Fundamentals of

Piano Practice
Third Edition

Mlle. Yvonne Combe

by Chuan C. Chang

First Edition: 1995, Colts Neck, NJ, USA; free download from 1999
http://members.aol.com/chang8828 (discontinued in 2008)
Second Edition: 2009, Tampa, FL, USA, free download
Booksurge (Amazon Publishing), http://www.pianopractice.org/
ISBN 1-4196-7859-0, ISBN 13: 978-1419678592
Third Edition: July 28, 2016, Tampa, FL, USA, free download
CreateSpace (Amazon Publishing), http://www.pianopractice.org/
ISBN13-978-1523287222, ISBN10-1523287225

To my wife Merry
who worked tirelessly for decades so I could write this book,
Eileen and Sue-Lynn who were my witnesses to Combe's teachings,
their husbands Frank Sauer and David Hinson
who helped with the latest authoring technologies,
thank you, from my heart and the world.
The material of Chapter One originated from my notes on how the late Mlle.
Yvonne Combe taught our daughters. Combe was Debussy's disciple and helped
transcribe his new compositions as he played them out on the piano. She
performed that incredible Second Piano Concerto by Saint-Sans with the
composer conducting. She dedicated her life to teaching piano and all who
attended recitals by her students were mesmerized. This book had to be written:
without it, her passing would have deprived us of a priceless art.

Chapter One

Basic Practice Methods

Chapter Two
Piano Topics

Chapter Three
Tuning Your Piano

Chromatic Scale, Circle of Fifths, Temperaments, Tuning

References
Book Reviews
Testimonials (in web page below)
Copyright 2016, copy permitted
if authorship, Chuan C. Chang, is included.
This entire book can be downloaded free at:
http://www.pianopractice.org/

Contents
Front Cover
Inside Cover
Chapter Page
Contents
Abbreviations
Preface
Chapter One Basic Practice Methods
(1) Practice Routines, the Intuitive Method
(2) Bench Height, Distance from Piano, Posture
(3) Starting a Piece
(4) Curled and Flat Finger Positions, Curl Paralysis
(5) Reading, Fingering
(6) Hands Separate (HS) Practice
(7) Difficult Sections First, Segmental Practice, Continuity Rule
(8) Relaxation, Gravity
(9) Parallel Sets (PSs), Conjunctions, Cycling
(10) Parallel Sets Catalogue
(11) Basic Key Stroke; Legato, Staccato
(12) Speed Walls
(13) Metronome
(14) Memorizing, Close Your Eyes and Play
(15) Mental Play (MP)
(16) Human Memory Function
(17) Absolute & Relative Pitch
(18) Play by Ear (PBE), Composing
(19) Breathing, Swallowing
(20) Endurance, Brain Stamina
(21) Forearm Rotation
(22) Slow Play
(23) Post Practice Improvement (PPI), Sleep
(24) Quiet Hands, Fingers, Body
(25) Staccato Practice, Soft Practice
(26) Speed, Rhythm, Dynamics
(27) Fast Play Degradation, Eliminating Bad Habits
(28) Jumps, PP, FF, Feeling the Keys
(29) Scales: Nomenclature and Fingerings
Tables 1.1-2
(30) Thumb Under, Thumb Over, Glissando Motion, Pivoting
(31) Thumb, Most Versatile Finger, Power Thumb
(32) Arpeggio, Cartwheel Motion, Finger Splits

1
2
3
6
7
11
11
12
13
14
17
18
19
20
21
24
26
29
30
30
37
39
42
46
47
48
50
50
51
56
58
60
64
66
69
71
72
77
78

(33) Fast Chromatic Scales

(34) Fast Octaves, Small/Big Hands
(35) Trills and Tremolos
(36) Hand Motions
(37) Hands Together
(38) Outlining, Beethoven's Sonata #1, Op. 2-1
(39) Damper (Sustain) Pedal, Physics of the piano sound
(40) Soft Pedal: Hammer Voicing
(41) Playing Cold, Warming Up, Conditioning
(42) Musicality, Touch, Tone, Color
(43) Problems with Hanon Exercises
(44) Fake Books, Jazz, Improvisation
(45) Sight Reading, Sight Singing, Composing
(46) Stretching and Other Exercises
(47) Performance Preparation, Videotaping
(48) Origin and Control of Nervousness
(49) During, After the Performance
(50) Summary of Method
EXAMPLES OF APPLICATIONS
(51) Fr Elise
(52) Practice Routines: Bach Inventions, Sinfonia
(53) Bach Used Parallel Sets to Compose His Inventions
(54) Mozart's Rondo in Sonata No. 11, A major, K331(300i)
(55) Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu, Op. 66, Polyrhythms
(56) Beethoven's Moonlight: First, Third, Movements
(57) Beethoven's Pathetique, Op. 13, First Movement
(58) Beethoven's Appassionata, Op. 57, First Movement
Chapter Two Piano Topics
(59) Project Management
(60) Injury, Health
(61) Hearing Loss
(62) Teaching
(63) The Myth of Franz Listz's Teaching Methods
(64) Why the Greatest Pianists Could Not Teach
(65) Creating Geniuses
(66) Scientific Approach to Piano Practice
(67) Mozart's Formula, Beethoven and Group Theory
(68) Theory, Solfege
(69) Disadvantages of Learning Piano
(70) Grand, Electronic, Upright Pianos
(71) Purchasing & Piano Care
(72) Using the Subconscious Brain
(73) New Discoveries of this Book
(74) Topics for Future Research
Chapter Three Tuning Your Piano

80
81
83
84
86
87
88
90
93
94
97
100
101
103
106
112
117
119
120
120
120
125
127
130
135
141
145
148
148
149
152
155
165
166
168
171
173
180
183
184
191
195
197
198
202

(75) Introduction to Tuning

(76) Chromatic Scale
Tables 3.1-2
(77) Circle of Fifths, Temperaments
(78) Polishing Capstans, Hammer Voicing
(79) Tuning Tools and Skills
(80) Grand Piano Action Diagram
(81) Kirnberger II, Equal Temperaments
(82) References
(83) Book Reviews: General Comments
(84) Beyer #47, 48, 49, 58, 59
Beyer 47-49
Beyer 58-59
(85) About the Author
(86) Back Cover

202
203
207
208
211
214
226
227
230
232
259
260
261
262
265

ABBREVIATIONS
AP = Absolute Pitch, Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch
ET = Equal Temperament, (77) Circle of Fifths, Temperaments
FFP = Flat Finger Position, (4) Curled and Flat Finger Positions, Curl Paralysis
FI = Fantaisie Impromptu by Chopin, Op. 66, (55) Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu,
Op. 66, Polyrhythms
FOPP = Fundamentals of Piano Practice (this book)
FPD = Fast Play Degradation, (27) Fast Play Degradation, Eliminating Bad Habits
FR = Forearm Rotation, (21) Forearm Rotation
HS = Hands Separate, (6) Hands Separate (HS) Practice
HT = Hands Together, (37) Hands Together
K-II = Kirnberger II Temperament, (81) Kirnberger II, Equal Temperaments
LH = Left Hand
MP = Mental Play, (15) Mental Play (MP)
NG = Nucleation Growth, (48) Origin and Control of Nervousness
PBE = Play by Ear, (18) Play by Ear (PBE), Composing
PPI = Post Practice Improvement, Post Practice Improvement, Sleep, Fast/Slow
Muscles
PS = Parallel Sets, (9) Parallel Sets (PSs), Conjunctions, Cycling
RH = Right Hand
RP = Relative Pitch, Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch
SW = Speed Wall, (12) Speed Walls
TO = Thumb Over, (30) Thumb Under, Thumb Over, Glissando Motion, Pivoting
TU = Thumb Under, (30) Thumb Under, Thumb Over, Glissando Motion,
Pivoting
WT = Well Temperament, (77) Circle of Fifths, Temperaments

the book, as Combe played excerpts from

various pieces. I couldn't help interfering
to ask "Shouldn't she stay within her level
of difficulty?" Combe smiled knowingly
with our daughter and answered
"Difficulty isn't our problem, is it?" I
was so flabbergasted by the implications
of what she said that I decided to
investigate her teaching method. It took 15
more
years
of
research
and
experimentation at the piano for me to
realize that efficient practice methods were
the key to success, not talent!!, and
additional 10+ years to gather the material
for FOPP.
I read over fifty of the most popular
piano books and have reviewed them here
and they demonstrate that practically every
piano learning method consists of showing
students what to practice, and what kinds
of techniques (runs, arpeggios, legato,
staccato, trills, etc.) are needed. There are
few instructions on how to practice in
order to be able to play them, which is
mostly left to the student and endless
repetitions. These books represent how
teachers taught, because they were written
by respected teachers.
Most of the known methods of how to
practice for technique acquisition have
been assembled in FOPP, see [(50)
Summary of Method]. New pieces are
quickly learned in this way because there
are solutions to every technical problem,
and previously "impossible" pieces come
within reach. The difference in learning
rate between approaches based on efficient
practice methods and others can be the
difference between a rewarding musical
experience within months and a lifetime of
exercises, lesson pieces, little progress and
nothing to perform. I also researched
hundreds of internet sources and over fifty
[(82) References], and included any

Preface
I took piano lessons for over seven
years from age ten, practicing up to eight
hours on weekends. My successes in life
and lifelong dedication to the piano [see
(85) About the Author] gave me every
reason to believe that I should be
successful in piano. Although I became a
choir accompanist and church organist, I
was struggling with the Beethoven sonatas
difficult
passages
remained
insurmountable no matter how long I
practiced. This made no sense because
there have been thousands of proficient
pianists in the world how did they all
learn? I was told that musical talents and
perseverance were the only ways, but I
suspected that there are teachers who
know how to teach. They must have
written books. So I read books and they all
taught the same things: practice scales,
arpeggios, exercises, start with easy lesson
pieces, etc., which I was already doing.
Even published interviews with famous
pianists gave no clue as to how they
learned, except to endlessly tout their
exceptional talents, an obviously selfserving device with no pedagogical value.
Was lifelong, daily, total dedication to
piano, at the exclusion of everything else,
the only way?
This book (FOPP) originated in 1978
when I took our daughter to her piano
lesson with Mlle. Yvonne Combe (see
back cover). After a few years of lessons,
our two daughters were progressing at
unbelievable speed, which we attributed to
their "exceptional musical talents". During
this lesson, the teacher took out a book
with lesson pieces arranged according to
difficulty, for choosing a new piece to
study. Combe said "Choose whatever you
want!!!" and my daughter looked all over
7

insights on practice methods from all

these sources into FOPP. Books with
significant useful information have been
labeled "must read" in the reviews [(83)
Book Reviews: General Comments].
As a scientist, I knew that organizing
the material into a logical, scientifically
sound structure was the only way to write
a useful textbook that did not contain fatal
flaws such as false assumptions, a
common flaw in most piano literature. The
methods were subjected to scientific
scrutiny, with theories of why things work
or not, providing a better understanding of
the underlying principles. My career as a
research scientist was critical to the
creation of FOPP and, together with the
most complete treatment of practice
methods, distinguishes it from every other
book on piano; see (64) Why the Greatest
Pianists Could Not Teach, (66) Scientific
Approach to Piano Practice and (83) Book
Reviews: General Comments. Eliminating
some widely accepted practice methods
based on incorrect assumptions frees up
enough time to not only learn piano, but
also pursue the education needed to
navigate in today's world, or even have a
separate career. The higher education is
necessary for understanding and
teaching piano! I became convinced of
FOPP's potential to help students and
teachers and, since 1999, have made it
downloadable free on the internet. You
can't put a price on a child's opportunities
to learn music.
I did not originate most of the basic
ideas in FOPP. They were re-invented
umpteen times in the 200 years since
Bach, by every successful pianist;
otherwise, they would not have had such
success. The basic framework for FOPP
was constructed using the teachings of
Combe, the teacher of our two daughters
who became accomplished pianists; they

have won many first prizes in piano

competitions and averaged about 10
recitals a year each for ten years; both
have absolute pitch, enjoy composing
music, and have careers in the computer
field.
Some surprising discoveries were
made while writing FOPP. One was that
the efficient practice methods that students
needed most were never adequately
documented. Other discoveries:
Hanon pulled most of his exercises
from Bach's works [(43) Problems with
Hanon Exercises],
Bach based his Inventions on Parallel
Sets [(53) Bach Used Parallel Sets to
Compose His Inventions], [(9) Parallel
Sets (PSs), Conjunctions, Cycling],
Beethoven invented group theory
before mathematicians did [(67) Mozart's
Formula, Beethoven and Group Theory],
the first movement of the Appassionata
is a piano version of Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony
[(58)
Beethoven's
Appassionata, Op. 57, First Movement],
Performance anxiety can be eliminated
using a simple breathing technioque,
etc., see [(73) New Discoveries of this
Book].
Too many students spend 100% of
their time learning new compositions and,
because this process takes so long under
the old teaching systems, there was no
time left to practice the art of making
music and to get a needed general
education. The objective of FOPP is to
make the learning process so fast that we
can allocate 10% of practice time to
technical work and 90% to making music,
an objective first enunciated to me by
Combe.
The Age of Exercises (1900-2000),
epitomized by Hanon's exercises and
Cortot's book (Cortot, Alfred,), is finally
ending because we know much better

methods for technical development. The

age of "you can't play this for ten years
because it is too difficult" is also over; we
can all start making music from day one of
piano lessons and aspire to acquire
significant repertoires of memorized,
performable music within a fixed schedule
of time.
I did not realize how effective the
methods of FOPP were until after I
finished my First Edition book in 1995.
These methods were better than what I had
been using previously and, for years, I had
been applying them with good results. I
experienced my first awakening after
finishing that book, when I read my own
book and followed the methods
systematically -- and experienced their
incredible efficiency! So, what was the
difference between knowing parts of the
method and reading a book? In writing
FOPP, I had to take the various parts and
arrange them into an organized structure
that served a specific purpose and that had
no missing essential components or fatal
errors. It was as if I had most of the parts
of a car but, without a mechanic to
assemble it, find any missing parts, and
tune it up, those parts weren't much good
for transportation. That is a major
advantage of books: everything can be
carefully thought out and organized;
nothing is forgotten. A teacher teaching a
student in real time doesn't have that
luxury; I always remembered important
things that I should have taught (in
science, piano, etc.) after the lessons were
over. Without a good textbook, it is
impossible to convey the information in a
good book in lessons lasting just several
hours a week.
Teachers are better than books because
they can adapt their teachings to fit each
student, but good books can provide more
information than any one super teacher

can hope to know, are always available to

anyone, and cost less. Everyone agrees
that the best system is a good teacher with
good books, as practiced at all schools and
universities. Can you imagine your school
or university teaching without textbooks?
Piano teaching got away without genuine
textbooks for so long because it was based
on talent instead of knowledge. Where
would our civilization be today, if all
institutions of learning were based on
student talent instead of knowledge, where
each student had to rediscover algebra,
science, history, etc., on his own, without
books and with only the teacher's memory
as the source of information?
FOPP is not a dogmatic set of
practice rules; it is a collection of tools
for solving technical problems.
It
empowers students to create their own
practice routines because each individual
is different. It is about growth into
independent,
self-sufficient,
mature
individuals and musicians who control
their own futures, instead of career
students waiting for instructions.
Music, the ability to memorize a large
repertoire, and IQ are linked. This book
discusses this linkage, see (65) Creating
Geniuses. Learning piano can lower the IQ
(with mindless repetitions of exercises and
cultivating a lazy brain) or raise the IQ by
learning how to memorize, conversing
with the greatest geniuses that ever lived
through their music, increasing brain
stamina and speed, and learning the four
"genius skills": efficient practice
methods (FOPP), mental play [(15)
Mental Play (MP)], absolute pitch
[Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch], and play
by ear [(18) Play by Ear (PBE),
Composing], that we can all learn. It is
astonishing that a majority of teachers
never taught these genius skills -- little
wonder that genius was such a rarity.

In order to understand music theory

and to learn piano, it is helpful to
understand the (76) Chromatic Scale and
piano tuning [Chapter Three Tuning Your
Piano]. Pianists need these types of
knowledge to communicate intelligently
with the piano tuner. Every tuner is
familiar with these subjects, but they run
into impossible problems when the
pianists are not informed, so that the
tuners decide what is best for the pianist.
Bach and Beethoven used specific
temperaments and some temperaments are
problematic with Chopin's music. Today,
you can change temperaments with the
flick of a digital piano switch and
experience the unbelievable sonority of
Beethoven's Waldstein or hear key color
with Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, that
are impossible with even the most
expensive concert grand tuned to today's
standard (Equal) Temperament.
FOPP is only a beginning; future
research will reveal better learning
methods with limitless possibilities.
Today, babies are tested for hearing as
soon as they are born; tomorrow, parents
who want musical children will teach them
Absolute Pitch before they learn the
alphabet, see Absolute Pitch, Relative
Pitch, (65) Creating Geniuses.
Don't worry if you find yourself
reading the same sections several times;
that is normal because the information
density is so high. Today's pianists can
learn so many skills so quickly that no
amount of "inborn talent" can hope to
compete with a properly educated
pianist.

years translating my book, and the

thoughtful readers who contributed
comments.
Here are eye-opening Testimonials;
how teachers evaluated FOPP and how it
affected each pianist. What readers say,
matters.

Acknowledgements: I must thank Dr.

Robert B. Marcus, my supervisor at Bell
Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, who
introduced us to Mlle. Yvonne Combe,
and the volunteers, some of whom spent

10

Every step of this procedure creates

problems, is based on false beliefs and will
limit progress to about the intermediate
level even if the students practice several
hours daily. This method tells the students
nothing about what to do when they hit an
impossible passage except to keep
repeating, sometimes for a lifetime, with
no idea of when or how the necessary
technique will be acquired. A teacher who
can't even play the piano can teach this
method! It leaves the task of acquiring
technique to the student the method
teaches nothing. Moreover, the music will
come out flat during the recital and
unexpected flubs will be almost
unavoidable, as explained in this book. All
these problems are solved using "efficient
practice methods".
The above practice routine seems so
intuitively logical. Although human
intuition helps us solve simple problems,
when it comes to highly developed fields
such as learning piano, intuition can not
compete with learning tricks that past
geniuses have discovered. Without these
learning tricks, students are stuck with
what we shall call "intuitive methods",
that are not based on the most efficient
practice methods. "Talented" students, it
turns out, have teachers, such as Combe,
who know some of the efficient practice
methods, or have discovered them through
a lifetime of dedication to piano, and can
learn unbelievably quickly. Any student
can progress equally quickly if there is a
textbook containing all the known efficient
practice methods. Though "intuition"
generally denotes something good, I have
chosen "intuitive methods" to denote the
old, discredited teaching methods because
the best methods are usually counterintuitive, as we shall see.
There are numerous books on piano
[(83) Book Reviews: General Comments];

CHAPTER ONE
Basic Practice Methods
(1) Practice Routines, the Intuitive
Method
Many students use the following
practice routine:
1. Practice scales or technical
exercises until the fingers are limbered up.
Continue this for 30 minutes or longer if
you have time, to improve technique
especially by using exercises such as the
Hanon series. This is when you can really
work hard to strengthen the fingers.
2. Then take a new piece of music
and slowly read it for a page or two,
carefully playing both hands together,
starting from the beginning. This slow
play is repeated until it can be performed
reasonably well and then it is gradually
speeded up until the final speed is attained.
A metronome might be used for this
gradual ramp-up.
3. At the end of a two hour practice,
the fingers are flying, so the students can
play as fast as they want and enjoy the
experience before quitting. After all, they
are tired of practicing so that they can
relax, play their hearts out at full speed;
this is the time to enjoy the music!
4. Once the new piece can be played
satisfactorily, memorize it and keep
practicing "until the music is in the
hands"; this is how you make sure that it is
memorized.
5. On the day of the recital or lesson,
practice the piece at correct speed (or
faster!) as many times as possible in order
to make sure it is in top condition. This is
the last chance; obviously, the more
practice, the better.

11

they all teach what you should play, such

as scales, trills, a Mozart sonata, etc., but
they seldom teach how to acquire
technique so you can play them. This book
is a compilation of practice methods for
acquiring technique with explanations of
why certain methods work while others
don't. Without the explanations, there is no
way to know if a method works or not.
Just because a teacher used the method for
30 years is not a valid explanation because
so many of them have turned out to be
wrong. Textbooks will free teachers from
having to teach the mechanics of
practicing and allow them to concentrate
on music where the teachers are needed.
Piano teachers know that students
must practice musically in order to acquire
technique. Both musicality and technique
require accuracy and control. Practically
any technical flaw can be detected in the
music. Nonetheless, many students tend to
practice neglecting the music, preferring to
"work" when no one is around to listen.
Their reasoning is, "I'll practice nonmusically (which is easier because you can
shut off the brain) until I can play it well,
then I'll add the music." This never works
because learning piano is all about training
the brain, not finger calisthenics. Such
practice methods produce "closet pianists"
who love to play but can't perform [(42)
Musicality, Touch, Tone, Color].
Using efficient practice methods,
you can learn in less than five years, what
you might achieve in fifty diligent years
using the "practice, practice, practice"
(intuitive) approach. This book is not
claiming that it will transform you into
Mozarts, Beethovens or Chopins, although
that can't be ruled out. It only claims that
you can learn to play their music with
ease.

(2) Bench Height, Distance from

Piano, Posture
The bench height should be set so
that the elbows are slightly below the level
of the keys when the upper arms are
hanging straight down with the hands on
the keyboard in playing position. Sit on
the front half of the bench, not in the
center, and at a distance from the piano
such that the body does not interfere with
the elbows when they move towards each
other in front of the chest. For beginners,
benches with fixed height will not be
problematic because they can adapt to a
range of heights.
Low bench height has the advantage
that it makes it easier to lift the fingers,
especially the 4th, and it may allow a
straighter wrist, thus reducing the chances
of contracting carpal tunnel syndrome.
The shoulders will be closer to the keys,
providing a wider reach and the head will
be closer to the keys, providing a more
intimate feel of the keys. It also makes it
easier to sit with a straight spine and to sit
farther away from the piano, which
provides more elbow space. Sitting lower
is more compatible with many techniques
such as (21) Forearm Rotation, using the
Power Thumb [(31) Thumb, Most
Versatile Finger, Power Thumb] or the flat
finger positions [(4) Curled and Flat
Finger Positions, Curl Paralysis], etc. It
also allows the use of forearm rotation to
rotate the wrist rapidly.
Posture is important: a high position
can cause the players to hunch their backs,
so that a conscious effort must be made to
sit straight up. Massage therapists know
that a crooked spine, head leaning
forward, can cause long-term problems
from stress.
The high position makes it easier to
lean forward and exert downward pressure
with the shoulders for loud passages. It
12

may also make it easier to prevent "hand

collapse" (HC), which is a controversial
subject because the different types of HC
have not been clearly defined, although
HC is prominently discussed in several
books.
Whatever advantages/disadvantages
there are to different bench heights, they
can be compensated by an adjustment in
wrist position. In addition, each person has
different ratios of the lengths of the spine,
upper arm , etc., so that bench height alone
does not determine the optimum position.
Bench height becomes important for
advanced pianists; thus the best time to
test for optimum height is at the advanced
level. More factors favor the lower
position, so that the optimum position is
probably one with the elbow one to two
inches below the keyboard. This will make
most commercial non-adjustable benches
too high by several inches. Adjustable
benches are highly recommended.
A majority of teachers and books
recommend sitting with the elbow at the
level of the keys and a few, especially the
older ones, recommend higher positions.
Many concert pianists sit high, probably
because they had teachers who preferred
the high position, and became accustomed
to it. The lower position is recommended
here because it has more advantages.

are too young for Chopin. Then there is

kiddie music for the youngest: kiddie
music exists only in the minds of adults.
Children of any age can appreciate good
music and perform them; there isn't a
single reason why children should be held
back.
Of course, beginners need Beginner
books,, (Humphries, Beyer, Thompson,
Faber & Faber, etc.) to learn the necessary
conventions and basic music theory. There
is no need to go through every page, just
pick up those elements that are new to
you. With the practice methods of this
book, the student can start with
performable music that may present
challenges, but such challenges are just
what is needed to learn how to use these
methods. Exercise/lesson books such
Hanon, Czerny, Cramer-Bulow, Dohnanyi
Exercises, Cortot, etc., are obsolete. There
are pianists who were raised on such
exercises that still teach them and they are
certainly not worthless, but there are better
methods. There is plenty of easy starter
music that are performable, such as
Magdalena's
Easy
Bach,.
Most
importantly, choose the music that you
like. We shall choose Beethoven's Fr
Elise (Sheet Music,) to illustrate the
practice methods because it can be learned
very quickly using these methods and
contains all the elements needed to
illustrate them.
Listen to recordings of pieces you
decide to learn. This is the fastest way to
learn musicality and improve technique. It
is a great way to gather musical ideas, and
explore new material. Listen to several
recordings of the same piece. Your teacher
should be able to play and demonstrate for
you; it is better to have teachers who can
play your pieces.
Next, analyze the structure of the
piece and estimate how long it will take to

(3) Starting a Piece

Learn only music that you can
perform. The days of "years of exercises
and
lesson
pieces
for
technical
development" are over. Start assembling a
repertoire immediately; the list of great
music containing technical lessons is
effectively infinite, so you don't need
anything else! It is never too early to
practice performances; it is never too early
to make music. One of the most harmful
comments I have heard is that youngsters
13

learn it these are necessary components

of (59) Project Management; advanced
pianists become experts in project
management. If you can not estimate the
completion time, it means that you do not
know all the practice methods needed to
learn the piece. Of course, the estimate
will be wrong, but the exercise of
estimating teaches you what practice
methods are needed.
Without the
estimate, there is a chance that you will
never finish the piece; however, no music
is ever finished, so how do you know you
finished it? The performance! Once it is
performed successfully, it is finished.
Start analysis by numbering all the
bars. There are two versions of Fr Elise
sheet music differing in the way the
repeats are indicated, which changes the
bar numbers but does not change the
music. I am using the long version with
124 full bars. The short version has (105)
bars; the ( ) indicates the bars for the
shorter version. The first 4 bars are
repeated 15 times, so that by learning 4
bars, you can play 50% of the piece!
Another 6 bars are repeated 4 times, so by
learning 10 bars, you can play 70% of the
piece. This 70% can be memorized in less
than 30 minutes because these 10 bars are
simple. There are two interruptions among
these repetitions that are more difficult for
a total of 50 distinct bars to learn. Each of
the difficult sections can be memorized in
one day, so you can memorize the entire
piece in three days. Give yourself two
more days to practice (additional
instructions are given below), and you
should be able to play the piece (with
questionable quality) in a week. How long
it will take you to polish this piece so that
it is performable will depend on your skill
level and knowledge of practice methods.

(4) Curled and Flat Finger Positions,

Curl Paralysis
The curled position has been
defined in the literature as the "relaxed"
natural position of the fingers when you
hang the hands down your sides. This
works for pianists who have been playing
for years, but how a two-year-old, or a
golfer, or swimmer, who had never played
piano, would hang the hands can be any
position. To properly define the curled
position, place both hands on a tabletop,
about a foot apart, palm side down. Form
domes with the hand and fingers as if you
are holding softballs, with finger tips
touching the table. The right and left
thumb nails should point towards the left
and right shoulders, respectively. This is
the starting position for the fingers and is
called the curled position because the
fingers are curled over the imaginary ball.
The advantages of the curled
position are that it: provides firm control
of each finger, facilitates playing between
black keys, and aligns the fingers close to
a straight line so that all keys are played at
about the same distance from their pivots
[balance rail, see (80) Grand Piano Action
Diagram]. Those with long fingers find it
necessary to curl fingers 2-4 more in order
to play the thumb. The disadvantages are:
(1) you play with the fingertips that are
easy to injure and do not provide sufficient
padding for better control of touch or
playing FFF and PPP; two types of finger
tip injuries can occur with the curled
position, see (60) Injury, Health, (2) the
downstroke requires precise control of
complex sets of muscles, (3) it is easy to
miss black keys because the finger tip area
is small, and (4) it suffers from curl
paralysis.
To demonstrate curl paralysis,
stretch any finger (except the thumb)
straight out and wiggle it up and down as
14

if depressing a piano key. Then gradually

curl the finger, keeping the same wiggle
motion as before. Note that the maximum
wiggle decreases with increasing curl:
paralysis increases with curl.
One unusual position is the
"collapsed" position in which the last
phalange (nail phalange) is bent outwards,
instead of the "normal" straight or slightly
curled. There is no evidence that this
position is harmful, and it has the
advantage of playing more with the front
pad of the finger. Furthermore, the muscle
to this phalange can be relaxed because
tendons naturally limit the outward
motion, thus simplifying finger motions
and increasing Relaxation. Although some
teachers abhor this position because it
looks unnatural, there is no known reason
why it is bad and has advantages. Trying
to "correct" this position can create terrible
problems.
The curled position must be taught,
especially to beginners, but there are many
other positions that must be studied. Each
pianist has his own natural position so that
forcing every student to adopt a single
"standard" curled position is a common
mistake of older teaching methods that can
significantly slow down a student's
progress.
When both black and white keys are
played, the black keys should be played
with less curl because they are higher. We
shall call the family of non-curl positions
the Flat Finger Positions (FFP) - see
Prokop, P.13-15 for FFP photos.
(1) The most extreme FFP is the
straight flat position: all fingers are
stretched straight out. It is the way V.
Horowitz played and has the advantages
that: the keys are played with the front
pads of the fingers which reduces the
probability of injuries from long practice
sessions, and the keystroke motion is the

simplest of all positions, requiring use of

the smallest number of muscles. This
facilitates relaxation. The finger contact
areas with the keys are maximized,
reducing the probability of missed notes,
and you can feel the keys with the most
sensitive front pads of the fingers. The
sensitivity gives more tone control
whereas, with the curled position, you are
restricted to one tone which tends to be
harsher. Because it is simpler, and does
not suffer curl paralysis, you can play
faster; however, the fastest position is one
in which you play the black keys FFP and
the white keys curled because this places
every finger closest to its key. FFP
increases the reach and reduces
interference from the fingernails.
Proponents of the curled position
argue that it is the strongest position
because of the arch shape; this is false
because athletes who do hand stands use
the front pads, not the fingertips; thus the
FFP is the stronger position.
Nomenclature: Phalange (also called
phalanx; plural is always phalanges) is the
name for the finger bones beyond the
knuckle; they are numbered 1-3 (thumb
has only 1 and 3), and the 3rd phalange is
the "nail phalange" (see Prokop, P. 101).
With FFP, the tendons under the
finger bones hold the fingers straight when
playing. Unlike the curled position, no
effort is needed to keep the fingers straight
because tendons limit the amount of
backwards bending. There are pianists
whose nail phalange naturally bends
backwards (collapsed position). There is
nothing wrong with this and it does not
interfere with FFPs. Learn to use these
tendons to help with relaxation. The nail
phalange should always be relaxed. The
relaxed 3rd phalange also acts as a shock
absorber. When playing fortissimo with
curled fingers, both the extensor and flexor

15

muscles must be controlled in order to

hold the curled position. In FFP, the
extensors are relaxed and only the flexors
are needed, reducing stress and
simplifying the motion. Thus the curled
position is complex and requires a good
fraction of a lifetime to learn properly,
whereas the FFP is more natural. That is
why self taught pianists tend to use more
FFP.
The best way to practice FFP is to
play the B major scale, in which fingers
2,3,4 play the black keys and 1,5 play the
white for both hands. Since 1 & 5 should
not generally play the black keys in runs (a
fingering rule), this is exactly what you
want for practicing FFP.
Play FFP with the palm of the hand
almost touching the keys. This increases
accuracy because you know exactly where
the keys are. FFP legato is easier and
different from legato using the curled
position because the curled position
produces a harsher tone. It is easier to play
two notes with one finger FFP because the
finger can be turned at an angle to the keys
so that the large area under the finger can
play two keys. Because Chopin was
known for his legato, was good at playing
several notes with one finger, and
recommended practicing the B major
scale, he probably used FFP. Combe
taught FFP and noted that it was
particularly useful for playing Chopin.
One legato trick she taught was to start
with FFP and then curl the finger so that
the hand can move from white to black
keys without lifting the finger off the key.
Parts of the Bach Inventions are good for
practicing FFPs, suggesting that he
composed them with both FFP and curl in
mind.
The freedom to play with any
amount of curl is a necessary technique.
One disadvantage of the curled position is

that the extensor muscles are not

sufficiently exercised, causing the flexor
muscles to strengthen and even overpower
the extensors. In FFP, the unused flexor
muscles are relaxed; in fact, the associated
tendons are stretched, which makes the
fingers more flexible. There are numerous
accounts of the extraordinary flexibility of
Liszt's fingers. Liszt used FFP to improve
tone (Boissier, Fay, Bertrand). Because of
the tradition of teaching mostly the curled
position, many older concert pianists
under-use the FFPs and had to work
unnecessarily hard to acquire technique.
(2) Another FFP is the pyramid
position in which all the fingers are
straight, but are bent down at the knuckles.
This has the advantage that the
downstroke action is simpler than for the
curled position. Some pianists feel
naturally relaxed with this position. If you
are not naturally comfortable with this
position, there is no need to learn it.
(3) The spider position is similar to
the pyramid, except that the bend occurs
mostly at the first joint after the knuckle.
As with the pyramid position, the main
reason for using this position is that it is a
natural position for that pianist. Many
pianists are unable to use this position, so
don't be concerned if you can not. Of all
the FFPs, the spider position may be the
most versatile. The insect kingdom
adopted this position after hundreds of
millions of years of evolution.
Chopin's legato is documented to be
particularly special, as was his staccato. Is
his staccato related to the FFP? Note that
all the FFPs take advantage of the spring
effect of the relaxed third phalange, which
might be useful in playing staccato.
It is easier to play FFP when the
bench is lowered. There are numerous
accounts of pianists discovering that they
can play better with a lower bench height

16

(Horowitz and Glenn Gould). They claim

to get better control, especially for
pianissimo and speed.
Don't worry if you can't use all these
positions. Use those that are comfortable,
natural positions for you. The purpose of
these discussions is to caution teachers
against forcing every student to use one
idealized curled position because that can
create problems. Each hand is different
and each position has advantages and
disadvantages that depend more on the
person than on the position.
In summary, Horowitz had good
reasons to play with flat fingers and the
above discussions suggest that part of his
higher technical level may have been
achieved by using more FFPs than others,
and sitting low. Although the curled
position is necessary, the statement "you
need the curled position to play technically
difficult material" is misleading what we
need is flexible fingers. Playing with FFPs
liberates us to use many useful and
versatile finger positions. We now know
how to play all those black keys,
especially arpeggios, and not miss a single
note. Thank you, Johann, Frederic, Franz,
Vladimir, Yvonne (Combe)!

Learning reading is always a struggle

initially for beginners. Teachers should not
help them by showing them the keys; let
them struggle to find the keys because
everybody must go through this stage.
Start with easy material, making sure that
the student has learned each material well
before proceeding to the next. During the
reading lesson, make sure that the student
is actually reading and has not memorized
the keys, by assigning new material;
instruct the parents not to help them also
while practicing at home.
The time signature at the beginning
of each composition looks like a fraction,
consisting of a numerator and a
denominator. The numerator indicates the
number of beats per measure (bar) and the
denominator indicates the note per beat.
For example, 3/4 means there are three
beats per measure and each beat is a
quarter note. Knowing the time signature
is critical when accompanying or playing
in a group because the moment that the
accompanist starts is determined by the
starting beat which the conductor indicates
with the baton. This beat is indicated in the
sheet music it is frequently not the first
beat of a measure! The key signature
indicates the key in which the music is
written and appears before the time
signature. It indicates the locations of the
sharps and flats.
Do not take extended reading lessons
just to learn all the music notations
because you won't remember them months
later when you need them. Learn to read
music notations as they are encountered in
new compositions you learn, or when
practicing scales and arpeggios. Teachers
must balance the students' abilities to read
and to memorize, which is treated in (14)
Memorizing, Close Your Eyes and Play.
The most important rule for
fingering is that, for the same or similar

(5) Reading, Fingering

Beginners who know nothing about
reading, fingering, or how to start learning
piano, should use the Beginner books,
where they can find the beginner
information including fingerings (Beyer
does not tell you that thumb is finger #1
and pinky is #5!). Here are the fingerings
for scales and arpeggios: (29) Scales:
Nomenclature and Fingerings; they should
be practiced until they become automatic
habits. Thumb is rarely asked to play the
black keys because that places the other
fingers too close to the fallboard.

17

passages, always use the same fingering.

Changing the fingering after you have
partially learned a section is a major
decision because getting rid of old habits
and establishing new ones takes a lot of
work. During a performance, the old
habits can suddenly pop up and result in a
flub.
The standard fingerings are generally
not indicated in the sheet music and they
do not always work depending on what
comes before and after, in which case you
need non-standard fingerings; these are
generally indicated in most sheet music.
Although some indicated fingerings may
seem awkward at first, you will find that
they are needed when you get up to speed
and play hands together.
For the Fr Elise, look for editions
that have the non-standard fingerings
indicated. Bar 52 (31 short version) RH,
can be played 2321231 where the 3212 is
the turn, or 3432131.

fatigue because one hand is always resting.

When a hand that had been working hard
is rested, it is initially tired and sluggish.
As it rests, it recovers and becomes reenergized and eager to play this is the
best time to switch hands because it can
perform miracles. Rest it longer, and it
will cool off and become sluggish again.
Thus you must learn from experience, the
best time to switch hands; the shortest
times are about 10 seconds. Depending on
the conditioning of the hands, the degree
of difficulty, etc., this rest time can be
longer. The best switching time is the
shorter of the optimum rest time of the
resting hand and the "tiring time" of the
working hand.
HS practice is simpler than HT
because most of the learning is confined to
one hemisphere of the brain for each hand.
HT practice involves both hemispheres
which is more complex and takes longer to
learn. HT is a separate skill [(37) Hands
Together] that must be practiced after all
HS work is done. It is best to learn one
skill at a time because, if two skills are
practiced simultaneously, difficulties in
one skill can prevent progress in the other.
A critically important HS skill is
experimentation. This ability is what
separates the mature musician from the
perpetual student. It is impossibly difficult
to experiment with new hand motions
when practicing HT. Experimentation
consists of two phases: diagnosing the
problem and then solving it, as
demonstrated throughout this book.
HS practice is used to increase your
brain speed. Beginners can't play fast
because every brain has its speed limit: it
has never been asked to work faster. This
limit is different from (12) Speed Walls
that are limited by lack of technique. Just
because you have heard music at high
speeds
doesn't
mean
that
your

(6) Hands Separate (HS) Practice

Technique is acquired most quickly
using hands separately (HS) practice for
music that is difficult and require technical
development. If it can be played hands
together (HT) at final speed, skip HS
work, and you are done. Beginning
students should practice everything HS
just to learn the methodology. Easy
sections that don't require HS work will be
completed very quickly, so little time is
wasted. For difficult material, separating
the hands speeds up the learning process
by allowing the application of a myriad of
learning tricks that are major topics
throughout this book.
To practice HS, choose two sections
to practice, one for each hand. Practice one
hand and switch hands as soon as the
working hand gets tired. In this way, you
can work hard 100% of the time without
18

brain/fingers can execute them. Playing

fast will actually alter the brain and its
connections to the hand. When playing
fast for the first time beyond the brain's
old speed limit, you should feel a strange
new sensation like the first time you
learned how to ride a bicycle. At the
highest speeds, this feeling can only be
described as "exhilarating".
Technique can be pushed much
further HS than HT, and is a lot of fun! It
is superior to anything Hanon or any other
exercise can provide. This is the time to
figure out "incredible ways" to play that
piece. The amount of time spent,
working on pieces that have been
completely mastered, is what separates
concert pianists from amateurs, because
this is when you really develop advanced
techniques.
For beginners, HS is mainly for
acquiring technique and getting up to
speed for learning new music quickly. For
advanced players it has a myriad uses
limited only by human imagination. Some
pianists not brought up with HS methods
consider HS to be trivial and unimportant
because it is so easy to learn. In practice,
80% of this book discusses what magic
you can perform when the hands are
separated. HS is trivial only for the
uninformed.
Pianists who never practice HS will
always have a technically weaker LH.
The LH plays passages that require more
strength (the lower hammers and strings
are heavier), but it often lags in speed and
technique because the melodic material in
the RH tend to be technically more
demanding (which is the clearest
demonstration that technique is not finger
strength). The HS method will balance the
hands because you can give the weaker
hand more work.

