The Way

“Conceptual knowing is not really knowing. If it does not come through or manifest in your action, then you don’t really know because in order to truly know goes far beyond holding certain concepts in your mind. This kind of knowing is a knowing that goes beyond conceptual knowing.”       

I wonder what your mental reaction was like when you read my last blog about our inherited negativities. Maybe some of you had reaction such as “Aha! I know exactly what you are talking about!” Or perhaps, some of you had entirely different reaction such as “Hmm… I am not quite sure if I agree with you. I don’t entirely believe what you are saying.” Whatever your reaction was, I would like to tell you that my purpose of doing this blog is not to push the new belief on piano technique on you. As a proof, until now, I have not really defined what piano technique is from the point of view of Stefan’s method, but rather I have discussed in length about what piano technique is not. I intentionally did this because in the past, whenever I have tried to help my students recognize the negativities in their pursuit of the art of piano playing, or attempted to introduce Stefan’s teaching to my colleagues or teachers, there were too many instances where they told me “I understand what you mean,” or “I totally agree with and believe in what Stefan Kutrzeba is saying,” yet I saw them still going back to the same approach of practicing, performing, and teaching because they were so conditioned and used to this dysfunctional habitual pattern. In other words, they were totally unconscious and unaware of the fact that their words and actions were totally mismatched.

“The recognition of the false is already the arising of the real.”

Then, I realized that whether my students, colleagues, or teachers agree with me, or whether they believe in Stefan’s teaching is not important at all. It is more important, infinitely more important that they recognize and see the negativities­–a dysfunctional habitual pattern–whenever it arises to take control over them in their practice, performance, and teaching. Believing in something is far easier than recognizing or seeing something because if you wanted to, you can believe in just about anything, but to recognize or see the truth and reality of things require clear consciousness and awareness. Therefore, I thought that it was extremely important to discuss about what piano technique is not first because I felt strongly that the false belief of what piano technique is seemed to be the greatest obstacle for many to truly knowing what real piano technique is.

If you are having difficulty seeing or recognizing the negativities in your daily pursuit of piano playing or teaching, know that whatever your reason, excuse, or justification might be, what is preventing you from recognizing the dysfunctional and habitual conditioned pattern is ultimately your resistance. You may feel that you want change. You may believe that you want change, however, because what is known is safe and comfortable even if it is causing negativity, and conversely what is unknown is scary and uncomfortable even when you know that it will be for better, you as a deeply conditioned pianist and teacher will do everything to hold on to what is known and comfortable–the negativities, and unconsciously resist change, new possibilities, new challenge, and new way.

“Recognition is already a sign of change.”

For those of you who are already familiar with Stefan’s teaching and have been trying to change your way in your pursuit of the art of piano playing, but often find yourself going back to the old habit either mentally and physically, and catch yourself becoming aware of it after falling back into old and conditioned behaviors, do not give up. This happened to me all the time, and it still happens to me if I am not focused, conscious, and aware of what I am doing. Change is gradual; the longer you had been in the same condition, of course, the stronger the resistance will be to the change. But if you are already catching yourself going back to the old habit, even if it is after the fact, it is a great indication that you are already beginning to change, you are more aware. Soon, you will start catching yourself in the middle of going back to the old habit. If you can do that in your own practice, then that is huge. Stefan was a huge help for me to recognize my dysfunctional conditioned pattern during the master class. No matter how well I conceptually comprehended what I needed to change, as soon as I sat down at the piano, the habitual pattern, both mental and physical, crept back in from the backdoor. At first, I did not even notice that I was going back to the dysfunctional pattern again because I was so used to this conditioned way. Then, Stefan immediately let me know in some way that I was going back to the old way. It was extremely frustrating at first, but gradually I started catching myself going back to this habitual pattern in my own practice, after the fact at first, and then eventually I caught myself in the middle of action–I was completely aware and conscious of what I was doing.

In our pursuit of the art of piano playing, what is important is not at all about holding certain belief, idea, or definition of what piano technique is and taking sides by either agreeing or disagreeing with particular concept, method, or teaching philosophy. Rather, it is about recognizing the essence and the beauty of music, truly understanding what needs to be done to let music express itself, being aware and conscious of the negativities that we inherit or create for ourselves, and working and improving ourselves to eliminate such negativities that hinders music to be what it is. And this is precisely what Stefan’s method on piano technique is all about. I have heard many people define his method as too esoteric and vague in negative way, but I would like to call it open-ended, limitless, and freeing. Perhaps, that is why I am often reluctant to refer to his teaching and principle as method, formula, or system–I find such terms to be extremely unfitting and limited. His teaching and principle, in my personal opinion, is the way, and through his teaching, we will find the way that works for each of us.  

Our first step into the way through Stefan’s teaching and principles of piano technique is to end our obsessive and selfish needs to be this pianist and that teacher, and bring our focus and attention back to the most important element in our pursuit of the art of piano playing–the music. Why? Because as Stefan taught me, that’s where it all begins and that’s where we find all the answer. We will relearn and rediscover what music is all about in the next blog.

All quotations in this  writing are by Eckhart Tolle

Our Inherited Negativities

As with the last blog entry, this entry will be a revision/continuing discussion of It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.

In It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so, I asked the following questions.

What is it that prevents many pianists and teachers from realizing that those

methods, formulas or systems (that they believe in and use) are clearly limited, ineffective, unpractical, and at times, completely irrelevant to the improvement of real piano technique? After so much effort, time and energy spent with little or no improvement, why aren’t they at least questioning why there may be something not working with this approach?

This was my answer to my own question.

I thought long and hard about this and I finally came to the following realization. As long as pianists, teachers, pedagogues, and clinicians share the same belief/idea about piano technique–purely physical, mechanical, and manual skills and abilities of playing the piano–they cannot possibly question their approaches because that means that they have to challenge their belief/idea of piano technique. Generally speaking, humans are unlikely to challenge their existing system unless they first question their principles, ideas and beliefs. We see this in the other aspect of human lives: politics, religion, economy, law, business, education, infrastructure, etc. Moreover, teachers, pedagogues and clinicians cannot and will not acknowledge and confront the fact that their methods or teaching approaches are not working because if they did, that means that they have to accept that their belief/idea of piano technique is indeed incorrect. And accepting that, for some educators, might also mean that they have to face and admit the reality that they don’t really know what piano technique is, how to acquire it, and the uncomfortable truth that, even with years (or a lifetime) of study, they have never actually acquired proper piano technique themselves.

Well, now I believe that I did not think long and hard enough because I came to the conclusion that my realization was quite premature and wrong. So, here is the question again.

What is it that prevents many pianists and teachers from realizing that those

methods, formulas or systems (that they use) are clearly limited, ineffective, unpractical,

and at times, completely irrelevant to the improvement of real piano

technique? After so much effort, time and energy spent with little or no improvement, why aren’t they at least questioning why there may be something not working with this approach?

Here is my revised answer.

First of all, it is not at all their unwillingness, reluctance, or resistance that makes them refrain from questioning their approach to the mastery of real piano technique and reevaluating their idea/belief of piano technique. It is just that they simply do not and cannot see or recognize the limitation, ineffectiveness, impracticality, and irrelevance in their approach (methods, formulas, or systems) that they incorporate to improve their or their students’ piano technique.

What you don’t see, you cannot deal with. 

