PRACTICI

The Piano

It was my junior year of college, the first day of registration for the fall semester of
1963. I arrived early at Widney Hall eager to reserve my favorite lesson times with the
great Muriel Kerr. The historic clapboard house, normally throbbing with life, seemed
eerily deserted as I waited outside the registration office. From behind the door I heard
a chair scuff the well-worn floorboards and then came the sound of deliberate footsteps
pacing. Just as I gathered the courage to knock— it was past the appointed hour— the
door opened, tentatively at first, and then with a reluctant gesture, the teaching assistant
allowed me to enter. W ithout speaking, he waved at a chair next to the table where the
calendar lay open, inviting, blank.
Neil Stannard has performed with Always intimated by authority in those days, even by that
artists o f distinction in international of a lowly teaching assistant, I felt my face color as I pulled
venues, including Carnegie Hall, the the heavy chair closer and silently picked up the pencil to
Musikverein in Vienna and the White begin studying miss Kerr’s offerings for the semester. When
House. A tenured university professor, I considered later the events of that day, I wondered if the
retired, he is author o f Piano Technique heat I felt at that moment, the coloring of my face and
Demystified: Insights into Problem the slight tremble in my hand, had more to do with an
Solving and five other volumes. intimation of what was about to happen than my inclination
to be intimidated.
AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER
19
Practicing The Piano
“W e’ll do this later,” he said softly. “Miss Kerr died
during the night.”
The teaching assistant continued to speak, but I didn’t
really hear what he said. My mind flooded with inanities:
I have counterpoint and orchestration every morning, so I
need a later time; will the lessons be on the hour or half-
hour; what had she meant when she said, “Get after that!”?
I adored and admired Miss Kerr. Her good-natured
scolding could cheer up a downcast moment of perceived
failure: “What was that? Q-sharp?” For technique she
assigned a weekly prelude and fugue from the Well-
Tempered Clavier. She was a musician’s musician, but she
was a natural “do-er” and not so much a “say-er.”
Her best advice to me if I fluffed a passage would be “Get
after that!” If you’ve ever heard the expression, “Life is what
happens when you have other plans,” that is exactly how I
felt on hearing she was dead. I was shocked and saddened
at the news, but I could not help making it about me. It
had finally occurred to me during that summer, as the
junior blues seeped into my consciousness, now would be
my opportunity to find out what she meant. I determined
this would be the semester I developed a completely reliable
technique. What should I do to get after that passage?
How should I practice it? Sadly, I never had the chance
to ask her. I suspect, though, equally sadly, she would not
have known what to tell me beyond what I already knew:
practice the passage slowly and repeatedly.
Discover The Mechanics
Getting after that is more than throwing oneself reflexively
at a difficult passage, repeating wild-eyed and muscle-bound
over and over again with mindless abandon. (I exaggerate
only slightly.) Perhaps I should say getting after that is less
than mindless abandon— or should be— because it is a calm
and mindful process.
Effective practice is always conscious, deliberate and
anything but rote. Slow practice is essential; repetition is
essential. What is missing, then, when the diligent student
still finds the passage unreliable in speed? Why do some
students instead of improving technically with repetition,
even slow repetition, actually get worse, develop muscle
tension or experience pain? The answer is simple: the
student has not solved the particular technical issue. At a
slow tempo almost any technique will work; in an adagio
a broom handle will suffice. Nearly always in unsuccessful
passages the student plays differently in speed than he plays
at a slower tempo. The impediment to success is the lack of
one or more precise movements that facilitate the passage
in speed. We have to find out what techniques are required
and only then begin the working-in.
20
So, solve the problem first. Once the technical solution is
clear, experience the mechanics consciously and deliberately.