For passages that one hand can play

better than the other, the better hand is
often your best teacher. To let one hand
teach the other, select a short segment
and play it rapidly with the better hand,
then repeat immediately with the weaker
hand, one octave apart to prevent
collisions. You will discover that the
weaker hand can often "catch on" or "get
the idea" of how the better hand is doing
it. The fingering should be similar but
does not need to be identical, because the
LH is a mirror image of the RH and it is
usually impossible to use the same
fingering. An interesting alternative is to
use mirror notes and identical fingering,
but then the music from the two hands will
not be the same. Once the weaker hand
"gets the idea", gradually wean it off by
playing the weaker hand twice and the
stronger hand once, then three against one,
etc., until the stronger hand is not needed
anymore.
In the intuitive method, both hands
are played together, hoping that the
weaker hand will catch up to the stronger
one. In reality, the opposite happens
because at low speed, nothing happens to
both hands and at high speed, the weaker
hand is playing stressed, forming (12)
Speed Walls while the stronger hand keeps
improving.
This ability of one hand to teach the
other is more important than most people
realize. It works with practically anything
you practice HS. The reason for this broad
applicability is that one hand always plays
something better than the other.

(7) Difficult Sections First,

Segmental Practice, Continuity Rule
Practice the most difficult sections
first because you must spend the most time
there. If the easy sections are practiced
first, the difficult sections will never be
19

learned sufficiently well because time will

run out; that's not just human nature, but
also a time management flaw. Technique
acquisition also suffers because practicing
the difficult sections is what advances
technique. Practice the easy sections first
only if that simplifies the learning of other
sections, as we shall see for Chopin [(55)
Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu, Op. 66,
Polyrhythms].
Segmental practice: Choose two
short segments to practice, one each for
the right (RH) and left hand (LH). The
segments can be any length, down to just
one or two notes, but are generally about
one bar. The shorter the segment, the
easier it is to play, the more times you can
practice it in a given time, and the faster
you can play it without forming bad
habits. Segmental practice, combined with
HS practice, enables experimentation with
new hand motions, etc., that results in a
powerful method for acquiring technique.
Continuity Rule: When choosing a
segment, include the beginning of the next
segment. This overlap of segments, called
a conjunction [(9) Parallel Sets (PSs),
Conjunctions, Cycling], facilitates the
joining of segments later on. The
continuity rule applies to segments of any
length; for example, at the end of the first
movement, include the beginning of the
second movement. A related rule is the
Contiguity Rule: finish each project
before moving on to the next, and finish
related projects first. This means do not
start on a second Beethoven Sonata until
the first one is completely finished;
otherwise, you may never complete either
of them.
Our Fr Elise example has two
sections that are more difficult than the
rest. They are bars 45 (24, short version)
to 56 (35), and 82 (61) to 105 (84). The
first section might be more difficult, so

start with that: bar 53: practice the RH,

including the first four notes of bar 54
(continuity rule); similarly, practice the
LH, including the first chord of bar 54.
The RH fingering is 251515151525,1254.
Repeat this procedure with bar 54. When
satisfactory, connect the two (bars 53, 54),
HS only.
HS and segmental practice are the
most efficient practice methods for
acquiring technique quickly.

(8) Relaxation, Gravity

The human brain can be quite
wasteful. In conducting any activity, the
untrained brain activates many more
muscles than is necessary, often activating
opposing muscles that fight each other, or
neglecting to relax the muscles after their
work is done. This waste gets worse in
difficult or complex situations. For simple
activities, such waste does not matter. In
piano, it can make the difference between
success and failure because we are using
the brain and hands at tasks beyond their
evolutionary capabilities.
Relaxation in piano is not relaxing
all muscles, but relaxing all unnecessary
muscles so that the necessary ones can do
their job; the necessary ones are frequently
asked to work extremely hard. We also
need to quickly relax the working muscles
as soon as their work is done in order to
reduce fatigue and to prevent interference
with subsequent movements. This is called
rapid relaxation; the relaxation speeds
must match the keystroke speeds for the
system to work. This requires conscious
practice, because it is not normally
required.
All pianists have experienced the
phenomenon in which there is no progress
for extended periods of practicing difficult
material until suddenly, you can play it.
What happened? There are various causes
20

such as discovery of [(36) Hand Motions],

but the most common cause is relaxation
which produces a positive feedback loop:
you have become good enough to relax;
the more you relax, the better you can
play, and the better you can play, the more
you can relax, etc. Incorporating relaxation
from the beginning immediately starts this
positive feedback, greatly accelerating
technique acquisition.
The realization that relaxation is
important has spawned various schools of
teaching, such as the arm weight method.
Getting bogged down in such methods is
not a good idea because they mostly
emphasize what you shouldn't do over
what you should do because the material is
not sufficiently understood. Instead,
understanding the basic principles is
better. The arm weight is important in
piano because humans evolved with
muscle strengths that match gravity
exactly. Accordingly, the piano was
designed with all required forces as close
to gravity as possible. Students not taught
relaxation can press down on the piano
constantly or tense their muscles most of
the time, especially when practicing
difficult material. Gravity provides a
constant reference force of exactly the
correct magnitude against which to
measure the level of relaxation. This
answers the question "how do I know if I
am relaxed?" You are relaxed when you
can feel gravity pulling on your body and
hands.
This has led to the concept of the
gravity drop. Raise your hand four to ten
inches above the keyboard and drop it on
one key with one finger, letting gravity
pull the hand down, as if the hand is going
to fall right through the keyboard. At the
bottom of the keydrop, stiffen the finger so
that the keyboard stops the hand and the
finger is supporting the hand; then

immediately relax the hand. If sufficiently

relaxed, you will feel gravity pulling the
hand down. If done correctly, you were
relaxed during the fall and the finger
accelerates through the keydrop, which is
the process of "playing deeply into the
keys" to produce a deep tone [(42)
Musicality, Touch, Tone, Color].
The gravity drop is not the way to
play the piano, but is useful for illustrating
relaxation, and everybody should practice
it. A rising elbow is often an indication of
stress; when this happens, relax by
allowing gravity to pull the elbows (and
shoulders) down.

(9) Parallel Sets (PSs), Conjunctions,

Cycling
Parallel Set (PS) practice, also
called chord attack, provides the fastest
way to increase finger speed. PSs are
groups of notes that can be played
simultaneously with one hand, such as
12345 or 1324 and every note appears
only once. They are played in order from
left to right.
Let's play a two-note PS, 23. Play
middle C and D with RH fingers 2 and 3,
one after the other. You can speed up this
PS by playing them like grace notes. It can
be played even faster by dropping the hand
onto the keys, but letting 2 land slightly
ahead of 3. You can increase the speed
even more by letting 3 land closer and
closer to 2. At the limit when they land
together, you are playing at a
mathematically infinite* speed!
*In mathematics, infinity is defined
as inf. = 1/n, n 0; "infinity is one divided
by n, as n approaches zero". With PSs, you
are
conducting
this
mathematical
operation on the piano using a two-note
PS. Speed = 1/delta where delta is the time

21

difference between the two fingers. As

speed increases delta decreases, until it
becomes zero when the two notes are
played as an interval.

keys. Then raise the hand to play the next

quad.
As you increase speed (chord quads),
stress should start to build up. Then stop
speeding up (or even slow down slightly)
and relax the whole body (and hand) as
you play, breathing comfortably. As you
add relaxation, you should feel the stress
draining out of the hand as you keep on
playing. This is how relaxation is
practiced! Switch hands as soon as it starts
to feel tired and begins to slow down. The
rested hand should be eager to play and it
can now play faster than before.
To transition from quad chords to
fast PSs, substitute the last chord of a
chord quad with a fast PS:

In practice, nobody can play

infinitely fast because no one has such
accuracy the accuracy in playing
intervals determines the fastest speed that
the pianist can play, so it is necessary to
practice playing accurate intervals in order
to achieve hyper-speeds using PSs.
Let's apply PSs to speeding up the
Alberti construct CGEG. The objective is
to to play any number of CGEG in
succession, at any desired speed, such as
in the 3rd movement of Beethoven's
Moonlight. LH: start with 5 on C3 and
play 5131. Play it as fast as you can.
Remember this speed and we will compare
it to the final speed after applying the PS
method. Since we need something for the
RH so that we can switch hands, let's do
the same with the RH: with 1 on C4, play
CGEG,1535, as fast as you can play
accurately, and again, remember this speed
(measure it with a metronome).
LH: start with the simplest PS, two
notes, 51. Practice in units of four PS
repeats called a quad: 51,51,51,51. When
this is satisfactory, practice four quads in
succession: quad,quad,quad,quad, until the
hand tires or stress starts to build up
(perhaps 10 seconds), then switch hands
and repeat a similar procedure for the RH.
"Satisfactory" means final speed of about
a quad per second (slower for beginners),
relaxed and easy.
For increasing speed quickly,
practice "chords" instead of PSs. Play both
51 notes simultaneously as an interval or
chord, and practice rapid chord quads.
Play each quad in one down movement of
the hand, keeping all fingers close to the

(chord,chord,chord,chord)

(chord,chord,chord,PS),
keeping the repeat rate the same
within each quad. Once this is satisfactory,
substitute two PSs, etc., until the entire
quad is PSs. This method enables you to
transition immediately to fast PSs, because
the chord and fast PS are similar.
Next let's try three-note PSs. LH:
513, RH: 153, and repeat the above
procedure. Play all three notes in one
down movement of the hand and practice
the PSs in quads. Start with 513 chord
quads if you have difficulties with the PSs.
Complete this practice for both hands.
Conjunction: the final note in the
CGEG is a repeat note and cannot be
practiced as a PS (see definition of PSs at
the beginning of this section). This G
connects the PS, CGE, to the notes that
follow, so it is called a conjunction.
Conjunctions are what slow you down
you cannot play conjunctions infinitely
fast. In order to practice fast conjunctions,
we introduce the concept of:
Cycling, also called looping, is a
procedure in which the same short
segment is cycled over and over
22

continuously: CGEG,CGEG,CGEG, . . . . .
.. In this case, we can cycle without adding
new notes. We say that CGEG is selfcycling because it has a built-in
conjunction G.
To enable rapid cycling, you may
need to practice the PS EG and then GEG.
Now
cycle
the
CGEG
twice:
CGEG,CGEG with no pause in between.
This step is facilitated by using the
continuity rule [(7) Difficult Sections
First, Segmental Practice, Continuity
Rule]: when practicing CGEG, include the
first note of the next cycle and practice
CGEGC. So practice CGEGC quads. Then
practice
cycling
CGEG
twice
CGEG,CGEGC, then three times, etc. Play
one CGEGC with one down motion of the
hand. Finally practice cycling quads - now
you are playing a quad of quads. Why
always quads? In general, if you can do a
quad comfortably, relaxed, you can play
an indefinite number.
You are done! Now compare your
new speed with what you did before
applying the PS methods. A person who is
experienced with these methods would
start with CGE chord quads, then CGE PS
quads, then CGEGC quads, then CGEG
cycling, and finish the process in minutes.
This is repeated several days in a row,
until the final speed is faster than needed.
Cycling is pure repetition, but it is a
device to minimize repetitive practicing.
Use cycling to acquire technique so
rapidly that it eliminates unnecessary
repetitions. In order to avoid picking up
bad habits, change speed and experiment
with different (36) Hand Motions for
optimum play and always practice
relaxation. Do not cycle the exact same
thing too many times because that's how
you pick up bad habits. Over 90% of
cycling time should be at speeds that you
can handle comfortably and accurately, for

reasons to be explained in Post Practice

Improvement, Sleep, Fast/Slow Muscles.
You are done when you can play at any
speed for any length of time, completely
relaxed, and with full control. Then cycle
down to slow speeds because you might
find that certain intermediate speeds give
trouble. Practice those speeds because they
may be needed when you start HT.
If a technique requires 10,000
repetitions (typical for really difficult
material), cycling allows you to get them
done in the shortest possible time.
Representative cycle times are about 1
sec., so 10,000 cycles is less than 4 hours.
If you cycle this segment for 10 min. per
day, 5 days a week, 10,000 cycles will
take almost a month. Clearly, very
difficult material will take many weeks to
learn even when using the best methods.
This explains why students without proper
guidance can practice for years without
significant improvement.
Cycling is potentially the most
injurious piano practice procedure. Don't
over-do it the first day, and see what
happens the next day. If nothing is sore, or
you don't detect bad habits or non-musical
tendencies the next day, you can increase
the cycling practice time.
The general rule for applying PSs is
to break up each difficult passage into as
large PSs as possible, e.g., 513 for
practicing 5131. If this is too difficult, then
break it up into smaller PSs, e.g., 51, 13,
and 31.
PSs accomplish two objectives: (1)
train the brain to handle high speeds
(untrained brains are totally lost at new
high speeds), and (2) increase speed as
quickly as possible. For those brains that
had never experienced such high speeds,
you should briefly experience a strange
sensation as the brain digests the
implications of the higher speeds and

23

adapts to the new capabilities, just like the

feeling you get when you first learn to ride
a bicycle, ski parallel, or swim on your
own. Playing fast PSs necessarily
positions the hands and fingers for high
speed. The "Parallel" in PSs means that all
the playing fingers move simultaneously
(in parallel). The higher brain speed means
that, when performing, you must be aware
that the brain speed of the average
audience is slower, and adjust your speed
accordingly.
PSs are generally not how you play
classical piano (they have been used in
jazz, blues, etc.). They only bring you
closer to the final technique quickly. The
rest of this book provides the remaining
steps for converting PSs to actual
technique.
PS exercises are not mindless
repetitions; they are still part of music
and must be practiced musically, which
means that anyone hearing you practicing
PSs will admire that gorgeous piano
sound. It means practicing softly, with
attention to musicality. This is possible
because you never spend too much time on
any one PS exercise; it solves your
problems quickly, so that you can move
on.
For the Fr Elise, you might cycle
bars 1-6, then cycle 6-10 (9 short version).
Then 17-20 (10-13) including the first note
of 21 (14), then 21-22 (14-15), etc.; try to
figure out the rest by yourself.
For bar 53 (32), practice the RH PSs
25 and 15, then 52 and 51, then 251, 152,
and 151. Bar 54 (33) RH contains three
PSs; don't forget the continuity rule.
Similarly, bar 100 (79) has three PSs, 123,
135, and 432. To practice the chromatic
scale of bar 103 (82), practice PSs 31, 13,
131, 313. The rest should be obvious, and
you now have all the preliminary
technique to play the whole piece.

(10) Parallel Sets Catalogue

A unique property of Parallel Sets
(PSs) is that they are both diagnostic tests
for discovering weaknesses and methods
for correcting them. A beginner should
fail all the tests! Even for advanced
players, PSs are used only when they fail
the test. They are not exercises in the
conventional sense to be practiced
repeatedly, wasting time. They are used
only when necessary to solve problems.
Once solved, you have gained a technique
for life you never have to repeat that
procedure again, unlike the Hanon type
exercises that are repeated all your life
with little assurance that they will solve
your problems. Below are the major PSs
listed in order of complexity with
explanations of their properties and how to
use them. They are listed using a
representative member, such as 1111 (four
repeats, a "quad", of the thumb),
representing all repeats.
There is no need to practice all the
PSs because you create just the PS you
need depending on the problem, and there
are too many of them. Study a few until
you understand the concept.
PS #1: 1111, the repetition. This
"PS" is somewhat of a misnomer because
it contains no PS, but is a necessary
member of the family of PS exercises.
It is the simplest, but is the most
important. Because of its simplicity, it is
too often ignored, and therefore not
understood. It is used at the beginning of
practically every PS session to separate
out the motions of the large members
(arms, hands, body, etc.) from the smaller
motions of the fingers. Practice it as quads
of quads: 1111,1111,1111,1111, four
quads in rapid succession (no rest between
quads) followed by a brief pause. Difficult
material requires a series of PS sessions
24

such that each session prepares you for the

next, and this is the starting PS.
Diagnostic test: increase speed to
more than one quad (1111) per second,
playing comfortably, relaxed. Then two
quads in a row without any pause between
them: 1111,1111, accenting the first of
each quad, then three, etc., until you can
do four quads. Next, do two 4-quads in a
row with a pause between them, then
three, and finally four (16 quads in all, or
about 16 seconds). If you fail, practice it.
The passing criteria depend on the
individual and degree of difficulty. Thus
beginners playing slower pieces may pass
at one quad per two seconds; set the test
speed according to the required final
speed.
Example: use PS #1 to start a twonote PS session with PS 23 of RH (fingers
2 and 3). For actual applications, see (35)
Trills and Tremolos.
Test using PS #1:
play this:
2.3,2.3,2.3,2.3; the 2.3 notation means that
2 and 3 are played simultaneously, as an
interval, not a PS. Play one quad at faster
than one per second. Then four quads in
rapid succession in four seconds. Then, up
to four 4-quads in 16 seconds. There is a
tendency to play louder with increasing
speed, but they must be played softly. If
you fail any of these, practice them. One
might think that once you practice PS #1
for, say, one finger, you have acquired the
repetition skill so that you will never need
PS #1 again. This turns out to be false.
There is a large number of PSs, as we shall
soon see, and the different fingers required
for each PS necessitates that you start with
PS #1 all over again, especially at the
higher speeds. And, you will be increasing
that maximum speed all your life! If you
fail, how do you practice?
Solution: Shorten PS #1 to just two
units: 2.3,2.3. If satisfied, do three, then a

quad. Then two quads, etc., until you can

play 4-quads, comfortably, softly, relaxed.
To increase speed, keep the fingertips
close to the keys and play each quad with
one down motion of the hand, and a
flexible wrist. As you increase speed,
stress will build up and the quads will start
to slow down; the slowing down is a sign
of fatigue it is time to switch hands. The
motions must originate in the body, near
the diaphragm, with small contributions
from every connecting member up to the
fingers. You fail unless you can play
relaxed, see Relaxation. For advanced
material, you may need weeks of work
you need to build stamina, etc. Without
relaxation, this can create (12) Speed
Walls.
As the repetition speed increases, the
fingers/hands/arms will automatically go
into positions that are ideal; PSs will make
sure of that; otherwise, you will not attain
the required speeds. These positions will
resemble those of concert pianists -- after
all, that is why they can play it. Bring your
opera glass and watch the motions of
advanced pianists after you have read this
book. To the untrained observer, a concert
pianist may seem to be doing nothing
unusual, but if you know the hand motions
as explained here, you will see them
executed beautifully. If you pass the 4quad test, you should be able to play the
quads as long and as fast as you want, with
control and without fatigue.
This exercise is important for
practicing accurate intervals and chords,
and this accuracy determines the fastest PS
speed you can play. Since you can always
increase the speed no matter what your
skill level, PS #1 can be useful to everyone
at all times.
PS #2: 123, linear sets.
There are many of these, such as
234, 543, 135, 1354, 12345. When

25

practicing one PS, practice its reverse also.

To practice 123, practice 321; otherwise,
you tend to develop unbalanced technique;
that is, the inability to play 123 well may
be due to the fact that you cannot play 321
well. A right handed golfer should also
practice lefty swings. Otherwise, the body
will become unbalanced, the left hip bone
will weaken while the right will be
stronger than normal, which can result in
osteoporosis of the left hip or bone
fractures and other injuries. Massage
therapists know that unbalanced bodies
can cause numerous problems such as pain
and injuries.
PS #3: 1324, alternating sets.
These are practiced by breaking them
down into smaller PSs; eg, 1324 is
practiced as 13, 32, and 24, or as 132, then
324.
PS #4: 1.3,2.4, compound sets,
where 1.3 is an interval.
These are very difficult. To practice
them, simplify them to 1.3,4, then 1.3,2,
then 1,2.4 and 3,2.4.
PS #5: HT PSs
PSs can be used to practice HT and
to synchronize the two hands. See how
this is used to practice the end of (57)
Beethoven's Pathetique, Op. 13, First
Movement. In this application, the RH
plays normally because it is easier, but the
more difficult LH is simplified into PSs.
Note the importance of PS #1 in this
example. Thus PSs can be used as part of
an outlining program [(38) Outlining,
Beethoven's Sonata #1, Op. 2-1].
PSs #1 to #5 are just samples of the
most common ones. There is an indefinite
number of them and, within each type,
there are many subtypes. This shows how
inadequate older exercises such as Hanon
and Cortot are, in addition to the fact that
they do not apply directly to the music you
are practicing. By contrast, the relevant

PSs are generated directly from the music

you are learning.

(11) Basic Key Stroke; Legato,

Staccato
The basic keystroke consists of 3
main components, the downstroke, hold,
and lift. This might sound like a trivially
simple thing to learn, but it is not because
each component has a method and a
purpose, and the pianist must know how to
use the keys to manipulate the jack,
backcheck, and hammer shank flex
(Askenfelt, Anders, Ed.,). The fact is, few
beginners do it correctly.
The downstroke is what creates the
piano sound; in the correct motion, it must
be a single accelerating motion, yet with
control of the volume. The timing of this
downstroke must be extremely accurate.
The suggestion to "play deeply into the
keys" means the downstroke must not
slow down; it must accelerate all the way
to the bottom so that control over the
hammer is never lost. Practice this by
starting the keystroke slowly rather than
accelerating the end.
The Steinway "accelerated action"
works because it adds acceleration to the
hammer motion by use of a rounded pivot
under the center key bushing [see item 5 in
(80) Grand Piano Action Diagram, where
it is just a felt bushing instead of a rounded
pivot]. This causes the pivot point to move
forward with the keydrop thus shortening
the front side of the key and lengthening
the back side and causing the capstan to
accelerate for a constant keydrop. This
illustrates the importance piano designers
place on accelerating the keydrop in order
to produce good tone. The effectiveness of
the "accelerated action" is controversial
because there are excellent pianos without
this feature - in which case the
acceleration is entirely controlled by the
26

pianist. Obviously, it is more important for

the pianist to control this acceleration than
to depend on the piano. Nonetheless, this
factor might explain the overwhelming
preference of concert pianists for
Steinways. Adding accelerator features to
digitals should be trivial, but may be
meaningless because there is no hammer
shank flex effect. Fast flexor muscles must
be developed for the downstroke, as well
as rapid relaxation after the downstroke.
The hold component holds the
hammer still using the backcheck [item 26
in (80) Grand Piano Action Diagram ] to
accurately control the note duration, which
means that the pianist must maintain a
downward force during the hold. Without
the hold, the hammer can flop around and
cause problems with repeated notes, trills,
etc. Thus the hold is important in a trill.
Beginners will have difficulty with making
quick transitions from the downstroke to a
relaxed hold. Do not push down on the key
during the hold in an attempt to "push
deeply into the piano", because this will
result in stress, pain, and even injury.
Although you may not press down firmly
as a beginner, a student can end up
pressing with incredible force after years
of this bad habit. Gravity is sufficient to
keep the key down and hold the hammer
still with the backcheck. The length of the
hold is what controls color and expression;
therefore it is an important part of playing
musically, and may be the most difficult
component to control.
The lift causes the damper to fall
onto the strings and terminates the sound.
Together with the hold, it determines the
note duration. The lift must be fast in order
to control the note duration accurately. If
the damper is not returned rapidly, it will
make a buzzing sound with the vibrating
string. Therefore, the pianist must develop
fast extensor muscles. Especially when

playing fast, many students forget about

the lift entirely, resulting in sloppy play.
In normal play, the lift of the
previous note coincides with the
downstroke. If you had never practiced
these components before, start practice
with fingers 1-5, C to G, C major scale,
and apply the components to each finger.
To exercise the extensor muscles,
exaggerate the quick lift stroke; practice
rapid lifts with immediate relaxation, not
an isometric high lift and hold.
This basic keystroke practice is
much more important than most students
realize. It is obvious that you aren't going
to play piano this way, so why practice it?
With a minimum of practice, it quickly
becomes an automatic part of how you
play everything, because you will hear the
difference in the music. The basic
keystroke is another justification for the
slow gradual approach to pianism used by
many piano schools such as the arm
weight, Alexander, and Feldenkrais
schools.
Keep all the non-playing fingers on
the keys, lightly. As you speed up the
down and lift strokes, starting at about one
note per second, stress may start to build
up; practice until the stress can be
eliminated. Then gradually speed up to
some comfortable speed at which you can
still practice each component. What is so
magical is that if practiced diligently, the
basic keystroke will be automatically
incorporated into your play when playing
at regular speed. There is no need to worry
about losing these motions because the
difference is clear: the music will
deteriorate if they are not properly
executed.
Now do the same with any slow
music, such as the 1st movement of
Beethoven's Moonlight, HS. If you had
never done this before, HT will initially be

27

awkward because so many components in

both hands must be coordinated. However,
with practice, the music will come out
better, with more control over the
expression
and
the
music.
The
performances will be consistent from day
to day, and technique will progress more
rapidly. Without a good basic keystroke,
different pianos, or pianos that are not in
good regulation, can become impossible to
play because the hammer will flop around
uncontrollably.
In the old schools of teaching,
students were taught to execute correctly
by striving for good touch and tone,
without worrying about jacks or
backchecks. Today's better educated
students must deal with the reality of what
is happening in the piano because that
provides more precise instructions on how
to execute. For example, the implications
of the basic keystroke change for digitals
because they don't have jacks, backchecks,
or hammers, which is one reason why
advanced pianists prefer acoustic pianos.
Still, the basic keystroke must be practiced
with digitals because it is part of good
technique and it is clearly audible.
Legato is smooth play. This is
accomplished by connecting successive
notes do not lift the first note until the
second one is played. Fraser recommends
considerable overlap of the two notes. The
first moments of a note contain a lot of
"noise" so that overlapping notes are not
that noticeable. Since legato is a habit that
must be built into your playing,
experiment with different amounts of
overlap to see how much overlap gives the
best legato for you. If you have already
developed your own habit, it may be
difficult to change; be prepared to work on
this over a long time. Then practice until
the optimized motion becomes a new
habit. Chopin considered legato as the

most important skill to develop for a

beginner. Chopin's music requires special
types of legato and staccato (Ballade Op.
23); you should listen to recordings and
practice them using this Ballade.
Staccato:
Astonishingly, most
books on learning piano discuss staccato,
but never define it! In staccato, the
hammer is bounced off the strings and the
damper is returned immediately onto the
strings so as to produce a brief sound with
no sustain. Therefore, the "hold"
component of the basic keystroke is
missing and the hand is held above the
keys after playing the note, not resting on
the keys. There are two notations for
staccato, the normal (dot) and hard
(filled triangle). In both, the jack [#1 in
(80) Grand Piano Action Diagram] is not
released. In normal staccato, the key drop
is about half way down. In hard staccato, it
is less than half way; in this way, the
damper is returned to the strings faster,
resulting in shorter note duration. The
finger moves down and up rapidly.
Because the backcheck is not engaged, the
hammer can "bounce around", making
staccato repetitions tricky at certain
speeds. Thus if you have trouble with
rapidly
repeated
staccatos,
don't
immediately blame yourself -- it may be
the wrong frequency at which the hammer
bounces the wrong way. By changing the
speed, amount of key drop, etc., you
should be able to eliminate the problem.
In normal staccato, gravity quickly
returns the damper onto the strings (grand
pianos; in uprights, springs are used). In
hard staccato, the damper is bounced off
the damper top rail [(80) Grand Piano
Action Diagram, click on more detailed
diagram link at bottom], so that it returns
even more quickly. At string contact, the
hammer shank flex can be negative, which
makes the effective mass of the hammer

28

lighter; thus a considerable variety of

tones can be produced with staccato.
Therefore, the motions of the hammer,
backcheck, jack, and damper are all
changed in staccato. Clearly, in order to
play staccato well, it helps to understand
how the piano works. Don't blame
yourself when something unexpected
happens because staccato is too complex
to figure out; your only option is to try
different things to see what works.
Staccato is not just a very short note!
Staccato can be divided into three
types depending on how it is played: (i)
finger staccato, (ii) wrist (or hand)
staccato, and (iii) arm staccato which
includes both up-down motion and arm
rotation. As you progress from (i) to (iii),
more mass is added behind the fingers;
therefore, (i) gives the lightest, fastest
staccato and is useful for fast, soft notes,
and (iii) gives the heaviest feeling and is
useful for loud passages and chords with
many notes, but is also the slowest. (ii) is
in between. In practice, most of us
probably combine all three.
Since the wrist and arm are slower
(heavier), their amplitudes must be
correspondingly reduced in order to play
faster staccato. Some teachers frown on
the use of wrist staccato, preferring mostly
finger staccato because of its speed or arm
staccato for its power; however, it is better
to have a choice (or combination) of all
three. For example, you might be able to
reduce fatigue by changing from one to the
other, although the standard method of
reducing fatigue is to change fingers.
When practicing staccato, practice the
three (finger, wrist, arm) staccatos
separately before deciding on which one to
use, or how to combine them.

All pianists have experienced

"speed walls" (SWs). What are they, how
do they form, how many are there, and
how do you eliminate them? Any piano
piece can be played if slowed down
sufficiently. The first order of business
when learning a new piece is to bring it up
to speed. That is when you can encounter
SWs, conditions in which you can't go
above a certain speed, no matter how hard
you practice. SWs form when you practice
incorrectly and create bad habits or build
up stress. Therefore, it is the pianist who
erects SWs. There are as many SWs as bad
habits, basically an indefinite number.
HS practice is an effective weapon
against SWs because most SWs are HT
SWs. The next weapon is segmental
practice because the shorter a segment,
the faster you can play it without
problems. Parallel sets are the most
useful weapons against SWs because you
can start at speeds above the speed wall.
Relaxation is essential at all times, but
especially for avoiding SWs because stress
is a major cause. Outlining is another
effective weapon because it allows the
large motions to be correctly played at
final speed, thus avoiding the SWs in these
motions [(38) Outlining, Beethoven's
Sonata #1, Op. 2-1]. Quiet hands is also
helpful because you generally can not play
quiet hands unless you have the technique
[Quiet Hands & Fingers]. Any method for
increasing the efficiency of motion helps;
thus mixing flat finger and curled
positions, keeping the fingers on the keys,
and the various hand motions such as
glissando, cartwheel, arm rotation, wrist
motion, etc., that are discussed below, are
all needed to prevent SWs. Musical play is
not possible at SWs because you lack
control; thus in principle, if you always
practice musically, you will never
encounter a SW.

(12) Speed Walls

29

A few SWs built up over years may

be difficult to eliminate in a short time.
Early detection of SWs is the key to
removing them quickly. The solution of
last resort for a really stubborn SW is not
to play it, or only playing it slowly, for
weeks or months and learning something
new during that time. Learning new things
is a good way to erase old habits.
SWs form when you try the
impossible. Many teaching methods have
evolved to avoid this problem by slowing
down the learning process. This defeats
the original intent of learning as quickly as
possible. The best solution is to use the
learning tricks of this book that achieve
the objectives without doing anything
impossible.

metronome accompanying you are the

most common abuses. Excessive use of
the metronome leads to non-musical
playing. When the metronome is used for
more than about 10 minutes continually,
the mind will rebel against the enforced
repetition and start to play mental tricks so
that you lose the timing accuracy. For
example, if the metronome emits clicks,
after some time, your brain will create
anti-clicks in your head that can cancel the
metronome click so that you will either not
hear the metronome, or hear it at the
wrong time. This is why most modern
electronic metronomes have a light pulse
mode. The visual cue is less prone to
mental tricks and also interferes less with
playing musically. Another abuse of the
metronome is to use it to ramp up speed;
this abuses the metronome, the student, the
music, and the technique, as explained in
the section on (26) Speed, Rhythm,
Dynamics. The metronome is for setting
the tempo and for checking your accuracy;
it can't teach you musicality. Once the
tempo is set and checked, turn it off.
Electronic metronomes are better
than mechanical ones although some
people prefer the decorative value of the
old models. Electronics are more accurate,
can make different sounds or flash lights,
have variable volume, are less expensive,
are less bulky, have memory functions,
etc. The mechanicals always seem to need
rewinding at the worst possible times.

(13) Metronome
The metronome is one of your most
reliable teachers -- once you start using it,
you will be glad you did. Develop a habit
of using the metronome and your playing
will undoubtedly improve; all serious
students must have a metronome. A
student's idea of tempo is never constant;
it can depend on what he is playing and
how he feels at the moment. A metronome
can show him exactly what these errors
are. An advantage of HS practice is that
you can count more accurately than HT.
Use a metronome to check the speed and
beat accuracy. I have been repeatedly
surprised by the errors I discover, even
after I "finish" a piece. For example, I tend
to slow down at difficult sections and
speed up at easy ones, although I think it is
actually the opposite when playing without
the metronome. Most teachers will check
their students' tempi with it. As soon as the
student gets the timing, turn the
metronome off.
Metronomes must not be over used.
Long practice sessions with the

(14) Memorizing, Close Your Eyes

and Play
Memorizing Procedure: Memorize
every piece of music you learn before
practicing it. While learning any segment
when starting a piece, memorize it. Since a
segment is typically 10 to 20 notes,
memorizing it is trivial and takes very
little time. Then you will need to repeat
30

those segments many times, before you

can play the piece -- that is many more
repetitions than needed to memorize, and
you have expended no extra time. Don't
waste such a priceless, one-time
opportunity! Always memorize first, then
practice only from memory, because this
way of memorizing requires no extra
expenditure of time.
The memorizing process is nearly
identical to the learning process you
can accomplish two things in one process!
Moreover, by memorizing and practicing
at the same time, you actually learn the
piece faster than if you didn't memorize it
because you save time by not having to
look for the sheet music. It also eliminates
the slow process of reading the sheet
music and mentally translating it to what
you are playing, which slows down
technique acquisition. Memorizing saves
time!
The old school of memorizing taught
students to learn to play a piece first and
then memorize it. If you separate the
learning and memorizing processes, you
will have to go through the same
procedure twice (HS, segmental, etc.).
Nobody has the patience or time to go
through such an ordeal; this explains why
those who memorize after they have
learned the piece never memorize as well
as those who memorize first.
Memorizing HS will be useful
during a performance for recovering from
blackouts, etc. There are many more uses
of HS memory that we shall discuss later.
Once a short piece or a movement is
memorized, break it up into logical smaller
sections of about 10 bars each and start
playing these sections randomly. Practice
the art of starting play from anywhere in
the piece. Starting randomly should be
easy because you learned and memorized
in small segments. It is really exhilarating

to be able to play a piece from anywhere

you want and this skill always amazes the
audience.
Once a section is memorized, never
use the sheet music again except for
specific purposes, such as double checking
the memory accuracy or checking the
expression markings. Do not repeat the
same segment too many times because
memory is not reinforced proportionately
to the number of repeats. It is better to
wait 2 to 5 minutes and to re-memorize
again.
Everything you memorize is in the
head indefinitely; this is why savants can
have such miraculous memory. Forgetting
is not loss of memory but the inability to
retrieve information. The most common
cause of memory loss is confusion; instead
of retrieving the right information, the
brain goes to the wrong place and gets
stuck. Memorizing HS is effective because
you are dealing with only one hemisphere
of the brain. HT memory involves both
hemispheres and there are more chances
for confusion. Slow practice is a good
test for memory because there is more
time for the mind to wander around and
get lost. It is also a good way to memorize
because there is time for the material to go
back and forth from brain to hand many
times, to strengthen the memory.
Many students become either good
readers but poor memorizers, or vice
versa. In almost all cases, this happens not
because the students are born that way, but
because of the way they practiced. Once
they become good at reading, they have
less need for memorizing, and can ignore
memory practice. Vice versa for good
memorizers. Teachers must carefully
balance the reading/memorizing abilities
of students at the beginner stage.
For practically all students (including
those who consider themselves to be poor

31

memorizers) the most difficult passages

are played mostly from memory. Nonmemorizers may need the sheet music for
psychological support and small cues here
and there but, in fact, they are playing
difficult passages mostly from memory (if
they can play them). Students who do not
memorize never learn anything well, and
this limits their technical development.
Pianists often close their eyes when
they want to concentrate on playing music
with high emotional content -- they need
all the resources available to produce the
high level of music. When the eyes are
open, a tremendous amount of information
comes into the brain because vision is a
three-dimensional, multi-color, dynamic,
source of high bandwidth video data that
must be immediately interpreted in many
complex ways. These data must be
instantly processed because we must
respond in real time to visual inputs. Thus
a large portion of the brain is preoccupied
with image processing at all times, not just
when driving a car or playing tennis.
Closing the eyes frees up this enormous
amount of brain power for concentrating
on music. Therefore, although most
audiences admire that a pianist can play
with eyes closed, it is actually easier. No
concert pianist will intentionally make
things more difficult for them during a
difficult performance. They close their
eyes because that makes it easier to play.
So, go ahead and play with your eyes
closed and really impress the audience!
Because it is simpler, it can be learned
quickly. Besides, it is a skill any
accomplished pianist should have.
Learning to play with the eyes closed
improves the ability to play with eyes
open, because it requires skills such as
feeling the keys [(28) Jumps, PP, FF,
Feeling the Keys] and listening to your
own playing.

