Chapter 12

I liked the Lebert and Stark method because of their stand that technique is not separated from musicianship. Their method goes back to the older methods we’ve seen that describe in detail the position of the arm and hand. They endorsed mechanical apparatus only in extreme cases. The also strongly endorsed the whole arm (not to say that pianists weren’t actually doing this, but they verbalized a great part of the virtuoso technique).

As far as hand gymnastics, I wish they would have explained how they were executed, but this makes me think they really didn’t do that much good, or we probably would still do them to some extent.

Mason’s technique was interesting to read, again, concern about avoiding the stiffening of the wrist and arm. I also liked his descriptions of touch and his exercises would certainly help with all three types.

I loved Marx’s thought that “a pianist virtuoso’s technique is meaningless if it does not exist to portray the deep inner meaning of the music itself” (247). This reminds me of the recital we went to on Saturday evening featuring the winners of the American and Canadian Chopin Competition. The American winner could play so blindingly fast, which was quite impressive, but I lost the musical meaning. Just because you CAN play fast and loud, doesn’t mean you SHOULD all the time.

As I was reading about Deppe, I liked what he had to say about technique. And how ironic that he died for his study material was formalized. I wasn’t sure about his stance on bench height. I usually sit higher than most people, so I think I need to experiment with height to see if that stance has merit. He let the students play through the entire piece before interrupting. This can be good and bad and I think greatly depends on the level of learning the piece as sometimes it’s necessary to stop a student mid-piece. His technique advocated upper arm and shoulder muscles, using arm weight at times, but also holding back. He was also concerned about the aesthetic element. Again, DON’T MAKE unnecessary GESTURES THAT MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A FOOL! Deppe really anticipated modern technique as we know it with the emphasis of upper arms and weight manipulation. I really liked a lot of his ideas.

The Diary of a Finger Gymnast

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!

Do you think that the early nineteenth century would have been stuck with the old finger school of technique thought if some of the "natural performers" mentioned earlier in the chapter such as Chopin, Beethoven, etc. had written a method book or treaties? Or even if it had not made a difference why did they seem so entrenched in their old school of technique thought when the "natural performers" like Liszt, Beethoven and Chopin were using more of an enlightened piano technique. These pianist were so revered why was not their technique or should I say form not valued as well?

This chapter has made me think more about the word technique and what it really all entails. There seems to be many different facet to this word. Yet, they intertwine sometimes too tightly to separate distinctly. Before this class and especially this chapter I would not have necessarily grouped technique and expression into the same category. However, from reading Deppe's teaching methods it seems to me that they can almost be one in the same. If one has good form and technique, one thing will lead to the next, out of technical form comes expression. Deppe stated that we must play with the weight of our fingers and that form has a lot to do with expression. When I begin teaching I would like to remember this and instill in students a good form and the importance of solid technique. Often times I pay much more attention to the sound of things rather than the form of my playing. Therefore, if I were to flip this and pay more attention to form rather then sound at the appropriate times I would know the right form for the right sound and expression I want. I also think this is applicable for teaching as well. Often times we might not pay enough attention to form when in all likely hood it may be the underlying problem for the students. Could I perhaps be right in boiling everything down to basically one catagory? If one has a good technical form the rest will readily fall into place. Or is this to simple of an approach?

Mordern Technical Methods

The hand position on page 235 " "cropped" position with the bridge of the hand quite level with the wrist,…" I tried this hand position on the piano, I found the tone I made on this hand position is a little bit different from the position I get used to. Especially that I found I couldn't keep my wrist exact equal level with the bridge of the hand.  But I believe this position does help all five fingers of hand were equally well trained.

 

Mason's two finger exercise is a creative way for training each finger. These two finger exercises almost include every possibility of playing with two fingers. Before each exercise, it has a clear instruction about tempo, touch. It is good for student to practice. He mentioned three kinds of touch in his book and employed them in his two finger exercise.

 

From this time, pianists paid more attention to the arm participation. They began to think more efficient muscular coordination. Like Clara Schumann and Liszt's subtle arm pressure touch, muscular coordination has a profound influence on the development of modern piano technical methods.

