The theme for this week is certainly arm weight. From the reading it seems as though Liszt was the master of the keyboard, and Ludwig Deppe was the parallel professionally practiced pedagogue. What I found to be most satisfying about Deppe was his apparent ability to break down technical problems with actual exercises you do with your actual arms! This is the first we've seen of someone demonstrating free fall and talking about using your back muscles. I was particularly fond of the recollection by Elisabeth Caland (p.257) on the two basic exercises to develop the feeling of the arm carrying the hand. This dedication to the utmost attention to physical mechanics during practice is crucial.
While I agree with Deppe on many points, and in general I find him to be quite excellent, I question two main points:
1. Bench height: He advocates a lower bench height and that "The pianist should sit so that the forearm from the elbow to the wrist will be slightly raised..."(p. 253). Perhaps I don't understand the wording, but to me this seems too low. Personally, I like to sit high, especially for big romantic works, and my elbow is usually about in line with my wrist, if not slightly higher.
2. Deppe's position on the wrist in relationship to the arm. On p. 258: "...the line formed by the fifth finger, the outside of the hand and the fore-arm should be a straight one." This means that the hand is slightly turned inward at the wrist. This seems completely counter-intuitive and especially contradictory when he suggests that the thumb pivot on the wrist for scale crossing. In order to pivot the thumb, and to not turn it under as he suggests, one must utilize the "hand waving" wrist motion that the "straight line rule" does not allow.
In all this talk of arms, tendons, fingers, and muscles, I percolate again if the idea of finger, arm, and even whole body calisthenics would be useful. Gerig suggests that while many of these ideas are outdated and ridiculous, they are not without pertinence today. Even Liszt suggested that his students work on "hand gymnastics", and we must remember, Liszt was the all-knowing all powerful piano God!
I also question the bench height idea! I think I tend to sit high as well but maybe we shoud expreiment with sitting lower and see how it sounds.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should all do finger gymnastics like that video. I also sit rather high, and I am going to experiment with bench height. I wonder what they would have done if they had adjustable benches, because I really don't think one bench truly works for everyone.
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