Types of Memory: The best way to

learn how to memorize is to study the best
memorizers. Some savants have superhuman memories, but we do not
understand how their brains work, so they
provide little help except to provide proof
that human brains can perform incredible
feats of memory. However, there are
plenty of ordinary people who are terrific
memorizers that routinely compete in
memory contests. These memorizers have
written articles/books on how to memorize
that you can easily find on the internet.
These accomplished memorizers always
use memory algorithms [(16) Human
Memory Function]. For example, to
memorize a set of numbers, they map
those numbers into a story or scenery that
is easy to remember. The best memorizers
have all been found to have evolved their
own algorithms. Savants probably use
algorithms also; unfortunately, no savant
has been able to tell us what algorithm
they are using; apparently theirs is
something not readily describable in
human languages.
It
is
instructive
to
study
"intermediate" memory feats such as
calendar calculations whereby a person
can name the day of the week for every
date, even thousands of years in the future
or in the past. These are "modulo-A, B, . .
." problems and frequently have trivially
simple
solutions.
For
calendar
calculations, A=leap year, B = month, and
C = week. Simple calculations show that
you need to memorize only a few numbers
to be able to calculate the day of the week
for every date in seconds. Let's examine a
simple modulo case, our number system
(modulo-9) in which we need to memorize
only ten numbers, 0 to 9, in order to write
down and make calculations with numbers
of any size, an amazing feat. Thus these

32

modulo systems can be extremely

powerful. The analog of the calendar
calculation in the number system is the
problem of predicting the last digit of a
very large number, such as 5621. The
answer (1) is trivial in this case, because of
the modulo system. Pianists use the
modulo-12 system (the octave) every time
they play. The audience watches in
wonderment as the pianist runs the entire
span of the keyboard at top speed, because
they don't know that we only need to know
how to play one octave to be able to play
all 88 keys.
There are numerous fascinating types
of algorithms used by super memorizers,
but that subject is outside the scope of this
book. We don't need them for memorizing
music because music itself is an
algorithm! This is partly why all concert
pianists can memorize such large
repertoires - concert pianists are one type
of super memorizer because piano practice
provides them with several algorithms.
Why music is such a good memory
algorithm is not adequately understood;
the answer certainly lies in the fact that
music is a language [(68) Theory,
Solfege].An old man can tell stories for
hours, much as a concert pianist can play
for hours from memory. Thus memorizing
hours of repertoire is nothing unusual for
the average human, if you know how the
brain memorizes.
Historically, music teachers have
not taught memory methods, which
explains why there is such a disparity
between good and poor memorizers
among pianists. The old school of music
pedagogy
had
ascribed
memory
capabilities to talent because teachers did
not know how to teach memory methods.
The first step in studying memory for
piano is listing the ways in which we
memorize: the pianists' algorithms. There

are many types of memory such as

emotional, temporal (when it occurred),
personal (people associated with the
music), spatial (where), historical, etc.;
that is, too many, because memory is
associative [(16) Human Memory
Function]. Here we discuss five types that
are particularly useful for piano with their
algorithms enclosed in ( ):
1. music memory (algorithm: the
music itself),
2. hand memory (combination of the
tactile feel of the playing, auditory inputs
from the piano, muscle reflexes built up
during practice, etc.),
3. keyboard memory (visual location
of the specific keys played),
4. photographic memory (photograph
of sheet music), and
5. theoretical memory (music
structure, theory).
(1) Music memory is based on
melody, rhythm, harmony, expression,
emotion, etc. The algorithm for music
memory is mostly pre-wired in the brain;
you don't need to be a music professor to
enjoy music. Most of music memory is
automatic, because it is associated with
inborn and learned processes already in
the brain. It works best for artistic and
musical types of persons who have strong
feelings associated with their music. Those
with absolute pitch will also do well
because they can find the notes on the
piano from the memory of the music.
Composers use music memory all the
time. The music algorithm is a major
component of memory and therefore
musicality is important for memory.
(2) Hand memory is a habituated
reflex response to mental, auditory, tactile,
etc., inputs acquired from repeated
practice. A large component of any piano
memory is hand memory, also called
muscle memory the hand goes on

33

playing without having to consciously play

each note. Before pianists understood the
concept of associative memory [(16)
Human Memory Function], hand memory
was believed to be the only and best
method of memory - "practice until the
music is in your hands" we were told. We
now know that this belief is wrong.
Everybody must practice common
constructs, such as scales, arpeggios,
Alberti bass, etc., so that the hands can
play them automatically, without having to
think about every note. Hand memory is a
necessary component of memory;
fortunately, it is automatically acquired as
a byproduct of repeated practicing.
Hand memory is unreliable because
it is prone to blackouts (whenever the
normal stimuli change such as at a
performance) and, if you get stuck in the
middle of a piece, there is no way to
restart because the stimuli have
disappeared. Dependance on hand memory
is the source of most piano memory
problems because it relies on reflexes over
which we have little control. Therefore,
reliable memory can only be established
by adding other memory methods, by
adding more associations [see (16) Human
Memory Function] such as the other
memory methods discussed in this section.
(3) Keyboard memory: In keyboard
memory, you remember the sequence of
keys and hand motions as you play. There
is a piano in your mind, and you can play
it, as explained in (15) Mental Play (MP).
Keyboard memory has most of the
advantages of photographic memory but
the memorized notes are the piano keys
that you play instead of tadpoles on a sheet
of paper. This bypasses the process of
translating from tadpoles to keys.
Keyboard memory is the easiest to use,
because it can be acquired while practicing
the piece and the memory is reinforced

every time you play it. Since music and

hand memory are also automatically
acquired, the combination with keyboard
memory will provide a sound memory
foundation with little extra effort.
(4) Photographic memory needs to
be cultivated if you aspire to become an
advanced pianist, because it is necessary in
advanced piano activities such as
composing, sight reading, theoretical
analyses and (15) Mental Play (MP),
treated in the next section. At the very
least, you should photographically
memorize the first line or page of every
piece you learn, especially the key and
time signatures. If you do this with every
piece you learn, you will automatically
develop photographic capabilities so that,
one day, you will suddenly discover
yourself photographically memorizing a
lot. The more you practice photographic
memory, the easier it becomes and there is
no limit to the number of pages that the
human brain can store, because memory is
associative [(16) Human Memory
Function].
Start photographic memory by
memorizing one hand at a time. Memorize
bar by bar; do not add bars unless all the
preceding material is well memorized.
Take a accurate photograph of the page,
complete with its defects and extraneous
marks; remember, the more associations
the better. If you have difficulty
memorizing certain bars, draw something
unusual there, such as a smiley face or
your own markings that will jolt your
memory. Then, to recall this section, think
of the smiley face.
Photographic memorization has
many advantages; you can work on it
without the piano, anytime, anywhere.
You should read it in your mind, away
from the piano, as often as possible until it
is permanently memorized. If you get

34

stuck in the middle of playing a piece, you

can easily restart by reading that section of
the music in your mind. It also allows you
to read ahead while playing which helps
you to think ahead. It will even improve
your sight reading.
The main disadvantage is that most
people cannot retain photographic memory
for long periods of time and maintenance
requires more work than other methods
because of the high bandwidth of visual
images. Another disadvantage is that
reading the printed music in the mind is a
slow process that can interfere with the
playing. However, if you follow the
methods discussed here, you may find
photographic memory to be easier than
you thought. In principle, once you have
memorized a piece, you know every note
and therefore should be able to map it
back to the sheet music. Once you have
acquired most of the types of memories
discussed here, adding photographic
memory requires very little additional
work (once you become good at it), and
you reap considerable rewards. Thus every
pianist should use a certain minimum of
photographic memory and gradually
expand it with time.
For those who think that they do not
have photographic memory, try the
following. First memorize a short piece of
music using keyboard memory. Once each
section is memorized, map it back onto the
score from which you learned the piece;
that is, for each bar you play (from
memory), try to picture the corresponding
bar on the sheet music. Since you know
every note, HS, mapping it back from the
keyboard to the sheet music should be
simple. Go back and forth, playing from
photographic memory and mapping back
from the keyboard to the sheet music until
the entire (short) piece is memorized
photographically. Then you can amaze

your friends by writing down the score for

the entire piece, starting from anywhere!
Note that you will be able to write the
whole music, forwards or backwards, or
from anywhere in the middle, or even each
hand separately. And they thought only
Wolfgang could do it!
(5) Theoretical memory: use the
knowledge of music theory to memorize.
What is the key signature and how does
that affect the whole composition? Where
are the chord progressions? Theoretical
memory also includes structural analysis.
What is the main theme and how is it
developed? What are the relationships
between the movements? How does the
composer connect one bar or section to the
next? How did the composer create a
convincing ending? This is a difficult
memory for beginners, but as you learn
more music theory, its importance
increases and becomes a major,
indispensable element of memory for
advanced pianists. Even with little
knowledge of theory, anyone can conduct
structural analysis, as we did by counting
bars and repetitions in Fr Elise in
preceding sections.
Which of the above five memories to
use? The answer is all of them, and even
more (such as emotional, historical, etc.);
it is unrealistic to think of using only one
method, because memory is associative;
the more you memorize, the more you can
memorize, and the better you can recall
the memory. Beginners should learn
keyboard memory first because it is the
easiest and most rewarding. More
generally, start with whatever memory
method that is easiest for you. However, in
the end, you will be (and already are, to
some extent) using all of them; that is why
it is beneficial to study as many memory
methods as possible because that is how
you improve the memory. Each person has

35

a main memory method and supplements

it with all the others, some of which are
necessary, such as hand memory, and
others are partly inborn, such as music
memory. More theoretical details of how
to improve your memory are discussed in
(16) Human Memory Function.
A useful memory device is the
"forget 3 times" rule. If you can forget and
re-memorize the same thing 3 times, you
will usually remember it indefinitely. This
rule works because it eliminates the
frustration from forgetting and provides 3
chances to practice memory methods.
Frustration with, and fear of, forgetting is
the worst enemy of poor memorizers, and
this method alleviates that frustration
because instead of trying to memorize, you
are trying to forget.
Concert pianists always play from
memory; why?? One obvious reason is the
high level of technical skill and "talent"
that is expected you won't have the
time for reading the music, turning pages,
etc. We discuss the many benefits of
memorizing throughout this book, such as
raising your IQ [(65) Creating Geniuses];
these benefits make memorizing a
necessity, not a special talent or a luxury.
That's why concert pianists always play
from memory there is no better way.
Memory
maintenance:
A
memorized repertoire requires two
investments of time: the first is the initial
memorizing process, plus a second
"maintenance" component for archiving
the memory permanently and for repairing
forgotten sections. During the lifetime of a
pianist, the maintenance component is by
far the larger one because the initial
investment is zero or even negative as we
have seen (you save time by memorizing).
Maintenance is one reason why some give
up memorizing: why memorize if I am
going to forget it eventually? Maintenance

can limit the size of a repertoire because

after memorizing, say, five to ten hours of
music, the maintenance requirements may
preclude memorizing any more pieces.
There are several ways to extend your
repertoire beyond any maintenance limit.
An obvious one is to abandon the
memorized pieces and to re-memorize
later as needed. Pieces that were well
memorized can be re-polished quickly,
even if they haven't been played for years.
If not well memorized the first time, you
may have to go through the entire
memorizing procedure all over again. So
what does "well memorized" mean?
If you memorized before practicing
the pieces and practiced only from
memory, the results generally qualify as
well memorized.
Memorize as many pieces as
possible before the age of 20. Pieces
learned in those early years are practically
never forgotten and, even if forgotten, are
easily re-memorized. This is why
youngsters must memorize all their
repertoire pieces. Material memorized
after age 40 require more memorizing and
maintenance efforts. Although many
people have little trouble memorizing new
material past age 70 using the above
memory methods, they must know that the
newly memorized material may need
constant maintenance to preserve them.
A most effective maintenance
procedure is to use Mental Play (MP,
playing it in the head, away from the
piano, discussed in the next section). MP
is also a good test of whether you
memorized sufficiently well.
Maintenance time is a good time to
revisit the score and check your accuracy
for the individual notes and the expression
marks. Since you used the same score to
learn the piece, there is a good chance that
if you made a mistake reading the score

36

the first time, you will make the same

mistake again later on, and never catch
that mistake. One way around this problem
is to listen to recordings. Any major
difference between your playing and the
recording will stand out as a jarring
experience and is easy to catch.
Now memorize the Fr Elise in its
entirety (HS) as you practice each
segment. For more step-by-step examples
of how to do this, see (52) Practice
Routines: Bach Inventions, Sinfonia.

morning and, in just a few seconds, plans

the day's activities for her five children
(what clothes they should wear, their
meals, which schools they attend, etc.,
etc.) she is conducting MP just as complex
as playing a Bach Invention in the mind,
yet she is not considered "talented".
Thus MP permeates everything we
do in life, yet was not taught for piano
because it was swept under the "talent"
rug. This is why the concept of talent has
been so harmful to piano pedagogy it
absolves the teacher from teaching even
necessary skills such as MP. That mother
was so good at her daily MP because she
had practiced it all her life. If a mother can
learn MP automatically, out of necessity,
why can't pianists do the same, especially
because it is just as necessary in music?
Why teach MP at all?
MP must be taught because (1) if not
taught, there will be a wide range of use of
MP among pianists, from almost none at
all, to experts. (2) Because it is so
necessary, teachers need to develop MP
teaching into a fully developed expertise
so as to make full use of it, to accelerate
the development of musicianship. (3) MP
is so powerful, useful, and allencompassing that, if not taught, students
will never make full use of it; it's like the
difference between self teaching piano
without any help, and having a good
teacher. We shall see time and again in
this book how teaching MP can make a
huge difference to students.
MP must be taught from the first
year of piano lessons. If you are over 20
years old, and never practiced MP for
piano, it may take a year of diligent
practice to become comfortable with it.
Learn it as a youngster, and it comes
naturally, effortlessly. As with absolute
pitch [Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch], MP
can be learned effortlessly at a young age,

(15) Mental Play (MP)

Music in the mind is what we shall
call Mental Play (MP). MP is the process
of playing the music in your mind, or on
an imaginary piano [Richard, Francois
L.,]. We shall see that MP controls
practically everything we do in music,
from the learning process (technique) to
memorization,
absolute
pitch,
composition, music theory, interpretation,
controlling nervousness, performance, etc.
It is so all-encompassing that it is not
possible to devote one section to
explaining it; rather, it permeates
practically every section of this book. In
fact, MP permeates everything you do,
even outside music!
All accomplished pianists use MP
although it is seldom taught by piano
teachers; they had to learn it on their own,
out of necessity. This contrasts with
today's advanced athletes, such as skiers
and golfers, for whom MP is a necessity
and has been taught and developed for
decades. This doesn't imply that MP is not
necessary for piano it is absolutely
necessary; however, it was not taught
because it was considered a talent, and
therefore, not teachable. That belief is
wrong because everybody conducts MP
every day without even recognizing it as
MP. When a mother gets up in the
37

and the resulting MP is far more

powerful than anything that can be
learned later.
We all conduct complex MP every
day without even thinking about it as MP,
because we have been using it since
childhood for our daily activities out of
necessity. Can you imagine what disasters
would happen if we never had a mental
plan for the day? But that is exactly what
we do if we walk onto a stage and play a
recital without MP training. No wonder
performers get so nervous! MP is the best
antidote against performance anxiety [(48)
Origin and Control of Nervousness] it
certainly worked for Mozart.
Since everybody already knows how
to MP, it is easy to learn how to apply it to
music. Start teaching MP together with
memorizing. Teach the student to MP
every memorizing method, such as
keyboard memory, photographic memory,
music memory, etc., especially away from
the piano. We will discuss more uses of
MP as we encounter them later.
MP and Memorizing cannot be
separated because one can't function fully
without the other; this is why teaching
only hand memory without teaching MP is
so inadequate. MP gives you the ability to
start anywhere within a composition -something that is difficult to learn in any
other way. MP provides a clearer
understanding of the structure of the
composition, etc., because you can now
analyze them in your head. You can even
"practice" without a piano, at speeds that
the fingers cannot manage. There are
numerous accounts of pianists who can
play a composition without practicing on
the piano, by just reading the sheet music
and using MP to practice. No student
should ever be asked to perform
without first learning MP.

In order to memorize well, it is

necessary to practice memory away from
the piano using MP. This saves time
because you can practice even when no
piano is available, and greatly strengthens
the memory because you don't have the
piano and hand memory as "crutches". For
those who wish to learn sight singing [(45)
Sight Reading, Sight Singing, Composing]
and acquire absolute pitch [Absolute Pitch,
Relative Pitch], MP is used to develop
both skills.
Away from the piano, if you MP
keyboard memory, you tend to make the
same mistakes, and get stuck at the same
places, as when playing at the piano! This
supports the concept that all mistakes
originate in the brain. Test your memory
with MP and it will reveal how much you
still depend on hand memory even after
you had acquired keyboard, etc., memory.
MP is one of the best tests of memory.
The next item to teach using MP is
absolute pitch [AP, Absolute Pitch,
Relative Pitch]; without it, the MP will be
handicapped because anybody with MP
will start composing and improvising. The
inability to compose or improvise is a
major handicap for an advanced pianist.
Those without MP can compose by using
the piano, but it is much more efficient
(and powerful) if you can figure out the
scales and chord progressions in your head
and write down the music without the
piano.
Many
pianists
have
the
misconception that the expensive, huge,
concert grand produces its wondrous
sound, creating music, and therefore we
must train our fingers for learning to play
the piano. The human brain is far more
complex than, and superior to, any
mechanical contraption; the mind doesn't
have the limitations of wood, felt, and
metal. Therefore, it is more important to

38

train the brain than the fingers, especially

because any finger movement must
originate in the brain: music and technique
cannot be learned separately. As a
musician, it is essential to develop MP to
such an extent that the music in your mind
is superior to that coming from the piano.
A quality grand will certainly be
inspirational, but a musician's mind should
have no upper limit and MP is how those
heights are attained. Don't be passive and
wait for the music to come out of the
piano, but actively anticipate the music
you want to produce which is the
ultimate MP and the best way to execute a
convincing performance.
MP is how the great geniuses
accomplished what they did [see (65)
Creating Geniuses]; if students are not
taught MP, the achievements of the great
pianists appear unattainable. Many of
those
reportedly
"amazing
feats"
performed by Mozart, such as speaking
sentences backwards, are simple MP tricks
that anyone can learn. In order to speak
sentences backwards, all you do is to write
it on an imaginary blackboard and read it
backwards. Try it yourself: write "dog" on
that mental blackboard and read it
backwards; when that becomes easy, try
two words, "mad dog", etc., keep adding
words and practice until you can do longer
sentences. Easy!
We can now explain why famous
geniuses, such as Beethoven, Einstein,
"professors", etc., are known for their
absentmindedness they are all good at
MP and get completely absorbed in their
mental world.
As you memorize the Fr Elise
example, start practicing MP with it.
Conclusion: it is possible to practice
the piano using only MP! Every pianist
must cultivate MP; you will not only learn
a useful skill, but it will enable you to

make fuller use of all the other piano

skills.

(16) Human Memory Function

Memory consists of two functions,
storage and recall.
Storage: everything we experience
is stored in temporary memory and then
transferred to permanent memory, an
automatic process that takes about 5
minutes, where it is stored practically for
life. Savants that can remember everything
indefinitely provide the best proof that
memory is permanent. The approximately
5 minute transfer time has been verified
innumerable times from records of head
trauma victims: they can remember only
up to about 5 minutes before the trauma
incident; we saw an example of this from
the survivor of Princess Diana's fatal
accident Trevor Rees-Jones, could not
remember the accident or the few minutes
prior to it.
My hypothesis for human memory is
that information is stored in a "memory
field" in various areas of the brain. The
memory is not at any specific location, but
is distributed in many areas of the brain,
like a holograph. In computer memory,
each memory has an address, so we know
how computers recall memory. Brain
memories do not have addresses, so how
does the brain recall memories?
Recall: When we memorize, storing
the information is not a problem because it
is automatic and basically permanent
recalling is the problem because, unlike a
computer in which all data have addresses,
human memory is retrieved by a complex
process that is not yet understood. My
hypothesis is that the recall process is an
association process, and the most obvious
associative process is an overlap of
memory fields. That is, when two related
memories are stored, their memory fields
39

overlap; the closer the relationship, the

greater the overlap and the easier the
recall. With time, however, more such
overlaps will be stored so that the brain
must search through more overlaps. The
probability of confusion increases with
time because the probability that the brain
will choose the wrong overlap increases as
the number of overlaps increases.
Therefore, our inability to recall is caused
by confusion, not by loss of memory.
Memory is most easily recalled if the
memory is associated with something easy
to remember, such as outrageous, funny,
familiar, etc., associations, because the
brain is attracted to them. This is the most
common trick used by good memorizers.
The system of memory fields is
complex because it is continually modified
by the brain. One modification is the
creation of abstractions called abstracts
here. The abstract "airplane" does not exist
outside the brain, but is created in memory
and includes everything from toy paper
planes to the largest jumbo jets. This
creates an additional, artificial, association
among objects. Abstracts are generalized
objects and they enable thought processes
and languages. Thus we are generally
dealing with memory fields of abstracts,
not the original memory fields from
external inputs such as visual, auditory,
touch, smell, taste, etc., because the
external inputs are like continuous movies
with too much information. Abstracts
simplify them into manageable objects.
Thus the human memory is not a passive
memory like the computer disk, but is an
active processor of incoming information
into simpler abstracts that are more
manageable. However, because there are
savants that can recall all the original data,
those data are apparently also stored in the
brain.

This memory-field-overlap recall

process is similar to a basic phenomenon
in quantum mechanics. The probability of
an electron emitting a photon is given by
the overlap of the electron and photon
wave functions mediated by the emission
function. Therefore the human memory
recall process may be mimicking a basic
process in nature. This mimicking is
common: electrons orbit atom nuclei,
planets orbit the sun, and stars orbit black
holes in galaxies. The most advanced
theory of cosmology posits that the
universe is made up of strings so small
that nobody can see them; thus the piano
strings making music emulates string
theory that creates the universe.
There is little question that memory
is associative. We memorize music by
associating it with things we already
know. If you ask a musician to memorize a
full page of random music notes, he will
have great difficulty memorizing even a
single page because he has nothing with
which to associate random notes. This
musician will have no trouble memorizing
a 20 page sonata quickly because the
sonata has melodies, rhythm, etc., that are
familiar. This is why there is no better way
to memorize music than by using music
theory. All you have to do is to associate
the music with the theory and you have it
memorized. Although music theory
memory is the best, it is not equally
helpful to everybody because most
students do not know enough theory.
The strongest evidence for the
associative nature of human memory
comes from tests on good memorizers who
can perform incredible feats such as
memorizing hundreds of telephone
numbers from a phone book. These good
memorizers all use associative algorithms
for memorizing. The algorithms are
different for each person, but they are all

40

devices for associating the objects to be

memorized with something that have
patterns that are already in memory.
For example, for remembering
hundreds of numbers, one algorithm is to
associate a sound with each number. The
sounds are chosen such that they form
"words" when strung together, not in
English, but in a new "language"
(algorithm) that is created for that purpose.
Japanese is a language with such a
property. For example, the square root of 2
is 1.41421356 which can be read as a
phrase that translates roughly to, "good
people, good people are worth looking at"
(hitoyo-hitoyoni-hitomigoro), and the
Japanese routinely use such algorithms to
remember such things as telephone
numbers. To 7 decimals, the square root of
3 reads "Treat the entire world!" and the
root of 5 reads "On the 6th station of Mt.
Fuji, an owl is crying"; I learned these 60
years ago and still remember them.
The amazing thing is the speed with
which good memorizers can map the
object to be memorized onto their
algorithms. Super memorizers develop
after much hard work in perfecting their
algorithms and practicing every day, just
like pianists. This "hard work" comes
effortlessly because they enjoy it.
Let's try one sample algorithm.
Suppose that you want to memorize the
sequence of 14 numbers 53031791389634.
One way to do it is to use something like
the following story: "I woke up at 5:30
AM with my 3 brothers and 1
grandmother; the ages of my brothers are
7, 9, and 13, and my grandma is 89 years
old, and we went to bed at 6:34 PM." This
is an algorithm based on life's experience,
which makes the random numbers
"meaningful". What is so intriguing is that
the algorithm contains 132 letters, yet it is
much easier to remember than the 14

numbers because of familiar associations.

You can easily test this for yourself. First
memorize both the 14 numbers (if you can
-- it is not easy for me) and the above
algorithm. Then 24 hours later, try to write
down the numbers from memory and from
the algorithm; you will find the algorithm
to be much better. There are even better
algorithms that you can readily find on the
internet.
Because of the huge information
processing power of the brain, the retrieval
process is more efficient if there are more
relevant associations and the number of
these associations quickly increases in size
as more items are memorized because they
can be cross-associated. Therefore the
human memory is almost diametrically
opposite to the computer memory: the
more you memorize, the easier it becomes
to memorize because you can create more
associations; each new association
provides numerous new possible routes for
recall. Thus everything we know about
memory tells us that exercising our
memory will strengthen it.
Memory is an important component
of consciousness, which might be defined
as a series of looping brain functions:
inputs memory conclusions action
inputs, etc., that form a perpetual loop.
Newborn babies have few items in
memory and therefore cannot form
associations.
Their
consciousness
increases as the brain develops. As a
result, they can not think or communicate
initially except to make noises in response
to their needs. In just a few years, they
have enough associations to learn
languages and to think. At this stage, they
learn very quickly because the brain is
developing rapidly, but for the same
reason, they also forget quickly. Their
intelligence may appear to be low because
they can have difficulties memorizing
41

from a lack of associations; however, they

are capable of understanding complex
concepts quickly. If the memory is
maintained into the teen years, myelin
sheaths begin to form around axons, thus
locking the memory permanently. Thus
repertoire memorized and maintained
before the twenties is almost never
forgotten.
Even the youngest youngsters can
appreciate
and
memorize
music.
Practically any pianist can easily
memorize several Beethoven sonatas or an
equivalent length of music they love. From
the point of view of data bits, each sonata
represents over 1,000 telephone numbers.
Thus practically all pianists can memorize
the equivalent of over 10 pages of phone
numbers something that would be
considered miraculous if they were phone
numbers.
Therefore, what concert pianists
achieve is not that different from what
those "genius memorizers" do. Proper
instructions on how to memorize makes
this "miracle" achievable for everyone.

is a human invention - there is no physical

relationship between the pitches of the
chromatic scale and nature, and no natural
law that says middle A should be 440 Hz;
most orchestras tune to 442 Hz, and before
it was standardized, there was a larger
range of frequencies for A. Because of the
logarithmic nature of the chromatic scale
and the human auditory system, everybody
can learn RP effortlessly [(76) Chromatic
Scale].
The human ear is not calibrated to an
absolute scale. By contrast, the eye
responds to color on an absolute scale
(everyone sees red as red from birth
without any training, and this perception
never changes with age). Color detection
is achieved using quantum mechanical
reactions that respond to specific quanta
(wavelengths) of light. Some people who
can identify certain pitches with specific
colors can acquire AP by the color that the
sound evokes. They are calibrating the ear
to an absolute reference.
Babies can hear at birth and are
routinely tested for hearing at most
maternity wards. AP and RP are best
learned in early youth, before the age of
five; the earlier, the better. The best way
for children to acquire AP is to be
exposed almost daily to well tuned
pianos from birth. Therefore, every
parent who has a piano should keep it
tuned and play it with the baby nearby.
Don't worry about awakening babies; they
will sleep soundly while you flail away at
a Beethoven Sonata. Then parents should
test the child from time to time for AP.
This test can be performed by playing a
note (when the child is not looking) and
then asking him to find that note on the
piano. If you want the child to name the
note, you have to teach the child the piano
scale. If the child can find it after several
tries, he has RP; if he can find it the first

(17) Absolute & Relative Pitch

Relative pitch (RP) is the ability to
identify a note, given a reference note.
Absolute pitch (AP), is the ability to
identify a note without a reference. AP and
Perfect Pitch (PP) are synonymous, but AP
is used here to avoid confusion with
pianissimo, and is more scientifically
accurate.
A
person
with
AP
automatically has RP. The test for AP
uses 2 pianos; the tester sits at one and the
student at the other, and the student tries to
repeat the note played by the tester. If
there is only one piano, the student names
the note played by the tester (do, re, mi . . .
. or C, D, E, . . . .).
Nobody is born with AP; it is a
learned skill, because the chromatic scale
42

time every time, he has AP. We don't

know how quickly babies learn AP, but,
unlike adults, it is effortless and
automatic, and very fast; we don't know
how fast, but it could be days. Parents
should test toddlers as soon as possible;
the earliest age for testing may be one to
two years.
The particular temperament to which
the piano is tuned [(77) Circle of Fifths,
Temperaments] is not important; in fact
many people with AP know nothing about
temperaments and when notes on pianos
tuned to different temperaments are
played, they have no difficulty in
identifying the notes because different
temperaments change most frequencies by
less than 5%, and no one has AP with that
kind of accuracy.
AP can be acquired later in life but
becomes more difficult after age 30. In
fact, even those with AP will slowly lose it
starting around age 20, if it is not
maintained. Many piano schools routinely
teach AP to all their students, some with
over 90% success. If a child is found to
have AP below the age of six, he must be
trained in AP to further develop it, as
described below; otherwise, they can lose
it quickly, within a few years.
The importance of learning AP for
musicians cannot be over emphasized;
this was not adequately recognized in the
past because of the widespread wrong
belief that AP is an inborn talent, and
therefore can not be learned.
Having AP is clearly an advantage. It
is a great help for memorizing, mental
play [MP, (15) Mental Play (MP)], sight
reading, recovering from blackouts, "play
by ear" and composing/improvising. AP
helps with MP because it helps in so many
ways such as in keyboard memory and
photographic memory because you know
the exact notes. You can be the pitch pipe

for your choir, and easily tune string or

wind instruments without a tuning fork. It
is a lot of fun because you can tell how
fast a car is going by listening to the tires
whine, you can tell the differences
between car horns and locomotive
whistles, especially by noting whether
they use thirds or fifths. You can
remember telephone numbers by their
tones. Most importantly, AP gives you the
confidence that you are a complete
musician, and recognition from others,
especially fellow musicians.
There are a few disadvantages of
having AP. The biggest disadvantage is
the "moveable do" problem (do as in
doremi). Nobody has problems with the C
major scale. Those with AP have no
problems with any other scale. However,
people without AP has no idea where C is.
Since relative pitch is easy for everybody,
those without AP make the tonic (first
note of a scale) of any scale a do and, in
this way, learn to sing any major scale
from any note by calling the tonic a do.
This "moveable do" system is actually
taught in many, perhaps a majority, of
schools because most students (and
teachers!) do not have AP today. For
example, C major is do-re-mi-etc.. With
moveable do, G major is also do-re-mietc.. However, for those with AP, G major
is so-la-si-etc.. Therefore, when starting at
an arbitrary tonic, those with AP must
immediately transpose while those without
AP are happily singing do-re-mi. Thus a
person with AP singing with a group
singing moveable do can become totally
disoriented because what the group is
singing is wrong. The root cause of the
problem is the teaching of moveable do.
This is why solfege is important for all
music students and why learning AP is
necessary. In principle, moveable do
should never be taught; however, those

43

who never took music lessons, or learned

AP, naturally develop moveable do, so
that it can not be eliminated. This problem
will persist as long as those with AP are a
minority among musicians.
Another problem is that, for those
with AP, any note between the notes of the
chromatic scale tuned to A(440) does not
exist in music; this is why music played
off tune can be annoying. If a lot of music
is played off tune, this can present quite a
problem. The person can sometimes react
adversely to such music; physical
reactions such as teary eyes or clammy
skin can occur and out-of-tune pianos will
be difficult to play. Transposed music is
fine because every note is in tune.
Listening to off-tune music can cause you
to lose AP.
The advantages of learning AP far
outweigh the disadvantages because AP is
a necessity whereas the disadvantages are
just nuisances.
Learning AP is not as difficult as
many people believe. We saw that the
objective of memorizing is to be able to
MP. By paying attention to RP and AP
while practicing MP, you can acquire AP!
MP should be conducted in AP because,
without playing at the correct pitch, you
lose so many of the benefits of MP, such
as the ability to write the notes down or
immediately play it out on the piano even
if you had never practiced that music
before.

Play C4 on the piano and MP the

scale to C5 at correct pitch and check your
C5 against the piano, several times every
day. When the C5 is good, check all the
intermediate notes. This will teach you
RP.
(2) Once the RP is satisfactory, start
memorizing C4 in AP by testing your C4
against the piano as often as possible.
Everyone has a maximum and minimum
note he can hum. For memorizing C4, hum
from C4 (referenced to the piano) to the
lowest note you can hum. This may be F3.
Now, every time you guess C4, you can
check it by humming down to the lowest
note you can hum to see if it is F3. If it is
E3, your guess was too low; raise it a
semitone. You can create another test by
humming to your highest note; use
whichever works better, or both, for
checking your C4. Practice until your C4
is correct to within a semitone; this may
take days, or months, depending on the
person.
(3) Once AP for C4 is good, learn
C4-G4 using melodies such as the RH
parts of Beyer's exercises #47-49, 58-59,
at end of book. If necessary, transpose one
octave down so that the C is C4. Start with
Exercise #47, memorize the melody, and
MP it in doremi; this exercise starts as:
doremifa,remifaso,famiredo,re . . .
at correct pitch. Check frequently
against the piano, especially the highest
and lowest notes. Then repeat with the
other four exercises, one by one,
practicing AP.
(4) Then finish practicing the entire
C4-C5 octave, especially A4.
(5) Now practice the octaves: play a
note and guess its octave(s), up and down,
checking your guesses against the piano.
(6) Then play a random note to see if
you can identify it using AP.

Procedure for learning RP and

AP:
(1) Learn to MP the C major scale
from C4 to C5, using doremi instead of the
CDE notation because CDE has too many
other uses, while doremi is strictly for
music:
Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-si-do

44

You may have AP for A4 because

you had heard the orchestra tuning to it
before every concert. Test yourself for A4
at every concert.
When creating notes in the mind, do
not try to hum or sing them because the
dynamic range of the piano is larger than
the singing range and you will need to
train the brain to deal with those higher
and lower notes. Also, practicing AP is a
process of practicing MP, and singing or
humming defeats this purpose because that
limits what the brain can do. Unless you
are a singer who can sing on pitch (in
which case you should have at least RP),
you will not be able to accurately sing the
pitch; the resultant incorrect sound will
confuse the brain and erase any AP that
you may have acquired.
For learning AP, the memory of each
note for AP must initially include
everything -- the harmonics, timbre, etc.,
of the piano -- you need as many memory
associations as possible. Therefore, use the
same piano until you acquire AP. Unless
you have an electronic piano, make sure
that the piano is in tune. Once you acquire
a strong AP, it will work with any source
of sound. Not singing or humming is not a
strict rule, because it can be useful, but it
is important to MP the notes as much as
possible and not get into the habit of
humming everything.
For now, we ignore the black keys
and learn AP for the 8 white notes. Once
you learn AP for the white notes, you will
generally be able to guess the black keys
when your AP becomes sufficiently
accurate.
Until you learn some rudimentary
AP, practice it only at the piano so that
you can correct yourself as soon as you
wander off tune. Do not practice MP away
from the piano with the wrong pitch; this
will only erase the AP. Start practicing

away from the piano after the AP is at

least within a semitone.
Progress may seem slow at first, but
your guesses should get closer with
practice. At first, identifying notes takes
time because you need to check your C4
by humming to your lowest or highest
notes, or you may have to guess the other
notes by comparing to C4 using relative
pitch.
Then suddenly, one day, you
should experience that magical moment
when you are able to identify any note
directly, without any intermediate steps.
Additionally, that identification is
instantaneous. You have acquired true AP!
Therefore you should actively seek and
anticipate this transformation so that you
won't miss it. Students who are not aware
of it will miss it the first few times it
happens, wasting a lot of time and not
realizing that they have AP.
This initial AP is fragile and you will
lose it and regain it several times before it
becomes permanent; even then it will be
permanent only if you maintain it. The
next step is to strengthen the AP by
practicing to identify the notes rapidly.
Then start practicing with two-note
intervals, then any three notes played
simultaneously, etc. Any AP that can
identify five or more notes played
simultaneously is considered excellent.
The ability to identify many notes is
important when composing music because
complex chords can often contain more
than five notes. Once you have a strong
AP, practice humming the notes and
singing on pitch, and sight reading on
pitch. Congratulations, you have done it!
The quality of AP is determined by
(1) how quickly you can identify a
note,
(2) how many notes you can identify
when they are played simultaneously, and

45

(3) how accurately you can

reproduce a pitch; this test is difficult to
apply and is rarely used.
People with excellent AP will
identify a note in less than a second, and
identify a maximum of about 10 notes
played simultaneously, in about five
seconds.
AP must be maintained. After age
20, AP starts to deteriorate unless it is
maintained by checking with the piano
periodically. Without maintenance, you
can totally lose AP in less than ten years.
Maintaining AP consists of:
(1) the knowledge that AP can be
lost and the awareness of the need to
constantly test your AP, and
(2) checking your AP and working
on it as soon as you notice any
deterioration. The AP accuracy will
naturally vary from time to time
depending on your physical conditions
such as health, emotional state, and the
sounds and music you had been listening
to, etc.
People with MP and AP tend to
continually make music mentally; music
keeps running around in their heads,
whether it is their own compositions or
music they had heard. This is why most
musicians with AP will automatically start
to compose music. The brain always
returns to music when it has nothing else
to do; it is an excellent way to maintain
AP, provided you check with the piano
periodically.
Most beginners will MP intervals
narrow because the brain automatically
tries to "increase the singing range". Thus
ascending notes will be sung flat and
descending notes sharp. In addition, notes
higher than your mid-range will be sung
flat and those below will be sung sharp.
The "standard" way to learn AP in
music classes is via solfege [(68) Theory,

Solfege]. AP is taught as an adjunct to

these exercises by learning to sing
everything at the correct pitch. There are
no specific methods for acquiring AP in
solfege; you simply take AP tests at every
lesson until the correct pitch is implanted
in memory. Because AP is learned
together with many other things, progress
is slow, typically years.

(18) Play by Ear (PBE), Composing

Most piano teachers today don't
know how to teach "play by ear" (PBE).
Few students learn it, even when they have
AP. Just as babies learn to speak before
they learn to read or write, musicians must
be taught to PBE, which is part of learning
MP. Without learning to PBE, they are
throwing away a large part of what they
can do with MP. Youngsters will quickly
learn to PBE, just as they pick up AP and
MP effortlessly at sufficiently young ages.
It will take progressively longer to learn
PBE as they get older. Start teaching it by
letting students play melodies they already
know, such as the ABC Song (same
melody as Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
and Baa Baa Black Sheep), Happy
Birthday, Auld Lang Syne, etc., in different
keys at different lessons. Then let them
add their own accompaniments. Of course,
this will dovetail nicely with learning
theory, such as chords, chord progressions,
and dictation, etc., in later lessons. Now
every student can play Happy Birthday in
any key at every birthday party if there is a
piano!
Learning PBE will kick start the
process of composing music. Thus MP,
AP, PBE, composing, and improvisation
are all part of a single package of skills
that every pianist must learn; these are the
musicians' magic, the genius skills. Every
known great pianist could PBE, so it
makes no sense not to teach it -- it is a
46

necessary part of becoming a musician; it

is the fourth genius skill [(65) Creating
Geniuses]. Those who learn improvisation
are effectively practicing PBE, so methods
for teaching PBE are known [(44) Fake
Books, Jazz, Improvisation].

Most students think of breathing as

pumping the chest, but the diaphragm
plays a major role in breathing see Mark,
Thomas,, P. 121. Chest pumping can
interfere with rhythm and the playing
actions, so that diaphragm breathing is
especially important for piano. Breathing
efficiency is maximized by using both
chest pumping and the diaphragm, and
maintaining good posture which increases
the maximum volume of the lung.If you
had not taken this type of deep breaths for
a long time, it should cause hyperventilation -- you will feel dizzy after two
or three such exercises. Stop if you hyperventilate. Then repeat this exercise several
minutes later; you should find that you can
take more breaths without hyperventilating. Repeat until you can take at
least 5 full breaths in succession without
hyper-ventilating; this may take several
days. Now, if you go to the doctor's office
and he checks you out with his stethoscope
and asks you to take a deep breath, you
can do it without feeling dizzy! Perform
this exercise at least once every several
months and incorporate it into your normal
breathing habit, especially when playing
the piano.
Performing at the piano requires a lot
of energy, especially in the brain, so that
breathing and posture, which affect the
oxygen supply, are important. Yet, when
we concentrate hard or become nervous,
we often forget about breathing and
swallowing, or even hold our breath. This
is one reason why meditation, with
emphasis on proper breathing, is helpful.
Not swallowing can result in dry
throat or mouth and this change in
condition can affect hand memory that we
rely on for smooth performances. It is a
good idea to bring a bottle of water to your
performance.