If you see or recognize the problem, then you can begin to deal with it. But if you don’t see or recognize the problem, there is nothing to be dealt with, and there would be no need arising to fixing it. It is by first realizing and recognizing the problem in what you do that the need for change arises or emerges.

If pianists and teachers fail to see and recognize the limitation, ineffectiveness, impracticality, and irrelevance of their approach, or error in their belief in mastery of piano technique, how do they rationalize or explain the little or no improvement on their or their students’ piano playing and music making after so much effort, time, and dedicated work? In other words, instead of the approach or belief, what do the pianists and teachers hold responsible for their or their students’ lack of improvement or growth as pianists and forever-mediocre performances? And if they don’ t question their approach, what do they constantly question instead? They hold themselves–their limitation and ineffectiveness as pianists or teachers–responsible, and they question themselves instead.

Students

I came to above realization while I was teaching my students who had different teachers before they came to me. After a couple of lessons with them, I recognized their tendency to blame and question themselves verbally when something did not work or when they had difficult time overcoming some musical/pianistic challenges. They would blame and question just about anything–lack of practice, discipline, intelligence, musicality, experience, talent, bad habit, or clumsy hands and fingers, etc. Of course, there were times that all they needed to do was, indeed, little more time and patience to work out some challenges, but after getting to know their playing and finding out how they were practicing by actively asking them to show me how they are actually practicing at home, I quickly realized that for the most part, the difficulty that they were struggling with was not due to lack of practice, patience, discipline, intelligence, experience, talent, or their bad hands and fingers, but it was due to their ineffective, undesirable, and same old habitual approach that were deeply rooted in their practicing and piano playing. How do I know? I know it because sometimes it took us five minutes in the lesson or so to solve the given musical/pianistic challenges that the student could not work it out after practicing for the entire week, simply by changing the approach. This proved to me, that it was not their lack of ability, intelligence, effort, practice, or talent that was hindering their piano playing, but it was their poor approach to the piano playing and music making that was deeply conditioned by their previous teacher, who probably held the idea of piano technique being all about physical and mechanical mastery of piano playing which can be acquired through hard work, determination, and discipline, and such technical mastery must come before pianists’ artistic/musical development. In other words, while my students were blaming and questioning themselves for lack of successful piano playing and music making, I saw the real cause behind their struggle and unsolved challenges–erroneous idea/belief of piano technique, the approach that stems from such idea/belief, inadequate artistic/musical development, and unreasonable and unnecessary self-criticism as well as guilt trip mentality that force them to blame themselves as the source of all pianistic and musical problems that they face.

I found this unreasonable and unnecessary self-criticism as well as guilt trip mentality, which was very difficult to get rid of from my students, particularly problematic in our pursuit of making beautiful music. They were used to determine themselves as the source of all pianistic and musical problems so much that this attitude and behavior actually hindered them from recognizing the real or potential causes of existing musical/pianistic challenges that needed to be given more attention. While I felt frustrated with my students for their very quick and superficial judgment of their poor playing by saying, “I didn’t practice enough,” “This piece is too hard for me,” “My left hand is not good,” I could not blame them for doing so because I was very familiar with this unreasonable and unnecessary self-criticism, self-condemnation, and guilt trip mentality that used to be the foundation as well as the motivation for my long practice routine–usually produced nothing but stress, anxiety, and disappointment upon myself.

The first time I was made aware of my tendency or inclination to blame and question myself as a pianist/musician for all my existing pianistic and musical challenges was during one of the master classes with Stefan in 2009. Stefan had been patiently and tirelessly explaining, teaching, and demonstrating to me how to play real singing legato. Conceptually, I had no problem understanding this real singing legato, and when Stefan played it for me on the piano, I could absolutely hear the difference between real beautiful singing portamento legato and really bad smudged non-singing finger legato. However, I was never taught this real singing secret portamento legato, and until I met Stefan, I had been not only playing, but also training myself to connect each note of the phrase with finger legato. So I struggled while I attempted to play this real singing legato, and all I could hear from the piano was really bad, disgusting, ugly finger legato. As Stefan reminded me, again, that was not how the legato should be played on the piano, my frustration and disappointment upon myself hit the limit, and I made the following remark, “But it’s my bad habit.” Then Stefan immediately corrected me by saying, “It’s not your habit. It is the habit of the many generations.” Then he jokingly went on to say with big grin on his face, “You are not guilty! I am guilty. Okay?”

This little funny incident actually forced me to realize that I was making my bad legato as MY problem that was unique to me because I was just no-good as a pianist. But the fact was that 1. I did not know and never heard of what and how of the real singing legato until I met Stefan, and 2. I was never taught such legato playing before, and that was all. Before this incident, whenever something did not work, I used to tell myself things like “It is not working because I am not good enough pianist/musician.” “If I was more patient, talented, dedicated, etc. I would not struggle like this.” “I don’t know anything, I am so inexperienced.” and when the playing did not improve after much practice, I would start questioning myself, “Should I just give up about piano playing because I have no potential whatsoever?” “Is this worth it?” “Maybe I need to just forget about music,” “Am I at least a decent pianist?”  “Am I doing the right thing?” However, after this lesson, I realized that such self-criticism, self-condemnation, guilt trip mentality, and self-doubt as well as my obsessive need to become "good pianist" and do the right thing, all those things are just another "unconscious" excuse and justification for not rationally identifying the real cause of my pianistic and musical difficulties. Other than the real singing secret portamento legato, as long as I am passionate and enthusiastic about music, intelligibly seeking and discovering the real solutions for pianistic or musical challenges by focusing my full attention and whole being to the music rather than wasting time and energy by condemning, judging, and feeling sorry for myself, was another important lesson that I learned from Stefan that day.

Teachers

I must admit to you, when Stefan said to me, “It’s not your habit. It is the habit of the many generations.”  I was very stunned and taken a back by his remarks at first because until then, I had only seen and known teachers who had inclination to think students’ lack of practice, work, effort, passion, or talent as the cause of all never-improving, never-resolving, and never-ending pianistic and musical problems of their students. But how could they not think this way since there are naturally students who do better than the other students under the same teaching approach? In addition, indeed, I know that many compassionate teachers do try to change or modify their approach to rescue troubled students, but ultimately, the same problems remain unresolved because such modified approaches are essentially derived from the same, ineffective, and misinterpreted principles and ideas of piano technique. And what do these compassionate teachers do when their students don’t improve after a while? They begin to blame and condemn themselves too, and they question whether they are being a good teacher or not!

What do the pianists and teachers have in common? Not only their inclination and tendency to unnecessarily and unreasonably criticize, blame, and condemn themselves for all their or their students’ pianistic and musical challenges, but also their self-doubt as well as their obsessive needs and concerns to be good pianists, good teachers, and doing the right thing. It seems that for majority of pianists and teachers, trying and worrying to be a good teacher, a good pianist, and doing the right thing takes much of their time and energy in their practice, teaching, lessons, and performances, and that takes their attention and focus away from the most important thing in why we play the piano in the first place–the music. “What is wrong with wanting to be a good pianist, a good teacher, and doing the right thing?”,  you might ask. Well, nothing really…, except, there may be a consequence to such obsessive needs and concerns to be good, best, or doing the right thing–you are so concerned with the well being of yourself as a pianist or a teacher so much that you often forget and neglect about the well being of music completely.

