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.
Free the arm and the fingers for maximum velocity
We are talking about extending the thumb without collapsing the hand arch structure
Activates the thumb, drawing it towards the fingers but in a moving way whether rather than a static, overly structured...
Walking between two Yang fingers instead of a Yin and a Yang finger
The Tai Chi empty step. Here we see the value of preparing the ground with the thumb individuation exercises of Section...
Termite Temerity, where we learn to manipulate the key instead of pressing it down.
Here we go to the other extreme once again, making the hand literally into a high tonused but unweighted mallet
We return to a sensorially enriched let-go of the hand feel to melt it into the keys in a triad
We skip chapter 12 because it was done in the introduction, and go to Chapter 13 which explores the most structuralized...
We review a totally structuralized thumb and then individuates it even further from the hand.
Explores the second degree of Independence of the thumb from the hand
Explores the first degree of creating some independence for the thumb from the hand
Increasing suppleness while maintaining thumb empowerment
Alan demonstrates the bird beak hand position for piano playing, focusing on proper thumb movement, connection between f...