(19) Breathing, Swallowing

An important part of relaxation is
maintaining the normal body functions,
such as breathing, swallowing and proper
posture. When stressed, these are the first
functions to change, so that they are good
indications of the level of stress. In
addition, most people are unaware of the
proper ways to breathe.
Breathing exercises are beneficial,
not only for piano, but for general wellbeing. Sit upright with a straight spine,
expand your chest, push your diaphragm
down (this will make your lower abdomen
bulge out), raise the shoulders and towards
your back, and take a deep breath; then
exhale completely by reversing the
process. When taking deep breaths,
complete exhalation is more important
than a fuller intake because the objective is
to exchange the carbon dioxide in the
lungs for oxygen in the air; if you don't
expel the carbon dioxide, the process is
less efficient. Breathe through your throat,
not through the nose (the mouth can be
open or closed). Most people will constrict
the nasal air passage if they try to suck air
through the nose, which is normally the
procedure for preventing nose drips.
Dripping is prevented by narrowing the
nasal passage so that air flows more
rapidly up the smaller opening. To
breathe, relax your nose muscles and suck
air through the throat region close to the
vocal chords -- even with the mouth
closed, this procedure will relax the nose
muscles, allowing more air to pass through
the nose.
47

We also need special breathing

routines for eliminating nervousness [(48)
Origin and Control of Nervousness] and
falling asleep [Post Practice Improvement,
Sleep].

Piano playing requires conditioning

the brain for stamina. That is why
mindless practicing of exercises for
stamina doesn't work. The most efficient
ways to gain piano stamina are to play
finished pieces and make music, and
practice
difficult
sections
HS
continuously. Again using the jogging
comparison, it would be hard for most
students to practice difficult material
continuously for more than a few hours
because two hours of intense practice
would be equivalent to jogging six miles,
which is a terrific workout. Therefore,
play some easy pieces between the intense
practice sessions. Concentrated practice
sessions longer than a few hours are not
that helpful until you are at an advanced
level, after you have developed sufficient
stamina. Clearly, hard piano practice is
strenuous work and serious practicing can
put the student in good physical shape.
Conditioning the brain is more
important than conditioning the muscles
for most students because evolution has
programmed the brain to be lazy in order
to conserve energy. This is why so many
students prefer to separate music from
technique and work for technique by using
exercises and mindless repetitive practices.
This is counter-productive because (1) the
brain is not exercised, (2) you develop
non-musical habits, and (3) you can waste
a lot of time. Brain conditioning is
especially important for performing
because, without sufficient stamina, you
can rapidly run out of energy during a
performance. Strenuous conditioning of
the muscles can lead to stress and cause
the body to convert fast muscles to slow
muscles that have more endurance, but this
is exactly what you do not want.
For long practice sessions of over
several hours, pianists get their second
wind just as athletes do (such as

(20) Endurance, Brain Stamina

Piano playing requires control, not
muscle power. Many students and even
some teachers, believe that technique
requires finger strength, which is wrong.
One day, Combe grabbed my hand,
squeezed it, and said, "See, my hands are
strong because I am a pianist." That
squeeze was no stronger than an average
handshake. I have an unusually strong
handshake, probably strong enough to
break her hand, but that has nothing to do
with piano skills.
Obviously, you can't play loud,
grandiose passages without expending
energy. Big, strong, pianists can play
louder and manage "demanding pieces"
more easily than weaker pianists. All
pianists have enough physical stamina to
play pieces at their levels, simply because
of the practice that was required to get
there. Yet we know that endurance can be
a problem.
Playing demanding pieces requires
about as much energy as a slow jog, at
about three miles per hour for adults, with
the brain requiring about half the total
energy. Many youngsters cannot jog
continuously for over one mile. Therefore,
asking youngsters to practice difficult
passages continually for 20 minutes would
strain their stamina because it would be
equivalent to jogging about a mile.
Teachers and parents must be careful
when youngsters start their piano lessons,
to limit practice times to under 20 minutes
in the beginning until the students gain
sufficient stamina.

48

marathoners, cyclists). Therefore, if you

feel fatigue, don't immediately conclude
that you lack stamina, but look for the
second wind to kick in awareness of the
second wind can make it kick in more
reliably, especially after you have
experienced it and know what it feels like.
In order to control stamina, we need
to study its biological basis. We need
sufficient oxygen intake, efficient disposal
of carbon dioxide, and adequate blood
flow. The biggest factor influencing
oxygen intake is lung efficiency, see (19)
Breathing, Swallowing.
Another method of increasing
stamina is to increase the amount of
blood in the body. To achieve this, you
must simultaneously exercise the muscles
and the brain during practice. This will
cause the body to manufacture more
blood, in response to the higher demand
for blood. For anemic people, their brains
will rebel (they feel uncomfortable) when
there is insufficient blood and the pianist
will feel better just practicing mindless
exercises, which is the main reason for the
popularity of exercises and the tendency to
separate music from technique. But they
are not helpful because you can shut off
the brain.
Practicing piano or exercising after a
large meal also increases the blood supply
and conversely, resting after every meal
will reduce stamina. There is a wellknown Japanese saying that you will turn
into a cow if you sleep after a meal.
Experience had taught them that you will
become anemic and lazy if you sleep after
a meal. With a full stomach, most people
do not have enough blood to engage in
strenuous activity, and the body will rebel
initially by making you feel terrible, but
this is an expected (evolutionary) reaction.
Such activity must be conducted within
safe medical limits; for example you may

temporarily experience digestive problems

or dizziness (which is the rationale behind
the misguided belief that you should never
exercise after a large meal). Once the body
manufactures the necessary extra blood,
the discomfort will disappear. You should
stay as active as you can after a meal, in
order to prevent anemia. Clearly, good
health, exercise, and sports are helpful for
gaining stamina in piano playing. That
comfortable sofa may be the single worst
cause of poor health in modern society.
The brain must be exercised all the
time by making music, especially during
practice. Play as if you are performing, so
that anyone listening to you practice will
enjoy the gorgeous piano sound. Without
brain stamina, the brain will run out of
energy during a performance and you will
end up playing on auto-pilot not what
you want.
In summary, beginners who have
never touched a piano will need to develop
their stamina gradually because correct
piano practice is strenuous work even
when playing easy material, relaxed,
because of the musical requirements of the
brain. Parents must be careful about the
practice time of very young beginners,
limit their practice time to less than 20
min., and help them to develop the habit of
always practicing musically. At any skill
level, we all have more muscle than we
need to play the piano pieces at our level.
Even professional pianists who practice
over 6 hours every day don't end up
looking like Popeye. Franz Liszt, Chopin
and Paganini were quite thin, not
muscular.

49

(21) Forearm Rotation

(22) Slow Play

One of the most important piano

playing motions is forearm rotation
(FR), one of the fastest motions of the
hand. It is the main motion used to play
the thumb and pinky. The two bones in the
forearm are the ulna and radius (see Mark
P. 82). In FR, the larger radius, connected
to the thumb, is rotated around the thinner
ulna, connected to the pinky. FR is used in
fast parallel sets, tremolos, Albertis,
scales, arpeggios, etc. In the FR motion,
the thumb is rigidly attached to the hand,
which is moved by FR. A small thumb
movement can be combined with FR
because, although the thumb muscles are
slower, smaller movements are faster. All
established schools of piano, such as the
Alexander technique, teach FR.
The wrist and arm motions evolved
to be the fastest motions because their
speed is needed for tree climbing,
fighting/defense and throwing/catching
objects. FR is fast and is needed in most
fast passages; thus, when practicing fast
passages, always check to see if FR might
help.
Practice FR by contrasting it with
quiet hands, as Bach did with his
Inventions #8; where you need both FR
and quiet hands and can therefore
demonstrate the differences between them.
It is a mistake to think that, at sufficient
speeds, you must always play with quiet
hands. Other examples where FR is
needed are the tremolos and Alberti
motions in (57) Beethoven's Pathetique,
Op. 13, First Movement. Many students
struggle with speed in these passages,
often developing stress and even suffering
injuries because they were never taught to
incorporate FR. With FR, speed, power,
and endurance cease to be problems,
allowing play with relaxation.

Slow play can waste a lot of time; if

you play twice as fast, you practice twice
as often, so why practice something you
don't need at full speed? To make slow
play pay off, combine many objectives
into each slow practice:
(1) Slow play is beneficial to good
technique, especially for practicing
relaxation and correct keystroke [(11)
Basic Key Stroke; Legato, Staccato].
(2) It reinforces memory because
there is time for the playing signals to
travel from the fingers to the brain and
back several times before succeeding notes
are played. Always practicing at fast speed
will only reinforce hand memory and will
not help true memory: slow play is an
insurance against blackouts.
(3) Practice thinking ahead of the
music you are playing, which provides
more control over the performance and
can even enable you to anticipate
impending flubs. Think at least one bar
ahead of the music and practice feeling the
keys before playing, to guarantee 100%
accuracy [(28) Jumps, PP, FF, Feeling the
Keys].
(4) It is one of the best ways to erase
bad habits that were picked up during fast
practice [(27) Fast Play Degradation,
Eliminating Bad Habits].
(5) Practice the ability to detach
yourself from the music, and mentally
wander around and multi-task, such as
looking around or talking to someone.
(6) Always end a practice
session with slow play. Repeat: the last
run-through of any practice session
should be slow, especially when
practicing for speed, memory, or
performance
preparation
[(47)
Performance Preparation, Videotaping].

50

Though one of the simplest, this is one of

the most important rules of piano practice.
Suppose you are practicing a Parallel
Set, speeding it up, having repeated it 20
times, and want to switch hands. Play it
once or twice at slow speed before
switching. If you just played one of your
favorite pieces at full speed and you want
to preserve it in perfect condition, play the
entire piece slowly before going on to
something else. Always play the recital
pieces slowly after practicing them,
especially during the week before the
recital. After a recital, if you need to play
the same pieces again soon, play them
slowly at least once as soon as possible.
Apply this rule all the time, not only
before recitals, because its cumulative
benefits over years are enormous.
Why this method is so unbelievably
effective is not completely understood;
some reasons are:
(1) it is free of bad habits (but you
must make sure to use the same motions as
required at faster speed),
(2) this improves true memory, and
reduces hand memory,
(3) it erases the bad habits developed
during fast play,
(4) the last run-through during
practice has an inordinately strong effect
on technique compared to preceding run
throughs possibly because each runthrough partially erases preceding runthroughs. This means that you should pay
special attention to the last run-through,
and
(5) this effect is cumulative so that it
can build up to enormous benefits after
extended periods (years).

The first is the application of new hand

motions, parallel sets, relaxation, memory,
etc., that can immediately improve
technique during a practice session. The
second
is
called
Post
Practice
Improvement (PPI) that results from
physiological (mostly nerve & muscle)
changes that occur after you stop
practicing, a process that takes weeks or
months. During practice, monitor your
progress and quit as soon as a point of
diminishing returns is reached, which
usually starts after about 10 minutes. Like
magic, your technique will keep
improving by PPI for at least several days
after a good practice. The next day, you
should be able to play better even if you
made little progress during practice the
previous day. PPI is the basis for claims by
many respected teachers that, if done
correctly, you do not need more than two
hours of practice a day.
It is more profitable to practice
several things at one sitting and let them
all improve simultaneously by PPI (while
you are not practicing!), than working too
hard on one thing. Over-practicing can
hurt technique if it leads to stress, bad
habits or injury and beyond a certain
number of repetitions, you enter a state of
diminishing returns. A minimum number
of repetitions is required, about a hundred
repetitions, for PPI to take effect. But
because we are talking about a few bars
played at speed, practicing dozens or
hundreds of times should take only a few
minutes. Don't fret if you practice hard but
don't see much improvement during a
practice session. This might be normal for
that particular passage and you just have to
wait for PPI; often, the worst thing you
can do is to keep practicing. If you don't
make any progress after a few days (no
PPI), it is time to stop and think of new
things to do, such as new hand motions or

(23) Post Practice Improvement

(PPI), Sleep
Post Practice Improvement (PPI):
Technique is acquired in two major steps.
51

practice methods don't keep practicing,

because if you don't make progress, you
are doing something wrong that is the
basic principle of this book.
There are many types of PPI
depending on what is holding you back.
These types differ in the length of time
over which PPI is effective, which varies
from one day to many months. The
shortest times may be associated with
conditioning, such as the use of motions or
muscles you had not used before.
Intermediate times of several weeks may
be associated with new nerve connections,
such as HT play. Longer times may be
associated with actual growth of
brain/nerve/muscle cells, and conversion
of slow to fast muscle cell types, such as
fast trills or tremolos.
The methods of this book are ideal
for PPI because they emphasize practicing
only those segments that you cannot play.
If you play HT slowly and ramp up the
speed for a long section, PPI is
insufficiently conditioned because there
isn't enough time to make the necessary
number of repetitions. In addition, the PPI
becomes confused because you mix a
large number of easy segments with the
difficult ones. If you practice too many
skills for PPI together, they tend to cancel
each other. Therefore, practice one skill
for a sufficient amount of time, play it
slowly once, then move on to the next
skill. There is no need to revisit that skill
until the next day.
PPI is nothing new; let's look at three
well-known examples: the body builder,
marathoner, and golfer. These examples
will teach you how to optimize PPI for
piano. While lifting weights, the body
builder's muscles don't grow; he will in
fact lose weight. But during the following
weeks, the body will react to the stimulus
and add muscle. All the muscle growth

occurs after the exercise. Thus the body

builder (and the pianist) must concentrate
on whether the exercise produces the
appropriate conditioning for PPI. Another
example is the marathon runner. If you
had never run a mile in your life, and tried
it for the first time, you might be able to
jog for a quarter mile before you need to
slow down to a walk. After some rest, if
you tried to run again, you will still tire
out in a quarter mile or less. Thus the first
run
resulted
in
no
discernible
improvement. However, the next day, you
may be able to run a third of a mile before
tiring -- you have just experienced PPI!
This is how marathoners condition
themselves to be able to eventually run 26
miles. For pianists too, PPI is cumulative
and, in the long run, can make the
difference between success and failure in
acquiring technique. Golfers are familiar
with the phenomenon in which they can
hit the ball well one day, but terribly the
next because they picked up a bad habit.
Thus hitting the driver (the most difficult
club) too many times tends to ruin your
swing, whereas practicing with the #5
wood (one of the easiest clubs) can restore
it; therefore it is important to practice with
a easier club before quitting practice. The
analogy in piano is that playing fast, full
tilt, tends to ruin the PPI whereas
practicing simpler material (short sections
HS slowly) tends to improve it; see [(27)
Fast Play Degradation, Eliminating Bad
Habits]. This is why the principles of this
book apply to many disciplines, not only
piano. For the golfer, this means that after
practicing with the driver, he should hit a
easy #5 several times before quitting.
PPI is triggered by cell death and
stress; hard practice causes stress and even
cell death, and the body over-compensates
for this. You might think that 100
repetitions can't possibly kill cells, but

52

millions cells are replaced every day, and

any extra work will increase this
replacement rate. "Cell death" is an oversimplification because chemical, physical
(stress), etc., factors also induce cell
growth (The Human Cells, in Scientific
American, October, 2014, P. 76.).

During waking hours, numerous chemicals

accumulate or are depleted in specific
locations in the brain, such as in the spaces
between synapses. This is what happens
during practice to condition the cells for
PPI. During sleep, the accumulated
chemicals are flushed out and the depleted
ones are replenished as part of the brain's
rejuvenation process. Since stimuli (for
technique, etc.) are stored as chemical
changes at specific locations in the brain,
this flushing process removes most of the
weak stimuli, leaving only the strong ones
that are too large to flush out. Thus the
weak bad habits are literally flushed out of
the brain, nerve, and muscle cells.
There is one type of bad habit that is
not small and random - speed walls. If you
play faster than what your skill level
allows, you will repeat the same stressed
motions so frequently that the body will
acquire that bad habit. One way to get rid
of speed walls is to stop practicing that
piece. Practicing new material weakens
old material by nightly flushing until it
becomes small enough for the brain to
completely flush it out. If the speed wall is
not reinforced, it becomes smaller every
night, and is eventually flushed out. Of
course, the methods of this book for
avoiding speed walls are better than not
practicing which may take a long time.
Memory also undergoes PPI for long
term memory, during sleep. As with
technique, it is important to play slowly at
least once before quitting, and then get a
good night's sleep. Memory PPI explains
why cramming into the late night before
an exam is counter productive. This robs
you of the time to get a good night's sleep,
the cramming only confuses the brain and
erases the lessons learned previously.
Whatever is learned is only in short term
memory and, without good sleep and PPI,
is lost by exam time. You will get much

Sleep: PPI occurs mainly during

sleep. A mechanic can not service a car
while it is traveling on the highway;
likewise, most of the growth and
maintenance of the body cannot occur
during the waking hours. Sleep is not only
for resting, but also for growth and
rebuilding/repairing the body; this is one
reason why sleep is necessary. Babies
need so much sleep because they are
growing rapidly. This sleep must be the
normal, over-night type with all of its
major components, especially REM sleep.
You may not experience PPI if you did not
sleep well that night.
A major process that occurs during
sleep is the removal of bad habits during
the nightly flush of toxins, etc., out of the
brain (Kang, etc., Brain Flush,). How does
the body know what is a bad habit? It
doesn't, of course. During practice, you
acquire technique as well as bad habits.
Most bad habits are random motions and
their stimuli are initially small compared
to the desired technical motions, that are
repeated many times. One of the things
that happens during sleep is the "flushing
out" from the brain of "junk"- small,
random excitations that are generally not
useful. In this way, the brain rejuvenates
itself, avoids expending resources on
useless items, and concentrates on the
important ones; i.e., it throws out most of
the bad habits, leaving mostly useful
technique.
What does "flushing bad habits out
of the brain" mean in neurological terms?

53

better test scores if you only review the

main lessons from the text book (which is
usually the least confusing source of
information and from where the test
questions will be taken) and then get a
good night's sleep. You sleep better, and
the body functions better when happy, so
watching a movie or enjoying other fun
activities before going to bed will also
improve the test score.
Breathing routines for falling
asleep: When worried about something,
such as a recital the next day, you may
have difficulties falling asleep. Breathing
routines can be used for inducing sleep.
Breathing is controlled mostly by the
autonomous processes automatic body
functions: you do not need to breathe
consciously (although you can do so at any
time). During sleep, breathing is entirely
autonomous. Thus the "trick" in falling
asleep is to hand over a conscious
breathing to the autonomous. Obviously, it
works best during sleeping hours and is
more difficult at stressful times. We
discuss the use of breathing routines for
eliminating nervousness in [(48) Origin
and Control of Nervousness].
Good sleeping practices require a set
sleeping routine. One component of such a
routine is to always sleep in the same
position: on the same side, or on your
back. If you decide to sleep on the right
side, then go to bed on the left side and
stay there until you feel sleepy, then roll
over to the right side to fall asleep the
sleep position becomes the signal for your
body to fall asleep. When applying the
breathing routine to sleep, use your
sleeping position. In my case, sleeping on
one side had the disadvantage that the eye
on that side became smaller to the extent
that eventually, after many years, it
became difficult to fully open that eye.

Therefore it is important to make sure that

the eye is not pressed into the pillow.
It might appear that sleeping on my
back is the best solution, but I snore
loudly, so I sleep on my side to decrease
the snoring and on my right side so I don't
snore into my wife's face (she sleeps to my
left). She also sleeps on her right side
because she thinks that it puts less pressure
on her heart.
The breathing routine is simple but
requires some practice because it has
several components that depend on
circumstances as shown in detail below.
Basically, all you do is breathe slowly for
fixed amounts of time by counting seconds
or heart beats. Between inhaling and
exhaling, it is necessary to "hold" - stop
breathing for fixed amounts of time until
you feel the urge to breathe. It is this urge
that drives the autonomous sleep, so the
hold initiates the process of handing over
the
conscious
breathing
to
the
autonomous. In addition to inducing sleep,
this procedure reduces stress, as
demonstrated
by
Yoga
breathing
techniques. Therefore, piano students
should take a few Yoga lessons.
When stressed, breathing slowly,
counting, and holding may not be
comfortable or feasible. In that case, start
by simply breathing in and out
comfortably; this may be shallow
breathing and relatively fast whatever is
most comfortable. Then start counting and
then slow it down gradually. The
important issue here is to make the process
as easy and comfortable as possible
because an uncomfortable or stressful
process is not conducive to sleep or stress
relief.
A good starting routine with
counting might be:
inhale for 5 sec., hold 5 sec., exhale
10 sec., hold 5 sec., repeat.

54

To start inhaling or exhaling, wait till

you feel the urge to breathe, which is also
the urge that drives the autonomous
breathing. Unlike the case for eliminating
nervousness, deep breathing may not be
necessary because you do not breathe
deeply when asleep; it is more important
to feel comfortable. Then gradually slow
down the whole process to reduce stress;
this is often accompanied by slowing heart
rate. You can substitute heart beats for
seconds; that might be easier to count.
Normal breathing during sleep is not
deep, but not shallow (as demonstrated by
the propensity to snore during sleep). It is
thus important to simulate normal
breathing processes during sleep when
practicing
breathing
for
sleep.
Unfortunately, most of us have no idea
how we breathe during sleep although it is
clear that we are totally relaxed during
sleep.
What happens when this method
works is quite interesting. Although you
can fall asleep at any point in the routine,
it seems to work best for me during the
exhaling part, possibly because there is
less air in the lung and carbon dioxide is
accumulating rapidly, so that there is a
stronger urge to inhale and this urge drives
the autonomous sleep. As I fall asleep, I
first lose the ability to count because the
autonomous process is taking over, my
thoughts start to wander, and the thoughts
turn into dreams. It is best not to fight the
autonomous process in order to keep
counting, but to let it take over. The next
thing I know, I am waking up in the
morning, hours later!
A sample sleep sequence containing
all major components (in bold) might look
like this; numbers refer to counting heart
beats; the . . . . . indicates repeat or
continue:

(1) Initial rapid, shallow breathing,

comfortable [start process].
3 in, 4 out, 3 in . . . . .
(2) slowing down.
4 in, 5 out, 5 in, 6 out, . . . . .
(3)
adding
holds
[forcing
autonomous breathing].
7 in, 8 out, hold 3, 8 in, hold 4, 9 out,
hold 5, . . . . . .
(4) deeper breathing [may not be
necessary].
9 in, hold 5, 10 out, hold 6, 10 in,
hold 6, 11 out, hold 7, . . . . . . .
(5) start of autonomous phase, loss
of ability to count [sleep phase starting].
12 in, 7 hold, 13 out, 7 hold, 12 in, 4
out, 3 in, 8 out, 7 in, 6 out, 3 in, 3 out, in,
out, . . . . . .
Note that the urge to breathe is now
so strong that the hold automatically
disappears; this is normal.
(6) mind starts to wander, then
thoughts turn into dreams.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ . . . . . . . . .
You can start anywhere in this
sequence that feels comfortable, even
jump back and forth or skip components; it
is clear that this is a complex process with
an almost infinite number of possible
routines.
Why does this work? Because you
are forcing the breathing system to transfer
from conscious to autonomous, and the
autonomous is associated with sleep at
sleep time. Thus it may not work well if
you are not sleepy or it is not the normal
sleep time. Thus holding until you feel the
urge to breathe is the most critical step,
especially after exhaling, when the urge
becomes strongest. As the autonomous
takes over, you may feel the urge to inhale
without any hold; in that case, skip the
hold and start inhaling right away, as it is a
sign that you are starting to fall asleep.

55

Clearly, this is a complex process, and will

require some practice.
As I practiced, I found that breathing
routines can be used as a switch to turn on
sleep anytime I want to fall asleep. Soon,
it became apparent that simply lying down
and hoping to eventually fall asleep didn't
make any sense when you can proactively
switch on sleep at a precise time.
Literature on good sleeping practices
generally recommend using the same
procedure at bed time, and thinking "fun"
or "pleasant" thoughts. A sleep switch
should also be a component of this
procedure. I now use it every time I sleep.
Not only does this make me an expert in
using breathing routines because I now
practice it every night, but I can't see
going to sleep in any other way, without
this control.

making quiet hands meaningless and the

hands can be moved without affecting
play.
All these points are explained by the
equation for momentum M: M = mv,
where m is the mass, and v is the velocity.
Thus light objects such as fingers move
much faster than the arm for the same M.
M disappears at slow play because v
decreases. Therefore momentum play is
important only at fast speeds. In a mostly
momentum mode of play, one member
(finger) is moving one way while another
(hand) is moving in the opposite direction
so that the two momenta add to zero,
resulting in a "quiet" hand; otherwise, the
hand will fly off the keyboard.
Quiet hands is the litmus test for
technique. The ability to control a new
force called momentum and elimination of
unnecessary motions not only allows faster
play, but also increases control. Many of
Bach's compositions were designed for
practicing quiet hands.
Some teachers impose quiet hands
play at all times, even for beginners at
slow speeds, but that is counter-productive
because you can't play quiet hands slowly
since there is no momentum. The student
feels nothing and justifiably wonders why
it is any good. When playing slowly, or if
the student does not have sufficient
technique,
hand
movements
are
appropriate. To force the hands to be
motionless under those conditions would
be unnatural and only makes it more
difficult to play and creates stress.
Those who already have quiet hands
technique can add a lot of motion without
detriment when playing slowly or fast.
Some teachers try to teach quiet hands by
placing a coin on the hand to see if it is
quiet enough so that the coin will not fall
off. This only demonstrates the teacher's
recognition of the importance of quiet

(24) Quiet Hands, Fingers, Body

Many teachers justifiably stress
"quiet hands". In this mode, the fingers
appear to do most of the playing, with the
hands moving very little. However, this
apparent lack of motion is misleading
because the hand is still compensating for
the momenta of the fast moving fingers
and is actually moving. The motion is
small because the mass of the hand is
larger than that of a finger, and the
muscles connecting the hand to the arm
also steady the hand. Since the motions of
the fingers are small at high speed, the
hand motions are even smaller. Thus quiet
hands occurs only at high speed when
momenta of the movements become an
issue and is a new mode of play compared
to slower play when force, more than
momentum, is important. Although the
audience cannot see the transition, the
pianist will unmistakably feel this new
mode when it is attained. At slow speed,
all momenta reduce to essentially zero,
56

hands, but it indicates that the teacher does

not understand quiet hands. If you are
playing Bach at full speed using quiet
hands, a coin placed on the hand will
immediately fly off quiet hands does
not mean still hands; it means that you are
playing in the momentum mode,
something that you feel, but is almost
invisible.
When you acquire quiet hands for
the first time, the new feeling is absolutely
unmistakable, so don't worry about
missing it. Once you have it, the quiet
hands motions are so economical that you
will have more control and more free time
between notes. Quiet hands, involving
momentum, is difficult to describe; to the
pianist, it is best described as a feeling of
control and the near total absence of speed
walls playing fast becomes easier.
For Bach's Inventions, quiet hands
becomes necessary at speeds close to final
speed; without quiet hands, you will hit
speed walls. Obviously, Bach chose the
speeds with quiet hands in mind. HS
practice is important for quiet hands
because it is easier to acquire and feel
quiet hands when played HS. It is best not
to start HT until you can play in the quiet
hands mode with both hands because this
will reduce the chances of locking in bad
HT habits you can certainly play HT at
slow speeds, but those are mostly wrong
motions without quiet hands.
Those with insufficient technique
may take too long to attain quiet hands
because they can not play fast enough, so
that such students may have to start HT
without quiet hands; they can then
gradually acquire quiet hands at a later
time, by using more HS practice, parallel
sets, etc. This is one reason for not
learning pieces that are too difficult for
you. Although some people claim that the
Bach Inventions can be played "at any

speed", that is true only for their musical

content; these compositions need to be
played at their recommended speeds in
order to take full advantage of the
technical lessons that Bach had in mind.
This is why HT practice takes so much
longer for learning new Bach pieces -there is no way to get to quiet hands
quickly (both hands simultaneously!),
using HT. Any HT play that is practiced
before acquiring quiet hands is worthless
or worse, because of the high likelihood of
acquiring bad habits.
One aspect of quiet hands that is too
often overlooked is "quiet fingers" which
means that the non-playing fingers do not
flail around in the air in useless extra
motions. If quiet fingers is not taught at
the beginner stage, the extra finger
motions become ingrained habits and will
create problems with playing musically at
advanced levels. By then, these bad habits
can be so ingrained that they are difficult
to correct.
Quiet fingers is often overlooked
because it is not necessary at the beginner
stage so that the need to quiet the fingers
and the methods for practicing quiet
fingers do not become an issue until the
student is at an advanced stage. At today's
level of advanced technical excellence,
quiet fingers can make the difference
between passing or failing an audition
because judges look for such details, and
lack of quiet fingers is audible to
experienced judges.
Quiet fingers is practiced just like
any other element of technique. Choose a
short segment (HS or HT depending on
your level, one bar or even less) and
practice it, keeping all fingers close to the
keys at all times, and eliminating all
unnecessary movements. This does not
mean that all extra finger motions are bad.
The artist has the license to consciously

57

make any motions that are expressions of

art. What quiet fingers eliminates are those
unintended motions that can interfere with
control and musicality.
On a much larger scale, we must also
develop quite bodies, a relaxed mode of
play without unintended motions that
interfere with the play. Such motions can
create problems such as speed walls,
difficulties with HT play, and uneven
rhythm. Bad body motions are created by
stress, by ramping up a slow play, etc..
For slow play, most body motions are
harmless; however, they can become
ingrained habits; when ramped up in
speed, they can interfere with the playing
or rhythm. One of the best ways to detect
unintended body motions is to watch
videos of your performances/practicing.

technique (HS) and to accurately

synchronize the two hands (HT). SP
should be practiced HT as well as HS.
Chopin taught staccato practice; his
method was to practice staccato before
practicing legato (Eigeldinger). This works
because if you only practice legato, you
are always pressing down on the keys,
whereas you need the extensor muscles for
finger independence and speed. There are
three ways to play staccato: by using the
fingers only, wrist only, or the arm.
Chopin's staccato is different from
Beethoven's. For SP, use mostly finger
staccato at slow speed because you are
practicing for finger independence, then
you may need to add very small amounts
of wrist and arm staccatos for higher
speeds.
Because the finger is off the key
after playing the note, you give up control
over the hammer in SP. This is another
reason why SP is important for you to
practice how to handle the hammer when
you give up control over it. SP forces each
finger to be responsible for its note, so that
a weak finger or missed note is
immediately audible. Most students have a
weak finger 4, which shows up in SP
every time, forcing you to practice it more.
SP helps with practicing relaxation
because the fingers are not always resting
against the piano and especially with rapid
relaxation because of the rapid return of
the fingers to their rest positions. Bach
understood the value of SP and
incorporated it into eight of his fifteen
Inventions. Although he did not indicate
staccatos in his manuscripts, it is clear
where it is needed, and most sheet music
indicate it.
What is so surprising is that staccato
play works at any speed, and with all
technical motions such as quiet hands,
relaxation, jumps, soft, loud, etc. It is

(25) Staccato Practice, Soft Practice

The literature lists numerous
methods for improving technique such as
the rhythm method (change the rhythm
or accented note), tapping, etc. The biggest
drawback with such methods is that they
waste time because there are too many
rhythms, etc., that you need to practice. A
particularly effective method for
developing finger independence and
accuracy, taught by Combe, is staccato
practice (SP) in which every note is
played staccato. If initially, you feel
awkward playing staccato, it is a
diagnostic that there is a weakness in the
technique. Thus, like parallel sets, SP is
both a diagnostic tool for discovering
weaknesses and for strengthening them.
Difficulties with smooth runs or hitting
notes accurately are remedied with SP.
Parallel sets get you up to speed so quickly
that you can start HT (hands together)
before you have sufficient accuracy to
synchronize the two hands accurately. SP
is the best way to convert that speed to
58

especially effective for practicing fast, soft

passages the holy grail of pianists.
Pianissimo technique is best practiced
using staccato. SP creates a robust
technique so that you can play on any
piano, whether the action is light or heavy
and strengthens your performance ability.
Thus when practicing with staccato, do not
change any playing motions just add
staccato.
Those who had never routinely
practiced SP may initially find it difficult
to play. This is normal; with continued
practice, you will be able to play every
note with clear staccato. Best of all, your
technique will be transformed! By slowing
down, you should be able to play every
note staccato. Once the slow play is
satisfactory, speed up gradually. As speed
increases, maintaining staccato will
become progressively harder. This is an
indication that you need more SP. There is
an unmistakeable sign that you have
succeeded with SP: that sign is quiet hands
[Quiet Hands & Fingers].
SP is helpful for accuracy because
you have less help from other fingers to
locate the next note, as you do in legato
play. It also helps with gaining speed
because the staccato motion is inherently
faster than legato motion. By practicing
staccato at one speed, you are practicing
the motions needed at a higher speed
because of the faster finger speeds needed
for staccato. Thus SP is another method
for overcoming speed walls and for
increasing speed. At the highest speeds,
the staccato and normal motions tend to
merge: this tells you something about how
to play fast: the fastest plays are mostly
staccato motions! The advantages of SP
are so numerous and pervasive that they
can not all be written down in a few
paragraphs, and any accomplished pianist

will find an endless number of ways to

benefit from it.
SP
will
greatly
improve
memorization of the piece because this
action is completely different from hand
memory. You may find that you need to
work on memorization all over again,
which is a warning that you had not
memorized adequately.
Staccato must be practiced HT to
improve the left-right hand coordination.
This is especially important for those who
use HS practice and parallel sets, both of
which reduce the time needed for HT
practice, resulting in poor coordination
between the two hands. HT-SP is how you
compensate for this loss. Repeat: the
importance of SP cannot be overemphasized.
Practice softly:
During most
practice sessions and especially with SP,
the benefits of practicing softly also
cannot be over-emphasized. Soft practice
minimizes fatigue and stress so that you
can practice relaxation and concentrate on
technique. Loud practice is easier because
it provides crutches that hide technical
flaws. You may be able to temporarily
play faster by playing louder, but that
doesn't teach you technique. With loud
practice, you pick up more bad habits, play
non-musically, and acquire technique
more slowly.
In most instances, listening to
students practicing is unpleasant because
they are practicing too loud. Beethoven's
music teaches us a most important lesson
that music is mostly soft, so that the
brief loud sections stand out. However, his
music can be so exciting that we are all
tempted to play them louder than they
should be, which is not musical and bad
for technique. Thus even loud sections
should be practiced softly until the

59

technique is acquired; otherwise, you may

never acquire the technique.
The holy grail of technique is to play
rapid passages softly and clearly, like a
string of pearls. Soft SP, without pedal
[(39) Damper (Sustain) Pedal, Physics of
the piano sound], is the only way to get
there.

accelerate only to that maximum

comfortable speed.
The most important rule is: never
practice
anything
incorrectly
or,
equivalently, never try the impossible.
This explains why using the metronome
to gradually ramp up speed doesn't work
[(13) Metronome]. If you follow the
procedures given here, you may be making
jumps in speed, speeding up rapidly or
even slowing down (!) at times. For
example, when fatigue sets in, the hand
will automatically slow down; otherwise it
will develop bad habits; that's when you
switch hands. You can't make these speed
changes back and forth with a metronome.
Some users of the metronome know that
you can't accelerate too fast, so they
accelerate slowly, which not only wastes
time, but habituates the hands to play the
slow motions. There are good reasons for
getting up to speed quickly in addition to
saving time so that you do not pick up
slow play habits, etc. Instead of speeding
up at a safe, slow, pace, let the hands
determine the optimum practice speeds.
It is necessary to increase speed
beyond your skill level to find new
motions, but keep that to a minimum for
accomplishing your experimentation, then
reduce speed and practice the new motions
with accuracy. Note that you have to find
new motions (many are listed in this
book) you generally don't know what
they are until you get there; it is the
teacher's job to show them to you during
lessons. The need to get up to speed
quickly in order to find the new motions
and the need to avoid bad habits by not
playing too fast are contradictory. Practice
routines for speed must be designed to
satisfy both requirements, a complex
process, that must be developed over years
of experience and experimentation.

(26) Speed, Rhythm, Dynamics

Technique for speed is acquired by
discovering new hand motions, not by
speeding up a slow motion, and certainly
not by "increasing finger strength". The
hand motions for playing slowly and fast
are different. This is why trying to speed
up a slow play by gradually ramping up
the speed doesn't work. That just leads to
speed walls -- because you are trying to do
the impossible. Speeding up a slow play is
like asking a horse to speed up a walk to
the speed of a gallop -- it can't. A horse
must change from walk to trot to canter
and then to gallop. If you force a horse to
walk at the speed of a canter, it will hit a
speed wall and will most likely injure
itself by kicking its own hoofs to shreds. A
horse has only four hoofs and a far inferior
brain than a human, who has ten very
complex fingers with almost infinite
possibilities. What students must learn is
the almost endless ways in which these
fingers can be manipulated, ways that the
greatest piano geniuses before us
discovered.
In a typical speed session, you pick a
short section to practice HS, for the RH
and LH. Use the practice methods of this
book to increase speed quickly. Once the
segments are satisfactory, play longer
sections and gradually increase speed. Do
not force the hands to play faster, but wait
for the hands to want to go faster when
you switch to the rested hand, and

60

Improving
the
musicality
is
important for increasing the speed. Very
often, simply increasing the accuracy can
enhance the musicality, especially for
popular melodies like Fr Elise, for which
beginners often try to add extra
expression; that is inappropriate for
familiar melodies because people have
heard better interpretations.
Getting up to speed is just the
beginning. When you get close to final
speed, you will be ramping down the
speed! Using HS practice, when you
switch hands, the rested hand is ready to
go; therefore, this is the time when you
can play at maximum speed with
minimum fatigue and stress. But at such
speeds, the hand will tire quickly. This is
the time to slow down and practice for
accuracy. In this way, you avoid erecting
speed walls and avoid fast play
degradation [(27) Fast Play Degradation,
Eliminating Bad Habits]. As this ramping
down, changing hands procedure is
repeated, the maximum comfortable speed
after switching hands should increase,
because you have been practicing correctly
for technique.
When you find a good new motion,
you can make a quantum jump in speed at
which the hand plays comfortably; in fact,
at intermediate speeds, it is often more
difficult to play than the faster speed, just
as a horse has difficulty at speeds between
a canter and gallop and will switch
between them erratically. If you use a
metronome and happen to set it at this
intermediate speed, you might struggle at
it for a long time and accomplish nothing
except develop stress. Without the
metronome, you can jump from one speed
to another comfortable speed.
With a digital piano, acquire new
technique using the lightest key weight
setting. Once the technique is satisfactory,

practice at the heaviest setting so as to be

able to perform on acoustic pianos
because, in general, they feel heavier than
digitals. You may have heard that piano
tuners can adjust the key weight of
acoustics to any value. This is true only for
the static weight. The dynamic weight,
which becomes important at higher
speeds, cannot be arbitrarily reduced, and
reducing the static weight can actually
increase the dynamic weight. Even in most
digitals, "light" is an illusion because the
keydrop force is not changed when you
change the key weight settings. Lightness
is achieved in software by making the
piano sound louder and more brilliant. An
old acoustic piano can feel light because
its hammers are compacted, but such
hammers cannot produce PP and can be
difficult to play fast. When the tuner
voices that hammer correctly, the piano
will feel heavier, although the key weight
was not adjusted. The inexpensive
keyboards with extremely light (nonweighted) keys are not helpful because
they are not made for speed.
Fast, Slow muscles:
Muscle
bundles consist mainly of fast or slow
muscles. The slow muscles provide
strength and endurance. The fast muscles
are for control and speed. Depending on
how you practice, one set grows at the
expense of the other. Obviously, when
practicing for technique, we want to grow
the fast muscles. Therefore, avoid
isometric or strength type exercises that
grow the slow muscles. Practice quick
movements, and as soon as the work is
done, rapidly relax those muscles. This is
why any pianist can outrun a sumo
wrestler on the keyboard, although the
wrestler has a lot more muscle. Practicing
Hanon type exercises for hours, "to
strengthen the fingers" might grow more
slow muscles.