By now, I hope that the readers will see and understand that 1. Pianists’ and teachers’ unnecessary and unreasonable self-criticism, self-condemnation, and guilt trip mentality that force them to the negative thought process such as “I am the problem,” “I am limited,” or “I am not good enough,” are the underlined cause that hinders them from realizing the limitation, ineffectiveness, and impracticality of their piano technical belief and approach that they believe in–the real reason behind their poor piano playing and music making; 2. Pianists’ and teachers’ self-doubt take away their ability to seek and discover the real solutions for pianistic or musical challenges intelligibly, therefore they are unable to question, recognize, and reassess the deficiency and malfunction of their same-old habitual approach; 3. Their obsessive needs and concerns to be good and do the right thing often take their focus and attention away from music–make them totally blind to the beauty as well as artistic purpose of music; therefore, 4. Many pianists and teachers have no choice but to continue to practice, teach, and perform while strengthening the same erroneous idea/belief of piano technique, reinforcing the same ineffective approach, and repeating the following unhealthy and unproductive pattern/cycle.

 

When, where, how, and from whom do we get such unhealthy and unproductive pattern/cycle with all these negativities?

Speaking from a point of view of having been both a student and a teacher myself, although the degree and the extent may vary each case depend on the given circumstances, I think that nobody can deny the fact that teachers do influence their students in someway, either positively or negatively, and that students do learn and pick up a lot of things from their teachers. In other words, just as the parents pass on their knowledge and belief about life as well as their certain humanistic quality and attributes to their children, and influence and shape them in who they become as a person, teachers too pass on their knowledge and belief about piano playing/music as well as their certain quality and attributes as artists to their students, and influence and shape them in the kind of pianist/musician they become. And when those children become parents and those students become teachers, they too will pass on to their children and their students what they have inherited from their parents and teachers; of course, both good and bad.

Our inherited negativities 

Just as my bad legato playing was not my personal habit, but the habit of the many generations, which I happened to inherit from the piano community that I once was part of, 1. The erroneous belief and idea of piano technique, 2. The piano technical approach (methods, formulas, or systems) that are derived from such belief and idea, 3. Unnecessary and unreasonable self-criticism, self-condemnation, and guilt trip mentality, 4. Self-doubt and obsessive needs and concerns to be good and do the right thing, all these negativities are not unique quality or attributes of some specific teachers, pianists, or piano schools, but rather, these negativities are our inherited negativities that have been passed down from one generations to the next, and eventually to us.

Needless to say that these negativities definitely affects many aspect of our pursuit in the art of piano playing, and quite unfortunately, whether we have been students or teachers, we have all been taking part in this dysfunctional pattern/cycle because many of us have not yet been able to see the negativities as such. Not being able to see the negativities has nothing to do with the degree of our passion, talent, effort, or intelligence level. Then why can’t we see it? Because we have been conditioned to think and believe that the wide-spread misconception of the piano technique, the ineffective approach, and equally dysfunctional mentality that makes us overly critical of ourselves, obsessive about the piano playing, and unresponsive to the beauty of music, is the way to the mastery in the art of piano playing–for some pianists and teachers, they have been conditioned to think that this is the norm in piano technical education since the very early age. Therefore, unless we become conscious of this inherited negativities and make an active effort for change to get out of them, many of us who have already inherited such negativities are doomed to repeat the same unhealthy and unproductive pattern/cycle, not just on the individual level, but we will continue to preserve and pass on such negativities to the next generations, and allow such inherited negativities to perpetuate and permeate through the entire piano community further.

So, as I have said before, dear readers, if you wish to cultivate yourself in order to experience truly artistic music making, now is the time to be reflective and realistic about your growth as a pianist/musician or teacher. If you happened to see or recognize negativities in your pursuit in the art of piano playing now, that does not make you any less of a musician/pianist/teacher. Rather, such recognition and acceptance of the negativities in your ongoing pursuit of music is the clear and unmistakable sign that you are already beginning to change for the better.

Body and Mind in Piano Playing

As I came back to my writing, the first thing I did was to review my past writings. After doing so, I was convinced that my two previous entries, Problems in most technical theories, teachings, and education for piano, and  It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so   needed some serious rethinking, revising, and further discussion. My intention for rethinking, revising, and further discussion of above entries is not to delay the introducing of Stefan’s teaching–that is really the main object of this blog—, but to get my readers better prepared themselves for clearer and deeper understanding of his teaching.

So, first, I slightly modified the entire content of Problems in most technical theories, teachings, and education for piano. This was done to clarify and explain better some of the points that I was trying to share with you. For those of you who are interested in reading entire revised version, it is available from here.

The most poorly written statement in Problems in most technical theories, teachings, and education for piano was the following:

Any methods or theories that ignore or overlook the strong interconnection of our body and mind (or body and soul) and suggest us to engage in body-over-mind activities (mechanically playing the piano) or mind-over-body activities (playing the piano without acknowledging the real bodily sensation [some teachers, clinicians or pedagogues suggest to “trick” or “manipulate” your body, fingers, hands, etc.]) are not only questionable, but also needless to say unnatural, unrealistic, and ineffective from the human nature point of view. Real balanced piano playing is one where the mind and body work together.

I felt that my readers deserved the better and further discussion on such important matter as how the body and mind works in piano playing. Hence, I decided to take the above statement out of the previous blog, and write another entry dedicated to the subject of the body and mind in piano playing here.  I would love to hear what you think.

Body and Mind in Piano Playing

Piano playing, or music making, strictly speaking, consists of time for playing and listening, and time for analyzing. We could say that the act of playing and listening is done with our body and the act of analyzing is done with our mind. Therefore, it is true that when we play the piano, we use both body and mind. What I question and become suspicious of is when piano playing is taught with the approach such as body over mind or mind over body–when one is valued more over the other.

Body over mind approach

I think this kind of approach is only possible in piano playing, teaching, or education if one believes in the idea that the piano technique is purely physical and mechanical side of music making, and that such technical mastery must come before one could develop artistic development of piano playing.

Let’s say that you are going to learn the new piece with this approach. First, you will “learn” the piece, which if one has the mentality that artistic development comes after technical mastery, “learn” the piece will consist of 1. direct translation of notes, signs, symbols, and so on from the score, and 2. realization of such abstract translation into actual sound form on the piano by hitting (or typing) the keys according to the information you gathered form the score. So you train your body (hands, fingers, etc,) by practicing and  playing this abstract stream of sound repetitively, sometimes a hundred times, until you are mistake free. Only after you have achieved such training of your body (mainly hands and fingers), then you allow yourself to study the artistry in the given music.

Seeing the process of piano playing above, you can already see that such approach, body over mind, is not really possible, because it is the mind that first identifies and gathers the information on the score, then analyzes them and sends the instruction to the body (ultimately your fingers) through the brain. Therefore it may be more accurate to say that body over mind is an approach of piano playing or music making that does not require or involve any creative use of mind, but only requires and involve a basic function of mind–its job is simply to analyze the score abstractly and identify whether whatever you just played was correct, incorrect, good, bad, right, or wrong, based on the abstract translation of the score–high, low, short, long, loud, soft, fast, slow, etc.

When you learn a piece of music with this approach, after a while, you will find yourself playing the same piece repeatedly and passively, only to detect mistake. Is this creative or artistic? No, and no wonder why many pianists have “I am tired of this piece…” syndrome. No inspiration, no meaning, no artistry, no creativity, no beauty, and no joy!