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Chapter 12

I must confess I’ve found myself very guilty as pianist after playing the instrument for 20 years still only know very little about the construction of the keyboard and anatomy of my hands. Also in my past education I did not spend as much time analyzing the physical movements, or technique so to speak, particularly the involvement of the joints and arms. Strange enough I wasn’t raised from the lift-finger-high school of playing neither. Anyways, my whole point is, I’m not sure if it’s true for everyone, but I think the education trend, and perhaps also our culture, is leading us to ‘feel’ the music more than to intellectually analysis it. Yes this could be true, as we all agree ‘every technical issue has a musical solution’, the very feeling of music is our ultimate goal in music making. However I learnt that we often forgot that every problem we encountered with expressing musical meanings has a technical issue behind it. For too long we’re kept unknown to these knowledge and we tried to solve problems in more difficult ways by not going with the nature of the instrument and our hands. I think this is pretty essential in the learning process. We all should ‘cold-bloodily’ diagnose the problem and break it down into smaller units hence the physical principle behind it that we need to learn. In doing this I think we can struggle far less in ‘trying to get the music out of the instrument’ than we used to.

Frankly it is a bit overwhelming to read a chapter full of all these detail description of the pose and hand positions. I feel sorry for all these names because they were not as well known as they deserved to be, but apparently they did spend lots of time in their studies. Sadly though I couldn’t pick some specific ones to comment on because they all look pretty much similar to me in words. However I wonder how differ they would sound on the piano, which I couldn’t get from the book except those very vague descriptive vocabularies. In my opinion different approaches of technique has a lot to do with the different tones produced from the piano. I don’t think there’s an absolute technical solution or just a single ideal tone. Our differently built bodies, so as the pianos, determined us to play and project differently. I also think there’s more than just one good tone, or just one legato and staccato. I believe music is far more expressive than only that, thus we would need more than one approach in technique at times as the music requires.

chapter 12

I strongly agree with that the technique should be related with the musicianship. Also, I think the technique and musicianship make the atmosphere of the piece and the sound. Actually, I am practicing Beethoven piano sonata Op. 31 No. 3 in Eb Major and it is very hard for me to make an appropriate sound of each movement. My professor recommend me to use the arm instead of the fingers and the arm, the elbow and the wrist should be connected together when I am playing. I think it is very important thing when we are playing the piano.

I was thinking about my technical problem after reading this chapter. I realized that I have two big problems. First, I mostly use the finger rather than the arm. Second, I unconsciously nod my head when I play the piano. I have tried to correct these problems, but it is still remained. I am just wondering if you have any solution or same experience like me.

I agree that technique should in theory not be separated from musicianship. Everyone can try to play a piece faster and faster until it sound good to someone without an ear for music. You can do it with a metronome or by practicing in several ways. We all have heard and seen 10 year olds play fast to many audiences amazement. But why is that always confirmed as a good technique? I think the word technique has become misused. It is less common to hear a good tone, a beautiful legato or singing sound and it is also unusual that when somebody has the latter skill that we refer to it as a good technique. Perhaps we say they are musical. Therefore it seems that we tend to think of technique as purely an unmusical ability to play fast and correct. It is important to note that the piano mechanism has not changed much since Lebert and Stark. We can still, if one wishes to do so, use their writings as a model for playing today.

I must say Marks's Digitorium sounds like a torture device. The finger gymnastic exercises that would help so to such an extent that you would not have to practice sounds like a "Verimark" product. I also wonder how Liszt could have given them to his students the year he died. Was it a final hope to improve their bad techniques? You would think that he would know how to teach technique by then.

Mason’s finger exercises surely seem to focus on legato playing and on the forearm. Did he only have two fingers?

Leschetizky also started teaching at a very young age. Many great pianists are said not to be as good teachers as they are pianists. Could one say it is experience from a young age that is the most essential part of becoming a good teacher? How much can a pianist practice and gain teaching experience at the same time at an early ages these days. Especially when you are 14 to say 21? I was forced to go to school at that age.

Leschetizky speaks about being able to hear the melody stand out from the harmonies (voicing?) and that the piano sounded like a completely different instrument when he heard Schulhoffs playing. This is the first time that the book mentions the word technique in two different ways, the brilliant technical ways of the past and the new style of playing. It is mentioned that Chopin had influences Schulhoff. Was Chopin then the initiator of this style? It surely gives him a lot of credit in the field of technical development. I also like the idea that Leschetizky described having a certain sound in his head that he wanted to reproduce. And all the descriptions on page 274 are fantastic: Listening between notes, singing a melody, pp sound from far. 4 hours of concentrated practicing. Brain guides fingers not vice versa. These are things that I constantly heard in piano lessons throughout my life but I have never seen it written before. These sentences are written by pianists who understood very well what they had in mind. It is realy amazing to read this book.