61

you get it every time. (2) We can't control

time; no matter what we do, time marches
on. By repeating the same rhythm, we can
stop time! Nothing changes, the same
thing happens over and over, as if time
were standing still; we can even accelerate
it or slow it down. Thus musicians can do
what physicists can't control time. Even
music without rhythm can be considered
music, in which case time becomes
irrelevant.
How to practice rhythm: Rhythm
must be treated as a separate subject of
practice with a specific program of attack.
Set aside some time for working on
rhythm. A metronome can be helpful.
Double check that your rhythm is
consistent with the time signature. This
can't be done in the mind even after you
can play the piece -- you must revisit the
sheet music and check every note. Too
many students play a piece a certain way
"because it sounds good"; you can't do
that. Check with the score to see if the
correct notes carry the correct accent
strictly according to the time signature.
Only then, can you decide which rhythmic
interpretation is the best way to play and
where the composer has inserted violations
of the basic rules (very rare) for special
effects; more often the rhythm indicated
by the time signature is strictly correct but
can sound counter-intuitive, an intentional
construct by the composer. An example of
this is the mysterious "arpeggio" at the
beginning of Beethoven's Appassionata
(Op. 57). A normal arpeggio (such as
CEG) starts with the first note (C), which
should carry the beat. However,
Beethoven starts each bar with the third
note of the arpeggio (the first bar is
incomplete and carries the first two notes);
this places the accent on the third note, not
the first, a most unusual arpeggio. We find
out the reason for this odd "arpeggio"

Rhythm consists of 2 parts: timing

and dynamics, and both come in 2 flavors,
formal and logical. The mysteries
surrounding rhythm and the difficulties
encountered in defining rhythm arise from
the "logical" part, which is at once the key
element and the most elusive. One
important element of dynamics is the
unexpected accents.
Formal Timing: The formal timing
is given by the time signature, and is
indicated at the beginning of the music
score. The major time signatures are waltz
(3/4), common time (4/4), cut time (2/2,
also alla breve) and 2/4.
The waltz has 3 beats per bar
(measure); the number of beats per bar is
indicated by the numerator. 4/4 is most
common and is often not even indicated,
although it should be indicated by a "C" at
the beginning (remember it as "C stands
for common"). Cut time is indicated by the
same "C", but with a vertical line down the
center (cuts the "C" in half).
The note per beat is indicated by the
denominator, so that the 3/4 waltz has
three quarter-notes per bar. The meter is
the number of beats in a measure, and
almost every meter is constructed from
duplets (tuples, duples, tuplets, also mean
the same thing, two notes per beat) or
triplets (three notes per beat), although
rare exceptions have been used for special
effects (5, 7, or 9 notes per beat).
Generally the first note of each multiplet
carries the accent, and the beat note carries
the strongest accent.
Repetition is the most important
element of rhythm for two main reasons.
(1) Music works because of satisfaction
which is provided by creating an
anticipation or tension, and then resolving
it. Repeating the rhythm satisfies these
conditions; you know what is coming, and

62

when the main theme is introduced in bar

35. This beginning "arpeggio" is an
inverted, schematized form of the main
theme. Beethoven had psychologically
prepared us for the main theme by giving
us only its rhythm! This is why he repeats
it, after raising it by a curious interval -- he
wanted to make sure that we recognized
the unusual rhythm. He used the same
device at the beginning of his 5th
symphony, where he repeats the "fate
motif" at a lower pitch. The reasons
behind these strange rhythmic constructs
in this sonata are explained in (58)
Beethoven's Appassionata, Op. 57, First
Movement. Another example is Chopin's
Fantaisie Impromptu. The first note of the
RH in bar 5 must be softer than the
second. Can you find at least one reason
why? Although this piece is in double
time, it may be instructive to practice the
RH as 4/4 to make sure that the wrong
notes are not emphasized.
Having carefully checked the rhythm
when practicing HS, check again when
starting HT. When the rhythm is wrong,
the music usually becomes impossible to
play at speed. If you have unusual
difficulty in getting up to speed, doublecheck the rhythm. Incorrect rhythmic
interpretation is a common cause of speed
walls and troubles with HT. If there is an
rhythmic error, no amount of practice will
get you up to speed! In such cases,
outlining [(38) Outlining, Beethoven's
Sonata #1, Op. 2-1] is an excellent way to
find and correct errors in the rhythm.
When starting HT practice, exaggerate the
rhythm, which makes it easier to
synchronize the two hands. Next, look for
the special rhythmic markings, such as
"sf" or accent marks, because they are the
guides to the logic in the music.
Rhythm is intimately associated with
speed. This is why most Beethoven

compositions must be played above certain

speeds; otherwise, the emotions associated
with the rhythm and even the melodic
lines can be lost. Rhythm is often
referenced to speeds that exist in nature,
such as the speed of the human brain or
the heartbeat. It is important to stay just
ahead of the brain, so that it has no time to
be bored or distracted and has no choice
but to follow the music, but music should
not go too far ahead of the brain so that it
gets lost.
There is one class of rhythmic
difficulties that can be solved using a
simple trick. This is the class of complex
rhythms with missing notes. A good
example of this is in the 2nd movement of
Beethoven's Pathetique. The 2/4 time
signature is easy to play in bars 17 to 21
because of the repeated chords of the LH
that maintain the rhythm. However, in bar
22, the most important beat notes of the
LH are missing, making it difficult to pick
up the complex play in the RH. The
solution to this problem is to temporarily
restore the missing notes of the LH! In this
way, you can easily practice the correct
rhythm in the RH.
Dynamics, Formal Accents: Each
time signature has its formal accent
(louder notes). We use the notation: 1 is
the loudest, 2 is softer, etc.; then the
(Viennese) waltz has the formal accent
133 (the famous oom-pha-pha); the first
beat gets the accent; the Mazurka can be
313 or 331. Common time has the formal
accent 1323 or 1324, and cut time and 2/4
have the accent 1212. A syncopation is a
rhythm in which the accent is placed at a
location different from the formal accent;
for example a syncopated 4/4 might be
2313 or 2331.
Musical phrases generally start and
end softly, but the first beat of most

63

rhythms carry the accent. This is why so

many compositions start with a partial bar
to avoid that accent on the first beat.
Therefore, in the "Happy Birthday" song,
the first accent is on "Birth", not "Happy".
Logical Timing and Accents: This
is where the composer injects additional
music. It is a change in timing and
loudness from the formal rhythm.
Although rhythmic logic is not necessary,
it is almost always there. Common
examples of timing rhythmic logic are
accel. (to make things more exciting),
decel. (perhaps to indicate an ending) or
rubato. Examples of dynamic rhythmic
logic are increasing or decreasing
loudness, forte, PP, sf, etc.
Beethoven's Tempest Sonata (Op.
31, #2), contains beautiful examples
formal and logical rhythms (as practically
any composition by Beethoven). In the 3rd
movement, the first 3 bars are 3 repetitions
of the same structure, and they simply
follow the formal rhythm. However, in
bars 43-46, there are 6 repetitions of the
same structure in the RH, but they must be
squeezed into 4 formal rhythmic bars!
Playing 6 identical repetitions in the RH is
wrong because the formal accents must be
followed. Hint: the LH is "standard" and
easy to figure out, so copy that rhythm to
the RH. On the other hand, in bars 47 and
55, there is an unexpected "sf" that has
nothing to do with the formal rhythm, but
is an absolutely essential logical rhythm.
Although the arrangements of notes is
relatively simple, playing the dynamics
correctly in this movement is complex,
and practically no one would guess them
correctly without Beethoven's markings. It
is amazing how Beethoven cleverly used
the formal accents to tell us exactly how to
play it, for most of the music. The
unexpected logical accents are a hallmark
of Beethoven's genius and showed us that

dynamics, by itself, is a powerful

language, and that breaking the rules of
the formal accents can produce a higher
level of musical logic.

(27) Fast Play Degradation,

Eliminating Bad Habits
Play any composition at full speed
(or faster), and you may suffer "Fast Play
Degradation" (FPD). The following day,
you can't play it as well. This happens
mostly with HT play. HS play is more
immune to FPD and can in fact be used to
correct it. FPD occurs probably because
the human playing mechanism (hands,
brain, etc) gets confused at such speeds,
and therefore occurs only for complex
material such as HT play of conceptually
or technically difficult material. Easy
pieces tend not to suffer FPD. Students
who try to speed up HT can run into FPD
problems and the standard solution had
been to only practice slowly for long
periods of time which wastes too much
time.
HS practice is the better solution.
This simplifies the music, reduces
confusion and erases any bad habits that
formed during fast HT play. One effective
way to avoid FPD is to always play slowly
at least once before quitting.
The most important thing about FPD
is the knowledge that it exists, so that you
don't get caught off guard, and know what
to do to cure it. If you don't know anything
about FPD and experience its symptoms,
you can suffer psychological problems
because nothing works for no known
reason.
Bad Habits: Beginners start out
with numerous bad habits that are readily
identified by teachers. It is the teacher's
job to prioritize them and correct them one
by one. Common bad habits are poor
touch, over-use of the damper pedal, weak
64

(timid) fingers, stuttering, wrong speed,

lack
of
rhythm
and
musicality,
uncontrolled motions, etc. Bad habits are
the worst time-wasters in piano practice
because, once formed, they take such a
long time to correct, whereas preventing
them is much, much easier, if preventive
measures are taken in time.
Some beginners bang away at the
piano without regard to musicality. The
student equates loudness to excitement.
This happens because the students are so
engrossed with the practice that they
forget to listen to the sounds coming out of
the piano. It is important to cultivate the
habit of listening to yourself, and it is the
teacher's main job to show what
"musical" sounds like. The ability to
distinguish between musical and nonmusical is the most important skill that
students must cultivate. Listening to
yourself is harder than many people
realize because many students expend all
their effort playing, with nothing left for
listening. The best way to get around this
problem is to videotape the playing and
listen/watch it to find ways to improve.
There is no need to videotape all your life
because that will waste too much time. Do
it enough times until you learn how to
listen to yourself and you will be able to
listen while practicing.
Then there are those with weak
fingers. This is caused by not relaxing, and
not letting gravity take over. The student
lacks confidence and subconsciously lifts
the arms, which creates stress so that
speed and musicality become impossible.
These students must be taught the full
dynamic range of the piano, how to make
use of this range and, above all, to relax.
Students practicing on old pianos with
compacted hammers that are not voiced
can develop "weak fingers" because such
pianos produce too much sound when

played normally. The best solution is to

hire a piano tuner who knows how to
voice the hammers.
Still another bad habit is playing at
the wrong speed, either too fast or too
slow, especially during a performance
when students get excited and lose the
sense of tempo. The right speed is
determined by many factors, including the
difficulty of the piece with respect to the
technical ability, what the audience might
be expecting, the condition of the piano,
what piece preceded or will follow this
piece, etc. Some students might tend to
perform pieces too fast for their skill level
and end up making mistakes, while others
are timid and play too slowly, thus not
taking full advantage of the music. Playing
slowly can be more difficult than playing
at the correct speed, which compounds a
timid player's problems. Those who
perform
too
fast
can
become
psychologically discouraged because they
make too many mistakes and become
convinced that they are poor pianists.
These problems apply not only to
performances but also to practicing; those
who practice too fast can end up thinking
that they are poor pianists because they
make errors and progress is slow. Slowing
down just a little may enable them to play
accurately and beautifully and, in the long
run, acquire technique faster. To combat
this problem, some schools of piano do not
allow fast play at all. That's not optimal,
because the students will learn at a slower
pace.
Beginners often play mechanically
like a metronome, in an effort to "play
accurately", and because they have not
been taught the meaning of musicality.
They need to be taught that rhythm is a
language, and that the small deviations
from strict timing are used to
communicate musical concepts, etc..

65

Poor tone quality is another common

problem. No one is listening during
practice, so tone doesn't seem to matter;
the student may not even be familiar with
the concept of tone. Students must always
strive for tone, because it is the most
important part of the music. Good tone
cannot be produced on a lousy or
unregulated piano; this is the main reason
why students need a decent piano and why
tuning, regulation, and hammer voicing
are more important than most students and
their parents realize. Listening to good
recordings is the best way to wake up the
student to the existence of good tone. If
they only listen to their play, they may
have no idea what good tone means. On
the other hand, once they pay attention to
tone and start getting results, it will feed
on itself and they can learn to produce
sounds that attract an audience.
Stuttering is caused by stop-and-go
practice in which a student has a habit of
stopping to replay a section every time
there is a mistake. At a mistake, always
play through it; don't stop to correct it.
Make a mental note of where the mistake
was and practice that section later. Fish
out a small segment containing that
mistake (typically a few bars) and work on
it. Once the habit of playing through
mistakes is established, students can
graduate to the next level of anticipating
mistakes and taking evasive action, such
as simplifying the section, maintaining the
rhythm or melody through the flub, or
even speeding up just a little and using
hand memory to carry you through. These
skills must be practiced every time you hit
a mistake. Most audiences don't mind, and
often don't even hear or remember the
mistakes unless the rhythm or melodic line
is broken.
Slowing down at anticipated flubs
can be a dangerous thing. No matter how

well it is memorized, playing anything is

still dependent on hand memory. Slowing
down can change the stimuli for hand
memory and increase the chances of flubs.
Often, you can prevent a flub by speeding
up so that you depend more on hand
memory. Therefore experiment with both
approaches during practice. Without prior
practice, speeding up is a scary thing to do
during a performance.
The worst thing about bad habits is
that they take so long to eliminate,
especially if they are HT habits. Therefore
nothing accelerates the learning rate like
knowing all the bad habits and preventing
them before they become ingrained. For
example, the time to prevent stuttering is
when a student first begins piano lessons,
when a few stops here and there seem
harmless. In the beginning, most students
don't stutter; however, they must be
immediately taught to play through
mistakes it is a skill they must learn. At
this stage, it is easy to learn; to teach a
stutterer to play through mistakes, on the
other hand, is a very frustrating task.

(28) Jumps, PP, FF, Feeling the Keys

Accomplished
pianists
jump
effortlessly, playing rapidly and accurately
no matter where the notes are. Students
with no jump training can't figure out how
anyone can do that. They have trouble
because they tend to move the hand along
an inverted V motion that makes it
difficult to hit a note accurately because
the hand is coming down at some arbitrary
angle that changes with every jump. These
changes increase the possibility of missing
the notes, and the keys are played by a
sideways motion instead of straight down.
Another difficulty is that fast jumps are
impossible because they can never get
there in time.

66

Jumps (leaps) consist of four

motions: (1) the takeoff, (2) a horizontal
translation of the hand to the correct
position, (3) feeling the keys at the
destination, and (4) the actual downward
motion to play. The combined motion
should look more like an inverted "U" than
an inverted "V". This inverted U has short
legs and a flat top; that is, do not raise the
hand far above the keys, at least in the
beginning; the one exception is when you
need to go over the other hand.
Get into the habit of making quick
takeoffs regardless of the speed of the
jump. There is nothing wrong with getting
there way ahead of time. Even when
practicing slowly, you should practice
quick takeoffs so that the skill will be
there when you need it. Start the take-off
with a small downward and sideways kick
of the wrist, launching the hand towards
the destination. Unlike the downward
motion at the end, the take-off does not
have to be straight up, and you
immediately start towards the destination.
The most important skill to
practice is to make the horizontal
motion as fast as possible so as to reserve
enough time to locate the keys after the
hand reaches its destination. You may be
amazed at how much faster you can move
horizontally with only a few days of
practice -- something some students never
achieve in a lifetime because they were
never taught this motion.
To practice fast horizontal motions,
sit anywhere with the elbow straight down,
forearm pointing forward, fingers spread
out in piano playing position. Quickly
move the hand sideways, parallel to the
floor, as in a jump motion. Move the hand
rapidly away from you and stop, then
immediately relax; the shoulder does not
move. Then move rapidly back to its
original position. Practice these out and in

motions, as fast as you can, but completely

relaxing after each motion. Most of this
motion is a swinging rotation of the
forearm around the upper arm, with a
small motion of the elbow. From day one,
you should see immediate improvements
in your jumps if you had never practiced
this before; but in time, this horizontal
speed will increase so much that jumps
will quickly become easy.
Feeling the keys can be executed
surprisingly quickly. There is usually
plenty of time to do this. Therefore, it is a
good policy to always feel the keys
because it guarantees 100% accuracy.
There are a few instances in which there is
no time to feel the keys, and those few can
be played accurately if you had located
most of the other jumps accurately by
feeling them. The habit of feeling keys
improves your general accuracy for
locating the keys even when not feeling
them because you develop a more precise
map of the key locations in the mind.
Now that you know the components
of a jump, look for them when watching
concert pianists performing. You should
now be able to identify each component,
and you may be amazed at how often they
feel the keys before striking them and how
they can execute these components in the
blink of an eye. These skills will enable
you to make long jumps, even without
looking at the hands.
In order to reduce stress, relax all
muscles as soon as the horizontal motion
is over, and as soon as the notes are
played. Frequently encountered pieces to
practice easy jumps are: (1) for the LH, the
4th variation in Mozart's Sonata in A, #11
(K331); this variation has large jumps in
which the LH crosses over the RH and (2)
RH, 1st movement of Beethoven's
Pathetique Sonata (Opus 13), right after
the LH octave tremolos (after bar 50),

67

where the RH makes jumps crossing over

the LH. A more challenging passage is
Chopin's Ballade Op. 23, at the end, the
LH jumps in the first half of the "Presto
con fuoco".
Use the easy jumps to practice
accelerating the horizontal motion,
stopping over the correct position, and
feeling the keys before playing. The idea
here is to establish a habit of always
getting to the destination ahead of time.
Once the quick horizontal motion is
satisfactory, speed up the tempo and
combine all four jump components into
one smooth motion. Now your jump looks
just like those of the concert pianists you
envied. Better yet, jumps are now easy and
fun!
PP, FF:
Practicing loud or
practicing on a piano with heavy action is
bad for technique. Some pianists ask their
tuners to add extra weight to the action, in
the mistaken belief that this will
strengthen their fingers; it certainly will,
but it will also limit technical
development. It is impossible to practice
PP on such pianos, and FF will not be as
loud because so much energy is wasted in
pressing the keys instead of moving the
hammers faster.
It is difficult to play softly (P), and
PP is impossible, on a piano that is out of
regulation or not voiced. Most uprights fail
on both PP and FF tests, and this is one of
the major differences between uprights
and quality grands. The fact that it looks
like a grand does not automatically qualify
it as a true grand. Practically all baby
grands are not true grands. If the
instrument can't produce PP or FF, you
can't practice them! This is the main
reason why so many students cannot play
PP or FF; it is not the students' fault.
Except for high quality grands that
are properly regulated, most acoustic

piano actions are too heavy because of the

difficulty of producing responsive
mechanical actions that are lighter.
Chopin and Horowitz's pianos are famous
for their light actions.
Digital pianos do not have this
limitation and therefore have lighter
actions. They must have a certain
minimum weight so that the pianist
practicing on a digital can also play on
acoustic pianos with their heavier actions.
Today, they may still be too heavy for
optimum weight, but this point is
controversial because action that is too
light is less forgiving in some respects:
depending on the action and the pianist, a
heavier action can give better results for
difficult material because of the possibility
of accidentally hitting wrong notes when
the fingers are flying all over. This is one
reason why quiet fingers [Quiet Hands &
Fingers] is so important. Therefore, the
question of what key weight is best has not
been settled, and probably depends on the
individual; however, today's digitals, with
their lighter actions, may be closer to the
optimum than acoustic pianos.
Unfortunately, the lighter action of
digitals does not mean that they are better
in terms of response, PP, and FF. The
more expensive digitals have better
responses. To really test them out, they
should be hooked to quality audio systems,
especially the speakers. This is why many
digitals are sold today, bundled with subwoofers. PP is best practiced using
staccato practice [(25) Staccato Practice,
Soft Practice].
FF is a new skill; learning FF and
technique at the same time is difficult
learn technique first, practicing at P, then
add FF. FF is produced by the force from
the shoulders more than the hands. It is a
forceful acceleration during the keydrop. It
is not necessary to lift the hand high above

68

the keys; the acceleration during keydrop

is the key. Relaxation is especially
important for FF because any tension will
siphon away the energy that you need.

numbered A3,B3,C4,D4, . . . These notes

were named for the violin tuned at A and
this convention was not coordinated with
the keyboard. There was no reason why
the violin couldn't have been tuned to
F440, so that A major on the piano would
be all white keys. For any scale, the first
note is called the tonic, so C is the tonic of
the C major scale. The lowest note of a 88
key keyboard is A(0) and the highest note
is C8.
The standard major scale ascending
fingerings (Table 1.1) are 12312345 (RH,
one octave), 54321321(LH) for C,G,D,A,E
major scales (with 0,1,2,3,4 sharps,
respectively). The sharps increase in the
order F,C,G,D,A, (G-major has F#, Dmajor has F# and C#, A-major has F#, C#,
and
G#,
etc.)
and
for
the
F,Bb,Eb,Ab,Db,Gb, major scales, the flats
increase in the order B,E,A,D,G,C; every
interval between adjacent letters is a fifth.
The violin's open strings are G,D,A,E. The
letters always appear in the sequence
GDAEBFC which represents the circle of
fifths, and is worth memorizing. Because
it is a circle, G comes after C. Look at B or
Gb major scales in a music book and you
will see how the 5 sharps or 6 flats line up
in the same sequence on the staff. Thus 2
sharps will have sharps at F, C, three
sharps will be F, C, G, etc. The flats
increase in reverse order compared to the
sharps. Each scale is identified by its key
signature; thus the key signature of the G
major scale has one sharp (F#). Learn to
recognize the interval of a fifth on the
keyboard; then you can generate all the
scales in order of increasing sharps (by
going up in fifths from C) or in order of
increasing flats (by going down in fifths);
this is useful for practicing all the scales in
sequence without having to refer to the
printed scales.

(29) Scales: Nomenclature and

Fingerings
Scales and arpeggios must be
practiced, to acquire basic techniques and
standard fingerings for routine playing and
sight reading, so that they can be played
without thinking about where each note
and finger goes. Practice them in all the
major and minor keys. Once you become
familiar with the fingerings, there is no
need to practice them every day although
they make excellent warm up exercises.
The origins and properties of the
chromatic and other scales are discussed in
(76) Chromatic Scale. Here we discuss the
nomenclature and fingerings. For theory
discussions, the CDEFGAB notation is
generally used; for singing, see Solfege
[(68) Theory, Solfege].
The historical convention to fit the C
major scale on all white keys was a
mistake. The "uniform" key arrangement,
consisting of alternate black and white
keys throughout the keyboard, would have
been better. This makes the octave one key
narrower so that it is easier to reach wider
chords, you need to learn only four scale
fingerings for all keys, transposition is
trivial especially for a full step, arpeggios
are easier, the chromatic scale is easier to
play, all distances between black keys are
identical thus reducing errors, and students
will learn piano faster. The only
disadvantage is that the spaces between
black keys will be narrower, making it
more difficult for those with wide fingers.
In the nomenclature convention, it is
unfortunate that C major was not named A
major. Thus the octave numbers change at
C, not A; therefore, at C4, the notes are
69

The minor scales are complex

because there are three families of them,
and can be confusing because they are
often just called "minor" without
specifying which of the three, or worse,
each has been given several different
names. They were created because they
produce moods different from the others.
The simplest minor scale is the relative
minor (also called natural minor); it is
simple because it shares the same key
signature as its major relative, but its tonic
moves up to the sixth note of its major
relative, according to music textbooks. I
find it easier to remember this as a minor
3rd down instead of a 6th up. Thus the
relative minor of G major has its tonic at E
and the key signature is F#, and is called E
(relative) minor. Another minor is the
melodic minor; it is created by raising the
6th and 7th notes of the relative minor by a
semitone only when ascending; the
descending part is unchanged. The third,
and the most frequently used minor, is the
harmonic minor which is created from
the relative minor by raising the 7th note a
semitone. Fingerings for the harmonic
minor scales are shown in Table 1.2. The
last column lists the raised note for the
minor scale: thus A (harmonic) minor is
ABCDEFG#A, and its relative major is C
major.

70

Tables 1.1 - 1.2

71

pianists who think that TU is the only

method they need, because that's all they
were taught. In reality, for sufficiently fast
passages, especially for the chromatic
scale, they have learned to modify the TU
method in such a way that it approaches
the TO method. This modification is
necessary because for such rapid scales, it
is impossible to play them using TU.
Many students practice slowly
initially and then ramp up the speed. They
do fine using TU at slow speeds and
consequently acquire the TU habit and
find out, when they get up to speed, that
they need to change to TO. This change
can be a frustrating and time consuming
task, not only for scales, but also for any
fast run or arpeggio -- another reason why
the ramping up method for increasing
speed is not recommended; speed is
increased by finding new motions.
The main piano playing muscles for
the thumb are in the forearm. However,
the thumb has other muscles that move it
in the TU method. These extra muscles
make TU a more complex motion that
slows play, creates speed walls, and causes
mistakes. Teachers who teach TO claim
that, for those who use TU exclusively,
90% of their flubs originate with the TU
motion (Whiteside, Abby,).
The disadvantages of the TU method
can be demonstrated by observing the loss
of thumb mobility in its tucked-in position.
First, stretch all fingers out so that they are
in the same plane. All the fingers,
including the thumb, have mobility up and
down. Now, wiggle the thumb up and
down rapidly without forearm rotation -- it
can move 3 or 4 cm vertically with ease
(rapidly). Then, while still wiggling at the
same rapid rate, gradually pull the thumb
under the hand -- as it goes under, it loses
vertical mobility until it becomes
immobile, almost paralyzed, when it is

(30) Thumb Under, Thumb Over,

Glissando Motion, Pivoting
Scales and arpeggios are the most
basic piano passages; yet the most
important method for playing them is
often not taught! There are two ways to
play them. The first is the well-known
"Thumb Under" (TU) method and the
second is what I have named the "Thumb
Over" (TO) method.
In the TU method, the thumb is
brought under the hand in order to pass the
3rd or 4th finger for playing the scale. This
TU operation is facilitated by two unique
structures of the thumb; it is shorter than
the other fingers and can be moved under
the palm.
In the TO method, the thumb is
treated like any other finger and is not
moved under the palm, thus simplifying
the motion, as discussed below. Both
methods are required to play the scale but
each
is
needed
under
different
circumstances; TO is needed for fast,
difficult passages and TU is useful for
slow, legato passages, or when notes need
to be held while playing other notes.
For lack of a better terminology, I
have named the TO method "Thumb
Over" which is an obvious misnomer and
might make it harder for a beginner to
understand how to play it. I have tried
other names, but none are any better; one
advantage is that this outrageous
nomenclature is can call attention to the
existence of TO.
Before about 2010, many piano
teachers were unaware of the TO method,
even at conservatories. This presented few
difficulties as long as the students did not
progress to advanced levels. In fact, with
sufficient effort and work, it is possible to
play fairly difficult passages using the TU
method and there have been accomplished
72

under the middle finger. Now stop the

wiggling and thrust the thumb down
(without moving the wrist) -- it moves
down! This is because there is another set
of muscles for pushing the thumb down.
Then, using these new muscles, try to
move the thumb up and down rapidly -you should find that these new muscles are
much clumsier and the up and down
motion is slower than the wiggle rate of
the thumb when it was stretched out.
TO is easier to learn than TU
because it does not require the sideways
contortions of the thumb, hand, arm, and
elbow needed for TU. Beginners should be
taught TU first because it is needed for
slow passages and takes longer to learn.
The TO method should be taught as soon
as faster scales are needed, within the first
two years of lessons. For fast learners, TO
must be taught within months of their first
lessons, as soon as they master TU.
Because there are two ways to play
the scale, there are two schools of teaching
on how to play it. The TU school (Czerny,
Leschetizky) claims that TU is the only
way that legato scales can be played and
that, with sufficient practice, TU can play
scales at any speed. The TO school
(Whiteside, Abby,, Sndor) has gradually
taken over and the more strict adherents
forbid the use of TU, under any
circumstance. Both extremes are wrong
because both skills are necessary.
The TO teachers are understandably
frustrated by the fact that advanced
students passed to them by private
teachers often do not know TO and it takes
months or years to correct hours of
repertoire that they had learned the wrong
way. Students should standardize to TO
and use TU as an exception to the rule.
Chopin
taught
both
methods
(Eigeldinger, P. 37).

Although the TO method was

rediscovered by Whitesides, etc., the
earliest account of its use dates back to at
least Franz Liszt (Fay). Liszt is known to
have stopped performing and returned to
improving his technique for over a year
when he was about 20 years old. He was
dissatisfied with his technique (especially
for playing scales) when compared to the
magical performances of Paganini on the
violin, and experimented with technique.
At the end of this period, he emerged
satisfied with his new skills but could not
teach others exactly what he had done to
improve -- he could only demonstrate on
the piano (this was true of most of Liszt's
"teachings"). However, Amy Fay noticed
that he now played the scale differently;
instead of TU, Liszt was "rolling the hand
over the passed finger" so that the thumb
fell on the next key. It took Fay many
months to imitate this method but,
according to her, it "completely changed
my way of playing" and resulted in a
marked improvement in her technique
generally, not only for playing scales.
How to play TO: consider the RH,
C major ascending scale, played 1231234.
The thumb is played like the other fingers;
it is raised and lowered without the
sideways TU motion under the palm.
Since the thumb is shorter than the other
fingers, it can be brought down almost
parallel to the passed finger without
colliding with it. Move the hand so that
the thumb moves towards its new position.
The forearm should be almost 45 degrees
to the keyboard (pointing left); this also
moves the thumb in the right direction. For
scales such as the C major, both the thumb
and passed finger are on white keys and
will necessarily crowd each other, so that
you need to curl the fingers. The hand is
rolled over the passed finger by using the
passed finger as a pivot. The passed finger

73

must then be quickly moved away as the

thumb comes down. It is not possible to
hold the passed finger down until the
thumb plays, unlike the TU method. When
you first try the TO method, the scale will
be uneven and there may be a "gap" when
playing the thumb. Therefore, the
transition from passed finger to thumb
must be quick even in a scale played
slowly.
Glissando motion: When playing
fast scales, the hand/arm orientations
should be similar to those of a glissando,
with a small forearm rotation (RH
ascending, supinated [(36) Hand Motions])
so that all fingers point slightly backwards.
This motion positions the thumb closer to
the passed fingers, making the pass
smoother, and the fingertips move
backwards with each keydrop. This
backwards motion helps to keep the
fingers on the keys as the hand moves
forwards. This was one of the most
important motions taught by Chopin
(Fraser). In TO, the hand is always moving
smoothly forward, yet the vector force on
the key is straight down, because of the
glissando motion.
Pivoting can be used to play legato
TO, without having to use TU, a method
taught by Combe. In this action, the
fingers and hand are pivoted around the tip
of the passed finger so that the passed
finger stays on the key as long as possible.
The pivoting motion requires a clockwise
forearm
rotation
(supination,
RH
ascending). Practice passing and pivoting
of finger 3 using 123123123123. . . .
fingering on just the white keys (C major).
Similarly, practice pivoting on the 4th
finger using 1234123412341234 . . . .
fingering. Because a skilled pivoting
motion can produce excellent legato,
especially for slow passages, some
teachers claim that TU is unnecessary.

Beginners find TO to be easier than

TU, but those who learned TU for many
years may initially find TO clumsy,
uneven, and difficult to understand
because changing the TU habits is so
difficult.
For the RH descending scale, you
pivot and roll over the thumb, which is
easier than pivoting and rolling over the
passed finger for the RH ascending scale.
The glissando motion is now reversed, so
that the fingers are pointing to the right
(hand pronated). The 45 degree forearm
position does not change.
For TO, the movement of the thumb
is controlled mostly by the hand whereas
for TU, the combined motion of the thumb
and hand determines the thumb location.
Because the hand motion is smooth, the
thumb is positioned more accurately for
TO than for TU, thus reducing mistakes.
The ascending scale becomes similar to
the descending scale, because you always
roll over the passed fingers. Playing hands
together becomes easier since all fingers
of both hands are always rolling over.
Another bonus is that the thumb can now
play a black key. For students who know
only TU, the thumb is not "free". We shall
see that a free thumb is the most versatile
finger [(31) Thumb, Most Versatile
Finger, Power Thumb].
The LH is the reverse of the RH.
Because some students have
difficulty visualizing TO, I have posted a
video of "TU-TOscale" on Youtube :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
ZLTbURVEEO4
The video shows the RH playing two
octaves TO, ascending and descending,
played twice. This is then repeated using
TU. To non-pianists, these may appear to
be essentially the same, although the TU
motion was slightly exaggerated. This
illustrates why videos of piano motions are

74

not as helpful as one might think. The TO

motions ascending are basically correct.
The TO motions descending has one error
-- a slight bending of the nail phalange of
the thumb. At these moderate speeds, this
slight bending does not affect the play, but
in strict TO, the thumb should remain
straight for both ascending and descending
play. This example illustrates the
importance of learning TO as soon as
possible. My tendency to bend the nail
phalange is the result of using only TU for
many decades, before I learned TO. Watch
the lessons on scale playing on Youtube
by others and you will see that most of
them teach only TU. However, when they
play scales fast, they use motions close to
TO. To see those videos in slow motion,
go to YoutubeSlow. Motions not
demonstrated in my videos are glissando
motion and the pivoting action on the
passed finger for TO legato.
How to practice fast TO scales:
The RH C major ascending scale consists
of the parallel sets (PSs) 123 and 1234.
First, practice a fast 123, with 1 on C4.
Then practice 1231 with the TO motion.
The last 1 in the 1231 is the conjunction
(continuity rule). Repeat with 1234, with 1
on F4, and then 12341, with the last 1
rolling over the 4, and landing on C5. Play
fingers 234 close to the black keys in order
to give the thumb more area to land on.
Turn the forearm and wrist so that the
fingertips of 2345 make a straight line
parallel to the keyboard. The forearm
should make an angle of almost 45 degrees
to the keyboard. Then connect the two PSs
to complete the octave. After you can do
one octave, do two, etc.. Always play with
the tip of the thumb, towards the front of
the thumb nail.
One fast octave (about 1 octave/sec.)
should be achievable after a few minutes
of practice for anyone who has been

practicing piano for over a year (let's not

worry about evenness yet!). Practice
relaxing to the point where you can feel
the weight of the arm. When you become
proficient with TO, long scales should be
as easy as short ones and HT will be easier
than with TU. There is never any need to
practice fast scales HT and, until you
become quite proficient, fast HT scale
practice will do more harm than good
because it wastes too much time for little
gain, and causes stress. Most advanced
teachers (Gieseking) consider practicing
fast HT scales to be a waste of time.
To speed up the PSs, RH 123 and
1234, play them with one down motion of
the hand, including the conjunctions. To
connect the two PSs, you can either rotate
the forearm or lift the hand at the end of
the first PS. The up and down wrist motion
is preferred over the forearm rotation
because it is simpler, and the rotation can
be reserved for other uses (Sandor). If you
now try to play several octaves, it may
initially come out like a washboard.
The fastest way to speed up scale
playing is to cycle only one octave, up and
down, continuously. Once you are up to
the faster speeds, cycle 2 octaves up and
down. At high speeds, these shorter
octaves are more useful because you need
to practice how to reverse direction at the
top and bottom. The way to play fast
reverses at the top and bottom is to play
them with a single downward pressure of
the hand and reverse the glissando
direction before you reach each end. For
example, to reverse at the top, play the last
ascending PS, the conjunction, and the
first PS coming down, all in one
downward motion. In this scheme, the
conjunction is effectively eliminated by
incorporating it into one of the PSs. This is
one of the most effective ways of playing
a fast conjunction -- by making it

75

disappear! At the same time, reverse the

glissando orientation before you reach the
top.
Thus the glissando motion allows the
hand to glide smoothly. Practice this
motion when cycling one octave up and
down; the glissando motion should
resemble the sideways body motion of a
skater, with alternate feet kicking
sideways and the body tilting left and
right. The hand should pronate or supinate
with each change of direction of the
octave. As in skating, where you must lean
in the opposite direction before changing
the direction of motion, the reversal of
glissando hand orientation must precede
the change in direction of the scale at fast
speeds.
For the RH descending TO scale,
practice the PS 54321, and the other
relevant PSs, with and without their
conjunctions. Make a small modification
to avoid letting the thumb fold completely
under the hand while the next PS is rolling
over the thumb. Lift the thumb as early as
possible while keeping the scale smooth,
by raising and/or rotating the wrist to pull
the thumb up -- almost the reverse of what
was done for the ascending scale. If the
thumb folds completely under the palm, it
will become paralyzed and difficult to
move to the next position. For TU play,
the thumb can be allowed to fold
completely under the palm. Because this
motion is somewhat similar in TO and TU,
and differ only in degree, it can easily be
played
incorrectly.
Although
the
differences in motion are small visually,
the difference in feel to the pianist should
be like night and day for fast passages.
It is instructive to practice the B
major scale for practicing TO. See Table
1.1 [(29) Scales: Nomenclature and
Fingerings] for scale fingerings. In this
scale, only the thumb and pinky play the

white keys, except for the bottom starting

finger (4) of the LH. All other fingers play
the black keys. This scale has the
following advantages:
(1) It is easier to play, especially for
those with large hands or long fingers.
Each key falls naturally under each finger
and there is plenty of room for every
finger. For this reason, Chopin taught this
scale to beginners before teaching the C
major scale.
(2) It is used to practice playing the
black keys using flatter finger positions.
The black keys are more difficult to play
(easier to miss) using curled positions
because they are narrower, and require
greater accuracy. Beginners often dislike
the black keys for this reason. The flat
finger positions completely solve this
problem.
(3) The flat finger positions are
better for practicing legato and tonal
control. This builds confidence in playing
black keys.
(4) TO play is easier with this scale.
This is why C major was used to illustrate
the TO method: with B major, it is more
difficult to see the difference between TU
and TO because TU is not needed.
However, once you understand the
difference, B major is better for practicing
TO because it is easier.
(5) The LH, RH thumbs are
synchronized in the B major scale, making
it possible to practice HT, PS by PS. Thus
HT play is easier than for the C major
scale. Once you become proficient with B
major HT, learning C major HT becomes
easier, saving you time. If you want to
show off how well you can play scales,
use B major!! Thanks, Freddie!
Those who learned only TU must
now learn TO. At first, it might feel as if
the fingers get all tangled up and
understanding TO is difficult. Good news:

76

you already know how to play TO! Play a

very fast chromatic scale, starting with C,
(RH): 13131231313 . . . . . If you can play
a fast chromatic scale, the thumb motion is
the same as for TO because it is
impossible to play a fast chromatic scale
TU. Now slow down this fast chromatic
thumb motion and transfer it to the B
major scale.
Once the B major TO is mastered,
apply this motion to C major. The only
difference between playing a TO scale and
a fast chromatic scale is that you can play
the chromatic scale with the hand almost
perpendicular to the keyboard, instead of
almost 45 degrees for the scale. You will
find the glissando motion useful for the
chromatic scale also, but the hand rotation
is much smaller.
Those who are new to TO, and have
learned many pieces using TU, must
convert everything to TO. One way to
accomplish the switch is to practice scales
and arpeggios first so that you become
comfortable with TO. Then learn a few
new compositions using TO. After about 6
months or so, when TO has become
comfortable, start converting all old pieces
to TO.
TO and TU are the extremes of
two ways to use the thumb: there is a
continuum of intermediate motions
between them. Learning TO will improve
how you play TU because the thumb
becomes more capable: it becomes free.
This freedom transforms the thumb into a
most versatile finger (next section).
We can never play scales well
enough. When practicing scales, always
try to accomplish something -- smoother,
softer, clearer, more authoritative. Be sure
to practice staccato after practicing with
the PSs. Make the hands glide, the scale
sing; add color, excitement. There is no
such thing as a maximum speed in parallel

playing. Speed and accuracy can be

increased all your life -- which is a lot of
fun and is certainly addicting. To
demonstrate speed or to impress an
audience, you can use scales and arpeggios
at least as well as any piece of music,
provided you had practiced musically all
the time.

