Once we have managed to diagnose a problem, it’s very important to be able to find a solution to it. Naturally, different problems need different solutions so in this article I’d like to explore one such solution that can help. This is part of my guide on how to practice piano effectively.
Do you consciously think about how your hands move in and out at the keyboard. That is how they move towards and away from the fallboard when you play piano. Naturally, to an extent, we all use this in and out movement. However, I realised that by focussing on it, I was able to overcome some technical challenges that I have had.
The three basic movements at piano
Of course, we are very conscious that our hands move right and left (horizontally) to go up and down the keyboard. They also move up and down (vertically) as we don’t rely exclusively on our fingers to press the keys. Finally, they move forwards and backwards as we play on different combinations of black and white keys.
As the black keys are shorter and higher than the white ones, notwithstanding the fact that our middle fingers (2, 3 and 4) are longer than the thumb and the pinky, then when playing black notes, it’s necessary to move towards the fall-board a little so that we can reach them. We then move back a little again to avoid 2, 3 and 4 needing to play on the thinner section of a white key that is between two black keys.
However, have you ever noticed when watching concert pianists that surprisingly frequently their thumb is in fact completely off the keyboard. I’d seen this hundreds of times but never really considered why they do it. However, I watched this YouTube video Josh Wright filmed with Dr Robert Durso who is a teacher of the Taubman technique.
In and Out over white keys
One of the early points he made in the video (at 11:55) was that Dorothy Taubman’s discoveries originally came from watching children. She noticed that certain young pupils were able to do things at the piano that theoretically they shouldn’t have been able to do at their stage of learning. We’ve all seen child prodigies or just gifted youngsters. What Dorothy Taubman realised was that these children had intuitively found ways to move at the piano. This enabled them to do things that should really have taken years of instruction and intensive practice to accomplish. Yet they weren’t even old enough to have spent that number of years learning.
One of these movements was that ‘in and out’ as the hands moved towards, or away from, the fallboard (at 33:15 in Josh Wright’s video). Dr Durso then demonstrated that in fact, when the thumb is not required as 2, 3 or 4 are playing a white key, then the most natural position is for the thumb to no longer be over the keyboard. This is because the fingers don’t want to be too curled when we play.
This was the point at which I actually joined the dots in my head. It became very clear that the in and out movement can serve many purposes.
This, indeed, could be another of the Lies to Pianists – given that as beginners were taught to curve our hands so that all fingers are nicely over the thick part of the white keys.
Errors at speed
I started to notice, particularly when playing at anything faster than a very moderate pace, I would often make mistakes when finger 2 was on a black key. After some experimentation, I reached the conclusion that it was simply because my hands were too far ‘back’ for my finger to find the key reliably. The reason I mention speed is that when playing slowly, you can generally stretch your finger forward to reach easily enough. However, when moving more quickly, this is more difficult to do and, therefore, your finger can easily miss a key.
Equally, I noticed that sometimes I’d miss notes on white keys where my pinky was trying to play a white key after playing black keys with other fingers. Again, because my hand is further in towards the fall-board, then I’m trying to play the white note from the thinner section of the key rather than the wider section just below the ends of the black keys. This makes for a smaller target of course which is then more error prone.
Of course, this is only one aspect of playing quickly. Here are some other speed building ideas I have come across.
Relearning In and Out technique
Armed with these discoveries, I have now started to re-learn certain elements of technique by paying particular attention to this backward and forward phenomenon. As I notice error prone passages, I will now consider my exact hand position over the keyboard – something I never thought about previously.
I will then consider whether or not I need to make tiny adjustments as I play to compensate for this. If you watch top class pianists play, their hands are constantly making micro adjustments in what seems like an unconscious manner. This is basically what we need to learn to do … sometimes just being half a centimetre closer or further from the fall board will make all the difference in terms of accuracy as we speed up.
Equally, I have found that things like mordents when played on two white notes seem easier and crisper when I play with my thumb off the keyboard. To do this there is a tiny distance that we’re able to cover remarkably quickly.
Start slowly – but speed up quickly
All the same, this is a painstaking process. I’ve found that starting slowly here – especially as I’m trying to incorporate a new movement – is vital. I first must identify the precise movement I need which is best done slowly but of course I then need to incorporate it at speed to be sure that it actually works.
Finally, avoid the trap of doing this hands separately for too long. I have found that once both hands are put together at a ‘normal’ speed, the brain seems to forget. Rather than using the new movement, my hands revert to how they were moving playing previously. This trap is what Heinrich Neuhaus referred to as the Emergency Exit.
This is how we will make this type of movement become subconscious.
Try it out for yourself
If you’re finding issues with certain parts of your pieces, have a think about this. Consider whether or not it could be caused by the transition from a black to a white key – or even from thumb to fingers on white keys. Try recording your fingers at say 60 frames per second and then slowing it down to 30 when you play it back so you can better see exactly how your hands are moving.
You can then think about how to choreograph your hands as you correct the mistake. Let me know how you get on.
You’ll find more tips like this in my guide on how to practice piano more effectively.
