or visit a musical website today and
not be confronted with an article about
various types of remedies for pain free
performance, no matter what the instrument.
This is a phenomenon of modern times,
perhaps aggravated by the pace of living
we must adapt to today, and by
demands of ever increasing displays of
virtuosity, speed and volume, at least for some.
So much stress does lead to physical meltdowns, both physically and mentally.
Musical stress usually creeps up slowly over a period of time, only becoming noticeable
when it has already formed into a habit. Everyone knows bad habits are hard to change, but first you have to recognize the particular habits that need attention.
The great detector in playing the piano is the EAR. The ear judges the quality of
sound you are making and makes countless assessments of tonal color, attack, duration,
volume, and endless other components in the total picture. Certainly the aesthetics of
sound lie at the heart of most physical problems that result in poor judgments and
lack of musical direction while practicing.If you have no tonal ideal in your inner hearing, then you have no direction in just what you might need to apply to get a musical result. In other words, you are probably looking for a cure before trying to identify the disease.
I think the underlying cause of so much tension in musical performance today results from failing to differentiate musical tension from physical tension. Musical tension is the result of endless study of the ebb and flow of the harmonic structures and formal considerations that give the music at hand its very life.Translating all this information to the actual execution of the music is a long process, and one that most are unwilling to go through. Many times pianists get so caught up in the music emotionally they fail to address the physical side properly, and this leads eventually to real physical problems. I have often observed still wrists, stiff arms, and stiff shoulders, yet students can be bound and dtermined to play the most demanding music at any cost. Often they are so use to that tense state of being, the introduction of any new information about relataton techniques can be viewed with suspicion.
Physical tension is the initiating of effort to physically bring force (weight) to bear upon the action of the keys. As in all things physical, tension has to be immediately followed by a release of tension. Injury and distress results from misdirecting the timing of basic motor impluses in trying to bring the musical ideas to life.In basic piano technique this can be noted when one fails to aim for the "tone Spot" in the key, resulting in continuing to press against the bottom of the key...a fault commonly referred to as "keybedding". It is important to discover that nothing happens after the initial contact of the hammer with the string (other than a slow decaying of the sound).. hence the ability to time one's attack to just that initial point of sound means that a physical cessation of impluse must occur the split second the intended sound is heard. All it takes to keep the key down is just the smallest amount of finger pressure.
Learning to listen to oneself is a lifelong project. In musical terms it means the most exact attention to connecting one sound to the next sound, and making sure what you are hearing fits into the overall direction of the musical phrase.
Real life teaches us the basics of tension and release with our every waking moments. Just to breathe means you let the lungs tense to inhale and relax to exhale. The foot has to make the effort to move forward and make contact with the ground, yet automatically relax instantly after impact, ready to strike again. There is no going forward without the joint effort of tension and resolution.
Preparation is the key to good habits at the keyboard. This means one will need to go
through the process of continually sorting out just what actions will result in a good result, and vice versa, just what actions will lead to distress. This is where taste and discrimination enter the scene. What are the demands of the score? What decisions about mood, character and tonal effects have to be considered? What technical challenges leap off the page, whetting your appetite to find a way to conquer them? What physical endurance questions need to be sorted through? Indeed the challenges are great, and a road map might get you where you want to go, rather than just ambling along, hoping for miracles en route.
What is so disappointing today is that so much information about developing a stress free,resilient and lasting technique has been around for a long time. Tobias Matthay was a genius, no doubt, in that he made great discoveries in the theories of relaxation. His problem in getting his ideas down concisely was partly the result of a rather stilted Victorian style of writing, so tangled and confusing for many readers today. I made an intense study of Matthay's "The Act of Touch" many years ago when I first started teaching. Under the thickets of dense language with many repetitions was the bones of
a deep understandment of the laws of tension and resolution in all their many forms. He later successfully condensced all this into the more concise "The Visible and Invisible in Piano Technique", one of the touchstones of piano pedagogy.
It is unfortunate that so many teachers and performers distrusted Matthay's ideas, somehow not able to bridge the gap between understanding the laws of tension and resolution and their application. Just like the study of ballet, or anything thing related to physical effort, you have to place yourself under the guidance of a teacher who knows how to transmit all this information into practical solutions. The transmitting
of these ideas is based on the absorption of the SENSATIONS felt physically when one does them correctly, as judged by the highest laws for musical taste and feeling. In other words, Word has to be made Flesh.
I personally remember vividly when I returned to the USA after two years of study with Hilda Dederich, who went to Matthay when she was eight years old and remained with him until his death half a century later. When I mentioned Matthay, pianists would say things like "I suppose you play with the floating elbow", or "How do you find the energy to play if you are supposedly so relaxed?" What they failed to recognize was the
fact that relaxation is a BASIS, not a movement superficially applied. What ever happened to that wonderful word "POISED". Once you start your car motor, it is poised for action. You don't have to restart it at every street corner (unless it is a clunker!). Relaxation is a state of being poised for action. I guess if I said the snake is poised to strike I might get your attention! If I said I was POISED to play DOUBLE FORTISSIMO you might jump back is anticipation of the blow. IN sum, you must be poised
physically to do anything correctly at the keys, and it is this state of poise that allows you to apply just that amount of energy you need to bring your musical vision to light.
Having taught my share of talent the past decades, I can say that few students arrive with any organized way of thinking about how they are going about their craft. That is not to say they are not musical, or lack a sense of direction. The most talented have drive, practice for hours and without doubt want to play the hardest pieces right away. They have PASSION in other words. Such zeal is often the culprit unfortunately. It drives one to only play with all systems on full steam ahead. I fell into this category
just as I entered high school. It took a long time to realize I had to learn how to separate my head and heart, otherwise I spent all my energy going in circles. One revered teacher told me quite pointedly that I must learn to practice part of the time UNEMOTIONALLY! At first I thought that was a terrible piece of advice. Time has taught me the wisdom of it, and it changed my whole approach.
With the door opening on a whole new vista, I realized i could spend quite a lot of time playing at a greatly reduced volume and speed. This allowed me more space, and I could begin to attend to so many musical details. I began to plan instead of just reacting to my gut emotions all the time. I think real listening begins at this stage. You begin to notice the smallest details, and how they fit into the whole. You learn also how to feel your way into difficulties that need to be sorted through. I found sound became something
mallable in my hands, arms, and back. I began to sit up at the keyboard, which also helped me to have a sense of taking everything in, instead of sitting with my head in the keys. I remember vividly something Myra Hess said in a conversation with me in 1960. She said if I played a chord with great force, there was a reaction not only towards the keyboard, but an EQUAL one coming back towards me. I had to learn to deal with that. She illustrated this by having me push against the piano as if I wanted to move it. I felt what she wanted immediately. It was a big effort, and I had to release my tension
immediately or just fall over half paralyzed. She ended up saying that she always felt the piano key as an extension of her body, and not just an obstacle to overcome.
Archimedes said, "Give me the proper leverage and I can lift the world". Perhaps in the final result, piano playing is all about the correct use of leverage, doling out just the proper amount of energy to do the job at hand. If you fill your lessons with observations of what we do naturally with our bodies all day long, perhaps you will find just the right kind of descriptive language to make it clear to your students how to play the piano.