(31) Thumb, Most Versatile Finger,

Power Thumb
The thumb is the most versatile
finger; it lets us play scales, arpeggios, and
wide chords. It has four major ways to
move down (play a note):
(1) finger motion: with the hand
motionless, play the thumb with only
finger motion, by pivoting each finger at
the knuckle (the "thumb knuckle" is at the
wrist),
(2) wrist motion: with the forearm
motionless and rigid fingers, play the
thumb with wrist motion only,
(3) arm motion: with the fingers and
wrist rigid, play the thumb by swinging
the entire forearm down. This motion
originates at the shoulder, and by
(4) Forearm rotation ((21) Forearm
Rotation).
Practice each of these motions
separately, eliminating all stress. First,
practice each slowly, with large,
exaggerated motion. Then increase speed
by decreasing the motion. This exercise
will reveal which is your fastest motion.
Speed can be further increased by
combining the motions because, when
combined, smaller individual motions will
be needed to accomplish the same key
drop. Separating each motion is difficult at
first, because we usually combine most of
them for any thumb motion, which is why
it is important to practice each motion
separately.

77

Play with the tip of the thumb, not

the joint (of the nail phalange); this will
enable the thumb to slide and the wrist to
be raised, thus reducing the chances of the
other
fingers
accidentally
hitting
unintended notes. Playing with the tip
makes the thumb as long as possible,
which is needed because it is the shortest
finger. This also increases the range and
speed of the thumb movement; that is, for
the same thumb movement, the tip moves
farther and faster than the joint.
There are two thumb positions:
weak and power. Place both hands on the
keys, straight in front, the thumb nails
facing each other; this is the weak
position. The thumbnails are almost
vertical to the keyboard, and the tips of the
thumbs are bent slightly towards the
fingers so that they are almost parallel to
the fingers. This position is useful for slow
or easy passages.
For technically difficult material,
especially when power is needed, use the
power thumb position: with both hands on
the keyboard, extend the thumbs straight
out, so that the thumbnails now face
upwards towards your face (LH thumb on
G3, RH thumb on G4). This position
enables rapid play, makes optimum use of
forearm rotation, allows complete
relaxation, and utilizes the strongest
muscles in the thumb: those powerful
muscles that are used to push thumb tacks
into a wall. Applying force in the weak
position can cause pain and injury, not
only to thumb muscles, but also elsewhere.
The power thumb position is attained
by raising the wrist so that you play closer
to the palm-side tip of the thumb. This
automatically causes the thumb to point
down and engages the strong muscles of
the thumb. The weak thumb position is
attained by lowering the wrist so that the
hand is level with the forearm: you are

now playing more with the side of the

thumb. In general, try the weak thumb
position first, and if this is inadequate,
gradually add the strong position. Thus the
use of weak/strong thumb is analogous to
TU/TO; they are not generally used in
their extreme positions, but somewhere in
between. Most of us think of the thumb as
the strongest finger; however, even the
pinky can overpower the thumb in its
weak position, especially at high speeds.
The strengths of the thumb and pinky can
be balanced by a proper choice of the
weak/power
thumb
positions,
in
applications such as the octave tremolo.

(32) Arpeggio, Cartwheel Motion,

Finger Splits
Playing
arpeggios
(arps)
is
technically complex. Arps are "broken
chords"; notes of "chords" played in
succession. Arps are complex because
many (36) Hand Motions, such as flat
finger positions, thrust, pull, cartwheel
motion (below), glissando, finger splits
(below), TU or TO, must be combined.
Those trained to use only curled finger
positions will find arps to be scary
difficult. Because of the large distances
between notes, it is difficult to hit every
note accurately.
Arps are played TO just like scales.
TO arps is an extreme example of TO and
serves as a clearer example of TO than for
scales. TO is more necessary for arps than
for scales because the thumb cannot be
tucked under the hand to reach the next
position the distance is too far. New
motions are needed to cover these longer
distances accurately.
The standard arp fingering for the
CEGCEG . . . .C arp is 123123. . . .5, RH,
and 5421421. . . .1, LH ascending, and the
reverse for descending. See Michael
Aaron, Adult Piano Course, Book Two for
78

fingerings of all arps and scales. Because

arps jump over several notes, most people
spread the fingers to reach those notes. For
fast arps, this is a mistake because
spreading the fingers slows down their
motions and builds stress and fatigue. A
better method is to move the hand instead
of spreading the fingers, using the
cartwheel motion and finger splits.
The cartwheel motion is especially
useful for small hands. Place the left palm
flat on the piano keys, with the fingers
spread out like the spokes of a wheel. The
fingertips from pinky to thumb fall on an
approximate semi-circle. Now place the
pinky above C3 and parallel to it; the hand
must be rotated so that the thumb is closer
to you. Then move the hand towards the
fallboard so that the pinky touches the
fallboard; the hand must be spread out at
all times. If the 4th finger is too long and
touches the fallboard first, rotate the hand
sufficiently so that the pinky touches the
fallboard, but keep the pinky as parallel to
C3 as possible. Now rotate the hand like a
wheel counter clockwise (viewed from
above) so that each successive finger
touches the fallboard (without slipping)
until you reach the thumb. This is the
cartwheeling motion in the horizontal
plane. A supple wrist is needed for this
motion.
If your reach is one octave, the
cartwheeling motion should cover almost
two octaves! Extra reach is gained because
the center three fingers are longer than the
pinky or thumb, and the circumference of
a semi-circle is larger than its diameter.
Now repeat with the hand vertical, so
the fingers point down. Start with the
pinky vertical and lower the hand to play
C3. Then roll the hand up towards C4;
each finger will "play" the note that it
touches. When you reach the thumb, this
motion should cover almost twice the

normal reach. We just learned three things:

(1) how to "cartwheel" the hand, (2) this
motion expands the reach without making
any jumps, and (3) the motion can be used
to "play" the keys without moving the
fingers.
Cartwheeling is used with the hand
somewhere
between
vertical
and
horizontal, and the fingers will be in the
pyramid position [(4) Curled and Flat
Finger Positions, Curl Paralysis] or
slightly curled. Although cartwheeling will
add keydrop motion, the fingers should
also be moved to play the notes.
Cartwheeling in the horizontal plane uses
only the slow sideways motion of the
wrist. Cartwheeling in the vertical plane
uses the much faster motions of forearm
rotation.
Your reach can be stretched even
more by using "finger splits" (Fraser).
Make a "V" with fingers 2 & 3 of the RH
and place the "V" on a flat surface, at the
edge, so that only the two fingers are on
the surface and the rest of the hand is off
the edge. Spread the "V" as far as you can,
comfortably. Then rotate the arm and hand
90 degrees clockwise (supinate) so the
fingers are now touching the surface with
their sides. Now it is possible to spread the
fingers even more; this is called finger
splits. This works with any pair of fingers.
Cartwheeling expands the reach to almost
twice normal; adding finger splits expands
it to over twice normal. Demonstrate this
by repeating the above cartwheel motion,
but with added finger splits.
The flat finger positions [(4) Curled
and Flat Finger Positions, Curl Paralysis]
are the best for playing arps because they
allow play with the large front pads of the
fingers. This greatly reduces the chances
of missing those narrow black keys. Those
who use curled fingers on black keys find
arps scary and frustratingly difficult.

79

Therefore, by using a combination of

TO, flat finger positions, cartwheel motion
and finger splits, you can easily reach and
play fast arps with little stress on the
stretching
muscles.
This
complex
combination of motions is facilitated by a
supple wrist and forearm rotation. As with
every complex technical motion, practice
each of the above individual motions
separately before combining them.

black key. The most commonly used is,

starting from E, 123123412312 (Hauer,
Czerny, Hanon). One complication with
this fingering is that the starting sequence
must be changed depending on the starting
key in order to maximize velocity. Also,
the RH and LH are different; this sequence
uses 4 parallel sets. It can be simplified to
3 parallel sets for starting at C,
123412312345. With good TO technique,
this scale might be playable, but even with
TO, 41 and 14 fingerings are awkward.
The restriction to avoid the thumb on a
black key limits the choice of fingering
and complicates matters because the
fingering will depend on the starting note.
If we allow thumb on a black key, a good
scale is the "4-finger chromatic scale",
starting from C:
1234,1234,1234; 1234,1234,12345,
2 octaves RH ascending,
5432,1432,1432; 1432,1432,14321,
2 octaves LH ascending, with the thumb
on G# for both hands and three identical
parallel sets per octave - the simplest and
fastest possible fingering. Reverse to
descend. As far as I know, this fingering
has not been discussed in the literature
because of the thumb on a black key
followed by passing over the 4th finger. In
addition to speed, the biggest advantage is
simplicity; the same fingering is used
regardless of starting note (for example,
use finger 3 for starting on D) ascending
or descending. The fingering is the same
for both hands (in reverse) and fingers 1
and 3 are always synchronized except at
the ends. A good TO technique and flat
finger position will facilitate the difficult
14 or 41 where the thumb is on G#. Try
this on the last chromatic run in the Grave
of Beethoven's Pathetique and you should
notice a marked decline in the number of
flubs and a significant increase in speed.
Once you learn it for this run, it will work

(33) Fast Chromatic Scales

The chromatic scale consists of
semitone steps. The most important
consideration for chromatic scales is the
fingering, because there are so many ways
to finger it. The standard fingering,
starting from C, is 1313123131345 for
ascending RH, and 1313132131321 for
ascending LH for one octave (the top is
fingered for a return but is not necessary)
and the reverse for descending. This
fingering is difficult to play fast because it
is composed of the shortest possible
parallel sets and therefore contains the
maximum number of conjunctions which
limit the speed. Its main advantage is
simplicity which makes it applicable to
practically any chromatic segment, starting
from any note, and is the easiest to
remember. One variation of this is
1212123121234, which enables a little
more speed and legato, and is more
comfortable for those with large hands.
The reason why those who never
learned TO [thumb over, (30) Thumb
Under, Thumb Over, Glissando Motion,
Pivoting] can play chromatic scales fast is
that they are the easiest to play TO and
even those who think that they are using
TU are actually using TO for fast play.
Several fingerings using longer
parallel sets have been devised in attempts
to enable faster play; all of the "accepted"
sequences avoid the use of the thumb on a
80

for any other chromatic run because the

fingering never changes. In order to
develop a smooth run, practice with the
beat on every note, every other note, every
third note, etc. Staccato practice also
helps.
In summary, although most exercises
are not helpful, practicing scales,
arpeggios and the (4-finger) chromatic
scale have a special place in piano
technique acquisition. They can be a part
of a pianist's daily practice program
because they can be used to learn so many
fundamental skills.

it hits the floor. In piano, your hand has

to supply the bounce when it hits the
bottom of the keydrop. For fast repeats,
the bounce is a fast up and down snap of a
loose wrist with the forearm moving very
little, just as the basketball bounces off the
floor and the hand. Practice this snap
when practicing CC,CC.
A second trick for increasing speed
is to play the double octaves in one down
motion of the forearm. The basketball
analogy works for this concept also
because the fastest dribble occurs when
you simply press down on the basketball:
the same physical principles apply to the
piano and the ball.
Then advance to 3 repeats, then to
quads, then a series of quads, playing each
quad with one down motion of the hand.
Apply all the methods discussed above for
acquiring technique. Where power is
required, use the power thumb position
[(31) Thumb, Most Versatile Finger,
Power Thumb].
In order to play many octaves in
succession, push down on the piano
continuously as you play and let the
bounce of the hand bring it back, as in the
basketball example. Once you learn to
provide the bounce, you can push down on
the piano but the hand will not go down.
The down pressure is needed because so
many keys need to be depressed, and the
faster the play, the greater the down force
that is required.
At first, speed is acquired using the
smallest keydrop possible, but once the
skill is acquired, the amplitude of the hand
motion can be increased. One way to
increase the amplitude is to increase the
bounce back from the keydrop.
After the repeated octaves is
satisfactory, advance to moving octaves.
Again, start first with only 2 octaves:
CC,DD. Only when this is satisfactory,

(34) Fast Octaves, Small/Big Hands

PS #1 [parallel set #1, (10) Parallel
Sets Catalogue] should be used for
practicing fast repeat chords and octaves
(such as those in Liszt's Hungarian
Rhapsody #6). Start with quick double
octaves, HS, as fast as possible without
stress, CC,CC, where CC is the C octave;
do not move around, like CC,DD until the
single octave is satisfactory. Practice one
octave for the LH and one for the RH so
you can switch hands and use the better
hand to teach the other. After a hard
workout, always play slowly several times,
completely relaxed, before switching
hands or quitting.
There are two ways to increase
speed. One is to reduce the vertical hand
motion. For grands, this can be reduced to
less than the maximum keydrop because
of their special repetition mechanism.
Uprights will require a larger amplitude.
This principle of increasing speed with
decreasing amplitude can be demonstrated
with a basketball or tennis ball. First,
bounce (dribble) it up and down 2-3 feet;
then gradually reduce this height. As you
push the basketball lower, its bounce
frequency will increase. This happens
because the basketball bounces back when
81

move on to three, CC,DD,EE, etc. Then

CC,EE, and CC,FF, etc., gradually
increasing the distance of the jumps
[Jumps, PP, FF].
The key to the success of this
method lies in finding ways to accelerate
the double octaves such as CC,CC; black
keys may be easier the easier, the better.
Once these fast doubles are attained, the
brain "gets the idea" of what "fast" means,
and how to do it. Then the rest of the work
becomes easier. Most people will not be
able to achieve all this in one or a few
sittings, but will need to make use of post
practice improvement [Post Practice
Improvement, Sleep, Fast/Slow Muscles].
Too many repetitions in one sitting can
become counter-productive, resulting in
loss of musicality and bad habits. After
about 10 minutes, the conditioning for post
practice improvements becomes less
effective, so that hours of repetitions will
mostly be wasted or worse. Remember to
practice slow, fully relaxed, a few times
after every fast workout. Practice at P;
resist the temptation to play louder, as that
will only slow down the movements. This
point is certainly counter-intuitive.
Small hands: For most pianists, the
black keys may be easier because they
stick out of the keyboard so that the
chances
of
inadvertently
hitting
neighboring
keys
are
lower.
Unfortunately, those with small hands may
not see much difference between black
and white keys because the shortest
distance between black octave keys is
larger than the shortest distance between
white octave keys by 1.3 cm, although the
octave distance between the centers of all
keys is the same. Therefore, try both black
and white keys to see which is easier for
you. For those with larger hands, the black
octaves are significantly easier, and should
be used.

There are two sets of muscles for

spreading the fingers: one set to spread the
palm only, and another to spread the
fingers. Everybody naturally uses both
sets, but those who are not aware that there
are two sets of muscles tend to use mostly
the finger spreading muscles, which is the
wrong thing to do. This locks the fingers
into position, making it difficult to move
them and produces stress. Use mostly the
palm spreading muscles in order to free
the fingers to move. Most people with
small hands keep the hands stretched all
the time during the octaves. Pianists with
small hands must do two things: (1) palm
stretching exercises and (2) learn "rapid
relaxation" [Relaxation]. Palm stretching
may not seem to accomplish much short
term, but over a lifetime, it can make all
the difference, especially as the ability to
stretch decreases with age. Stretching
[(46) Stretching and Other Exercises] must
be done regularly all your life, and is most
effective when started at a young age,
when everything is still flexible. Rapid
relaxation is an important skill to develop
whether the hands are small or big,
because rapid relaxation is not a natural
body process and must be cultivated.
Always practice octaves by quickly
relaxing after each octave is played. Do
not contract the hands, just release the
spreading tension. These extra steps may
seem to slow down the repetitions but,
once they become a habit, the extra
relaxation will allow faster play and will
free enough energy to keep playing fast
octaves indefinitely.
Those with big hands, especially fat
fingers, have trouble playing between the
black keys. They may need extra curl in
order to avoid hitting the fallboard. One
solution is to play the white keys in front
of the black keys by using extra curl.
Another is to twist the hand by pronating

82

or supinating so that the fingers are

inserted between black keys sideways
because fingers are thinner than they are
wide.

arms thus increasing the effective mass of

the fingers. Larger mass means slower
motion: the hummingbird can flap its
wings faster than the condor and small
insects even faster than the hummingbird
(the low hum of the hummingbird vs the
high pitched whine of the mosquito). It is
therefore important to incorporate
complete relaxation into the trill from the
very beginning, thus freeing the fingers
from the hand.
Trilling
requires
constant
maintenance. To be a good triller, it is
necessary to practice trills every day.
Learn a piece with lots of trills and play it
frequently; for the RH, a good piece is the
end of Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, Op.
53, third movement, starting at bar 176.
Bach's inventions (#4, 7, 9, 10, 12) are
good for practicing slow trills. Older
methods of teaching advised matching the
trill notes to notes in the other hand (by
slowing down for practice) as indicated by
Palmer (J. S. Bach, Willard A. Palmer
Edition). The best method is to learn fast
trills as discussed above and learn to trill
independently of the other hand, at any
trill speed.
The trill is not a series of staccatos.
The finger tips must stay at the bottom of
the keydrop between notes; i.e., the
backchecks must be engaged after every
note in order to hold the hammer still; if
not, it will flop around and control over it
will be lost, resulting in uneven or missed
notes. But do not press down hard because
that will slow down the trill; just the
weight of the arm is sufficient.
Take note of the minimum lift
necessary for the repetition to work. This
lift distance can be almost twice as high
for an upright as for a grand. Faster trills
require smaller lifts; therefore, on an
upright, you may have to slow down. Fast
trills on less expensive electronic pianos

(35) Trills and Tremolos

For a 2323.... RH trill, start by
practicing the 23 parallel set (PS),
following the procedures described in
(9) Parallel Sets (PSs), Conjunctions,
Cycling, practicing in quads, etc.. To
speed up this PS quickly, use the 2.3 PS
#1 [(10) Parallel Sets Catalogue], the
notation 2.3 means 2 and 3 played as an
interval. Alternate between 23 PS and 2.3
repetition as speed is increased, and
practice relaxation. When the 23 PS is
sufficiently fast, practice the 32, then 232,
then 2323, etc. Starting the first two notes
fast is the trick to playing fast trills, and a
23 PS is the best way, even after you have
become expert at trills. Other fingers are
treated similarly.
Fast trills are fundamentally different
from slow trills because momentum
becomes important in fast trills. Therefore,
expect a change in the feel of the trill as it
is sped up. One consequence of
momentum is that fast trills work best at
resonance frequencies. Don't be surprised
if some frequencies (speeds) work better
than others this is normal. At first,
practice only at frequencies that work
well; once you improve beyond a certain
level, you will be able to change speeds
more easily.
Relaxation is more critical for the
trill than almost any other technique
because of the need for rapid momentum
balance; there are too many conjunctions
to rely solely on parallelism to attain
speed. The momentum of the finger
motion must be counteracted by arm
rotation. Stress will lock the fingers to the
larger members such as the hands and
83

can be difficult because their actions are

inferior; this is one reason for purchasing
the more expensive models. Thus, to test a
digital, use a trill. As with every technical
drill discussed in this book (especially
those using PSs) always apply staccato
practice for the final technique acquisition
step, even for trills.
Tremolos are practiced in exactly
the same way as trills; just substitute a 15
PS for the 23 PS. Tremolos are treated in
detail in (57) Beethoven's Pathetique, Op.
13, First Movement.

rotated by rotation of the radius against the

ulna; this causes the thumb to move more
than the pinky, and is the main motion for
playing the thumb. The downward rotation
of the thumb is called pronation and the
upward rotation is called supination.
Wrist Motion: The general wrist
rule is to raise the wrist for the pinky and
lower it to play the thumb. This is not a
hard rule; there are plenty of exceptions,
because practically every motion is a
combination of motions. By combining
wrist motion with pronation- supination,
you can create rotary motions for playing
repetitive passages such as LH
accompaniments, or the first movement of
Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (RH). The
wrist can be moved up or down, and sideto-side. Every effort should be made such
that the playing finger is parallel to the
forearm; this is accomplished with the
side-to-side
wrist
motion.
This
configuration puts the least amount of
lateral stress on the tendons moving the
fingers and reduces the chances of injuries
such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome [(60)
Injury, Health]. Habitual playing (or
typing) with the wrist cocked at a
sideways angle can cause injury. A loose
wrist is also a prerequisite for total
relaxation. Most students think of a supple
wrist as one that moves up and down
freely, but the sideways motion is the
more important, and difficult one to
cultivate. When sitting low, the wrist can
also be turned sideways rapidly using
forearm rotation; this could be one reason
why some famous pianists sit so low.
Knowing how to slide the fingers
will let you play with confidence even
when the keys are slippery or if they get
wet from perspiration. Never depend on
the friction of the key surface to play
the notes because it will not always be
there for you and it can lead to stress and

(36) Hand Motions

Hand motions are the secrets to
technique acquisition and experimentation.
When watching a concert pianist, most
technical hand motions are not discernible.
They are too small and fast so that most of
the visible motions are exaggerations or
irrelevant to technique unless you know
what to look for. The hand motions:
parallel finger [(9) Parallel Sets (PSs),
Conjunctions, Cycling], (21) Forearm
Rotation, [(30) Thumb Under, Thumb
Over, Glissando Motion, Pivoting], [(32)
Arpeggio, Cartwheel Motion, Finger
Splits], and wrist snap [(34) Fast Octaves,
Small/Big Hands] have already been
discussed.
All finger motions must be supported
by the major muscles of the arms; there is
no such thing as moving one finger -- any
finger motion involves the entire body.
Hand motions are discussed only briefly
here; for more details, consult the
references: Fink or Sndor, and Mark for
anatomy.
Pronation and Supination: There
are two bones in the forearm, the larger
radius, connecting to the thumb, and the
smaller ulna, connecting to the pinky
Mark, Thomas,. The ulna is held in
position by the upper arm. The hand is
84

injure the finger tip. Depending on friction

is one of those bad habits that can cause
numerous problems. Raising the wrist will
cause the fingers to slide towards you
during the key drop. Lowering the wrist
will cause the fingers to slide away.
Practice each of these sliding motions with
all five fingers. With a stationary wrist, the
fingers will not slide, even if the keys are
slippery! Better still, sliding fingers will
never be problematic; in fact, sliding the
fingers is another technical skill that
should be practiced (see claw below).
For controlling the friction between
fingers and keys, most moisturizers
(Lubriderm, Eucerin) can work wonders,
but it will take some experimentation
before you can learn to use them properly.
Firstly, you need to apply a sufficient
amount for it to work. But you need to
wait for at least several minutes for all that
moisturizer to be completely absorbed into
the skin; otherwise it will wipe off on the
keys and make them slippery. Even after
complete absorption, any moisture on the
skin, such as perspiration, will make the
fingers very slippery.
Thrust and Pull: Thrust is a pushing
motion, towards the fallboard, usually
accompanied by a slightly rising wrist.
With curved fingers, the thrust motion
causes the vector force of the hand moving
forward to be directed along the bones of
the fingers. This adds control and power. It
is therefore useful for playing chords, but
it can cause injury. The pull is a similar
motion away from the fallboard, and does
not cause injury. In these motions, the total
motion can be larger than the vector
component downward (the key drop),
allowing for greater control. Thrust is one
of the main reasons why the standard
finger position is curved. Try playing any
large chord with many notes, first
lowering the hand straight down and then

using the thrust motion. You may get

superior results with the thrust compared
to straight down. Pull is useful for some
legato and soft passages. Thus, when
practicing chords, always experiment with
adding some thrust or pull. Thrust and pull
use different sets of muscles; thus fatigue
can be reduced by switching between
them.
Claw and Throw: Claw is moving
the fingertips into the palm (increasing
curl) and throw is the opposite: opening
the fingers to their straighter positions. In
addition to moving the fingertips up and
down, they can also be moved in and out
to play. These motions add greater control,
especially for legato and soft passages, as
well as for playing staccato. Like the
thrust and pull, these motions allow a
larger motion with a smaller keydrop.
Thus, instead of always trying to lower the
fingers straight down for the key drop, try
experimenting with some claw or throw
action to see if it will help. Note that the
claw movement is much more natural and
easier to conduct than a straight down. The
straight down motion of the fingertip is a
complex combination of a claw and a
throw. The flat finger playing can be
considered as one form of claw.
Flick: The flick is a quick rotation
followed by counter- rotation of the hand;
a fast pronation-supination combination,
or its reverse. We saw that parallel sets can
be played at any speed. When playing fast,
connecting parallel sets becomes a
problem. One solution is the flick,
especially when the thumb is involved, as
in scales and arpeggios. Single flicks can
be conducted extremely quickly with zero
stress. However, quick flicks need to be
"re-loaded"; i.e., continuous fast flicks is
difficult. For connecting parallel sets, the
flick can be used to play the conjunction

85

and then be re-loaded during the parallel

set.

such as polyrhythms [(55) Chopin's

Fantaisie
Impromptu,
Op.
66,
Polyrhythms], or if important rhythmic
notes are missing [(26) Speed, Rhythm,
Dynamics]; detailed instructions are given
in the links.
Learning to coordinate the two hands
will require a lot of practice. The
preceding HS work makes this
coordination easier to learn because we
only have to concentrate on coordinating,
and not coordinating and developing
technique at the same time.
Students who start HT without
practicing HS first can end up with
undetected mistakes in counting, etc..
Interestingly, these mistakes usually make
it impossible to bring the music up to
speed. There is something about wrong
timing that creates its own speed wall. It
certainly messes up the rhythm and the
music. Therefore, if you run into problems
with bringing up the speed HT, check the
counting, using a metronome.
The most important new element
in HT practice is the conversation
between the two hands because that is
part of musicality. It is certainly necessary
to synchronize the hands accurately, but
that will happen automatically if you
concentrate on the communications
between the hands. Some pianists
purposely delay one hand slightly in order
to provide a new avenue for expressivity,
but that is frowned upon by most teachers
because
it
over-emphasizes
the
communications, just as too much sugar is
bad for health. Even from day one of HS
practice, everyone must practice musically
[(42) Musicality, Touch, Tone, Color];
otherwise students will end up practicing
"how not to perform" every time they
practice. HT practice is no exception.
The biggest disadvantage of learning
HS first is that, initially, the HT

(37) Hands Together

How do you know that you are ready
to start HT? A good criterion is HS speed.
Typically, the maximum HT speed is 50%
to 90% of the slower of the RH or LH
speed. As a general rule, get the HS speed
well above final speed, typically 110% to
150% of final speed, relaxed, and in
control.
There is a world of difference in how
the brain handles tasks in one hand and
tasks that require two-hand coordination,
which is why you learn faster by
practicing the hands one at a time. HT
skills require the coordination of the two
halves of the brain, and there are
comparatively few nerve connections
between them. This is why HT motions
take longer to learn. Bad HT habits are the
worst because, once formed, they take
forever to unlearn because they took so
long to learn.
Most HT practice methods are the
same as for HS, such as segmental
practice, most difficult sections first,
continuity rule, etc., including practicing
without the pedal, softly, and staccato
practice, see (50) Summary of Method,
item 15. This is why the instructions for
HT practice appear to be so short: they
have already been covered.
One method of HT practice is
"adding notes": take a short segment and
play the more difficult hand HS, repeating
the section continuously (cycling); now
start adding the easier hand, note by note.
Make sure that, as you add notes, you keep
the same fingering as during HS practice.
Another method is outlining [(38)
Outlining, Beethoven's Sonata #1, Op. 21]. It is often difficult to play HT when the
rhythms of the two hands are different,
86

coordination tends to be weak. Therefore,

practice accurate timing between the
hands, using staccato practice. The ability
to play HT at speed is insufficient; the two
hands must be accurately coordinated.
Therefore, once you complete a piece HT,
play it as often as you can and make
music, because playing finished pieces is
the most important part of learning piano
and developing technique. Having a
repertoire that can be played at a moment's
notice is the difference between a
musician and an amateur because you can
truly develop technique to the level of a
musician only by playing finished pieces.

outlining can get far more complex than

what students can manage and will need a
teacher's help. However, everybody must
eventually develop the ability to outline
without help.
One idea behind outlining is that, by
getting to the music first, the technique
will follow more quickly because music
and technique are inseparable. Outlining
can also be used to increase the precision
and improve the memorizing.
Easy methods of outlining are (1)
deleting notes, (2) converting arps into
chords, and (3) converting complex
passages into simpler ones; this is where
music theory comes in and can get
complicated. An important rule is:
although the music is simplified, retain the
same fingering that was required before
the simplification.
For HT outlining, simplify one or
both hands so that you can play them HT
easily, then gradually add the deleted
material. Note that outlining is an
extremely useful skill for sight reading.
Let's apply outlining to Beethoven's
Sonata #1 (Op. 2, No. 1). I noted in the
book review that Gieseking was remiss in
dismissing the 4th movement as
"presenting no new problems" in spite of
the difficult and fast LH arpeggio
(Prestissimo!). He probably didn't know
how to solve problems using parallel sets
and so could not give instructions. Let's
complete the wonderful job Gieseking did
in getting us started on this Sonata by
making sure that we can play this exciting
final movement.
The first four triplets of the LH can
be practiced by using parallel sets applied
to each triplet and then cycling. Parallel
set #1 is useful here; it is one type of
outlining (simplifying the triplets into
chords). The first triplet in the second bar
can be cycled using the PS 524. The

(38) Outlining, Beethoven's Sonata

#1, Op. 2-1
Outlining is a method for
accelerating the learning process by
simplifying the music; it works for HS, but
is used mainly for HT practice. It allows
the pianist to maintain the musical flow or
rhythm, and to do this at the final speed
almost immediately. This enables musical
practice long before that segment can be
played satisfactorily at speed and
facilitates the acquisition of difficult
technique by teaching the larger playing
members (arms, shoulders) how to move.
The simplifications are accomplished by
using devices such as deleting "less
important notes" or combining a series of
notes into a chord. The original music is
recovered by progressively restoring the
simplified notes. Whiteside describes
outlining on P. 141 of the first book, and
P. 54-61, 105-107, and 191-196 of the
second book, where several examples are
analyzed.
For a given passage, there are many
ways to simplify the score, and students
using outlining for the first time will need
some practice before they can take full
advantage of the method. Advanced
87

continuous 524 cycling strengthens the

weak 4th finger. When the 4th finger
becomes strong and under control, add the
next note, 5241, then practice the PS 1235.
TO is required everywhere. Then practice
the ascending arpeggio of bar three, 5421
PS, then 542131. Practice the ensuing
descending arpeggio using the same
methods.
The RH is simple, you can use the
rules for practicing chords and jumps [(34)
Fast Octaves, Small/Big Hands]. So far,
everything is HS work.
Use outlining to practice HT.
Simplify the LH and play only the beat
notes
(first
three
bars):
F3F3F3F3|F3F3F2E2|F2F3F3F3,
with
fingering 5555|5155|5155. These are the
first notes of each triplet. When this
outline is mastered HS, start HT practice.
Once this HT becomes comfortable,
adding the triplets will be easier, with
much less chance of incorporating
mistakes. Since these arpeggios are the
most challenging parts of this movement,
by outlining them, the entire movement
can be practiced at any speed even if you
cannot manage these fast triplets.
In the RH, the first three chords are
soft, and the second three are forte. In the
beginning, practice mainly accuracy and
speed, so practice all 6 chords softly until
this section is mastered. Then add the
forte. As in all Beethoven compositions,
following the dynamic (volume) markings
is absolutely essential. To avoid hitting
wrong notes, get into the habit of feeling
the notes of the chords before playing
them. For the RH octave melody of bars
34-36, be sure not to play with any
crescendo, especially the last G. The entire
Sonata is played without pedal. In order to
eliminate any chance of a disastrous
ending, play the last 4 notes of this

movement with the LH, bringing the hand

into position well before it is needed.
There are many ways to outline; the
LH triplets can be played as chords, or as
PSs. This can allow you to practice HT at
the stage when you are still practicing the
PSs. Use outlining as a method of last
resort because it can consume a lot of
time; it is often not necessary if you know
all the other methods of this book.

(39) Damper (Sustain) Pedal, Physics

of the piano sound
Practice any new piece without the
(damper) pedal, HS and HT, until it can
be played comfortably HT at final speed.
All good teachers use this method. It
might feel difficult, at first, to practice
musically without the pedal where it is
indicated; however, this is the best way to
learn precise control. The "difficult"
feeling arises because, without the pedal,
you need to play every detail correctly.
Students who practice with the pedal from
the beginning will become sloppy players,
develop numerous bad habits, and will not
learn the concept of precise control.
Rank amateurs often over-use the
damper pedal. The obvious rule is, if the
music doesn't indicate a pedal, don't use it.
The action feels lighter with the damper
pedal down, because the foot is holding
the dampers off the strings instead of the
fingers. Some pieces might seem easier to
play with the pedal when playing very
slowly but this is one of the worst traps a
beginner can fall into. Most beginners do
not realize that where pedals are not
indicated, it is usually impossible to play
the music at speed with the pedal because
all the notes will run into each other, and
you lose control over the individual notes.
The pedal is a crutch because you never
have to lift the fingers accurately. Such
crutches ruin the technique because they
88

allow you to "play" (slowly) without

adequate technique.
One major objective of practicing
without the pedal is to practice keeping
the fingers down to hold the hammer still
using the backcheck, see [(11) Basic Key
Stroke; Legato, Staccato], after every note.
When not in use, the hammer must be held
still so that it is under control at all times;
otherwise you lose control and can miss
notes or play them too loud even when
you play them correctly, because the
hammer was flopping around. Do not push
down hard, the "force of gravity" (arm
weight) is adequate.
The pedal did not exist before
Mozart's time; for example, no pedal is
used in any of J. S. Bach's music. Mozart
did not indicate any pedaling although,
today, some pedaling is considered
optional in some of his compositions and
many editors have added pedal markings
in his music. The pedal was fully
developed by Beethoven's time, although
it was not yet totally accepted as a serious
musical tool. Beethoven used it with great
success as a special effect; therefore, he
tended to use it a lot (first movement of his
Moonlight Sonata, third movement of
Waldstein Sonata) or non at all (Sonata #1
and Pathetique Sonata, first and second
movements of the Waldstein). Chopin
used the pedal extensively to inject an
additional level of harmonic logic into his
music and fully exploited all the different
ways of pedaling. Therefore, Chopin (and
many later composers) cannot be played
correctly without adequate training in
pedaling.
See the references for all the
different ways to pedal, when to use them,
and how to practice those methods
(Gieseking and Leimer, Fink, Sndor,
Rubinstein, and "The Pianist's Guide to
Pedaling" by Banowetz). These references

provide helpful exercises for practicing

proper pedaling. Try to master all these
methods before using the pedal with an
actual piece of music. Example: depress
the pedal before playing the note for
exciting as many strings to vibrate as
possible. For sustaining only one clear
note, depress the pedal after playing the
note (but before you lift the finger); the
longer you delay the pedal, the fewer
sympathetic vibrations you will get. In
general, develop the habit of depressing
the pedal a split second after playing the
note to produce a more harmonious tone.
For producing a legato effect without too
much blurring, rapidly lift and depress the
pedal at every chord change. It is just as
important to know when to lift the pedal as
when to depress it. Clearly, the pedal must
be "played" as carefully as you play the
keys similarly to the basic keystroke.
Physics of the piano sound. Unlike
the simple picture of fundamental and
harmonic frequencies that are used when
tuning a piano, the actual string vibrations
consist of a complex time dependent series
of events. Therefore, I summarize here
some general knowledge based on the
physics of the piano sound. The piano
produces an initial prompt-sound and a
sustaining
after-sound
(Weinreich,
Askenfelt). The string vibrations can be
polarized,
either
parallel
to
the
soundboard, or perpendicular to it. When
the strings are struck, vertically polarized
traveling waves are generated that move
away from the hammer in opposite
directions, towards the agraffes (capo bar)
and towards the bridge. See Grand Piano
Diagrams or Reblitz for names of piano
parts. These waves travel so rapidly that
they reflect back from both ends of the
strings and pass the hammer several
hundred times before the hammer bounces
off the strings; in fact it is these waves that

89

eventually throw the hammer back.

Horizontally polarized waves are
generated from the vertical waves because
the piano is asymmetric. These traveling
waves decay into standing waves
consisting of harmonics (including the
fundamental) because the standing waves
are "normal vibration modes" (see a
mechanics text book) that transfer energy
slowly to the soundboards and are
therefore long-lived. However, from the
very
beginning,
the
concept
of
fundamentals and harmonics remains valid
because the Fourier coefficients (see a
math or physics textbook) of the
fundamental and harmonic frequencies are
always large, even for the traveling waves,
because the ends of the strings are rigidly
fixed. The rigidity is supplied by the mass
of the piano, which explains why good
pianos are so heavy. The initial vertically
polarized waves transfer energy more
efficiently to the soundboard than the
horizontally polarized waves and therefore
produce a louder sound and decay faster;
they create the prompt sound. The
horizontally polarized standing waves
produce the after-sound which gives the
piano its long sustain. Energy is
transferred back and forth from the
vertical to horizontal polarizations, which
produces the singing property of piano
sounds.
If the damper pedal is depressed
before a note is played, the initial time
dependent traveling waves will excite all
strings, creating a soft, but slightly
dissonant, background roar. That is, in the
prompt sound, the non-harmonic Fourier
coefficients are significant; i. e., there is
some white noise. If you place a finger on
any string, you can feel it vibrate.
However, octave and harmonic strings will
vibrate with higher amplitudes than the
dissonant strings, which is a consequence

of the larger Fourier coefficients for the

harmonics because the ends of the strings
are fixed. If the pedal is depressed after the
note is struck, there will be sympathetic
vibration in octave and harmonic strings,
but all the other strings will be quiet
because the traveling waves have
dissipated and the remaining standing
waves contain only harmonics. This
produces a clearer sustained note. The
lesson here is that, in general, the pedal
should be depressed immediately after
striking the note, in order to produce a
more harmonious sustain.
For Fr Elise, use the pedal only for
the
large
LH
broken
chord
accompaniments (bar 3 & similar), bars
83-96 and the RH arpeggio passage (bars
100-104). Practically all of the first
difficult interruption should be played
without the pedal. Of course, everything
should initially be practiced without the
pedal until you have basically finished the
piece. By not using the pedal, technique
improves fastest because you can hear
exactly what you play, especially the hold
and lift components of the basic keystroke.