That is, repeat what is needed for speed at a slow tempo,
gradually working into the desired tempo. Here is where
Miss Kerr would have been at a loss had I asked her how to
“get after” a passage— not because she failed as a teacher or
lacked the requisite enthusiasm, but rather because most of
these technical solutions were second nature to her from her
prodigious childhood. Technical sensations for her were so
familiar they would defy description. Imagine trying to explain
the concepts of balance required for riding a bicycle or how to
whistle. Can you describe how you walk or breathe?
I don’t remember now the exact passage, the one I was
instructed to “get after.” Doubtless there were many. One
of them might have been this section of the Liszt E-flat
Concerto (Example 1). This technical problem happens to
be mostly about grouping notes to avoid an over-extended
hand, as are most of the examples cited here. I remember
drilling this over and over until, if it was a good day with
the wind behind me, I could make it sound tolerably well.
This occurs near the beginning of the finale and continues
E x a m p le 1: Liszt E -fla t C o n c e rto fin a le , as w r it t e n .
for many measures, pages even, virtually to the end of
the concerto, building momentum as it goes. Notice how
the right hand seems to be in an octave position all of the
time. Now consider the quick tempo. You are correct if
you surmise that the danger here is the possibility— even
the likelihood— that an uninformed, albeit eager, pianist
might experience fatigue by keeping the hand too open
for too long in an extremely extroverted finale. I call this
enslavement to the notation, a phrase coined by Dorothy
Taubman.
Now have a look at a possible solution. Notice the hand
will feel less open if each group begins not with the first
triplet eighth, but rather with the second, the chord. 1 call
this process technical grouping, which is not to be confused
with musical grouping.
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016

A lle g ro m a r z ia l e a n im a to -= 1 3 2
The brackets indicate these groups. It is not necessary to
cling to the quarter octaves, as the pedal can do that for us.
If I had known all this at the time, I would have practiced
those units individually before putting them in context and
then worked up the tempo. Instead, all I knew to do was
repeat— anything— over and over until, somehow it sort of
worked, tired though I might be, as I loped amiably to the
end.
In a potentially gnarly passage such as the one in
Example 2, it is already an accomplishment to be able to
identify groups of notes that keep the hand relatively closed.
The next step in solving the mechanics of the passage is to
decide how to move from one group to the next. I rarely
use the word always, but, well, here it is. We always use the
last note (or chord) of one group to propel us to the first
note (or chord) of the next group. In Example 2, you can
see this involves moving from octave to chord or octave to
octave. To illustrate the concept of connecting groups, I
offer a simpler passage involving single notes (Example 3).
(fee r j ■ j» r _ f T
| start | end
E x a m p le 3: M o z a r t S o n a t a K . 5 4 5 . G r o u p in g .
My adult student “brought” Mozart’s “easy” Sonata in
C, K. 545, complaining of difficulty articulating sixteenth
notes evenly in the left hand (Example 3). He proudly
indicated that he noticed these were just chords, which he
could block together under his hand— five, one, five, one—•
but when he practiced for any length of time, his forearm
tightened and the passage sounded “lumpy.”
I gave him high marks for his theoretical analysis and
then we moved on to the more practical matter of how
to walk from one note to the next. By thinking only
AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER
Practicing The Piano
harmonically, which required extending his hand into
an octave position, he placed all of his effort into fingers
alone, removing the participation of his forearm. Noticing
sonorities is an excellent first step, but he still has to play
individual notes, albeit in manageable groups that don’t
require the hand to remain extended. I showed him how to
group from the second sixteenth then allow his hand to fall
back to the new starting note (see Example 3, in which the
dotted arcs represent groups). Armed with this information,
he was now ready to begin working-in the mechanics. That
is, he was ready to begin repetition, gradually increasing the
tempo.
Your Playing Is Dishonest
The distinguished Polish pianist Jakob Gimpel
courageously agreed on short notice to take over Kerr’s
piano studio that fall. Oblivious undergraduate that I was,
his considerable fame had escaped my notice. Still, I had
the opportunity to hear his powerful Brahms D Minor
concerto in performance and derived profound inspiration
from his class demonstrations. This is why when— in his
most fatherly tone, mind you— he told me that my playing
was dishonest, 1 shrank in shame. We had been preparing the
Liszt concerto for performances with the Idyllwild Festival
Orchestra on a tour in England and Wales and throughout
our work together he had been encouraging and supportive.