Have you ever had an experience, where you are reading the book, and you just have read the whole paragraph, but you did not comprehend anything you have just read? Such experience happens because we may be reading word by word, sentence by sentence, but we are not really processing whatever we are reading in any creative or imaginative way to see the content, point, meaning, or image that exists behind those words. This is what I call passive reading without any creative use of mind (creative thinking). I think body over mind approach in piano playing leads us to a very similar situation as in a passive reading–a passive piano playing.

Mind over body approach

Here, I would like to start with this question and a little experiment for you. Have you ever analyzed your walking before? Or more precisely, do you know the exact steps that your body needs to go through from the very beginning of your first stride to the end of it? Do this little experiment for me. Stand up straight, and before you walk, don’t say, “walk” in your head, but tell yourself,  “I am going to take the first stride now. And I am going to give myself specific step by step instructions to guide myself through this one stride.”

I think your stride will be very awkward, uncomfortable, and unnatural. When I tried this, I became immobilized because I had no idea how to guide myself to take the first step. I did not know which part of the body I was going to move first, I did not know when to bend my knee, I was not sure how to move my upper body, etc., and soon I found it impossible to walk in this way.

I think you can do the same thing with piano playing if you approach the piano playing with mind over body approach. You are constantly telling your body, especially the fingers, the hands, the arm, the shoulder, what to do. This is simply not natural, and you will definitely feel uncomfortable, unnatural, and awkward. As you might know already from my previous blog, you will drive yourself crazy with this approach as I drove myself crazy to the point of nervous breakdown from obsessively controlling, manipulating, analyzing, and criticizing each movement that I was making at the piano. Even if you do not drive yourself crazy, if you are constantly controlling, manipulating, analyzing, and criticizing anything and everything about what you are doing while you are playing the piano, then, you will not be listening to your piano playing anymore. Why? Because you will be listening to your voice in the head instead!

In college, during the weekly studio gathering, everyone was given the papers to write a comment to whoever was playing that day. I could never understand the people who would write while the music was still going because I thought, “They must not be listening to the music because their head must be full of comments (complements and criticism)!” In related to this matter, I would like to say, if you have a teacher who has a tendency to talk over your playing or only watch obsessively how you move, be aware! Your teacher is probably not listening to you at all!

When you play, you play and listen, not just with your ears, but with your whole being. And while you are doing that, you don’t judge your playing and clutter your being with analysis, criticism, approbation–voice in the head. Give your full focus and attention in what you are doing, which is playing and listening. Then, after that, give yourself a time to use your mind to analyze, because unless first listening to your playing attentively, how can you analyze anything? If you are not listening, there is nothing to be analyzed.

You can see now how mind over body is such an absurd approach, and mind and body working side by side together is the simple, natural, but the most effective way to the successful music making. And perhaps, you can also see now, that if analysis=mind was used creatively, rather than abstractly, this simple act of music making–play, listen, analyze–will be much more fruitful. Because if you are using your mind abstractly, then its job will be only to analyze and identify your playing with abstract terms such as, good, bad, right, wrong, faster, slower, shorter, longer, softer, louder, etc, but if you are using your mind creatively, then its job will be to ask you, was it beautiful? Did it express the despair of a man?  Did it evoke the longing of his love to her? Did it embody the image of the lilies? But you can incorporate such creative use of mind to your piano playing only if you begin your work of any piece of music with the artistic purpose being already recognized. And to do that, first you need to detach yourself from the belief that piano technique is physical and mechanical side of piano playing that must come before you can discover and recognize the artistic purpose of music.

Body and Soul or Body and Spirit

After giving all of your ability at the given moment and doing everything you can think or imagine of for the sake of music, there comes a time that all you need to do is just play and listen, but no more analyzing. Perhaps this will be the time for your performance whether in the concert hall or playing by yourself for pure joy. Your whole being is focused on playing and listening and nothing else, and no more stopping for analyzing because music must go on to express itself. And your extreme focus and attention to the music will transform and transcend the simple act of playing and listening into a spiritual act of artistic music creation. No more body and mind, but it becomes body and soul, body and spirit. And this is what the truly great pianists have done over and over. The purpose of our dedicated and passionate work and practicing is to get to this stage, where your music making will consist of just playing and listening, but no more analyzing.

Thank you for your support!

Dear my patient readers,

The last time I posted an entry on this blog was on March 10^th, almost four months ago… It was not that I forgot all about this blog, its purpose, music, etc…; but, I must admit that I had been preoccupied with other aspects of my life. Maybe some of my sensitive readers might notice as they look at the date of my last blog entry–March 10^th… Yes, it was exactly the day after, on March 11^th, the devastating earthquake and tsunami hit my native country, Japan, where my family and friends reside. Luckily, my family and friends did not suffer major consequence from this unavoidable natural disaster, except the scare for radiation and after shock; but you can imagine how worried my husband and I were. Many friends, including some of you who are the readers of this blog, had contacted me to share concerns, to give encouragements and prayers, and to offer help. This truly touched my heart and soul, and definitely eased my worry and anxiety at times. So, thank you for your true compassion and love for me and for the people of Japan, and please keep those people who are still in less than desirable situation in your prayers and send them positive energy.

The strength, courage, and will of Japanese people to keep going on and to live their lives fully again after such devastation definitely inspired me to come back and focus on my writing again. So, that’s what I am going to do! I hope my patient readers will forgive my long absence, come back to my blog, and participate in the discussion. Thank you for your support!

It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.

I think that many of you can agree with me when I say technique is the number one, hot topic among today’s pianists, teachers, pedagogues and clinicians. Let’s face it, everybody is talking about it, everybody wants to know what it is, and everybody is dying to have it. However, even with so many resources on piano technique available, still only a handful of selected pianists seem to be worthy of having excellent skills and ability to create artistic performances while many of us are still only dreaming about it after so much work. I definitely belonged to the latter group even after exhausting many methods, formulas and approaches. This unfortunate fact was enough for me to simply ask, “Why so? What is going on here?” As I have shown you in my previous blog, this simple question led me to find logical reasons on why those methods, formulas, or theories did not work for me, so at least I did not have to drive myself crazy anymore thinking that I was just not cut out for this.

However, with such relief came the daunting questions: Am I the only one who feels that there is something not quite right about the widespread technical aspects of piano education today? Is it just me or do others not see it? I could not help but think this way because when I looked around, it seemed like nobody else was speaking out. Instead, it seemed that the clear separation between excellent and mediocre pianists only encouraged the majority to believe and promote the idea that the most important goal in piano education—the secret behind successful pianists, and the element that separates great pianists from mediocre ones—is all in the obtaining of pure physical piano technique through mechanical and manual training.

What is it that prevents many pianists and teachers from realizing that those methods, formulas or systems are clearly limited, ineffective, unpractical, and at times, completely irrelevant to the improvement of real piano technique? After so much effort, time and spent energy with little or no improvement, why aren’t they at least questioning why there may be something not working with this approach? I thought long and hard about this and I finally came to the following realization: As long as pianists, teachers, pedagogues, and clinicians share the same belief/idea about piano technique—the purely physical, mechanical and manual skills and abilities of playing the piano—they cannot possibly question their approaches because that means that they have to challenge their belief/idea of piano technique. Generally speaking, humans are unlikely to challenge their existing system unless they first question their principles, ideas and beliefs. We see this in other aspect of human lives: politics, religion, economy, law, business, education, infrastructure, etc. Moreover, teachers, pedagogues and clinicians cannot and will not acknowledge and confront the fact that their methods or teaching approaches are not working because if they did, that means that they have to accept that their belief/idea of piano technique is indeed incorrect. And accepting that, for some educators, might also mean that they have to face and admit the reality that they don’t really know what piano technique is, how to acquire it, and the uncomfortable truth that, even with years (or a lifetime) of study, they have never actually acquired proper piano technique themselves.