(40) Soft Pedal: Hammer Voicing

Grand pianos: The soft pedal (the
left pedal) is used to change the mood
(timbre, tone) of the sound from
percussive to more gentle. It is not
designed to produce softer sounds, a fact
many pianists do not know. Thus "soft
pedal" is a misnomer for grands in
order to play pianissimo, you must simply
learn how to play softly. You can produce
almost as loud sounds with the soft pedal
depressed as without. One difficulty with
the soft pedal is that it (una corda, or more
correctly due corde for the modern grand)
is often not indicated, so the decision to
use it is left to the pianist. Another

90

problem is that too many teachers do not

teach how to use it correctly.
In grands, the soft pedal causes the
entire action (including the hammers) to
shift to the right so that the hammers miss
one string in the three-string section when
it is fully depressed. The amount of shift
should be the distance between adjacent
strings in the three string section so that
the two struck strings will hit the grooves
of adjacent strings; otherwise, the sounds
will not be even. The main requirement is
that the unstruck string should completely
miss the hammer.
The unstruck string acts as a
reservoir into which the other two strings
can dump their energy; the struck strings
will drive the unstruck string into
vibration. Since the vibration of the
unstruck string is in anti-phase with the
struck strings (a driven string is always in
anti-phase with the driver), it takes the
edge off the initial prompt sound and at
the same time, excites more horizontal
vibrational modes than when all three are
struck in unison. The horizontal vibrations
transfer energy less efficiently to the
sound board and produces a softer sound
with longer sustain.
When the soft pedal is depressed,
only two strings can produce the prompt
sound but eventually, all three strings
contribute to the after-sound because the
three strings are coupled. This reduces the
prompt-sound so that the sound is less
percussive.
In the double and single string
sections, the strings have much larger
diameters, so when the action moves
sideways, the strings hit the side walls of
the grooves, thus giving them a horizontal
kick and increasing the after-sound by
increasing the horizontal string vibrations.
Thus the change in timbre is similar to that

in the three string section. This mechanism

is fiendishly ingenious!
Pianists not educated in the use of
the grand's soft pedal will often use partial
soft pedals and claim that it softens the
sound. That is certainly true, but the effect
is unpredictable from piano to piano and
from note to note on the same piano. It is
impossible for the piano technician to
align all hammers and strings so
accurately that the unstruck string will
miss the hammer at the same pedal travel
for every three string note. Thus the partial
soft pedal effect will be uneven and nonreproducible from note to note. This is
why a partial soft pedal is not a correct
pedal usage; it is not a design feature of
grands.
With experimentation, it is possible
to use a half soft pedal in which the strings
are shifted half way so that they hit the
soft "hills" between grooves, producing
very soft sounds. This might be one way
to play PPP. It might be a way to play
softly on a piano that needs voicing badly.
Thus, with increasing pedal travel, the
sound changes from normal to very soft
to slightly soft and change in timber.
Every student must be taught the
correct use of the soft pedal on a grand,
which is to either depress it all the way, or
release it completely. What kind of sound
does it produce? When do you need it?
The only way to correctly play softly on a
grand is to make sure that the hammer is
properly voiced.
The mistaken use of partial soft
pedals with grands is so common because
it works for uprights and digitals, and
most students begin their lessons on them.
In most uprights, the soft pedal causes all
the hammers to move closer to the strings,
thus restricting hammer motion and
decreasing the volume; it is a true soft
pedal, and a partial soft pedal works.

91

Unlike the grands, loud sounds cannot be

produced on an upright when the soft
pedal is depressed. It has only a minor
effect on timbre. There are a few upscale
uprights in which the soft pedal works
similarly to that of the grands.
Hammer voicing: If it is necessary
to close the grand lid in order to play
pianissimo, the hammer almost certainly
needs voicing [re-shaping, needling, etc.,
(78) Polishing Capstans, Hammer
Voicing]. Grands are designed to be
played with their lids open. Students
should practice with the lid open because
they will perform with the lid open, and it
is the only way in which you can hear the
true sound of a grand, including PP and
FF. With properly voiced hammers, you
should be able to control soft playing to
any desired degree with a open grand.
With worn, compacted, hammers,
playing PP is impossible. Too many
students had never practiced PP because it
was impossible on their pianos.
A compacted hammer transfers its
energy to the strings during an extremely
short time interval at impact and the
hammer immediately bounces off the
strings. This high efficiency of energy
transfer gives the feeling of a very light
action. That is why there are old grands
that feel feather light. Softer hammers will
make the action feel heavier. This is
because, with the softer impact point of
the hammer, it stays on the string longer,
so that the string is pushed out of its
original position before all the hammer
energy is transferred to the string. The
energy transfer becomes less efficient and
the pianist must use more force to produce
the same volume of sound. Thus voicing
can change the apparent key weight
more than lead weights. The piano
technician must strike a compromise
between voicing the hammers sufficiently

soft so as to produce a pleasant tone and

enable pianissimo, but sufficiently hard so
as to produce adequate sound. For all
except the highest quality pianos, the
hammer needs to be on the hard side in
order to produce enough sound and to
make the action feel nimble, which makes
such pianos difficult to play PP. This in
turn can "justify" use of the soft pedal
when it should not be used. The majority
of practice pianos are not voiced often
enough especially because uprights don't
produce enough sound to begin with, and
they are effectively closed pianos, unlike
grands. Voicing the hammers would
further reduce the sound output.
The action should also be regulated
in order to enable PP (the let-off properly
minimized, etc., Reblitz, Arthur,). Piano
owners who know nothing about voicing
can make the piano tuner's job difficult
because, after the hammers are properly
voiced, the owner will complain that the
action is too heavy to play. In reality, the
owner had become accustomed to playing
a feather light action and never learned
how to play with real power to generate
that gorgeous piano sound. Compacted
hammers, when played FF, will produce a
harsh, unpleasant sound that can damage
the ears [(61) Hearing Loss]. Piano owners
should make sure that their tuners can
voice hammers because many tuners do
not routinely voice hammers.
The fact that a partial soft pedal
should not be used on a grand should not
be controversial but often is, because even
some advanced pianists mistakenly think
that (1) the soft pedal is for producing
softer sounds and (2) if a full soft pedal
gives a certain effect, a partial soft pedal
should give a partial effect on a grand.
Anecdotal accounts indicate that use of
partial soft pedal on a grand is widespread.
One might think that we should be able to

92

use a partial soft pedal with reproducible

results by a very slight soft pedal, in which
case all the strings in the 3-string section
will hit the sides of the grooves in the
hammer. When the strings just miss their
grooves, the sound will be softer because
this area of the hammer had not been
compacted by previous playing. Even this
scheme will not work, because it will
affect only the 3-string section, resulting in
a jarring transition from three string to the
two string section. Also, nobody has
enough foot accuracy to control such a
small pedal action.
In summary, "soft pedal" is a
misnomer for the grand. Its main effect is
to change the timbre of the sound. A loud
sound played with the soft pedal depressed
will be almost as loud as without the soft
pedal, because roughly the same amount
of energy was transferred to the strings. Of
course, the sound will change, because its
timbre has changed. Provided that the
piano is regulated and the hammers are
voiced, PP will be possible without the
soft pedal. A partial soft pedal will
produce unpredictable, uneven effects. A
partial soft pedal works on most uprights
and digitals, but a partial soft pedal habit
cultivated while practicing on uprights and
digitals can produce unexpected results
when performing on a grand.

play almost anything at any time, as all

concert pianists can.
Playing cold can save a lot of time
by using it to warm up and to maintain a
repertoire. Use cold practice to find out
what can be played cold and what can not,
and how long it takes to warm up so that
you can play more difficult material. There
are numerous instances when slow
practice is needed, and that can be done
cold. Memorize everything you learn, and
you will be able to play cold anywhere
there is a piano.
For those who had never practiced
playing cold, it might seem impossible at
first but, with just a little practice, you will
be surprised at how quickly your abilities
will strengthen. The ultimate objective is
to establish a permanently warmed up
state in which you can play without
warmups. Thus, like parallel sets and
staccato practice, playing cold is both a
diagnostic device for finding weaknesses
and a tool for correcting them.
Warming up, Conditioning: If you
hadn't played the piano for days and sit
down to play, the hands are "cold" and
need to "warm up". "Cold" hands are
incapable of executing technically difficult
material but, once warmed up, they can
perform miracles. Why is there such a
large difference? What changes are
occurring in the hands? The physiology of
warming up is not adequately understood.
Once it is understood, we may be able to
find ways to accelerate this process, or
even maintain it permanently, so that
concert pianists do not need to warm up
prior to performances, and students can
save a lot of time.
Pianists often warm their hands to
accelerate this "warming up" process. That
doesn't work well because the muscles that
need warming are in the arms. In cold
weather, warming the hands (e.g., wearing

(41) Playing Cold, Warming Up,

Conditioning
Playing cold means sitting down and
playing without any warm-ups. It is a
necessary preparation for performing
because it is the fastest way to strengthen
your performance ability. In the majority
of informal situations in which you might
play, you will not have 20 minutes to
warm up. Practice playing cold every time
you start practice in order to be able to

93

mittens) can be counter-productive

because the reaction to cold is initiated by
the feeling of cold at the hands. Keeping
the hands warm only makes them more
sensitive to cold, eliciting a stronger
"cold!" reaction when exposed to cold. It
is better to dip the hands in ice water
several times a day to acclimate them to
cold so that the body will naturally keep
the hands warmer. Do not leave the
hands in ice water too long; just cool the
skin where the cold sensors are. Eskimo
hands in the arctic function as well as
those of people living near the equator
because their hands have been conditioned
to function at low temperatures. The most
effective solution in cold weather is to
warm the body so that it can send
warmer blood to the hands.
The importance of staying limber is
illustrated by the enormous efforts many
pianists expend to keep the fingers
warmed up. Gould wore gloves most of
the time (probably the wrong thing to do),
and Liszt carried a dummy piano around to
practice on, when no pianos were available
(good idea).
Conditioning refers to the readiness
to play resulting from daily practice; it is
like a permanent "warmed up" state.
Playing easy pieces for a long time is not
as effective for conditioning as practicing
difficult material for shorter times. With
enough hard work, you can skip one day
of practice without significant detriment,
whereas if you practice only easy material,
skipping one day will decrease
conditioning noticeably. Thus at every
practice session, end the session with a
good workout using difficult material.
Make sure that you avoid fast play
degradation by playing slowly, everything
that was played fast, before quitting. The
physiology of conditioning is not
understood and research is needed in order

to find simple ways to achieve it. Well

conditioned, warmed hands can perform
miracles compared to cold hands; too
many pianists believe that exercises
achieve these conditions, but music is
better, and nourishes the brain. Playing
cold is a necessary component of piano
practice.

(42) Musicality, Touch, Tone, Color

Music is an combined inborn and
acquired language we use to communicate
with one another and even with ourselves.
Bach and the great composers embedded
the definition of music in their
compositions because the human language
and scientific knowledge were, and still
are, inadequate. In addition, their own
understanding of music was incomplete,
and we can not even decipher every lesson
that they embedded in their music. We can
only reverse-engineer existing music to
see what it is made of. The result of this
reverse-engineering is the subject of
today's music theory (Scoggin, Nancy,).
Teachers play a critical role in
showing students how to play and practice
musically. After many years of lessons,
students are expected to learn technique
and to develop a sensitivity to musicality.
For example, most pieces of music begin
and end with the same chord, a somewhat
mysterious rule which is a result of basic
chord progression rules. Combe taught
that musical phrases generally start and
end with softer notes, with the louder ones
in between; when in doubt, this is a good
default principle. This is one reason why
so many compositions start with a partial
bar the first note of a bar usually carries
the beat and is too loud. There are many
books that discuss musical interpretation
(Gieseking, Sndor), and we will
encounter numerous pointers throughout
this book.
94

Although musical talent is necessary

to compose music, the ability to play
musically is not that dependent on the
brain. In fact, a majority of us is more
musical than we give ourselves credit for
and it is the lack of technique that limits
our musical expression at the piano. We
have all listened to famous pianists and
noticed that one is better than the other -that is more musical sensitivity than we
will ever need to make music.
Music is a partly inborn language
consisting of rhythm, melody, and logic.
During one's life (including the time in the
womb), a person can learn additional
elements of musical language, so that
music appreciation is partly acquired.
Rhythm incorporates timing and dynamics
(loud, soft). Melody operates in pitch
space and is based on harmony; i.e., the
most important pitch space for music is a
subset of pitch space called the (76)
Chromatic
Scale.
Logic
contains
everything we know and don't know about
what makes music, music; it is defined by
how the brain reacts to music. Logic
makes music limitless, free from our
limited knowledge of math, science,
cosmology, etc. Thus Beethoven used
"group theory" concepts [(67) Mozart's
Formula, Beethoven and Group Theory]
before mathematicians and physicists
recognized
their
importance
to
semiconductor technology that led to
computers Beethoven is the
grandfather of the internet! Statements
such as "music is not math" makes no
sense because music includes math
there is no reason why anything should be
excluded from music. Knowledge can only
help the musician. Musicality is learned by
playing music from many composers, and
knowing the details of how and why each
one was composed.

Carefully connect each bar to the

next bar (or measure, or phrase). These
bars/measures do not stand alone; one
logically flows into the other and they all
support each other. They are connected
rhythmically as well as conceptually. This
point may appear to be trivially obvious;
however, if performed consciously, you
might be surprised by the improvement in
the music.
There must always be a conversation
between the RH and LH. They don't talk
to each other automatically even if they
were timed perfectly. You must
consciously create a conversation between
the two hands, or voices.
"Cresc." means that most of the
passage should be played softly; only the
last few notes are loud, which means that
it is important to start softly. Similarly, for
other indications (rit., accel., dim., etc);
make sure that you have reserved space for
the action to take place mostly near the
end. These "expression tools" create
mental illusions; for example, if you ramp
up a cresc. gradually, it is like walking up
a slope, whereas if you wait till the last
moment and increase it exponentially, it is
like being thrown up in the air, which is
more effective.
Strive more for accuracy than
expressive rubato; rubato is often too easy,
incorrect, and not in tune with the
audience. Expressions are usually the
tiniest deviations from strict accuracy;
they are seldom big.
Many students feel uncomfortable
practicing when others are around to
listen; some even think that intense piano
practice is necessarily unpleasant and
punishing to the ear. These are symptoms
of common misconceptions resulting from
inefficient practice methods. With correct
practice methods and musical play, there
should be nothing unpleasant about piano

95

practice sessions. It makes no sense to

practice non-musicality! The best criterion
that you are practicing correctly is the
reaction of others -- if your practice
sounds good to others, then you are doing
it right. Musical practice builds mental
stamina because it requires so much
concentration. Laziness of the brain is in
fact the major cause of the desire to
separate technique from music, and
practice non-musically; this is not the
brain's fault evolution has conditioned
it to conserve energy. Unfortunately, it
doesn't work for pianists because it only
cultivates non-musical playing, and
reduces brain stamina [(20) Endurance,
Brain Stamina]. The need for musicality is
a major reason why exercises don't work.
Touch is a basic aspect of musicality
and must be developed from day one of
piano lessons. Beginners always start with
inappropriate touch that teachers can
immediately spot and correct by
demonstrating what musical touch sounds
like. As students develop, it becomes a
personal thing; if poor touch becomes
ingrained, it becomes difficult to change
because the brain has become desensitized to it. Students should listen to
others playing (especially teachers and
other students, not only concert pianists);
they will hear a surprising range of touch
and can compare them to their own. It is
important to hear the bad and the good.
The idea is not to imitate someone else's
"beautiful" touch, but to eliminate
undesirable aspects of their own. Imitation
is impossible because touch is influenced
by everything from how the music is
visualized in the brain to every aspect of a
person's technique and musical history.
Touch should be practiced at all speeds all
the time, unlike color which is easiest to
bring out near the final speeds.

Tone is like touch, but is partly

dependent on the piano, such as the
distribution of harmonics and other sounds
produced by the piano. Typical
descriptions of tone are light, smooth,
clear, heavy, deep. Light and clear can be
practiced using staccato practice. Smooth,
heavy, and deep might be achieved with
heavier use of the damper pedal and
practicing legato play. Playing deeply can
be achieved by acceleration through the
keydrop, making use of the hammer shank
flex (Askenfelt, Anders, Ed.,). An
accelerating keydrop creates maximum
hammer shank flex, which maximizes the
effective mass of the hammer. The
effectively heavier hammer creates more
low
fundamental
frequencies,
a
characteristic of deep tones. This is
particularly easy for the grand because the
acceleration is needed only until the jack
releases the hammer, not all the way to the
bottom of the keydrop. This property of
grands is one reason why students need to
practice on grands when they advance
beyond intermediate level (because it
requires a different technique) and why
grands are superior to uprights.
Pianos make a lot of extraneous
sounds. To hear them, play fast, FF music
on a digital with the sound turned off.
Most acoustic pianos create even more
extraneous sounds than digitals, but they
are not audible because you are
accustomed to them, and the string sound
can not be turned off. To hear some of the
extraneous sounds of acoustics, play fast,
FF music for 20 minutes using ear plugs or
head phones so that most of the high
frequency noises are filtered out and you
become accustomed to this new sound.
Now, remove the ear plugs and play the
same music you will be surprised by
the amount of non-music noise you will
hear! These noises are an integral part of

96

the piano sound and can add to its richness

for quality pianos.
The condition of the hammers and
the elasticity of the strings affect the tone.
Compacted hammers and old strings that
have lost their elasticity produce more
higher harmonics and the "honky-tonk"
type of sound.
Color is a unique musical quality of
a particular piece of music, a composer, a
scale, etc., created by the sum total effect
of all the elements in the music. It
becomes increasingly important as the
pianist advances to higher levels. It is
frequently discussed, but specific colors
have seldom been described in words
(except for simple descriptions such as
happy, sad, energetic, etc.) because the
human languages are inadequate. A few
aspects of color have been identified, such
as key color (Bach), Chopin's special
staccato and legato, or elements of
Debussy associated with nature and water.
Mozart has his own unique color like no
other; it is conceptually deep, yet is based
on the simplest constructs. Thus, although
it may be exciting to play Mozart like a
Beethoven, it is not true Mozart that
reflects the instruments of his time and the
simpler musical expectations before
Beethoven exploded on the scene. Color
depends mostly on the composer, so try to
recognize color in performances by
concert pianists and to bring them out in
your playing. Practicing too loud produces
a harsh touch and erases most color; of
course, color does not automatically
disappear in passages played FF. Thus it is
important for students to develop the
ability to recognize color.
So, what is musicality? It is (1)
following the expression markings, time
signatures, etc., on the sheet music, (2)
listening to the tone of the piano and your
personal touch, (3) making sure that each

element of music: speed, rhythm,

dynamics, melodies, etc., are properly
taken into account, (4) bringing out the
characteristics of each composer, (5)
bringing out the color of the music, and (6)
adding
your
own
interpretations.
Musicality must be practiced at all
times, from day one of HS practice. Not
practicing musically is the main reason
why so many pianists are afraid to
perform.

(43) Problems with Hanon Exercises

Since about 1900, Charles Louis
Hanon's (1820-1900) exercises have been
taught by a majority piano teachers. The
popularity of exercises grew rapidly in the
vacuum created by a lack of documented
efficient practice methods until it
culminated in the exercise craze of the
1930s with the publication of Cortot's
"Rational Principles of Pianoforte
Technique" that contained no principles
but was just a compilation of exercises.
The title illustrates the lack of
understanding of how technique is
acquired. Few teachers understood this
until recently when knowledge about
efficient practice methods became more
available
because
of
improving
communications. Even today, there are
pianists who claim that Hanon is helpful,
from force of habit because they grew up
with it.
I used Hanon exercises extensively
in my youth which is why I know about
their shortcomings. Czerny, CramerBulow, etc., type lesson pieces, that I also
used, share many of these disadvantages.
Hanon is a prime example of how Cortot's
"rational principles" [intuitive methods!
(1) Practice Routines, the Intuitive
Method] can mislead generations of
pianists into using methods that are
inferior to known efficient practice
97

methods. Here are some reasons why the

days of repeating Hanon for a lifetime are
over:

is to separate the hands as recommended

in this book, but he is unaware of HS
practice. Locking the two hands only
teaches how to coordinate the hands, but
does nothing to teach independent control
of each hand. In practically all music, the
two hands play different parts.
(3) There is no provision for resting
a fatigued hand. This leads to stress and
injury. A diligent student who fights the
pain and fatigue in an effort to carry out
Hanon's instructions will build up stress,
acquire bad habits, and risk injury. The
concept of relaxation is never even
mentioned. Piano is an art for producing
beauty; it is not a macho demonstration of
how much punishment your hands, ears,
and brain can take. Dedicated students
often use Hanon as intense exercises in the
belief that piano is like weight lifting and
that "no pain, no gain" applies to piano.
Such exercises might be performed up to
the limit of human endurance, even until
some pain is felt. "Strengthening the
fingers for technique" is a terrible
misconception; technique is a set of skills,
not "finger strength" which will actually
slow
the
fingers
[Post
Practice
Improvement, Sleep, Fast/Slow Muscles].
(4) The Hanon exercises can destroy
the student's musicality. It does not require
a musical genius to compile a Hanon type
of exercises. The joy of piano comes from
the one-on-one conversations with the
greatest geniuses that ever lived. For too
many years, Hanon has taught the wrong
message that technique and music can be
learned separately. Bach's music benefits
both the hands and the mind. Hanon
excerpted most his material from Bach's
Toccata and Fugue and other compositions
if it is from Bach, how can you go
wrong? Hanon showed us how, by
deleting the music! He also deleted almost

(1) Hanon makes a surprising claim

in his introduction with no rationale,
explanation, or experimental evidence:
"The Virtuoso Pianist, in 60 Exercises".
Advanced teachers today know that such a
claim is amateurish; yet Hanon has
survived through generations of pianists
because better alternatives were seldom
taught from a lack of communication
among piano teachers. Hanon implies that
the ability to play these exercises will
enable anyone to play anything -- which
shows a lack of understanding of how
technique is acquired. All advanced
pianists today agree that Hanon is not for
acquiring technique, but might be useful
for "warming up". There are many better
pieces for warming up than Hanon, such
as etudes, numerous Bach compositions,
scales, and arpeggios and, most
importantly, your own repertoire. The
skills needed to play any significant piece
of music are incredibly diverse - almost
infinite in number; certainly not 60
exercises.
(2) All 60 are mainly exercises in
two hands playing the same notes an
octave apart, plus a few in opposite
directions. This HT motion is a major
limitation for acquiring technique because
the better hand cannot practice skills more
advanced than the weaker hand. At slow
speed, neither hand gets much workout. At
maximum speed, the slow hand is stressed
while the better hand is playing relaxed.
Because technique is acquired mostly
when playing relaxed, the weaker hand
develops bad habits and the stronger hand
gets stronger. The best way to strengthen
the weaker hand is to practice that hand
only. In fact, the best way to learn Hanon

98

all of Bach's technical lessons, because

Hanon was not aware of them.
(5) Many pianists use Hanon as
warm-up exercises. This conditions the
hands so that it becomes impossible to
play "cold", something any accomplished
pianist should be able to do, within
reasonable limits. Since the hands are cold
for at most 10 to 20 minutes, "warming
up" robs the student of this precious, tiny,
window of opportunity for practicing cold
[(41) Playing Cold, Warming Up,
Conditioning]. Those who use Hanon for
warm-ups can be misled into thinking that
it is Hanon that is making their fingers fly,
while in reality, any good practice session
will do that. The Hanon teachings have led
to the belief that only Mozart can just sit
down and play, and that the rest of us can't
perform such "magical feats". In order to
be able to "play on demand", quit Hanon
and practice playing cold - what Mozart
did was common sense, not magic.
(6) If students used their "Hanon
time" to practice real music, they would
acquire a lot more technique. Who
wouldn't rather play Mozart, Bach,
Chopin, etc., than Hanon, acquire
technique, and build a repertoire they can
perform?
(7) Hanon gives no instructions on
how to acquire technique. He cannot help
if you get stuck at a difficult passage; he
does not provide any diagnostics for why
you can't play a given passage. The PSs
provide both diagnostics and solutions for
many situations. What little advice he does
dispense, have all been shown to be
wrong! So let's look into them:
(i) He recommends "lifting the
fingers high", which will create stress and
slow down the fingers. I have never seen a
famous pianist lift the fingers high.
Hanon's advice has misled students into
thinking that piano should be played by

lifting the finger and plonking it down.

Ouch!
(ii) He recommends continuous
practicing of both hands, as if piano
technique is some kind of calisthenics. He
is totally unaware of the benefits of HS
practice.
(iii) He recommends playing his
exercises every day, but once any skill is
acquired, it doesn't need to be reacquired
over and over. Once all 60 pieces are
learned and up to speed, every hour that
Hanon is repeated is a wasted hour -- what
will we gain?
(iv) He is apparently aware of only
the thumb under method, whereas the
thumb over method is more important.
(v)
In
most
exercises,
he
recommends fixed wrists which is only
partially correct. His didn't understand
what "quiet hands" means.
(vi) He does not teach a majority of
the important hand motions, although
there are a few wrist exercises for
repetitions. His format of locked 2-hand
practice limits the options for practicing
different hand motions; it is impossible to
experiment using Hanon.
(8) The Hanon exercises do not
allow for practicing at the kinds of speeds
possible with the PS exercises. Without
the use of such speeds, certain fast speeds
cannot be practiced and there is no
possibility of practicing "over-technique",
more technique than necessary to play that
passage - a safety margin for
performances.
(9) Hanon wastes time. The student
ends up with insufficient time to develop a
repertoire. A person who has 2 hrs to
practice every day, playing Hanon for 1 hr
as recommended, would waste half of his
piano lifetime! Teachers, who don't know
how to teach, assign Hanon in the hopes
that the student will accidentally discover

99

technique by repeating Hanon exercises.

That technique could have been taught in a
few days while it may take years to be
discovered accidentally using Hanon, if
ever. It took Liszt two years to discover
TO; today, we can teach it in a week or
less. The Hanon student becomes the next
generation of teachers who assign Hanon
exercises, etc., which explains why Hanon
has persisted for this long, and why the
acquisition of technique was such a
mystery.
Thanks to improved documentation
and communications, the Age of Exercises
is finally over and piano pedagogy can
advance freely, instead of getting stuck
with incorrect beliefs that slowed progress
for over 100 years. This book amply
demonstrates that there are so many skills
that musicians must learn that there is no
time left for repeating the same exercises
over and over and . . . . . . . . .

(44) Fake Books, Jazz, Improvisation

It
is
important
to
learn
contemporary music because it is
educational (music theory, improvisation,
new music genres), transforms you into a
better performer, greatly widens your
audience, is the fastest way to expand your
repertoire, creates many performance and
income opportunities, makes you a more
complete musician, gives you a greater
sense of empowerment, requires only a
modest investment of time classical
students are more than half way there
already and you have a big advantage over
those who have not studied classical
and, compared to classical music, you get
quicker rewards for a given investment of
time.
What is the most important skill to
learn? Chords! Basic chords (3-note),
inversions, major/minor, dominant 7th,

diminished, augmented, larger chords, and

how to use them. You can learn just a few
of them, and start performing immediately.
You also need to learn all the scales, and
to coordinate the RH melody with the LH
accompaniment (things you already know
if you learned classical), the circle of fifths
and chord progressions. You can be
playing the simplest things in a matter of
weeks; but it will take a year for most
students to feel comfortable with this
genre. For example, there is no such thing
as true improvisation for at least a few
years because true improvisation is almost
as difficult in this genre as composing is,
in classical.
Although contemporary
music is often considered to be freer than
classical, it is restricted to a narrower
range of musical parameters, which makes
improvisation easier. What is generally
referred to as improvisation is "practiced
improvisation" in which you choose from
optional "improvisations" that were
previously practiced. The greatest reward
of all this effort is that you will develop
the ability to play by ear [(18) Play by Ear
(PBE), Composing], which is one of the
genius skills [(65) Creating Geniuses].
Begin study with Neely's "How to
Play from a Fake Book". Fake books are
simplified sheet music in which only the
RH melody and the associated (LH)
chords are indicated. It is up to the pianist
to decide how to play these chords this is
why you need to learn all about chords;
not only are there many of them, but each
can be played in many different ways.
Fake books are easy to start with because
you don't have to know chord progressions
they are given to you on the sheet music.
The next reviewed book to use is
"How to play the piano despite years of
lessons" by Cannel and Marx, which is not
a book about technique; instead, it teaches
how to play jazz, popular songs, or from

100

fake books. Again, we learn all about

chords but, in addition, we learn about the
circle of fifths and chord progressions, so
that you can "play by ear" remembering
a melody, you should be able to figure out
the melody with your RH and add your
own LH without a fake book. Gets you
started immediately by playing simple
stuff read the review for more details.
This is the only book of the three
discussed here that treats rhythm, which is
especially important in jazz.
A third book you may want to read is
Sabatella's "A Whole Approach to Jazz
Improvisation" which provides definitions
of all the chords and scales, as well as
discussions of jazz history and what music
you should listen to, as examples of how
they are played. This book can be browsed
free (see review), but there are no lessons,
songs, or music to play just theory and
discussions for those interested in jazz
concepts.
Perhaps the happiest finding in all
this is how restrictive the chord
progressions are, in terms of the circle of
fifths (see Cannel & Marx, Sabatella).
This makes it easy to get started, giving
you the time to advance gradually, without
much pressure, into more complex music.
From a general music education point of
view, we must all learn the circle of fifths
because it is needed for tuning the violin,
understanding temperaments and learning
how to tune the piano in the
temperaments, figuring out all the scales,
their chords, and the key signatures, as
well as understanding music theory. The
section on Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch
will be useful for this genre also. For those
who are just starting piano but want to
learn both classic and contemporary,
Humphries, Carl,, may be the best choice.
In summary, the process of learning
this genre consists of practicing the chords

and scales sufficiently so that, given a

melody, you can figure out the right
chords that go along with it. You will learn
to recognize the chord progressions, and
use music theory more than in classical
music lessons. Therefore, if you take a
long term approach, and start with a few
simple pieces, you can start performing
almost immediately and be able to keep
advancing on your own schedule. It is
important that you perform these pieces as
soon as possible, and to quickly learn your
strong/weak points. Because this genre is
still young, the instruction books are not
all consistent; for example, the circle of
fifths in Sabatella goes clockwise with
respect to the sharps, but goes counter
clockwise in Cannel and Marx, and
exactly how you should use the 7th chords
depends on which book you read. The
most important skill you will develop is
play by ear [(18) Play by Ear (PBE),
Composing].

(45) Sight Reading, Sight Singing,

Composing
Sight reading means playing
unfamiliar music, by reading the sheet
music at the correct speed, and is a skill
that is distinct from mere reading at slower
speeds to learn a new composition.
Beginning students should be taught
reading first, then memorizing, and then
sight reading. At advanced levels, sight
reading involves the application of basic
music theory, such as chord progressions
and harmonies. Here are the basic rules for
sight reading (see Richman for more
details):
(1) Keep the eyes on the music; do
not look at the keyboard/fingers. Glance at
the hands occasionally when necessary for
large jumps. Develop a peripheral vision
so that you have some idea of where the
hands are while still looking at the score,
101

and can keep track of both hands

simultaneously. Feel the keys before
playing them; although this applies
whether you are sight reading or just
reading, it is critical in sight reading. Try
to "get there ahead of time" for jumps;
therefore, practice the jump maneuvers
[Jumps, PP, FF].
(2) Learn all the common musical
constructs: Alberti bass, major and minor
scales and their fingerings as well as the
arpeggios, common chords and chord
transitions, common trills, ornaments, etc.
When sight reading, you should recognize
the constructs or phrases and not read the
individual notes. Memorize the locations
of those very high and very low notes as
they appear on the score so that you can
find them instantly. For those notes high
above (or below) the staves, start by
memorizing all the octave C's, then fill in
the others, beginning with notes closest to
the C's.
(3) Look ahead of where you are
playing, about one bar, or even more, as
you develop the skill at reading the music
structure. Get to the point where you can
read one structure ahead so that you can
anticipate fingering problems and can
avoid getting yourself into impossible
situations. Although fingering suggestions
on the music are generally helpful, they
are often useless for sight reading because,
although they may be the best fingerings,
you may not be able to use them without
some practice, and may not have time to
figure them out. Therefore, develop your
own set of fingerings for sight reading.
Learn sight-singing (below).
(4) Play through mistakes and make
them as inaudible as possible. The best
way to do this is to make it sound as if you
had modified the music -- then the
audience does not know whether you
made a mistake or changed it, especially

because you will often have to simplify

things that are too complex to sight read.
This is why students with basic music
theory training will have an advantage in
sight reading. Three ways to make
mistakes less audible are (i) keep the
rhythm intact, (ii) maintain a continuous
melody (if you can't read everything, carry
the melody and omit the accompaniment),
and (iii) practice simplifying those parts
that are too complicated to sight read. For
advanced sight readers, the most powerful
tool is the ability to simplify the music:
eliminate ornamentals, fish out the melody
from fast runs, etc.
(5) "Practice, practice, practice".
Although sight reading is relatively easy to
learn, it must be practiced every day in
order to improve. It will take most
students from one to two years of diligent
practice to become good. Because sight
reading depends so heavily on recognition
of structures, it is closely related to
memory. You can lose the sight reading
ability if you stop practicing; however, just
as with memory, if you become a good
sight reader when young, you will be good
all your life.
Keep adding to the "tricks of the
trade" as you improve. Practice the art of
scanning through a composition before
sight reading it, in order to get some feel
for how difficult it is. Then you can figure
out ahead of time how to get around the
"impossible" sections. You can even
practice it quickly, using a condensed
version of the learning tricks (HS, shorten
difficult segments, use parallel sets, etc.),
just enough to make it sound passable. I
have met sight readers who would talk to
me about some sections of a new piece for
a while, then play through an entire piece
with no trouble. I later realized that they
were practicing those sections in the few

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seconds they had while they were

distracting me with their "discussions".
Gather several books with easy
pieces. Because it is initially easier to
practice "sight reading" with familiar
pieces, you can use the same compositions
to practice sight reading several times, a
week or more apart. This will familiarize
you with common constructs and phrases.
"Sonatina" books, Mozart's easier sonatas,
and books of easy popular songs, are good
books for practicing. For the easiest
pieces, you might use the beginner books,
or the easiest Bach pieces. Although you
can develop a lot of sight reading skills
with familiar pieces, you must eventually
practice with pieces that you had never
seen before in order to develop true sight
reading skills. The most useful skill for
help with true sight reading is sight
singing, or solfege. Learning absolute
pitch is one of the best ways to develop
sight singing.
Sight singing and composing: To
be able to write down a music or your
composition, it is necessary to study
dictation (solfege [(68) Theory, Solfege]).
Practice dictation by practicing sight
singing. Take any music and read a few
bars and sing it or play it using MP. Then
check it out on the piano. If you do this
with enough music that you had never
heard before, you will learn sight singing
and develop the dictation skills. You just
have to keep doing this until you get the
hang of it, because it will be of invaluable
help to you as a pianist all your life.
For practicing to play "by ear",
practice sight reading. Once you become
fairly good at sight reading (this may take
over 6 months), start playing out your own
melodies on the piano. The idea behind
learning sight reading is to familiarize
yourself with common runs, chords,
accompaniments, etc., so that you can find

them quickly on the piano. Another way is

to start playing from fake books and
practicing improvisation. Every teacher
should incorporate sight singing and play
by ear lessons into every lesson session,
even for just a few minutes, and encourage
the students to practice them at home.
When composing, don't worry if at
first you find it difficult to start a piece or
end it there are simple solutions you can
learn quickly later. Start by building a
collection of ideas that you can later
assemble into a composition. Don't worry
that you have never had any lessons in
composition; it is best to develop your
own style first, then study composition to
help you to nurture that style and to solve
problems such as making your music
longer or finding an ending. Music never
comes "on demand", which can be
frustrating; therefore, when ideas come,
you must work on them immediately.
Composing at a good concert grand
can be inspirational. Although digital
pianos are adequate for composing popular
music and practicing jazz improvisations,
a quality grand can be very helpful when
composing high level (classical) music.
Once you have composed for several
years, start taking composition lessons.
Don't try to learn all the composition rules
at once, but learn them as you need them.
Mental play skills are necessary for
composing; not having absolute pitch will
be a major handicap.

(46) Stretching and Other Exercises

Palm Spreading: The hand has two
sets of muscles that spread the
fingers/palm to reach wide chords. One
mainly opens the palm and the other
mainly spreads the fingers apart. When
stretching the hand to play wide chords,
use mainly the muscles that open the palm.
The feeling is that of spreading the palm
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but with free fingers; i.e., spread the

knuckles apart instead of the fingertips.
This will reduce both stress and fatigue
when playing chords, enable faster play, a
more rapid relaxation, and improve
control. Spreading the fingers helps to
widen the palm but it interferes with the
finger movement because it tends to lock
the fingers to the palm. In the end, you
will use both sets of muscles, but it is
useful to know how to spread the palm
independently of the fingers.
It is more important, but more
difficult, to stretch the palm instead of the
fingers. One exercise is to place the right
palm over the left palm, right arm pointing
left and left arm pointing right, with the
hands in front of the chest. In this position,
thumb meets pinky; interlock the thumbs
and pinkies so that fingers 2,3,4 are on the
palm side and 1,5 protrude on the back
side of palm. Then push the hands towards
each other so that thumbs and pinkies push
each other back, thus spreading the palm.
Also, exercise the palm and finger
spreading muscles while simultaneously
applying the pushing force. This spreading
is not an isometric exercise, so the
stretching motions should be quick and
short. Regular (daily) stretching from
youth can make a considerable difference
in the reach when you get older, and
periodic maintenance will prevent the
reach from decreasing with age, as it
normally would.
The webbings between fingers can
be stretched by jamming them against
each other using the two hands. For
example, to stretch the webbings between
fingers 2 and 3, spread those 2 fingers on
both hands to form Vs. Then jam the
vertices of the 2 Vs (the webbings) against
each other to stretch them. For maximum
effectiveness, use the palm and finger
spreading muscles to stretch the palm with

every jamming motion. Again, don't

perform these like isometric exercises but
use quick spreading motions. Most people
have a slightly larger left hand, and some
can reach more by using fingers 1,4 than
1,5.
Finger spreading: In order to test
whether the fingers/palm are fully
stretched, open the palm and fingers for
maximum reach; do this on a flat surface
with the wrist touching the surface. If the
pinky and thumb form a almost straight
line, you can not increase the reach any
more. If they form a "V", then the reach
can be expanded by performing spreading
exercises. Another way to test this
alignment is to place the palm on a table
top at the edge of the table with the thumb
and pinky down the edge, so that only
fingers 2, 3, and 4 are resting on the table
top, and the finger tips of 1 and 5 are
touching the table edge. If the thumb and
pinky form a triangle with the edge of the
table, the stretch can be expanded.
Perform a spreading exercise by pushing
the hand towards the table edge so as to
spread the thumb and pinky apart; when
fully opened, thumb and pinky should
form a straight line. There is no need to be
perfectly straight; once you get close, any
extra stretch buys you very little reach.
When playing wide chords, the
thumb should be curved slightly inwards,
not fully stretched out. For those who have
thumbs that can bend backwards, pay
attention to this thumb position for
maximum reach; if you form the habit of
bending the thumb all the way backwards,
this habit will be almost impossible to
reverse and make TO difficult. It is
counter-intuitive that, by bending the
thumb in, you can reach further; this
happens because of the particular
curvature of the thumb's fingertip.