He seemed to like my performance. What did he mean by
dishonest?. I left his studio in Clark House that day feeling like
I had been accused of stealing the family silver. And of course
it did not occur to me to ask him what he meant.
It would be nearly a decade before I had gathered the
information I needed to explain this and other questions
from my youth. I became convinced that he was trying to
f --
r i --- tell me, in his particular way, to play more easily, to be in
charge of the technique and not a slave to it. He might have
had the following passage in mind (Example 4):
vJ --
A lla b re v e . P iu m o sso .
21
Practicing The Piano
Notice here the hand also seems to want an extended
octave position, and for a considerable period of time. Not
only that, with the hand open Liszt apparently wants the
fingers to articulate downward, creating a pull against the
octave stretch. I found this passage tiring and unreliable.
But I could make it sound quite convincing— that is, on a
good day.
The solution is similar to that in Example 2. I change
the grouping from the main pulses in the right hand
to the “ands,” starting each group of four on the third
sixteenth, as indicated by the brackets. This keeps the
hand in a relatively closed position, making the passage
embarrassingly easy. Extra weight on the quarter-note
melody, along with an assist from the pedal, creates the
melodic line. 1 am convinced Liszt knew all of this. He was
no fool; he wrote this concerto for himself.
Now look at the left hand in Example 5 .1 group from the
thumb in a downward pattern, allowing the thumb to fall
back to its next starting position. (Remember, the thumb falls
naturally toward the body.) Now all that is left to organize is
that pesky three-against-four pattern, which is neatly achieved
by leading each unit from the left-hand thumb. Had I known
these techniques that fall, I would have slowly worked in each
bracketed unit individually first. That would have been the
start of my repetition practice. Then I would have gradually
increased the tempo. Instead, in my ignorance, I beat the
passage nearly to death with mindless, grinding repetition,
hoping it would all somehow come out in the wash.
AUa breve. P iu mosso.
. =
J m 1------- 11------- 11------- n— sempre accelerando sin' a1/ i ne
)a A -nn-rTBHgg
85Ev m -
\
- y
E x a m p le 5: Liszt C o n c e rto in E -fla t, G ro u p in g .
In Example 6 there is a simpler, more transparent version
of the grouping principle. Here, too, lurks a danger of
extending the hand— I have seen it often in the uninitiated—
which can make evenness in speed difficult. Group the notes
from the second sixteenth, ending the group on the next
22
strong beat. This, by the way, is also a musical grouping,
per Bach’s notation. Rather than stop on the thumb, allow
it to throw the fourth finger to land silently on the F-sharp,
releasing the thumb from active duty. This teaches the hand
to let go and show it where it needs to be next. The rest of
the groups enjoy the same treatment.
E x a m p le 6: Bach W T C I P re lu d e in D M a jo r . G ro u p in g ; H an d A n g le .
Now look at measure three. Although the groups remain
the same, execution of the group moving from beat two
to three is much easier if the hand, after the thumb plays
A, takes the angle indicated by the arrow. (Remember, the
hand can be at any angle with the keyboard as long as it
is straight with the forearm, not twisted.) This puts the
thumb in the neighborhood of B, a place it needs to be to
continue gracefully. Once these techniques become second
nature at a slow tempo, they will gladly accommodate a
gradual increase to performance tempo.
Chopin also asks us to play groups of notes that do not
conform to the metric pulse (Example 7). W ith Chopin,
_ -<
this is perhaps more usual than unusual in quick playing.
