High-Level Piano Playing Is Much More Like THIS
Вставка
- Опубліковано 30 січ 2025
- In this video, I talk about:
Some of my general thoughts on piano technique (including hand shape)
What it feels like to me to play piano at a high level
How relaxation is ultimately up to you because it’s your body
My “holding and relaxing” and “3-dimensionality in movement” concepts and how they relate to each other
***
Hello! I’m David, and I help both amateur pianists and piano teachers accomplish in 6 to 12 months what normally takes 3 to 5+ years through my unique learning methodologies for advancing with maximum efficiency, quality, and independence. I’m happy to have an active community of adult learners studying the piano with me from all different walks of life.
Subscribe for many methods, techniques, strategies, and ideas about practicing, teaching, business, life… and whatever else I can think of… as well as follow along with my own practicing and playing. I’ve been teaching for over 20 years and have been developing my methodologies for over 15 years.
For more information on joining my community of adult learners and to submit questions in general, please e-mail me at david@davidchangmusic.com. I would love to hear from you!
Website: www.davidchang...
Facebook: / davidwchangmusic
LinkedIn: / davidchangmusic
Instagram: / davidwchangmusic
TikTok: / davidchangmusic
I think the wrist is the beginning and end of piano technique. I'm focusing on how to improve my wrist technique and I've seen interesting results.
I wish I knew what you mean can you explain?
@@Maibrapianobasically similarly to what David says, the movements one needs to play the piano involve the wrists a lot. You can search for a video of Grigory Sokolov playing any challenging work ans you can see how much his wrists are involved in the process. Now to teach you more about how to use the wrist isn't unfortunately doable in a youtube comment... Since I'm figuring it out myself. Just keep in mind to keep your wrists free and don't tighten them apart from what's absolutely necessary for playing in a given moment. Prolonged tightness in the wrist is bad technique and can lead to injury
I think a great point you mentioned is that relaxation is up to you because it's your own body, and that it's better sometimes to think of these things away from the piano.
What I tell my other friends, some who are great pianists (as can play hard works), but still struggle technically with some stuff is that it's harder to be relaxed sitting on a couch, or in bed, then at the piano. And, if you cannot be relaxed sitting on a couch, how will you be relaxed on the piano?
It's something that takes a constant amount of thought, and focus, always having a strong relaxed posture and demeanor. There is a story about how Alfred Cortot when he'd shake hands it would be very easily, and he carried this attitude to everything he did so imagine washing dishes, holding your umbrella, etc. if you start doing ALL of those actions in an EASY effortless way, then you will be able to apply those sensations and feelings to the piano. It kind of reminds me of that movie Karate Kid.
But of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg, but, I ultimately believe that if you unlock this feeling, then you can make up your own rules. It's bad to be dogmatic, I would never say never for anything.
For example in 25 6 by Chopin, I practice with both flat fingers, curved (czerny or like clementi handshape), something in the middle, and practice with tons of different motions, raising the fingers high, playing close to the keys, playing slightly above them, etc. and I ONLY CONSIDER FEELING GREAT when doing all of these, and eventually the difficulties just work themselves out. Usually too I can notice little details where I'm not fully free, and then I will devise an exercise that will fix that weakness, and generally after doing the exercise 5-10 times, it instantly wil make the passage much better than if I played it 20-30 times straight.
You have a lot of super valuable, interesting insights here! Thanks so much for sharing all this with us. And thanks for your support as well! 🙂🙏
Out of curiosity do you have a video of you playing 25/6? You seem to have put a lot of thought into your practice and I'm curious to hear the result. I tried my luck some time ago with 25/6 but I couldn't really get to how smoothly I wanted it to be, so I let it be for now. You can find a recording or two on my page if you search a bit.
I'm jealous because you have nice long fingers 👍
Hey there! I'm planning on going into music ed and want to work on piano skills. Any tips on developing good piano habits and technique? My reading ability is already there with bass and treble cleff (I'm a percussionist with a strength in marimba) but want to just improve my piano playing going into college.
Hello there! For sure - if you go to my Physical Methodology playlist, there’s basically a whole course there available for free - lots of my original thoughts on technique there. Very best wishes!
Interesting video. One piano learning book I read said to play as if you have a small ball in the palm of your hand, but I believe even this is still too curved. I think it should be more like as if you are using a computer mouse.
I could see that for sure! Yes, my own technique actually feels remarkably similar to when my hands are doing nothing, to be honest. The fingers already have a very slight curve to them even as we’re walking down the street.
Thank you so much David for this « class » !
Very helpful ! 🙏
Cathy 🇫🇷
So glad you found this helpful, Cathy! Thanks so much for all your support as always! 🙂🙏