So my dear readers, while there maybe a lot of factors to consider, in my opinion, this misconception of piano technique is probably the most serious underlying problem hindering us from acquiring real piano technique and therefore separating us from the great pianists. Why? Because as long as we have a wrong idea of what technique is, the approach to acquire it will be wrong. The same goes for teachers, pedagogues and clinicians. As long as they have an erroneous belief of what technique is, they too will lead us down an ineffective path even with their best intentions of guiding us. Quite unfortunately, many educators are unaware (or uninformed) of this reality. As such, they continue to be ignorant of the ineffectiveness of their approaches as well as the damage that they are inflicting on pupils lesson after lesson, master class after master class. The consequences are reflected not only in daily practicing as unending difficulties and complications that accumulate layer by layer over each already existing technical issue, but also as mediocre performances that show little if any of the hours of work and effort put into learning the piece.

I am sure that anybody who has been or is on the path to achieving technical mastery through a purely physical approach has experienced one or more of the following unpleasant circumstances:

1. You have worked diligently, with such discipline for hours at the piano, only to find out that your mechanical mastery has never improved or sometimes gotten worse to the point of causing physical pain. Haven’t you ever had an experience where you thought you finally got a particularly difficult passage under your finger, and then in the performance, it totally blew up in your face? Without having any musical goal or artistic inspiration, any work at the piano becomes mechanistic—you become a machine. Machines are very good at doing particular tasks without any disturbance when given set parameters. We humans are not machines; when given specific purposes and inspiration, we have an ability and possibility to perform different tasks and overcome obstacles in constantly changing physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual conditions because we have the flexibility and adaptability to do so. By acting like a machine, you give up your ability, possibility, flexibility and adaptability—you become a limited pianist who can play a specific passage very well, out of context, alone in the practice room without any audience.
2. Your work and effort has indeed paid off, and you have performed the piece of music mechanically flawless, but you are still left with a mediocre performance. Why? After spending so many hours focusing solely on mechanical mastery, you have succeeded in training yourself to play the entire piece in the manner totally out of the context of any musical content and without any spiritual or emotional resonance. Therefore, artistry/musicality was totally absent in your music making. Well, too bad, but what else do you expect?
3. You feel that you did enough physical work and are now ready to play musically (or you are trying to solve the lack of musicality in your playing). You attempt to “put together” mechanical mastery and artistry at the piano, or try to “add” artistry in your playing, to express the essence/content of the music only to discover that the reconciliation of mechanical mastery and artistry is only possible when it is acquired simultaneously. Consequently, you realize how much time and energy you have wasted by working on music purely physically, and you also discover that you have to learn the entire piece with a new and entirely different approach. This is infinitely more challenging than initially learning a very difficult piece with the right approach because getting rid of wrong mechanical habits you imposed on yourself, trying to reengage your ears that have been forced to be passive in music making, and re-internalizing the piece of music (that you have butchered) in any imaginative and creative way takes more work, effort, energy and time.
4. What is worse than the three prior situations is when artistry not only becomes absent in your performance, but becomes non-existent in your piano study, practice and education. As Stefan Kutrzeba points out in his writings at pianoeu.com: “Piano playing, interpreted as something related to mechanical fingers (hands) movements, totally sterilizes fantasy…” Based on my experience I believe such unfortunate situations arise because isolation of purely mechanical work not only encourages further separation of the mechanical side and psychological/mental side, but also leaves pianists no room for personal interpretation. If such conditions are prolonged for long periods study, isolated mechanical work will leave little possibility for the performers to reconcile the mechanical and psychological in his/her technical development, and may also eventually kill the performer’s creative energy completely.

I hope you get the idea that the longer pianists continue their work with a wrong concept of technique the worse the consequences become. If pianists are misguided, misinformed or uninformed of these erroneous ideas, they have no way of successfully addressing any pianistic or musical problems that they might be facing. And much to their horror, pianists could get stuck with any one of the above circumstances repeating the vicious cycle until they ultimately lose interest and passion in piano playing.

What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know.

It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.

            –Mark Twain

Based on my piano education as well as research on piano technique, it seems to me that one of the most important questions in piano technical education has always been, “Does one have piano technique or not?” Indeed, the barometer for pianists’ growth or improvement is almost always measured by (and reduced to) whether one has acquired the mechanical/manual mastery in piano playing—isn’t that why there are so-called “technical juries”? Therefore, finding an approach to help piano students to acquire mechanical/manual mastery has always been the most important focus in piano education and pedagogical research of all levels most everywhere. On the other hand the question “What is piano technique?” has almost never been the important question in piano technical education. As if there is some kind of secret consensus among piano community, everybody seems to understand and agree on what piano technique is without ever discussing about it, and they seem to settle with the idea that it is purely the physical/mechanical/manual ability to play the piano. Speaking from my experiences, indeed, nobody ever asked me this simple question, “Shoko, what is piano technique? Do you know?” I strongly believe that this should be the question that we ask each other and ourselves. This question is infinitely more important than the question “Does one have piano technique?” because dear friends, in today’s piano education, what is getting us into trouble is not what we don’t know about piano technique, but it is simply what we know for sure about piano technique that just ain’t so.

The following are what we know for sure about piano technique that just ain’t so in my opinion: 

1. Piano technique is purely physical, mechanical and manual skills and abilities in playing the piano and music making.
2. Piano technique can be acquired by purely mechanical and manual work.
3. Musical problems and technical issues can be solved by persistent mechanical exercises.
4. Artistry/musicality is purely a spiritual, mental psychological aspect of music making and is not part of piano technique.
5. Artistry/musicality in music making is achievable through pure psychological training, mental control and spiritual engagement.
6. Pianists must first have mechanical/manual mastery of piano playing (technique) before they can work on music (artistry).

You might ask me, “So what is piano technique, and what is the right approach in acquiring it? And where do I find the answer?” I asked the same question over and over because even though I wholeheartedly believed in my ideas/beliefs of what piano technique was, I found plenty of explanations and evidence stating the contrary. Without finding like-minded people who not only shared my views but also had more understanding and insight about piano technique, I was stuck in the rut with no definite answers or solutions. So I was contemplating on my situation for weeks, and when a good friend of mine, also a pianist, mournfully said, “Music education and piano pedagogy has gone so bad in modern times that there are hardly any teachers who know how to teach and there are hardly any pianists who know how to play anymore,” I had to agree. I felt bitter about modern piano/music education, and fantasized about the musical world of the past as a utopia where all teachers were good and all pianists were excellent. “I may never find what I am looking for,” such daunting thoughts crossed my mind. However, I was persistent and I refused to give up (this is the only credit that I take for my better understanding of music and piano technique today). Then I finally found Stefan Kutrzeba and his vision—everything that I was looking for and more.

