Chapter 16

I think an over awareness of relaxation is worse than being stiff. How can you play if you are constantly aware of how your body feels. I’m stiff as a piece of wood. (Which is not good I know.) But I think it’s better than playing with such relaxation than it feels like you are sitting on the toilet.
I never knew that the principles of playing with relaxed weight were only taught by Godowsky in the late 19th century. How do we know Liszt did not teach this way? I think the principle of weight and relaxation is something that needs to be understood from a very young age. I think it is something that would be very hard to apply if you were not taught to play in such a way. It would be like changing the way you walk. It is something that you have to be comfortable with from the start. Godowsky went as far as writing that “Weight, relaxation and economy of motion are the foundation stones of technique or interpretation and mechanism in piano playing.”
I also like Godowsky’s overview of technique. “Technique is something entirely different from virtuosity. It embraces everything that makes for artistic piano playing- good fingering, phrasing, pedaling, dynamics, agogics, time and rhythm-in a word, the art of musical expression distinct from the mechanics. Godowsky mentions that 90 percent of playing relies on the weight principle. But right after he makes the latter statement he mentions that is most important to make a good sound and to listen. It seems clear that relaxing is important but not as important as a good sound and listening to your own playing. Now can you learn how to make a good sound from listening or relaxing? Can you learn how to listing by feeling relaxed. If that is the case I am buying the strongest horse tranquilizer on the market tomorrow and I will inject it directly into my aorta. Is relaxation something that comes after a good sound and attentive listening? Why did Schnabel not realize that he is playing with his shoulder weight? Is it then something that comes naturally?