Tao of Piano Playing By Jon Harrington 100273.1633@CompuServe.com of course, you want correct rhythm *and* pitch, right? do most of your practising slowly. slow practise is important, but don't let your hands wander all over the place, send them somewhere with your mind. sounds mystical, I know, but it isn't (well, maybe it is, but don't hold that against it). If your mind doesn't know where you're hands are going, then the hands kind of flop around waiting for the head to catch up and tell them what to do. It's vital to *think*, but don't let your hands get into a lot of extra motion type things. That was, and is still to an extent, a problem I had to deal with after 15 years of playing that way, and that was almost 20 years ago. let me go into a bit more detail, if you don't mind ______________________________________ ok, here it is. the tao of piano playing this is a method whereby thought becomes action, as is ineed the natural and normal thing in the world; but the natural and the normal are easily lost when faced with a piano keyboard. This, then, is a method to regain or establish natural movement at the piano, simply by correctly synchronizing thinking with moving. It is very simple, but the implications are very broad, as is also natural. There is no need to be concerned with any implication that does not occur to you. Unless, of course, you happen to be missing the obvious, but I don't expect that. It is necessary to have a rational plan of fingering. in the beginning this appears tedious, like continually putting fork from plate to mouth, but it is what will feed you. rational plan of fingering is based on hand position changes. take the first notes of the piece in question and determine, disregarding rhythmic considerations, how many of the notes you can get under your hands at once. This isn't a contest with yourself, it's *absolutely* without strain. Music will usually chunk itself in meaningful ways, as far as physical movement at the keyboard, but it takes a while to start recognizing how it does so in relation to the musical sense it is also making (not years and years and years). Circle each 'chunk' or handful (better) of notes. *However many chunks you have are how ever many movements you have to make.* Therein is the essence; you are focussing not on individual finger movements now so much as larger hand/arm and as you shall see shoulder movements, and ultimately you will feel, on your better days, to have this movement rooted in the gut, this physical relationship is important, precarious, subject to tension . . . but relax and breath as if this were nothing out of the ordinary, for it isn't, playing the piano can be the most ordinary thing, like blue sky, like nightstarsplashsky. normal, ordinary, natural. it's your birthright to make the sounds come out of your hands the way your ear wants them to. circle these chunks. at pretty much the same time as you are doing this, it will become I think apparent which fingers are the best for which notes; jot them down above the right hand stacked and below the left stacked, you know I hope, top finger to bottom, like the time signature looks. as I said; However many chunks you have are how many movements you have to make. think about that for a while. that is the way of fingering. let's make it yet more simple, though. and continue on to a practical application of thought to motion _____________ I'm setting out the principles in the most generic manner, so that you can take them to pretty much any piece. The prevailing texture, though, affects things profoundly. Let us consider the simplest texture of chord changes without any real counterpoint, just as in a very simple hymn. In the present case of chordal movement as it is, the hand position changes about one per unit, or chunk. This will not always be the case, but the principle, I stress, is the same. Think through the things I talked about, and apply them anyway, though it seems overly obvious. The overly obvious contains a great deal that is hidden, usually. You are developing a different orientation to the keyboard, a lateralization of movement, a way to control the whole surface of the thing at once, with your mind. we are coming to a specific way to go about thinking and moving at the piano. so have patience with all these words. now, you have it figured out how comfortably to finger the thing, all this time disregarding rhythm (think mainly at this point of simple chorale style, but it is generalizable. in chorale style the fingering is pretty obvious as is the rhythm, but that isn't always the case, of course) it is of no concern esssentially at this point, nor will it be for a while. that is to say in another way, you have complete rhythmic freedom (in this exercise I am coming to), and this freedom is intended to give you time to *think*. take a simple chordal texture, a hymn say 1. hold your hands over the first chord in position, ready to play but do not play 2. think first what it will feel/look/sound like to play the chord you are over as well as *think* about the movement to the next chord, about how it will be to move your hands to the next position, the notes exactly, the movement exactly to *over* the next chord, think all this while still holding your hands in the beginning position taking all the time you need for the thinking of it you have made no motion yet, other than in your mind don't be in a hurry. the point is *not* to worry with rhythm the point is to get a clear mental image of the upcoming movement not a *visual* image, so much, as a *kinesthetic* image of movement 3. when you have the next chord and all that movement clearly imaged, *play* the one you are over a semi-staccato (staccato is not *sharp*, rather merely *short*) lightly bounding immediately to the next position afterwards in a kind of down/up/over single motion down to play, up (slightly, just enough to be able to move sideways) and over to the next position but *not* playing the next chord just being above it ready to play (just as you were with the first chord of the piece) exactly those notes you had in mind a moment ago. do the same thing with the next chord, in sequence. You aren't concerned with the rhythm as notated, simply in moving your hands to the appropriate position once you have imaged it properly. don't be concern with speed anywhere but when you actually play/rebound-to-next-position (wish I could demonstrate it, never tried to teach it purely wordly), at that point move quickly--not jerking--but quickly/lightly (down/up/over in one motion) to next position. it's important *not* to play the new notes, but to go immediately above them, fingers lightly touching them, but not resting weight on them. At that point, when you are above the new position, you are once again in the 'thinking' phase. don't be in a hurry. Very little tension is needed, so relax, your shoulders are all bunched up. You'll have to arrange fingers a *bit* probably, but the *grail* is to go immediately to the next chord *once you start to move* and exactly there with no finger reaching or fixing (if your hands look like spiders crawling around you're doing it wrong), move your whole hand/arm as a unit to the new position. Take all the time you need in getting ready to play/shift though, this is the mental phase: forming the correct mental image is the key to the whole thing, if you have a really good clear image held in your mind of your hands going to exactly the next chord, then you will be able indeed to go to the next chord, very quickly and very accurately. When you do move, move quickly. play through that whole chord sequence this way, taking all the time in the world. so it's: think play/shift [the shift is the combo down/up/over] think play/shift it can't be overly stressed that down/up/over is one motion, like a follow through in a golf swing It's good to take any hymn that doesn't have much movement beyond the basic harmonic rhythm and use it for that, simply as a collection of hand position changes. once you get used to thinking this way, it becomes automatic, and you can begin to see how to apply with the rhythm of the piece, and as a basic principle to any playing situation. it starts feeling as though you are floating up and down the keyboard, with the keyboard almost playing itself. this method works, but you have to work with it, not let it lie around on your hard disk. neither will it take 30 years to see considerable improvement. don't hesitate to ask about anything that isn't clear to you.