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Translucent sound for improved expression

How does physical approach translate to the sound we're getting?

Piano technique teacher
Your teacher

Alan Fraser

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.

Blogs

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14 episodes 53:47 Intermediate Finished
1
Why is the hand arch so important?
04:44

Kind of a rudimentary question but often neglected.


2
Arm weight technique can actually sound very well
03:05

It also depends on what kind of sound you are going for


3
It's not an octave, it's two orchestral voices
03:00

The way you stand up in your hand could and should allow for this


4
There is more about rotation then just simple hand rotation
04:12

What if we applied the science of human walking to the hand rotation


5
Rotation in scales and arpeggios
03:22

It's not only the hands are involved in rotation process but the whole body


6
We pay attention to the physical so we can forget about the physical
00:55

And use our ears and play the music


7
Weighted touch is not good for phrasing
03:01

You can't think horizontally if you play the piano vertically


8
Musical mind and physical mechanism should work together
05:29

This is how you phrase at the piano


9
Develop sensitivity to the piano key
04:12

Develop capcacity to deal with the key


10
Two hour piano lesson on one note
02:31

Piano is a percussion instrument. What kind of sound we get back depents of a kind of touch we provide


11
Nobody learned to walk by walking
03:25

Alan talks about the one year pre-standing apprenticeship which we have all gone through and how it applies to piano


12
The wisdom of the skeleton is what allows you to move well
06:33

The more security you can feel in your hand, it reflects on the whole playing apparatus


13
This is pure sound
05:03

Arm weight with arm skeleton


14
Access the voice of the piano
04:15

One of the goals in this floating melodic singing, not chipped up sound