As I like to say, a very big part of piano technique is about delivering weight. When we sit at the piano, the upper torso remains balanced over the pelvis, delivering the weight through the sit bones to the bench. As our thighbones are above the sit bones, it permits to have the legs completely free to move, using them for support when we play in extremes part of the keyboard and/or to pedal. That’s roughly what happens in the case of a balanced sitting. But to achieve a balanced sitting and avoid unnecessary tensions, you must first find the adequate bench. It must be comfortable, adjustable, silent… If you don’t find it, you’ll never achieve a balanced sitting during the performance, and the playing will suffer : technically weak, harsh sound and poor tone quality. That’s why Samson François was so right : a good piano is useless if you can’t reach a balanced sitting.

In fact, in my twenties I was obsessed with balanced sitting. I used to practice at school, and most conservatories don’t invest in benches so students get these uncomfortable cheap benches and the sitting problems that go alongside. I had to solve this issue and make my buttocks happy (as well as my back!). At first I used a cushion, but this was not plainly satisfactory; a cushion slips, is not firm enough and gets flat. So with the help of my physical therapist, I designed and built an ergonomic cushion fitting my needs. That’s how I ended up carrying a weird cushion everywhere I had to play. This cushion was so famous among Prague Conservatory’s students that it quickly got a name : podprdelka (litterally: the “underbum”).

I still use it, although I built an ergonomic bench for my home practice, and I must say it improved my playing a lot, helping me to find a balanced sitting and avoid unnecessary tensions.

So, if you want to play well, follow Samson François’ advice and meet the first requirement : sitting well. Then, you’ll choose the piano you want to play. Far too many people (even professionals) don’t even look at the bench and blame the piano if they didn’t played well. In fact, their sitting is responsible for their technical mistakes or bad sound : the bench is thus much more important than the piano itself!

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Back to the twelve-tone technique. One can easily understand the word dodecaphonic, invented by Rene Leibowitz in France (later, I will speak longer of him as very close to Pierre Boulez). Dodeca, twelve and phonic, sound: Twelve sounds. Why twelve? Twelve is the number of pitches that consitute the chromatic scale. Roughly, the twelve-tone technique is a compositional technique that uses a row of the twelve distinct sounds of the chromatic scale which can’t be repeated until they have all been played. I will not dwell on the technique itself, we will have later the opportunity to speak about prime, inversion, retrograde, and retrograde-inversion.

The twelve-tone system gives equal weight to each note of the semitonal scale, avoiding any hierarchy of sounds, then avoiding a priori any form of tonality.

The number twelve is fascinating : besides the fact that its mathematical properties are interesting to group notes equally, and thus enable games of symmetries, imitations, etc. within the same tone row. The division by twelve is one of the most common in our mind: 12 months, 2 × 12 hours, the alexandrine comprising 12 syllables, twelve zodiacal signs, dodecastyle temples … My idea is not to show a mystical of the number twelve, but to show that its properties have certainly had a strong influence on the elaboration of the tempered system, and thus the twelve-tone technique, using this temperament as it is.

The set of all twelve pitch classes form what is called the total chromatic. Surprising because it is only a total according to the conventions of the temperament, so conventions of the tonal system … The ear is capable of perceiving more than twelve pitches in an octave. Huge paradox for composers to use a material inherited by a system that they wished by every means to avoid. This may explain Schoenberg’s development towards a twelve-tone music rehabilitating tonal functions, and the race to complexity initiated by certain composers.

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Except some pieces, Chopin wrote almost exclusively for the piano and was able to push the limits of his instrument. The studies, op. 10 and 25, are still the number one reference in terms of difficulty, especially when it comes to playing both opuses on stage. The whole point of these studies is their undeniable musical value: While insisting on a technical difficulty, Chopin expresses a genuine musical idea. Unlike its predecessors (eg Clementi), the Polish composer gave his letters of nobility to the “study” form, considering it as a serious piece and presentable in concert, and will then be followed by Liszt, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff, among others.

Chopin, who was a lover of the bel canto, especially the bellinian one, never considered the piano as an orchestra but as a voice. In his studies, no breaking chords and no thundering octaves à la Liszt, but his voice, coupled with much deeper and less demonstrative difficulties: nothing easy nothing free. Chopin’s studies are essential: they allow to gain a solid and free technique, but also to master the complexity of a refined musical discourse just as the composer’s one.

When I was younger, their name alone made me shudder. I fought them so much! With hindsight, I think I was trying to fit the study into my fingers rather than fitting the pianist into the study. Today, with a little more experience, I realize that my approach was wrong. These studies are so fun to play that I wonder why I did not understand immediately what to do… The main thing is that I finally settled (or, that I am settling) the score with them! I can now sleep in peace, Chopin’s studies, I don’t fear of you!