Here, notes moving in the same direction gather together
ii ii technically for ease of execution, beginning on the “ands” of
the measure. The connection between groups— the last note
\bJ j .:fi fV --. of the first group to the first note of the next group— is
y
- T - .f
15 i______ i quite easy because it is always a neighbor. Notice that here
too, as in the Bach example above, the angle of the hand
figures prominently as a technical tool to accommodate the
crossing of the thumb, which is crucial for the third finger
! - as it moves to the thumb. As before, these concepts must
be absorbed into the playing mechanism before repetition
begins and the tempo advances. I once played this etude
for my teacher at the Berlin Hochschule, Gerhard Puchelt.
When I had finished, there was a long pause, after which
he commented that “Well, this is one of the easier ones.” I
remember feeling a bit slighted at the time. He was right,
though, because this— like all pieces— is easy when you
know how.
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016

E x a m p le 7 : C h o p in E tu d e O p . 1 0 , N o . 1 2 . G r o u p in g ; H a n d A n g le .
Ask Questions
Now that I am a teacher, I take pleasure in sharing
my experiences with students, always mindful of what I
experienced in those formative years. I encourage students
to ask questions. A student came to me complaining of
difficulty making these brilliant arpeggios sound evenly
spaced in speed (Example 8). He had been organizing the
sixteenths in groups of four according to the pulses, as
printed in the score, causing them to bunch together. His
approach was further hampered by his tendency to isolate
his fingers from his hand and forearm, forcing his much-
maligned fingers to do all of the work. Technically, it is
easier to group from the fifth finger, which occurs on the
third sixteenth. It is often the case that notes moving in the
same direction are grouped together and in this case, shaped
slightly over on the way down and under on the way up as
indicated by the dotted arcs.
Visually, this shaping movement describes a flattened
ellipse with no sharp edges. It is continuous and often
mistaken for a wrist movement, though it is not initiated
from the wrist. This shaping is a general way to get the
forearm behind the finger that is playing, thus supporting
it for maximum brilliance. Notice the shaping is reversed in
the left hand. These movements should be practiced slowly
first and when mastered— that is, when they become second
nature— gradually worked up to tempo.
A lle g ro c o n b r io J = 152
. over
E x a m p le 8 : B e e t h o v e n C o n c e r t o , O p . 1 5 . S h a p in g a n d G r o u p in g .
Sometimes we have in our ear the sound of a work so
entrenched it is difficult to approach the score from scratch
and find our own solutions, both technical and musical.
AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER
Practicing The Piano
The score is the composer’s message to us; it shows us what
the music sounds like, not what it feels like in our hands.
This means we are free to re-divide between the hands, if it
is more efficacious, or consider groupings that help us play
with greater freedom. In Example 9 you can see how the
composer indicates what he wants to hear. The fingerings
are from my student’s edition. Notice the crowding of 5 to
1 (B-flat to A) in the second measure, right hand:
A lle g ro v iv a c e a s s a i
__ 5
4
** ' " f
..
r
|_____L -;
te te
m. 3 >
SP=fF»-
n>
= 4—
t .. =
= d
E x a m p le 9: T c h a i k o v s k y C o n c e r to S c h e r z o , m e a s u r e s 4 4 - 4 5 , as p r i n t e d .
My student tended to rush measure 44, the alternating-
hand figure, in anticipation of measure 45, which he had
decided was impossible to play at the tempo he wanted. It
is not unusual to experience this anticipatory hurrying, as
if a lemming eager to leap over the cliff. I had to coax, beg
and insist he play that measure too slowly, excruciatingly
slowly. Interestingly, when he played it too slowly from his
point of view, what I heard was just about in tempo.
But first we asked ourselves if the fingering in measure
45 was the best possible choice. We considered whether,
with a different fingering, the passage might feel freer with
a regrouping into three groups of four sixteenths, rather
than the longer group of six. Here’s what we came up with
(Example 10). Notice that we put the right-hand, B-natural
in the left hand:
E x a m p le 1 0 : T c h a i k o v s k y C o n c e r to S c h e r z o , m e a s u r e s 4 4 - 4 5 , a s p r a c tic e d .