As soon as I began exploring his beliefs, ideas, and insight on the art of music and piano playing, I found the confirmation I was searching for. Indeed, I was not the only one who thought there was something quite wrong about the common beliefs and approach in piano education; especially that of piano technique, which one can find in most methods, theories and teaching approaches, and which the majority of the piano community believes in.

Stefan Kutrzeba (1946–)

It has been known for very many years that a mastery in piano does not mean a manual perfection only, but rather an art of creating The Beauty in (through) the really sounding musical appearance. So, it should be usual, that the mastery in such an art must be achieved through condensed and many-sided processing of one’s own musical ideas and images using the very specific technique. Consequently: the professionally adequate piano-technique is not achievable by practice supported by a mechanistic, anatomic-physiological or exclusively psychological base. In these cases the focus of attention to entirely mechanical or purely mental aspects of playing automatically sets the major questions of our art far away from any one possibility of solving them.

And as to the idea that music education and piano pedagogy had only in recent times become misguided, I found through anecdotes this not to be the case:

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)

Mistakes in customary approaches to ‘pure’ technique: To those who are studying the art of playing the piano I suggest some practical and simple ideas which I know from experience to be really useful. As art is infinite within the limits of its means, so its teaching should be governed by the same limits in order to give it boundless potential […] People have tried out all kinds of methods of learning to play the piano, methods that are tedious and useless and have nothing to do with the study of this instrument. It’s like learning, for example, to walk on one’s hands in order to go for a stroll. Eventually one is no longer able to walk properly on one’s feet, and not very well on one’s hands either. It doesn’t teach us how to play the music itself—and the type of difficulty we are practicing is not the difficulty encountered in good music, the music of the great masters. It’s an abstract difficulty, a new genre of acrobatics.

Leopold Godowsky (1870–1938)

“It may safely be said at the start, however, that the popular conception of technic is quite an erroneous one and one that deserves correction. It is highly necessary that the student should have a correct attitude of mind regarding this matter.”

Heinrich Neuhaus (1888–1964)

The trouble is that many who play the piano take the word “technique” to mean only velocity, evenness, bravura—sometimes meaning “flashing and bashing”—in other words, separate elements of technique and not technique as a whole, as it was understood by the Greeks and as any artist understands it. Technique = tecne is something infinitely more complex and difficult. Such qualities as velocity, precision and even faultless reading of the notes do not in themselves ensure an artistic performance which is achieved only be real, thorough and inspired work. That is why with very gifted people it is so difficult to draw a distinction between work at technique and work at music (even if they happen to repeat the same passage a hundred times). It is all one.

What Chopin, Godowsky, and Neuhaus reveal to us in their statements is that the erroneous understanding of piano technique as well as the problematic piano education that stems from it is not at all unique to our time, but rather, it has been an ongoing problem in the art of piano playing for generations. So, the bad news is that this problem is like a virus that has been extremely powerful, stubborn, and certainly contagious in that we see it further spreading, gaining its strength, and manifesting itself in modern-day piano education without any sign of retreat. But the good news is that Chopin, Godowsky, and Neuhaus did not just share a similar concern, but they also shared a similar vision on the proper understanding of music and piano technique as well as the way to acquire them—the real secret behind the greatest pianists of all times. Unfortunately, such visions have been hugely undervalued, overlooked and even marginalized. However, thanks to Stefan Kutrzeba—Chopin, Godowsky, and Neuhaus’ wisdom are still with us today. Not only in his preservation of their writings, but through his joining of their visions and incorporation of his own insight and discoveries from years of devoted research, experimentation, and experience. Stefan has created a new and comprehensive piano method derived from the proper understanding of true piano technique as well as the correct approach to acquire it.

Dear readers, if you wish to cultivate yourself in order to experience truly artistic music making, now is the time to be reflective and realistic about your growth as a musician and brave enough to reevaluate your idea/belief of piano technique; this will be your first big step in becoming the new pianist. Once you are able to do that, then you are ready to challenge yourself through exploring and discovering the true meaning of music education and enlightenment in the art of piano playing through Stefan’s method.

In the next blog: Enough about what’s not piano technique. Now we will discover what real piano technique is. Welcome!

Further Reading:

Piano Method after Chopin and Neuhaus by Stefan Kutrzeba

http://www.chopin.strefa.pl/engl.html

Chopin: Pianist and Teacher: As Seen by his Pupils by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger

http://www.amazon.com/Chopin-Pianist-Teacher-Seen-Pupils/dp/0521367093/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299797910&sr=1-14

Great Pianists on Piano Playing: Godowsky, Hofmann, Lhevinne, Paderewski and 24 Other Legendary Performers by James Francis Cooke

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Pianists-Piano-Playing-Paderewski/dp/0486408450/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299798084&sr=1-4

The Art of Piano Playing by Heinrich Neuhaus

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Piano-Playing-Heinrich-Neuhaus/dp/0893417564

Mitsuko Uchida

About a month ago, my husband and I planned a trip to Chicago to go to a concert at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) symphony center. I have always enjoyed going to concerts there, especially to hear internationally renowned pianists. In the past I have heard Evgeny Kissin, Maurizio Pollini and Alfred Brendal; and this time, I was there to hear Mitsuko Uchida perform Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54. 

Even though I am Japanese, I only found out about Mitsuko Uchida during college. I was asking one of the staff accompanists which pianist was his favorite. He said it was difficult to say, but for Mozart, definitely Mitsuko Uchida. I quickly found out that Uchida was internationally renowned for her interpretations of Mozart, but I never really made an effort to explore her recordings or attend her concerts. It was nothing against her; it was more due to my personal feelings towards Mozart’s keyboard works.

As the concert day neared my husband and I feared that the performance would be cancelled due to a severe snowstorm that hit the Midwest hard. So we checked CSO’s website to make sure that the performance was still taking place as planned. However, we found some quite shocking news that was not at all related to the weather. According to a CSO press release, Maestro Riccardo Muti had fainted during rehearsal and fractured his face and jaw. Consequently, the first half of the program was changed from Cherubini’s Overture in G major and Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, to Mozart’s Divertimento in B-flat Major, K. 137 and his Piano Concerto No. 11, K. 413 (the latter to be conducted by Uchida). The second half remained as scheduled, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47 now conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

My husband, who had known my lack of enthusiasm towards Mozart’s keyboard music, asked if I was disappointed that the program had changed. To tell you the truth I was, but I tried not to show it too much. But he could probably sense it, so he asked why I didn’t particularly care for Mozart. It was not that I didn’t care for his music. Of course I had always enjoyed it. I searched for an answer, but couldn’t, so for a lack of better explanation I just expressed to him my honest thoughts. I told him that I’ve always found Mozart’s music to be “irritatingly too perfect,” as if his music is the blue print of how all music should be written in that it is extremely balanced, peaceful, effortless, natural, and untouchable.

