I read a comment in an online piano forum some time ago that ‘if you practice with tension, you’ll play with tension’. Whether this was a quote from somewhere or a personal observation, I can’t be sure. However, this really resonated with me as, like many, I’m prone to tension in my playing.
Does this apply to everyone?
Tension, for me, basically started at my Grade 8. Prior to that I never found anything particularly ‘difficult’. In fact, with a modicum of basic practice (for which read repeating something a few times over) I managed to learn pretty much everything my teachers gave me. As a result, I’d never experienced anything similar to ‘tension’ when playing piano. However, as I prepared my Grade 8, everything changed!
I wrote about my Grade 8 experience before as it seems to relate to what we usually call ‘natural talent’. Personally, I think the idea of ‘talent’ is a little misleading. Rather, some of us find more intuitive ways of doing things than others. We see this in all walks of life . For example, some people just seem ‘better’ at snooker than others. I’m hopeless but my brother much better. We probably played an equivalent number of hours in our childhood so it wasn’t a case of ‘practice’. On piano, similarly, it means we’re able to make a certain amount of progress for very little effort. How far we can get before we really need to put in the work depends on the person of course. We see examples of child prodigies who, by definition, are too young to have had the time to ‘put in the work’. Sure, they’ve had to practice, but by comparison with most of us, they can just ‘do it’.
Even the best don’t find everything easy at first
However, even the most gifted of pianists will get onto material that they find difficult! Stephen Hough in his book ‘Rough Ideas’ spoke of a particular piece where getting it up to tempo was not simply a case of ‘cranking up the speed’. Rather, it required fitting an entire new engine to the car! Martha Argerich also pointed out in an interview that each piece brings along its difficulties and as she learns something new, it can still be difficult for her! Evgenny Kissin (in The Gift of Music) made the remark that he was looking forward to the day he didn’t need to perform Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes so that he’d not need to practice them any more (which to me implies he finds them challenging!)
What causes tension?
So, getting back to tension. One specific cause of tension that I have noticed is if I find something to be ‘difficult’, then I’m more likely to tense up. Naturally, there are also many other causes – but this psychological phenomenon seems to be the biggest contributor in my case.
As I said, up until Grade 8, I never suffered from tension. Accordingly, I didn’t really practice beyond just repeating something. This was because fundamentally that’s all I’d ever really needed to do. However, by Grade 8 that approach no longer worked for the music I was needing to learn. As a result, when simply repeating and hoping it would eventually sink in, I simply became more and more tense. So much so that eventually as soon as I sat at the piano, I could physically feel my entire back and shoulders tense up before I’d even touched a key. This is probably why I just stopped playing!
Getting beyond tension
Now, I like to think that I’ve learned an awful lot in terms of how to approach ‘difficult’ music. Of course, difficult is relative. There are likely hundreds of thousands of amateur pianists who can comfortably play things that at the moment I can only dream of attempting. Nonetheless, even in the pieces that I can play, I’ve still very often noticed that tension can still build. This therefore means that I’m still practising with tension! Therefore, I’ll later also play with tension.
Avoid ‘difficult’ music
A first, and obvious choice to remove tension, is to avoid music that is ‘too difficult’ for us. However, many of us – especially adults – will often have ‘eyes bigger than our fingers’. Therefore, we’ll attempt these things anyway! Equally, it’s only by challenging ourselves that we’ll actually improve!
Developing technique
A second option that we’ll often see advised is to spend a significant amount of time on ‘technique’. A solid diet of scales, arpeggios, exercises, studies and the like. I can sort of get this idea. Such ‘technique’ work, by comparison with playing actual music, is relatively easy in the grand scheme of things. It’s easier to demonstrate progress with a five finger pattern à la Hanon. However, I suspect it can also lull us into a false sense of security. At my Grade 8, the ‘technical work’ didn’t pose me any problems. I could rattle through my scales as well as the next person. Yet this hadn’t equipped me to play the pieces convincingly!