These changes made an immediate improvement in
the execution of measure 45, and he was able to play it
in speed. It would still have to be worked-in slowly and
repeatedly, though, to make the changes secure. There
remained the problem of rushing in measure 44, because
that had been awkwardly worked-in at a faster than
necessary tempo. We were reminded of the power of muscle
memory. I convinced him to make a full stop at the end of
measure 44 where you see the caesura. This made all the
difference, saving the lives of countless lemmings.
23
Practicing The Piano
Here is a simpler example, a familiar piece so
entrenched in the consciousness as to nearly obliterate
its subtle technical requirements. Our pianist’s hands
often find themselves called upon to provide melody and
accompaniment, or part of an accompaniment, in the same
hand, particularly in romantic music (Example 11).
Example 11: Schumann Op. 15, From Foreign Lands and People.
The musical requirements are clear, but the techniques
sometimes are not. If we think only in a linear fashion, as
the lyricism of the melodic line demands, we can be hard
put to organize that triplet fragment assigned to the right
hand. So, if there is a problem, I separate the technique
from the music by making a “line” out of all of the notes
in the right hand, not just the melody notes (Example
12). Don’t be afraid to make a literal connection between
all of these notes, yes, including the thumb, as if it were a
melody.
siart end
Example 12: Schumann Op. 15. As practiced.
Once this grouping is consistent, with an ever-so-light
thumb, put it together with the other parts. Only then
begin repetition training and gradually increase the tempo.
Beware The Red Flag
Learning how to “get after” a passage and figuring out
how to play “honestly” took more than a decade to achieve,
a decade after that very blue junior year. The answer to my
question of how to practice is quite simple: first discover
the required technique, whether it be grouping, shaping,
re-dividing between the hands, or some other principle or
combination of principles. Then, and only then, engage
in repetition. But, as always, the joy is in the details. This
means the mind must be engaged.
24
My technical approach regards the playing apparatus—
fingers, hand, forearm— as a collaboration, a union of limbs
that have been designed with certain capabilities. I make use
of this natural design when considering technical solutions.
The fingers work best when supported by the forearm. I
look for ways to group notes together and then find the best
way of moving from one group to the next. There are ways
to shape passages, even octave passages, and specific means
of achieving accurate leaps. I look for fingerings that allow
my hand to remain relatively closed, avoiding stretches and
extremes of motion. In short, I regard playing the piano as
easy and not harmful.
Regardless of one’s technical approach, it is essential to
figure out what it is that makes the passage work in speed,
what makes it feel easy. If it does not feel easy and if it does
not want to go as fast as the musical intention demands,
this is a red flag. My take away message here is not so
much the particular techniques I employ, although they are
representative of how I play and teach, and I know they
work. I am aware that other pianists may have different
or complementary ones. Instead, I rather hope to convey
the importance of finding a solution before beginning
repetition practice. A learning process is taking place every
time we play, correctly and what will be efficient in speed
or incorrectly and ultimately more difficult and unreliable.
So, we are well-advised to find the correct one before
beginning to drill. Even if the passage sounds wonderful, if
it does not feel easy, and if it is not reliable, the problem is
not solved and no amount of repetition will make it secure.
To this day I cherish the many hours spent with Muriel
Kerr and Jakob Gimpel and give thanks for their support,
encouragement and the inspiration they freely gave.
The unexpected lesson I infer from my time with these
teachers— the realization that precise technical knowledge
does not always come with artistic excellence— became an
invaluable help later on. It gave me license to question.
It gave me courage to look beyond the surface of a score
to discover the mechanics required for artistic expression.
It helped me to realize making music while enduring
discomfort is not only unnecessary, but limits artistic
potential.
AMT
BOnUS BYTE
To view a YouTube video demonstrations playlist,
visit http://tinyurl.com/AMT-Artide
v________________________________ y
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016
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