I always thought “no struggle” was the perfect way to describe Mozart’s music. You might wonder, what exactly my problem is with this seemingly perfect, well balanced, “no struggle” music. Well, I always felt that this quality made Mozart’s music unbelievably difficult to play because I thought it was something that I could not “try” to play, but rather, I had to let it be, which was very difficult to do. With Mozart’s music I always felt that I needed to approach it as if I was making music on the spot effortlessly and seemingly endlessly like an improvisation (but it was so perfectly shaped and formed that it could not possibly be an improvisation). It was probably this improvisatory quality of his music that also troubled and confused me with which sonata I was playing. As a little girl, I played a lot of Mozart sonatas one after another, and I often found myself playing one sonata in the beginning and somehow ending up playing another sonata. I even found myself transposing (without knowing that I was doing so) to unconsciously connect the different sonatas. And after going around two, sometimes three different sonatas, it still sounded perfect! Anyhow, it was due to my personal struggle to play Mozart’s keyboard works that I intentionally stayed away from his repertoire and also any performances of his works by others because it seemed to me that many pianists struggled just as much as I to play Mozart’s keyboard works well.

The concert began with Mozart’s Divertimento, which was excellently performed, leaving me totally in the mood for more Mozart. And finally, Mitsuko Uchida came out. I don’t usually care at all about what pianists wear on the stage or their mannerism, but this time my eyes were watching her with utter shock. Why? She wore pants, a camisole, and a see-through blouse; and she walked across the stage to the piano with such swift liveliness. What is the big deal? Well, her presence was not very JAPANESE! You must understand that as a Japanese girl, I experienced and witnessed other pianists being trained how to dress, how to walk, how to behave as a pianist on stage, and if we did not follow those rules, we got scrutinized and criticized as much as when we performed poorly. In fact, recently when I went back to Japan, I attended piano recitals in which all the pianists dressed up like a doll, and once they sat down, they spent at least three minutes before making any music, fixing their dresses, making sure to cover up their feet with their skirts, and wiping keys obsessively with their handkerchief which they carefully placed ever so elegantly inside the piano. And just so that I can really prove my point, I would like to share what my former piano teacher in Japan had to say after watching a video of my performance of Ravel’s piano concerto: “You did not walk out on the stage properly. You should never hold on to dress like that even if it is difficult to walk that way. It is embarrassing.” So, to see Mitsuko coming out like the wind, and bending over at her waist bowing so low to show her appreciation for us being there was totally refreshing!

The music began with Mitsuko’s cue, and finally Mitsuko touched the keys. The very first sound I heard her play did something to my heart. I cannot describe it very well, but I felt a kind of shock, but it was a good shock that went through my entire body. I had exactly the same sensation when I heard my mentor and friend, Stefan Kutrzeba played the piano the first time in Rzeszow during the very first master class I attended. That kind of sound was obviously beautiful, but to say just beautiful seemed not enough. It was beautiful but also meaningful, very expressive and so moving that it spoke directly to my soul and touched the core of me. And it left me at absolute peace. There was no struggle in Mitsuko’s Mozart and she wiped away my personal struggle to appreciate his works fully. Mozart was definitely in the hall that night and I sensed this oneness among all of us who were present at that concert. It was truly magical and a miracle. Mitsuko Uchida was utterly amazing.

In Japan, generally speaking, we are all very aware that Japanese pianists often get criticized by pianists, teachers and competition judges from other countries for a lack of artistry (musicality) over mechanical ability. So, I am not usually the one to be nationalistic about Japan or the Japanese people, but I must admit that I could not help but to feel good about the fact that Mitsuko Uchida is Japanese and to witness and hear  a Japanese pianist make music like that.  I think it is kind of the same feeling how a Pole might feel about Chopin, an Italian might feel about Leonardo da Vinci, or a French might feel about Voltaire. It is not so much that Mitsuko is Japanese therefore she proved that a Japanese person can be great pianist not only mechanically but artistically, but what I feel really good about is the fact that she, as a Japanese artist, is respected, appreciated, and loved by people worldwide for what she does, especially for her recreation of Mozart’s music which I struggled to appreciate for so long. I never imagined that it would be a Japanese pianist who would help me to understand Mozart as much as she did for me. Her accent when speaking English suggests her mother tongue as Japanese. Her way of conducting almost reminds me of a Japanese folk dance. Her black hair, her slender body, and her politeness—everything about her screams unmistakably Japanese! But her superb performance that night proved to me, more than anything, that music is indeed a universal language, and when those who understand and love that language with passion speak, they emancipate nationality or race, and music becomes absolutely borderless.

Problems in most technical theories, teachings, and education for piano (Revised)

As I promised in the last blog entry, I would like to discuss the issues that I recognized or discovered in many methods and theories that were based and built on the misunderstanding of piano technique–piano technique is purely a physical, manual, mechanical and intellectual ability of playing the piano; (by the way, many very well-known or respected methods written by internationally acclaimed pianists, teachers, pedagogues and clinicians are also based around such misunderstanding.) I hope this article, as a whole, will help to show you how the misunderstanding of piano technique generates the ineffective piano technical teaching and dysfunctional piano technical education system.

1. After diligently working on so called “finger exercises”—whether for strength, speed, control, or independence of each finger—all I managed to develop were fingers perfectly trained to play those exercises, which being out of context with any musical goal, were practically of no use in any real meaningful musical performance because as every piece of music is unique, distinct, and different from each other, so is the technical demand. There is no such thing as comprehensive piano technique that can be acquired in advance and applied to the demand of every single piece of music that exists. (I think you can agree with me that technical demand of Debussy’s Estampes is quite different from that of Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 7.)

2. Speaking of finger exercises, while working on Prokofiev’s Sonata No.7, I encountered a demanding task of playing many octaves and big chords with extreme velocity and volume for long time to depict and embody the horror and chaotic image of wartime Soviet Union. With small hands like mine, performing such task was not impossible, but was not easy at all. As I had never played a powerful piece as Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 7 before, I particularly struggled with some passages from the first movement and the last section of the third movement.  To add more volume to my playing, the weight technique and relaxation technique was introduced to me. Understanding the mechanics of it, as well as exercising freefall playing (dropping the hands on the keys and catching the gravity/load with fingers with the wrist as a shock absorber) only helped me as far as playing the passages louder, but not faster. This made me realized that weight/relaxation technique, due to the design of the piano, becomes the worst obstacle for the pianist’s need for speed at the keyboard. As such, I couldn’t help but think that weight/relaxation technique is the most contradicting and irrational solution for the demand of this piece, which caused the constant dilemma of volume versus velocity, which could also translate as vertical versus horizontal. The only remedy to this dilemma that I could come up was to compromise either the volume or speed, or try my best to play fast and loud by simply using faster attack with as much force as possible and frantically moving my arm left to right, which of course caused much anxiety, tension, fatigue, and pain. As you can imagine, when I continued to play like that, it eventually led me to injury. To manage and control the tension and pressure, I was advised to relax the hands anytime my hands were off the keys (or immediately after I depressed the keys), especially the palm and wrist. But every time I tried to do so, the more tense, tired and painful my hands and forearm got. This is because as I have learned from Alexander Technique lessons, whenever we try to relax certain body parts rather than the body as a whole, we actually make our body “do” or “move” more and contract unwanted muscles, causing even more unnecessary tension. (More on this subject later!) When I finally managed to play with desired volume and velocity (at the expense of my hands and forearm), I realized that it was loud and fast, but nothing more–it did not at all depict or embody Prokofiev’s image. This is because as soon as one tries to solve musical problem solely from the physical/mechanical point of view, the musical objective is obscured, reduced, or narrowed down from embodiment of idea to plain abstract objective of loud and fast, soft and slow, or light and smooth and so on. Once again, I ended up with technical fingers that can play fast and loud with pain, and musical fingers that can depict wartime Soviet Union in slow motion.

