Mastering Piano Technique

The past few days saw me busy in front of the TV trying out the exercises of Prof. Seymour Fink (State University of New York) in his DVD on Mastering Piano Technique and the accompanying book.

Let me quote and paraphrase some of Prof Fink's thought-provoking lines:

He believes that " focusing on the body's movements with their inner kinesthetic sensations creates the condition of awareness, flexibility, and refinement that allows the performing pianist to physically mirror and reproduce the finely tuned nuances of musical thought. Technical development implies the abilitiy to accomplish this with greater and greater subtlety and power. In effect, pianists are dancer-athletes of the keyboard: to perform is to move in ways that give birth to the products of music imagination."

So, what is the role of the teacher?

1. "They can first make students aware of their movement patterns, both the helpful and harmful."

2. " Advise students about posture, efficiency of movement, habit formation (progress from conscious to subconscious), learning strategies, various kinds of simple and combined coordinations, keyboard shape and tactics, and instrumental mechanics."

3. How these relate to serious music making

4. Increase their awareness of their movements, learning new coordination, improve analytic and problem-solving skills and forge links between technique and musical conception while cultivating efficaciois practice habits.