explained
Alan shows videos of people walking from the beginning of the last century and draws parallels on how we move today
Hammer and a key are elements in a kinematic chain
The hand as a mini body concept
Empowered structure = the piano's voice
Alan is demonstrating a few important concepts
In other words, no clenching, just pure power/function
to make your conception actually sound