3. I found it impossible to focus on music while I worried about physical motions, such as how each of my finger was literally pushing the keys, how my hands operated, and how my arms moved. I could not imagine professional pianists concerned with body positioning, the motion of fingers or hands, weight application, relaxation techniques, or any other physical movements while concentrating on the music. And quite frankly, I did not see how a particular motion of the wrist or arm, the shape of my fingers, or even such little movement as the joints of each finger were the secret to solving all musical problems or piano technical problems.

4. Because I was so preoccupied with physical movements, sensation, and appearance, I realized that my ears became passive and I was no longer listening to the sound I was making at the piano. Does any musician want to prioritize anything over listening to their sound production? If I am not listening to my own sound, how can I make sure that it is actually good and meaningful?

5. Speaking of physical movements, sensation, and appearance, while many piano teachers, clinicians and pedagogues demonstrate particular physical movements at the piano, describe particular sensation, or use diagrams or pictures to show the correct shapes, forms or angles of fingers, hands, wrist, etc., they are generally not useful or helpful, but rather arbitrary and confusing because first, it is impossible to feel what others are feeling—physical sensation is too subjective to rely on; secondly, no matter how hard the pianist tries, his or her fingers, hands, wrists, or any other part of his/her body will never look the same or identical as the teachers or one in diagram or pictures because we all come in different sizes and shapes, not to mention different sizes of hands, length of fingers, thickness of fingers, flexibility of joints and so on. Because each person has a unique physical make up, it is misleading, unpractical and dangerous to prescribe exactly the same identical and unalterable physical instructions, solutions or remedies to all the pianists. Rather than establishing a universal, one-size-fits-all physical approach that are ineffective, why could we not be guided to discover an individual approach that enables us to acquire the real piano technique that is unique and accommodating to each pianists’ levels, needs and demands.

6. When I tried to listen, I did not hear any significant changes in the sound due to the particular physical movements, and even if I did, it was completely arbitrary and out of context of any musical ideas and goals. In other words, purely physical movements did not help me in anyway to get the sound that music was demanding. I might have a flexible wrist, perfectly shaped hands, and precisely positioned fingers pressing the keys with the “correct” movement, but that did not mean that I got the sound that I was aiming for.

7. Speaking of sound, many authors of piano methods or technical theory do not seem to be concerned about whether their method or theory will actually have any positive effect on the pianist’s sound production or quality of music making. The only thing that they are concerned about seems to be whether the pianist has perfectly shaped hands, the correct stroke of the finger, a relaxed wrist or arm, fast and strong fingers, and so on. Based on my experience, sheer physical/mechanical training and practice at the piano only promises pianists the ability to gain perfectly tailored physical gestures and mechanical control of some kind, but not simultaneously develops their sound quality or hearing control in any way. Therefore perfection of physical activities devoid of any musical goal at the piano guarantees nothing but a well-trained body that has mastered so called “right”, “correct” or “desired” physical movements, appearance, speed, or power, and nothing more. Without pianists having a musically meaningful idea, image, intention or vision, any physical activity at the piano—no matter how precise—cannot promise or guarantee artistic piano playing. In other words, how one moves or looks at the piano has absolutely nothing to do with how well one actually plays and sounds at the piano. Mastery of the purely physical movements or mechanical control does not mean mastery of artistic music making. In fact, pure physical commands push pianists to focus their mental attention only to external movements obsessively, shut their ears, and create an irrelevant meaningless stream of sound.

8. I realized that among many piano teachers, clinicians and pedagogues, it was this narrow view and teachings of piano technique that created an equally narrow view and teachings of artistry as solely the psychological, mental, or spiritual side of piano playing. Contrary to their extensive, precise and detailed directions on how pianists should move or play, their suggestions on artistry were either reduced to some kind of meditative psychological or spiritual power that should be worked out separately, after the pianists have mastered the “technique” first; or it was completely missing all together from their writings, which suggested to me that they believe artistry to be unnecessary in artistic piano playing, or that manual perfection automatically guarantees artistry.

9. Based on my research, I came to the conclusion that this narrow view of technique and artistry, the separation of two, created a peculiarly strong belief among many piano teachers, clinicians, and pedagogues that pianists must first have technique (mechanical mastery of piano playing whatever that means) and then they can work on music (the content, meaning, image, etc), but never together. This belief, the mechanical/manual technique must come first before artistry, creates an unhealthy mentality—until you have technique, forget about your artistry. But the question I have is, what if you never acquire and master so called mechanical technique? And second of all, when one approaches piano playing like that, how do you bring reconciliation of technique and artistry in one’s playing? Mechanical technique first and artistry second means that pianists will always go through the process of playing the piano through literal translation/realization of musical notes, signs, and symbols without the inspiration from creative use of mind (interpretation), then after successfully doing so, he/she is going to play the same piece by thoroughly relying on inspiration and spiritual empowerment, and hope that body will realize such creative power into action at the piano when you have never done so before. How widespread this mentality of,

1) learning the notes and other musical symbols and signs literally,

2) getting them under the fingers,

3) memorizing, and

4) finally working on the music (artistry),

became apparent to me as it was prevalent at my university as well. But I always found this kind of approach to piano playing and music making to be extra effort as well as unnecessary because first of all, once I trained myself to play the right notes with correct articulation, dynamics and tempo to the point of memorization, the only image of the piece that I could hear in my head was an uninspiring, unimaginative and unexpressive stream of sound. Therefore, when I eventually attempted to play the same piece in an entirely different (inspiring, expressive, or imaginative) way, it was very difficult to remove the meaningless stream of sound out of my head. Second of all, I realized that there is a remarkable difference in the physical/mechanical/manual demand between when one plays the piano as manual automation (keyboard typing) and when one plays the piano as creative music making. Therefore, it took me an enormous amount of time and energy to undo and get rid of a very stubborn mechanical habit (muscle memory) which was generated by manual automation, before I could begin a creative music making at the piano.

10. Many methods and theories that I have encountered are very removed from music in that they are not designed to assist pianists to achieve successful artistic performance or to resolve real musical challenges. They are designed to achieve mastery in particular physical conditions or control through sheer mechanical training devoid of any musical goals. Mastering these trainings in themselves do not substitute for real piano technical mastery or guarantee artistic performance. I hope many of you will agree that our ultimate goal in piano playing is not to have beautifully looking hands, strong and fast fingers, well moving arms and elbows, and flexible wrists. Such physical features may be pleasing to the eyes, but if they are not pleasing to the ears–serving to the improvement on quality of music making,–how our hands look or how fast our fingers move are absolutely irrelevant and unimportant to successful artistic musical performance.

11. Any method or theory that does not concern the pianist’s sound production or disregards the importance of listening/hearing (pianist’s ear control) is extremely questionable. If a pianist is only concerned with how they move and how they look rather than how they sound, they will never engage their ears to listen to the quality of their sound production, therefore they can never improve their music making. Music is an art form that uses sound to perfect ideas. For pianists (or all musicians for that matter), artistic, expressive and creative sound production, and its quality control through careful listening are not only essential, but they should be at the core of piano education at all times regardless of the pianist’s level of education.

12. Belief that one can achieve artistic performance or resolve all musical demands and challenges by developing, improving and working separately on the physical condition, is the fundamental misunderstanding in most piano technical teaching and education system.