I invented a hack (not!)
In today’s world, we can also be seduced by ‘hacks’. How many video or article titles have we seen talking about the ‘crazy hack I invented’? Arguably, Hanon’s famous ‘Virtuoso pianist in 20 exercises’ was little more than today’s equivalent of ‘click bait hack’. I’m sure even the biggest fans of Hanon know that these exercises alone will never make anyone a virtuoso. Sometimes, the title aside, some of these ‘hacks’ are actually good ideas. Other times, unfortunately, they can be at best doubtful and even bordering on dangerous.
No ‘one size fits all’
What I have learned since returning to piano is that there is definitely no ‘one size fits all’. There are many who are convinced that there is ‘a right way’ to do things. In fairness, often this because it is how they personally learned to do things. Thus, they are inclined to believe that “since it works for me, it will work for you”. Conversely, there are many respected teachers who argue that ‘technique’ can’t be ‘taught’ as no two pairs of hands are the same. Therefore, each pianist needs to work out for themselves what gets them the result they want!
The conclusion that I have reached is that we need to do two different things. First, and arguably most importantly, we need to find as many different ways of practising something we find ‘difficult’ as possible. Just going ‘slowly with a metronome’ I’m convinced will never work for everything or for everybody. Secondly, we need to build things up gradually.
As an example
Luckily, these days there are tons of excellent resources available. For example, I decided to re-learn the Sibelius D Flat Romance (a Grade 8 piece which from memory I massacred at the time). There’s a short octave cadenza in it and to say my octave technique is a little lacking is an under-statement. A quick search on YouTube brought back a number of vides from Graham Fitch and Josh Wright on the topic of octaves. By combining the advice, I managed to devise myself a whole approach to practising that involved tackling the problem from different angles.
Finding varied ways of practising!
We can’t always know which things will work best and, therefore, having this multi-pronged approach I think is extremely valuable. Certainly beats putting all of our ‘practice eggs in one basket’.
We might, for example, start with an exercise that we find ‘awkward’ (developing new skills often is), yet something we can do without causing unmanageable tension. For example, in the Sibelius Romance, one of my first approaches was practising that cadenza with thumbs only. I incorporated rhythms into this too and worked on one octave at a time at first rather than the entire run.
Building up gradually
As I progressed, this started to feel easy. For example, just thumbs at full speed all the way up became reliable. Then I added some extra practice techniques from Graham and Josh’s videos. For example, I practiced it one octave at a time in octaves with large, exaggerated movements. In parallel, I practiced repeating each octave twice with a flexible wrist. The focus was on finding ways that meant I was practising tension free. Yet still practising something that previously would have given me tense arms!
Always check that it is working
The final thing we need to do is of course to see if something is actually working. However, this is where we do need to be very careful. To see if something is working, ultimately, we need to have a try at our end result. So, back to Sibelius, that means to play the entire octave cadenza. If our exercises are working, then we should find that it feels more attainable than it did when we first attempted it. However, and here (for me at least), is the real danger zone. If I play it with just a couple of wrong notes I will frequently fall into the trap of thinking ‘wow, I can nearly do it, let me try again! ‘
This I think is the absolute wrong thing to do. I don’t think an ‘almost ok’ result demonstrates that our exercises and approach ‘have worked’. Rather, it shows us that they are ‘starting to work’ and, therefore, we should keep going with them.
Don’t be afraid to change tack
If, on the other hand, we give it a try and it feels just as bad as before, then we might need to question as to whether what we’re doing is in reality working for us. Of course, we need to give things sufficient time. If we’re rubbish at octaves then we’ll not get this cadenza down in one session! It might take weeks or even months. If, however, weeks have passed and there seems to be nothing to show, then we should really do some more research on alternative ways to practice.
However, I think we need to keep focussing on finding ways of practising ‘without tension’!