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In order to learn by heart and avoid accidents during a performance, it is necessary to work on various forms of memory. I believe that a pianist, while playing, call upon 4 memories:

An intellectual memory: We know the tonal path, structures…
A kinesthetic memory: By dint of repetition, the fingers find alone their way on the keys.
A visual memory: We have a mental image of the score which takes place. We can visually anticipate the fingers position.
An auditory memory: We hear intervals or chords in advance.

The pianist’s work will thus strengthen each of these memories and teach them to complement each other or replace themselves if need be. I would classify the mechanical memory as the most uncertain, it is very risky to only rely on this one. It is what most of pianists do though…

Let’s now come to my 10 tips for improving your memory at the piano. All are based on my experience, but have proved their worth among many others. They enable to practice the 4 forms of memory and to feel at ease in order to play by heart in concerts.

1. Analyze what you have to play. What is the tonal path? What form has the piece? What specificities do you notice?
2. Be very attentive to the music itself: what is this chord, what interval do I hear here or there?
3. Do not allow doubt to set in. If you doubt, open your score and check through.
4. Do not try to memorize big sections but limit yourself to few bars.
5. There’s no point in repeating 50 times the same thing in order to retain it. You only train your mechanical memory.
6. Play as slow as possible by heart, each hand separately first, then together, while mentally visualizing notes before playing them.
7. Practice away from piano: take time to read the score and to memorize all its informations: phrase, rhythm, dynamics…
8. Inwardly visualize your playing and play your piece mentally, each hand separately, then together.
9. Be able to begin from anywhere: in the middle of a phrase, a bar or a beat.
10. Always finish a practice session by playing your piece very slowly: you will thus correct the mistakes or inaccuracies which have occurred while playing at the tempo.

I hope these advices will be useful for you and will make you feel more at ease during auditions or concerts!

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Not that easy… each one has it’s own tricks to memorize scores (I will come back about my tricks on a next post). Everybody works differently, but we are all unanimous on one point: this work is titanic. Non-pianists certainly think it’s about to learn notes. Yes, of course, but not only this. It’s also necessary to learn phrasing, rhythms, dynamic indications and, above all, not forget anything. The whole thing during 80 minutes, without the possibility to interrupt or do again. In short, there are good reasons to stress out, aren’t there?

Some chose an other perspective: make the score in recitals reappear. It’s the case of Sviatoslav Richter in the 1980′s, or nowadays, of Alexandre Tharaud. Memory is the most stressing element during a concert, but enables a freedom I have never found while performing with a score. During these recitals indeed, the score almost embarrassed me, attracting my eye while I didn’t need to look at it.

Playing from memory compels us to know precisely each detail of a text, and if it’s not that easy, the work is really beneficial. Unfortunately, even if we know the text from top to bottom, the accident during a concert can always happen…

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A first received idea is that it’s easier to play with a lighter keyboard. I don’t agree with it. If a light keyboard gives less “work”, it poses other problems, notably the need of an even more precise control. For example, Horowitz’s Steinway is so light that most pianists are unable to play it: a simple finger lying on the keyboard is enough to play a bad note.

A second received idea is that all the pianos of the same brand are identical. If it is almost true just out of the factory, the instrument is then tuned and maintained according to other criterions and mostly by other technicians. A Steinway D can be heavy or light, all depends on mechanical tunings! Proof of this being Krystian Zimmermann, in order to avoid possible annoyances with the piano mechanics he has on stage, travels with his own Steinway mechanics. Moreover, the feeling of heaviness doesn’t only come from its mechanics on its own, but also from its mechanical harmonization. On the other hand, the Steinway tone richness and the almost infinite possibilities of their mechanics are important arguments which make me choose Steinway on stage.

Finally, I wanted to say that two kinds of pianists exist. Pianists very sensitive to mechanics and those who are not. Horowitz was part of the first category, only playing on his piano, whereas Richter was almost insensible and could adapt to all keyboards. All of this is finally a question of the pianist’s technique: some have a technique which enable them to play all types of pianos and others do not.

Among pianists, some like heavy keyboards and some like light ones: there’s no accounting for taste! And you, what do you prefer?

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Most of these exercises date from the 19th century. If some of them can be still relevant in specific cases, a large majority have been written for instruments which are totally different from modern piano. The technique has also changed a lot since Czerny or Hanon, and naturally these pianistic exercises only deal with problems of that time’s repertoire. In order words, you could play all the Hanon exercises, I’m not really sure it would help you, for example, in Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit.

Besides the historical background or the piano’s evolution, I’ve always been thinking that the piano technique stems from observation and thought rather than from “sport”: a gesture adapted to each thing. Based on this point of view, each technical passage is different and it is impossible to find twice the same combination. We would need to practice every possible combination to complete the exercise, which is unimaginable. Wouldn’t it be better to practice the technicalities straight through the repertoire?

Repeating formulas or spending time on pages without musical interest, isn’t it likely to scare young musicians off or to make them focus on technique rather than on music? Technique must remain background, it only exists to realize the musical idea.

I don’t really know what to think about those exercises, even if, as you can see, I’m more inclined against them. What about you? Have you ever practiced some of them? Were they useful?

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