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There are a few exercises that may

be helpful for technique.
Finger independence and lifting
exercises are performed by first pressing
all five fingers down, e.g., from C to G
using the RH. Then play each finger four
times: CCCCDDDDEEEEFFFFGGGG;
while one finger is playing, the others
must be kept down, to the bottom of the
keydrop. Do not press down firmly; that
will create stress. The gravitational weight
of the hand should be enough. Beginners
may find this exercise difficult in the
beginning because the non- playing fingers
tend to collapse from their optimum
positions or lift involuntarily, especially if
they begin to tire. If they tend to collapse,
try a few times and then switch hands or
quit; do not keep practicing in the
collapsed or uncontrolled condition. Then
try again after some rest. One variation of
this exercise is to spread out the notes over
an octave. This type of exercise was
already in use during F. Liszt's time
(Moscheles). They should be done using
the curled as well as the flat finger
positions.
Some
piano
teachers
recommend doing this exercise once
during every practice session. In the curled
position, practice shooting the 4th finger
out straight in addition to its small lift.
This exercise can be performed on any flat
surface. Do it slowly at first in order to
avoid creating bad habits, but speed it up
gradually as you improve, which may take
months or years. Do not over-do these
exercises, just a few minutes each time,
and take advantage of post practice
improvement (PPI). Once you can do it
satisfactorily, there is no need to keep
doing it every day.
For finger lifting exercises, repeat
the above exercise, but lift each finger as
high as you can, then quickly and
immediately relax. The motion should be

as fast as you can, but with control. Again,

keep all the other fingers down, but with
minimal pressure, just the weight of the
arm. As usual, it is important to reduce
stress in the fingers that are not being
lifted.
Practice
rapid
relaxation
immediately after the fast lift.
Everyone has problems with lifting
th
the 4 finger. There is a mistaken belief
by many that we must be able to lift the 4th
finger as high as all the others and
therefore they expend an inordinate
amount of effort trying to achieve this.
Such efforts have been proven to be futile
and even harmful. This is because the
anatomy of the 4th finger does not allow it
to be lifted beyond a certain point. The
only requirement on the 4th finger is not to
depress a key inadvertently, which can be
met with only a small amount of lift,
especially for the flat finger positions.
Therefore play at all times with the 4th
finger barely off the keys or even touching
them. Practicing difficult passages with
inordinate effort at lifting this finger
higher can cause stress in fingers 3, 4, and
5. It is more productive to learn to play
with less stress as long as the 4th finger is
not interfering in any way.
The exercise for lifting the 4th finger
independently is performed as follows.
Press all fingers down, CDEFG, as before.
Then play 1,4,1,4,1,4, . ., with the accent
on 1 and lifting 4 as quickly and as high as
you can. Then repeat with 2,4,2,4,2,4, . . .
then 3,4, then 5,4. You can also do this
exercise with 4 on a black key. Both the
finger independence and lifting exercises
can be performed without a piano, on any
flat surface. Again, do not over-do these
exercises; it is more effective to wait for
PPI.
One way of lifting the 4th finger is to
straighten it out into the flat finger position
instead of lifting it. Try the above
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exercises by using the straightening

motion instead of the lift. You should
notice that the finger tip lifts higher than
the lifting motion. Practice the lifting and
straightening motions separately but, in
actual playing, you will use both.
Stretching the flexor muscles and
tendons: We mainly utilize the flexors for
playing the piano and the extensors are
insufficiently exercised. This makes it
difficult to lift the fingers, especially the
4th, against the over-developed flexors.
One way to alleviate this problem is to
perform stretching exercises for the flexor
muscles and tendons. Form a flat LH and
place all the LH fingers against the RH
palm and use the RH to push the LH
fingers backwards towards the forearm. A
person with very flexible flexors will be
able to push the fingers all the way back
until they touch the forearm (not many).
Most people should be able to push the
fingers past the point at which the fingers
are at 90 degrees to the forearm. Push as
far as you can (without pain) for six
seconds, then release for four seconds;
repeat several times. Do same with the RH
fingers. Perform this once daily and you
will be amazed at how much more you can
stretch in just a few months. This will
make it easier to lift the fingers and
prevent them from curling up completely
when not in use.
Even "mindless exercises" might
have some uses, such as just before a
strenuous performance, when you need to
conserve as much energy as possible.
Historically, exercises were invented
for a good reason: to solve specific
technical problems. Misuse of exercises
started when they replaced knowledge
based practice methods, enabling teachers
with little knowledge to "teach" piano.
During the periods leading up to the
"exercise craze" of the 1900s (Cortot,

Alfred,,), and even today, there is belief

that the best techniques require practicing
extremely difficult exercises, many of
which never occur in actual music. Thus
the most difficult exercises were created
with the belief that you aren't an advanced
pianist if you can't play them. This belief
also influenced the piano culture in which
certain difficult pieces of music had to be
mastered in order to be considered an
advanced pianist, whether those pieces
were to be performed or not. This culture
was partly accepted by Chopin, Liszt, etc.,
who wrote Etudes for the purpose of
developing technique. Such "technical
pieces" are now a part of advanced piano
culture and certainly contribute to better
technique. Practice methods for such
advanced technique, for which there is
presently no documentation, should be
researched and added to what is in this
book.
Conclusion: using daily finger
exercises to "strengthen the fingers" for
technique acquisition is obsolete. We now
understand the role of efficient practice
methods and most of them have been
documented. There are a few stretching
exercises for increasing the reach and
reducing the natural deterioration with
age. There are etudes, technically difficult
pieces, etc., that are needed for
demonstrating advanced technique.

(47) Performance Preparation,

Videotaping
(1) Videotaping: One of the best
ways to improve musical playing and to
practice for performances is to videotape
your playing. You will be surprised at how
good and how bad the different parts of
your performances are. They are often
quite different from what you imagine
yourself to be doing: good touch? rhythm?
tempo accurate and constant? What
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motions are breaking up the rhythm? Do

you clearly bring out the melodic lines? Is
one hand too loud/soft? Are the
arm/hands/fingers in their optimum
positions? Are you using the whole body - i.e., is the body in synch with the hands
or are they fighting each other? All these
and much more become immediately
obvious. The same music sounds different
when you are playing it compared to when
you are watching it on video. You may be
slowing down at difficult sections and
playing too fast in easy ones. Are the
pauses long enough? Are the endings
convincing?
The recording session will reveal
how you react in an actual performance. If
you make a mistake or have a blackout, do
you react negatively to mistakes and
become discouraged, or can you recover
and concentrate on the music? Some
students will smile or make faces at a
mistake, but that is not appropriate; the
best policy is to ignore it because you
want to attract the least attention to
mistakes. During a performance, students
tend to get blackouts, etc., at unexpected
places where they had no trouble during
practice. Recording sessions can flush out
most of those problem spots. Pieces are
not "finished" unless you can record them
satisfactorily.
The
main
disadvantage
of
videotaping is that it takes so much time,
because you must watch the recordings
precious time you could have spent
practicing. Every time you correct a
section, you must re-record and listen
again. The videotaping sessions are not a
waste of time because that is part of
practice time. It is something that every
piano student must do, yet is too often
neglected. Today, you can videotape on a
smart phone and immediately watch it on
the computer.

Video taping takes time but,

fortunately, you only need to do it a few
times. After the first few sessions, you
quickly reach the point of diminishing
returns after you have identified the major
issues. There is no need to re-identify
them many times. However, video taping
has many uses, such as archiving your
repertoire or posting it for distribution to
various channels. Therefore, everybody
should set up a video taping facility.
(2)
Performance
Preparation
Routines: Even if a student can play
perfectly during practice, he can make
mistakes and struggle with musicality
during a recital without a proper
performance preparation routine. Most
students intuitively practice hard and at
full speed during the week preceding the
recital, and especially on the day of the
recital. In order to simulate the recital,
they imagine an audience listening nearby
and play their hearts out, playing the entire
piece from beginning to end, many times.
This practice method is the single biggest
cause of mistakes and poor performance.
The most telling remark I heard most often
is, "Strange, I played so well all morning
but during the recital, I made mistakes that
I don't normally make!" To an experienced
teacher, this is a student practicing out of
control without any guidance about right
and wrong methods of performance
preparation.
Teachers who hold recitals in which
the students perform wonderfully and win
all the piano competitions keep a tight
leash on their students and control their
practice routines closely. Why all this
fuss? All mistakes originate in the brain.
All the necessary information must be
stored in an orderly manner in the brain,
with no confusion. This is why improperly
prepared students always play worse in a
recital than during practice. When you

107

practice at full speed, a large amount of

confusion is introduced [(27) Fast Play
Degradation, Eliminating Bad Habits].
The environment of the recital is different
from that of the practice piano, and can be
distracting. Therefore, you must have a
simple, mistake-free memory of the piece
that can be retrieved in spite of all the
added distractions.
Through trial and error, experienced
teachers have found practice routines that
work. The most important rule is to limit
the amount of practice on recital day, so as
to keep the mind fresh and uncluttered.
Recall that any improvement in technique
and memory occur during sleep [Post
Practice Improvement, Sleep, Fast/Slow
Muscles], so that practicing on the day of
the recital can only make things worse,
something that is so counter intuitive. The
brain is unreceptive on recital day. It can
only become confused. Only experienced
pianists have sufficiently "strong", trained
brains and performance capabilities to
assimilate something new on recital day.
By the way, this also applies to tests and
exams at school. Most of the time, you
will score better in an exam by going to a
movie the night before the exam than by
cramming. A major reason why cramming
doesn't work is that it deprives the student
of a good night's sleep.
The practice routine for recital
day is to play nearly full speed once, then
medium speed once and finally once
slowly. That's it! No more practice! Never
play faster than recital speed. Don't play
your heart out, play with minimal
expression and reserve your "heart" for the
performance; otherwise, you will lose the
freshness and find that you have nothing
left during the performance. Notice how
counter intuitive this is. Since parents and
friends will always act intuitively, it is
important for the teacher to make sure that

any person that comes in contact with the

student also knows these rules, especially
for the younger students. Otherwise, in
spite of anything the teacher says, the
students will come to the recital having
practiced all day at full speed, because
their parents made them do it.
This routine is for the typical student
and is not for professional performers who
will have much more detailed routines that
depend on the type of music being played,
the particular composer, and piece to be
played. Clearly, for this routine to work,
the piece will have had to be ready for
performance way ahead of time, at least
six months. Even if the piece has not been
perfected and can be improved with more
practice, the above paragraph is the best
routine for the recital day.
If, during these allowed practices,
you make a mistake that is "stubborn"
(most students can recognize these), it will
almost certainly recur during the recital. In
that case, fish out the few bars containing
the mistake and practice those at moderate
speeds and HS (always ending with slow
play), then test it at almost final speed, and
end with several slow plays, just those few
bars. If you are not sure that the piece is
completely memorized, play the insecure
section very slowly several times. At this
time, MP is critical -- it is the ultimate test
of memory and readiness to perform.
Practice MP at any speed and as often as
you want; it can also calm nervous jitters
because it satisfies the urge to practice on
performance day, and keeps you occupied
instead of worrying and getting more
nervous.
Avoid extreme exertion, such as
playing a football game or lifting or
pushing something heavy (such as a
concert grand!). This can suddenly change
the hand memory and you can make
unexpected mistakes. Of course, mild

108

warm-up
exercises,
stretching,
calisthenics, Tai Chi, Yoga, etc., are
beneficial.
For the week preceding the recital,
always play at medium speed, then slow
speed, before quitting practice. You can
skip the medium speed if you are short of
time, or if the piece is particularly easy, or
if you are a more experienced performer.
Medium is about 3/4 speed, and slow is
about half speed. More generally, medium
speed is the speed at which you can play
comfortably, relaxed, and with plenty of
time to spare between notes. At slow
speed, you need to pay attention to each
note; the more difficult, the slower, but
preserving the same hand motions required
at speed.
Up to the day before the recital, you
can work on improving the piece,
especially musically and HS. But within
the last week, adding new material or
making changes in the piece (such as
fingering) is not recommended, although
you might try it as a training experiment to
see how far you can push yourself. The
ability to add something new during the
last week is a sign that you are a strong
performer; in fact, purposely changing
something at the last minute is a good
performance training method that some
teachers use, if you are a sufficiently
strong performer.
For working on long pieces such as
Beethoven Sonatas, avoid playing the
entire composition many times. It is best
to practice short segments of a few pages,
or one movement at most, always
including a few bars of the next section or
movement. Practicing HS is also an
excellent idea. Although playing too fast is
not recommended in the last week, you
can practice at higher speeds HS.
Avoid learning new pieces during
this last week. That does not mean that

you are limited to the recital pieces; you

can still practice any piece that was
previously learned. New pieces will often
cause you to acquire new motions that
affect or alter how you play the recital
piece. Usually, you will not be aware that
this happened until you perform and
wonder how those strange mistakes crept
in.
Make a habit of playing your
performance pieces "cold" when you start
any practice session. Of course, "playing
cold" has to be done within reason. If the
fingers are totally sluggish from inaction,
you cannot, and should not, play difficult
material at full speed; it will lead to stress
and bad habits. Simply slow down to
playable speed. Some pieces can only be
played after the hands are completely
limbered up, especially if you want to play
it musically, such as bringing out the
color.
Practice just the starting few bars,
from several days prior to the recital.
Pretend that it is recital time and play
those few starting bars anytime you walk
by the piano. Choose the first line and
practice a different number of bars each
time. Don't stop at the end of a bar, always
include the first beat of the next bar. You
might photographically memorize the first
few bars. When you start a piece easily
and beautifully during a recital, you will
be surprised at how well the rest comes
out; on the other hand, even a small
problem at the beginning can ruin the
whole performance.
Blackouts are some of the most
disastrous events but they can be
eliminated by using several procedures.
The first is mental play (MP). When
practicing MP, learn to picture the entire
structure of the composition in your mind
and develop the ability to know where in
that structure you are playing. Then

109

practice starting from anywhere in that

structure, so that you can restart after a
blackout.
One cause of blackouts is
dependence on hand memory which is
dangerous because hand memory is
notoriously unreliable. This is because it is
a reflex memory that depends on stimuli
from previously played notes and largely
bypasses the brain. Thus if any
circumstance changes, such as a different
piano, or a concert hall, nervousness, or
the presence of an audience, the stimuli
will change, resulting in a blackout. Once
a blackout happens, all the usual stimuli
disappear and the pianist is unable to restart. For a student who has only hand
memory, the only alternative is to re-start
at the beginning. That is why the above
performance preparation procedures, and
especially MP, is so important.
Slow play is the best way to reduce
the dependance on hand memory because
reflexes are speed dependent; this forces
the brain to intervene and take over the
playing. Therefore, playing slowly
before quitting is absolutely essential for
the week before a performance.
Practice recovering from mistakes.
Attend student recitals and watch how
students react to their mistakes; you will
easily spot the good reactions and the
inappropriate ones. A student showing
frustration or shaking the head after a
mistake is creating three mistakes out of
one: the original mistake, an inappropriate
reaction, and broadcasting to the audience
that a mistake was made. Every practice
session must be a practice session for
avoiding
mistakes,
making
them
unnoticeable. Pretend that you are
accompanying a choir or playing a
concerto and must pick up the music at the
correct spot.

(3) Casual Performances are

probably the most effective and easy ways
to practice performing. Common types of
casual performances are playing pieces for
testing pianos in stores or playing for
friends at parties, etc. These are different
from formal recitals because of their
greater freedom and reduced pressure.
Nervousness should not be an issue, and is
in fact one of the best ways to practice
methods for controlling or avoiding
nervousness. The secret to performing is
musical practice. Most pianists who are
afraid of performing in public have seldom
practiced musically because in public, the
most important element is music. If you
practice musically all the time, you will be
surprised at how willing you are to
perform and make music, especially when
you sense the audience response to your
playing.
For an easy start, play snippets (short
segments from a composition). Start with
simple ones; pick out the best sounding
sections. If it doesn't work out too well,
start on another one. Same, if you get
stuck; time to move on to a new piece.
This is a great way to experiment and find
out how you perform and which snippets
work. Do you tend to play too fast? It is
better to start too slow and speed up than
the other way round. Can you adjust to a
different piano -- especially one that is out
of tune or difficult to play? Can you keep
track of the audience reaction? Can you
make the audience react to your playing?
Can you pick the right types of snippets
for the occasion? What is your level of
nervousness, can you control it? Can you
play and talk at the same time? Can you
gloss over mistakes without being
bothered by them?
Another way to practice performing
is to teach others, especially youngsters, to
play. Teach them how to play the C major

110

scale, or "Chopsticks" or Happy Birthday.

Duets are perfect for this.
Playing snippets is effective because
most audiences are impressed by the
ability to stop and start anywhere in the
middle of a piece only concert pianists
can do that, right? Start with short
snippets, then gradually try longer ones.
It's much easier to play snippets mistake
free. Once you have done this type of
casual snippet performance on 4 or 5
different occasions, you will have a good
idea of your performance capabilities. One
of the routines you should practice "cold"
are snippet playing routines they need
practice too.
There are a few rules for snippet
performances. Don't perform a piece you
had just learned. Let it stew for at least 6
months; preferably one year. If you had
spent 2 weeks learning a difficult new
piece, don't expect to be able to play
snippets that had not been played at all in
those 2 weeks -- be prepared for surprises,
such as blackouts. Don't practice the
snippets fast on the day on which you
might be performing them. Practicing
them slowly will help. Can you still play
them HS? HS play can be one type of
snippet performance, and you can play
them very fast! Make sure that you can
MP everything -- that is the ultimate test
of your readiness.
In general, don't expect to perform
anything well, casual or otherwise, unless
you have performed it at least three times
and, some claim, at least five times. It is
certainly not going to be like the best run
you made during practice. Without this
mental expectation, you can end up
disappointed after every attempt at
performing and develop psychological
fears.
A few mistakes or missed notes go
unnoticed during practice, and your

assessment of how you sound during

practice is more optimistic than the
assessment if you had played exactly the
same way for an audience. After a
practice, you tend to remember only the
good parts, but after a performance, you
tend to remember only the mistakes.
Usually, you are your worst critic; every
slip sounds worse to you than to the
audience. Most audiences will miss half of
the mistakes and forget most of the rest,
unless you make a big deal out of it.
Classical music is not always the
best venue for casual performances. Thus
every pianist should learn popular music,
jazz, cocktail music, music from fake
books, and improvisation. Popular music
provides some of the best ways to practice
for recitals, especially for classical music.
(4) Benefits and Pitfalls of
Performances/Recitals: The benefits and
pitfalls of performing should determine
our daily piano learning programs.
Technique is never really acquired until it
is demonstrated in a performance. For
young students, the benefits are
immeasurable. They learn what it means to
complete a task, and they learn what
"making music" means. Most youngsters
(who don't take music lessons, etc.) don't
learn these skills until they go to college;
piano students must learn them by their
first recital, regardless of age. Then they
repeat this (59) Project Management
process with every new piece of music
they learn. Successful pianists become
masters of project management, a skill that
is useful everywhere, not just for piano.
Students are never as self-motivated
as when preparing for a recital. Teachers
who have held recitals know those
enormous benefits. Their students become
focused, self-motivated, and results
oriented; they listen intently to the teacher
and really try to understand the meaning of

111

the teachers' instructions. They become

deadly serious about eliminating all errors
and learning everything correctly -- it is
capitalism at its best, because it is their
performance. Teachers without recitals
often end up with students who practice a
few times just before lesson day.
There is always a certain number of
students who dislike to perform, and
teachers must learn how to teach such
students. Teachers must find out why they
dislike performances and discuss the
findings with the parents. Methods of
teaching every type of student must be
developed. Those not interested in
performing must be directed into other
avenues in which the student shows
interest.
Because the psychology and
sociology of piano playing is not well
developed, there are pitfalls that we must
consider. Most teachers are not trained in
psychology and expect the students to be
able to step up to the piano, sit down, and
play without proper training. The most
important consideration is nervousness
and its impact on the mind, especially for
the young. Nervousness can make recitals
a frightful experience; this requires special
attention in order to avoid not only
unhappy experiences but also lasting
psychological damage. At the very least,
reducing nervousness will alleviate stress
and fright. This subject will be treated
more completely in the section on [(48)
Origin and Control of Nervousness]. There
is active research in the science of
performance optimization (Kotier). At this
writing
one
major
principle
of
performance enhancement is based on the
concept of "flow" (Csikszentmihalyi), but
it has not been applied to piano
performance. Thus piano pedagogy is
behind other disciplines in understanding
and applying advanced concepts in

performance, in spite of the fact that piano

is a performing art.
There are numerous psychological
and sociological implications of recitals
and competitions. The judging systems in
music competitions are notoriously unfair,
and judging is a difficult and thankless
task. Thus students entered into
competition must be informed of these
shortcomings of the "system" so that they
do not suffer mental anguish from
perceived unfairness and disappointment.
There may be 30 contestants, but only one
can "win". From an educational point of
view, that is counter productive. It is
difficult, but possible, for students to
understand that the most important
element of competitions is that they
participate, not that they win. There is too
much emphasis on technical difficulty and
not enough on musicality. The system
does not encourage communication among
teachers to improve teaching methods. It is
no wonder that there is a school of thought
that favors eliminating competitions.
There is no question that recitals and
competitions motivate students to try
harder; but the present system can
certainly be improved by better overall
teacher
education
and
better
communications among teachers. Recitals
need not always be competitions; they are
more beneficial organized as recitals
where the reward is the performance, not
to pick a winner.

(48) Origin and Control of

Nervousness
Performance training must include
education on performance anxiety. Even
great artists have stopped performing for
periods of time and some of the reasons
were related to nervousness. Although
good piano teachers always hold recitals
of their students and enter them into
112

competitions, they have tended to be poor

sociologists
or
psychologists,
concentrating only on piano playing and
ignoring nervousness. It is important for
any person guiding youngsters through
recitals and competitions to learn the
fundamentals of what causes nervousness,
how to deal with it, and its psychological
consequences. Because teachers fail so
often, the parents must look out for the
social and psychological welfare of their
children that take music lessons. Group
activities such as orchestras, choruses, and
bands present few psychological issues.
Solo instruments, and especially piano,
presents several issues that everybody
responsible for the student must address,
such as controlling performance anxiety,
coordination with other activities (is piano
compatible with golf or tennis?), how to
divide the times devoted to piano or other
education, etc..
Nervousness is a natural human
emotion and arises in critical situations.
Therefore, it is normally a performance
enhancing reaction. Nervousness makes us
concentrate all our energies towards the
critical task. Most people dislike
nervousness because it is too often
accompanied, or is caused, by fear.
Therefore, although nervousness is
necessary for a great performance, it needs
to be kept under control; otherwise, it can
interfere with the performance in addition
to causing suffering. There is a wide range
of individuals from those who don't get
nervous at all, to those who suffer
debilitating
performance
anxiety.
Performing should be a rewarding
experience of communicating through
music, not the most terrifying experience
of a child's life.
Emotions are basic, primitive
reactions, and have evolved to be helpful
under normal circumstances. However,

under extreme conditions, emotions can

get out of control, and become a liability
unless your name is Wolfie or Franz
(Freddy apparently didn't qualify, as he
was a nervous wreck and disliked public
performances; however, he seemed
comfortable in a salon environment).
Youngsters, who are too frightened to
perform solo, almost always enjoy
performing in a group. This shows the
importance of the mental perception of the
situation.
By the time nervousness becomes a
problem, it is usually spinning out of
control. A lack of understanding of
nervousness also creates fear because of
the fear of the unknown. Thus the simple
knowledge of what performance anxiety
is, and what generally happens during a
performance, can be a calming influence
by reducing the fear of the unknown.
How does nervousness grow out of
control, and are there ways to prevent it?
Fundamental science provides some
solutions. Practically anything in our
universe grows by a process known as the
Nucleation-Growth (NG) mechanism.
The NG theory states that an object forms
in two stages, nucleation and growth. This
theory became popular because it is in fact
the way in which the majority of objects in
our universe form, from raindrops to
cities, stars, humans, etc. Tiny nuclei are
always forming and disappearing, but
there is a thing called a critical nucleus
which, when formed, becomes stable -- it
does not disappear. In general, the critical
nucleus does not form unless there is a
supersaturation of the material that
aggregate to form it. For the object to
grow to its final size, the critical nucleus
needs a growth mechanism by which to
increase its size. In general, the growth
mechanism is different from the nucleation
mechanism. One interesting aspect of

113

nucleation is that there is always a barrier

to nucleation -- otherwise, everything
would have nucleated a long time ago.
Growth is a two-way street: it can be
positive or negative.
Let's
apply
NG
theory
to
nervousness. In everyday life, your sense
of nervousness comes and goes, without
becoming anything serious. However, in
an unusual situation such as a
performance, there is a supersaturation of
factors that cause nervousness: you must
perform flawlessly, you didn't have
enough time to practice the piece, there is
a big audience out there, etc. However,
this still may not cause any problem
because there are natural barriers to
nucleating nervousness, because the
person may not even be aware of
nervousness, or might be too busy
finalizing the preparations for the recital.
But then, a fellow performer says, "Hey, I
got butterflies in my stomach!" and you
suddenly feel a lump in your throat and
realize that you are nervous -- the critical
nucleus has formed! This may still not be
that bad, until you start to worry that
perhaps your piece is not yet ready to
perform or the nervousness might interfere
with the playing -- these fears cause the
nervousness to grow. Thus, asking a
performer, "aren't you nervous?", etc., is
the worst thing you can do to a nervous
performer. On the other hand, a teacher
who ignores nervousness and doesn't teach
performance preparation is not doing his
job.
It is not a good idea to pretend that
nervousness does not exist, especially with
youngsters who can more easily suffer
lifelong psychological damage. Kids are
smart and they can easily see through the
pretense, and the need to play along with
the pretense can only increase the stress
because they must shoulder the burden by

themselves and feel alone and abandoned.

This is why performance training, in
which nervousness is discussed and
studied, is so important. For young
students, the parents and friends attending
the recital need to be educated. Statements
like "I hope you aren't nervous!" or "How
can you perform without getting nervous?"
are almost certain to cause nucleation and
growth. Unless you know what you are
doing, stay away from such statements!
You can help by keeping them busy,
giving them simple tasks to do or
discussing details of the music, how to
adjust the chair, etc.
The nice thing about scientific theory
is that it not only describes the process, but
also provides solutions. We can attack
nervousness at the nucleation stage; if we
can prevent nucleation, it will never form
a critical nucleus. Merely delaying the
nucleation will be helpful because that will
reduce the time available for it to grow.
Playing easier pieces will reduce the
supersaturation of worry. Mock recitals
will give you more experience and
confidence; both will reduce the fear of the
unknown. Generally, you need to perform
a piece three or more times before you
know whether you can perform it
successfully or not; thus performing pieces
that had been performed several times will
also help. All these factors reduce the
supersaturation for nucleation. For
someone like Mozart, nervousness never
nucleates
because
there
is
no
supersaturation of factors like fear of
mistakes, etc.; instead, he was always
eager to show off, which is the opposite of
supersaturation. Thus the eagerness to
make music for the audience can prevent
performance anxiety.
Nervousness is generally worst
before a performance; once you start
playing, you are too busy with the task at

114

hand that there is no time to dwell on

nervousness, thus reducing the growth
factor. This knowledge helps because it
alleviates the fear that things might get
worse during the performance. Not
dwelling on nervousness is another way of
delaying the nucleation as well as slowing
the growth stage. Thus it is a good idea to
keep yourself occupied while waiting for
the recital to begin. MP is useful because
you can check your memory and keep
yourself occupied at the same time; thus
MP is the most effective tool for
preventing or delaying nucleation and for
reducing growth. Playing musically is a
surprisingly effective antidote against
nervousness; when you can involve your
entire brain in the business of creating
music, there is little brain resources left to
worry about nervousness.
Our daughter, Eileen, pointed out
that Yoga-type breathing techniques are
effective in eliminating nervousness.
Breathing consists of two parts: (1)
breathing techniques [(19) Breathing,
Swallowing] and (2) breathing routines for
specific purposes, such as for athletics,
meditation, etc. Here, we need a routine
for eliminating nervousness. "Breathing
slowly to reduce nervousness" has been
mentioned numerous times in the
literature. What we need are precise
routines with explanations of why and
how they work, how to design the best
routines and, most importantly, how to
practice them.
The routine is: inhale (5 to 30
seconds), hold about 5 seconds, exhale (5
to 30 seconds), hold about 5 seconds,
repeat. The exact times depend on the
person and circumstances, as explained in
detail below.
Why does this work to eliminate
nervousness?

(1) It distracts the mind from the

causes of nervousness, in a way that
involves not only the mind but also the
whole body. This may not immediately
eliminate the nervousness, but it HAS to
reduce it somewhat. But any reduction
brings relief, and this relief feeds on itself,
thus reducing nervousness further. This
positive feedback process can eventually
eliminate the nervousness. This is the
same reason why, once you start playing,
the nervousness generally subsides,
because
the
brain
becomes
too
preoccupied with the task of playing.
Thus, as soon as you feel some relief from
nervousness, you know that the procedure
will work.
(2) When nervous, the body is in a
tense state, often with the heart racing, and
the slow breathing serves to slow down
everything in the body. Stress reduction is
a major component of yoga classes that
teach how to breathe. Yoga has done a
great job of identifying autonomous
processes such as stress and nervousness,
and finding ways to control them. Just for
learning how to control performance
anxiety, it is worthwhile for all pianists to
take a few yoga lessons.
(3) The body is generally
unaccustomed to operating two tasks
simultaneously. In this method, you are
forcing the body to breathe following a
specific routine while it is undergoing
nervousness, and the body gives up the
nervousness.
There aren't many chances to get
nervous, so there are few occasions for
practicing breathing techniques to see if
they work and to experiment with them.
Fortunately, the method also works for
inducing sleep. Practicing breathing to
induce sleep will give you all the practice
you need to control nervousness! Read the
section
on
sleep
[Post
Practice

115

Improvement, Sleep] for details of how to

practice breathing routines.
When really nervous, breathing
slowly, counting, and holding may not be
comfortable or feasible. In that case, start
by simply breathing in and out
comfortably; this may be shallow
breathing and relatively fast. Then slow it
down gradually, and then start counting.
A good starting routine with counting
might be: inhale for 5 sec., hold 5 sec.,
exhale 5 sec., hold 5 sec., repeat. To start
inhaling or exhaling, wait till you feel the
urge to inhale or exhale, which is the urge
that drives the autonomous breathing.
Then gradually slow down the whole
process by increasing the number of
seconds.
Thus, if necessary, start with faster
shallow breathing and gradually slow it
down
towards
deeper
breathing;
eventually, you may be able to
inhale/exhale/hold for 30 seconds or more.
Breathing routines vary widely depending
on the application. For reducing
nervousness, it is usually best to breathe
deeply, so that it is necessary to learn the
mechanics of breathing.
A sample breathing routine that
shows how it works is presented in [Post
Practice Improvement, Sleep]. The main
difference between sleep and nervousness
is that, for sleep, you let the autonomous
take over, so that the routine eventually
changes, generally towards shallower
breathing. For nervousness, the routine
does not change once you achieve the
routine you want, and you keep that
routine until the nervousness is gone.
This breathing exercise is only a
band-aid and is not a permanent cure. The
permanent solution to nervousness must be
the desire to produce music, the pride and
joy of controlling the audience with music.
A certain amount of nervousness is

necessary because you can't be

lackadaisical and perform your best. A
good performer is not bothered by
mistakes because the music is so much
more important than mistakes. Excessive
nervousness will adversely affect the
music while the joy of producing great
music
enhances
the
performance.
Performance anxiety tends to be an all-ornothing phenomenon: either you enjoy
performing or you are debilitated by
performance anxiety. The transition from
performance anxiety to the joy of
performing can be the most profound
transformation in the life of a musician.
Although breathing exercises are just
band-aids, they can help you to achieve
that transformation.
Performance training must include
lessons on how to react to various
circumstances, such as when you make
mistakes or have blackouts. For students
who tend to have blackouts, have the sheet
music ready; just the knowledge that the
sheet music is available can reduce
blackouts. Placing the music on the piano
or nearby can act as a security blanket. A
student must always bring the music with
them to the recital. It is important, early in
a student's career, to play easy pieces that
can be performed without nervousness.
Even one such experience can provide the
existence proof that performing without
nervousness is possible. That single
experience can influence the performance
attitude for life.
Some have claimed that, under a
doctor's supervision, medications such as
Inderal and Atenolol, or even Zantac will
work to calm nerves. Conversely, you can
make it worse by drinking coffee or tea
with too much caffeine, not getting enough
sleep [Post Practice Improvement, Sleep],
or taking certain cold medications. The
best solution is to learn enough about

116

nervousness so that it can be controlled

without medication.
This use of breathing routines to cure
nervousness led me to its use for inducing
sleep another example of how learning
piano can teach us skills that are useful in
applications outside music.
In summary, performance anxiety is
nervousness that has spiraled out of
control. You can minimize nervousness by
delaying its nucleation by keeping busy
and reducing its growth by playing
musically. MP is the most effective tool
for these purposes. It is pure ignorance,
and not helpful, to ask "do you get nervous
when you perform?" Everyone does, and
should. Nervousness is worst just before
you begin to play; once you start, you are
too busy with the playing to worry about
nervousness and this will cause it to
shrink. Nervousness needs to be taught
using performance preparation routines
and performance training programs so that
most students can be in the camp that
never gets nervous. Having fun with
contemporary music such as pop, jazz, and
improvisation, is good training. Playing
easy pieces, and practicing by playing
snippets in casual events, are helpful.
Once you get nervous, it can be
eliminated by using breathing routines.

(49) During, After the Performance

Starting to play: Some pianists will
delay starting by adjusting the bench or
some clothing item in order to have time
to double check the starting tempo, etc.,
using MP. On the other hand, since you
can MP the music before walking on the
stage, many concert pianists can start play
very quickly, reducing the time to get
nervous. Do not assume that there won't be
any mistakes; that assumption can only
invite more trouble because you will feel
terrible when a mistake does occur.

Instead, be ready to react correctly with

each mistake, or more importantly,
anticipate an impending mistake that you
may be able to avoid. It is amazing how
often you can feel an impending mistake
before it hits, especially if you are good at
MP. Recall that during MP, you were
surprised that you made the same mistakes
and got stuck at the same places as when
you were actually playing.
Most students, when they make a
mistake or when they anticipate one, get
worried and start playing more slowly and
softly. This is a formula for disaster.
Although hand memory is not something
you want to depend on, this is one time
you need it. Hand memory depends on
habit and stimuli; therefore, in order to
enhance hand memory, you must play
slightly faster and louder. The faster play
makes better use of the playing habits, and
leaves less time for moving some wrong
muscle that might derail you. The firmer
play increases the stimuli for the hand
memory. Now playing faster and louder
are scary things to do during a recital, so
you should practice this just as you
practice anything else. Learn to anticipate
mistakes and to avoid them by using these
avoidance maneuvers. Another method of
playing through mistakes is to make sure
that the melodic line or the rhythm is not
broken, even at the cost of missing some
less important notes. With practice, you
will find that this is easier than it sounds;
the best time to practice this is when you
are sight reading.
If you have a blackout, don't try to
restart from where you blacked out unless
you know exactly how to restart. Restart
from a preceding section or a following
section that you know well -- preferably a
following section because mistakes
usually cannot be corrected during the
recital and you will probably repeat the

117

same mistake. Secure MP will eliminate

practically all blackouts, especially if you
have absolute pitch. If you decide to
replay the blackout part, play slightly
faster and louder; not slower and softer.
In a concert hall with good acoustics,
the sound of the piano will be absorbed by
the hall and you will hear very little of the
piano sound compared to your home or
practice room. It is obviously important to
practice with the recital piano in the recital
hall before the event. For a grand piano, if
the music stand it up, you will hear almost
no sound from the piano in a concert hall
with good acoustics; always make sure
that the music stand is down. If you need
to read music, place it flat over the tuning
pin area.
That unfamiliar piano: Some
students fret that the recital piano is a huge
grand whereas they practice on an old
upright. Fortunately, the larger pianos are
easier to play than the smaller ones.
Therefore the issue of a different piano is
usually not something to worry about.
Larger pianos have better action, and both
louder and softer sounds are easier to
produce. Grands are easier to play than
uprights, especially for fast, difficult
passages. The only time you have to be
concerned about the piano is when the
performance piano is decidedly inferior to
your practice piano. The worst situation is
the one in which your practice piano is a
quality grand, but you must perform using
a low quality upright that is out of tune. In
that case, technically difficult pieces will
be difficult to play on the inferior piano
and you may need to make adjustments by
playing slower, or shortening or slowing
down trills, etc.. That's when you really
find out how strong you are, as a
performer.
A piano in tune is much easier to
play than one out of tune. Therefore, the

recital piano should be tuned just before

the recital. Conversely, it is not a good
idea to tune the practice piano just before
the recital (unless it is badly out of tune)
so that it is in better tune than the recital
piano.
After the Recital: Review the recital
and evaluate your strengths and
weaknesses
so
that
your
practice/preparation routines can be
improved. A few students will be able to
play consistently without audible mistakes.
Most of the others will make several
mistakes every time they play. Some will
tend to bang on the piano while others are
timid and play too softly. There is a cure
for every problem. Those who make
mistakes probably have not yet learned to
play sufficiently musically and almost
always are not using MP. Those who tend
to play flawlessly invariably have learned
MP, whether they do it consciously or not.
Students who play pieces above their skill
level always have trouble with recitals;
they can try to learn difficult material, but
for recitals, students must stay within their
skill level.
Recital preparation routines are
extremely important; make sure you have
one and are following it [(47) Performance
Preparation, Videotaping].
Playing several recitals in succession
is the hardest thing to do. But if you must,
then you will need to recondition the
recital pieces immediately following the
recital. Play them with little or no
expression, medium speed, then slow
speed. If certain sections or pieces did not
come out satisfactorily during the recital,
work on them, but only in small segments.
If you want to work on the expression at
full speed, do this in small segments and
follow it up with slow play.
After such repeat performances (in
fact, after every performance), play it

118

slowly as soon as you can, in order to

erase the fast play degradation and "reset"
the music in your mind. A similar process
takes place in a computer: after continuous
use, data fragmentation occurs and the
memory disk must be "defragged" to
restore the data to their proper locations.

(50) Summary of Method

1. Learn only musical, performable,
compositions;
no
Hanon,
Czerny,
exercises, etc., but scales, arpeggios,
chromatic scale are necessary, and
performable etudes (Chopin, Liszt) are
helpful. Specific exercises may be
necessary for advanced students.
2. Listen to performances and
recordings to improve musicality.
3. Practice Hands Separate, in
Segments (Segmental Practice) that
overlap (Continuity Rule); switch hands
before the working hand becomes tired.
Get up to speed quickly. All technical
development should be accomplished HS.
4. Practice the most difficult sections
first.
5. Memorize first, HS, and practice
only from memory.
6. Learn Mental Play, Memory,
Relative/Absolute Pitch and Play By Ear
skills, which raises the IQ.
7. Use Parallel Sets to diagnose
weaknesses and correct them.
8. Practice softly, without pedal, and
use staccato practice.
9. Learn to relax.
10. Always play the last repetition of
any repeated fast practice slowly.
11. Play through mistakes to prevent
stuttering.
12. Use metronome to check rhythm,
speed briefly; do not use it for ramping up
speed or continuously.
13. Use Post Practice Improvement
which occurs during sleep.

14. Hand motions: forearm rotation,

curled and flat finger positions, thumb
over, power thumb, jump rules, glissando
motion, quiet hands/fingers, cartwheel
motion, finger splits, finger/wrist/hand
staccato, etc..
15. Hands Together methods are the
same as HS (4-14). Use outlining.
16. Sight reading: look at sheet
music, not hands; read in phrases, one or
more bars ahead, memorize all common
constructs, learn to practice using mental
play only (no piano).
17. Play finished pieces cold; acquire
advanced technique using finished pieces.
18. Performance preparation: On
practice day, practice recital pieces only;
ONCE at nearly full, then medium and
slow speeds. Practice insecure sections in
small segments, below final speed; avoid
over-practicing. Always play slowly at
least once before quitting. Use breathing
routines to cure performance anxiety.
19. Most upright acoustics are
obsolete; use digital pianos for beginners;
need either high quality digital or acoustic
grand above intermediate level.
20. Youngsters should be started
before age four when they can learn
absolute pitch, mental play, memorization,
play by ear effortlessly.

119

EXAMPLES OF APPLICATIONS
Listed in order of difficulty; the three
Beethovens are about equally difficult.

(51) Fr Elise
Learning Fr Elise is treated in:
(3) Starting a Piece;
(5) Reading, Fingering;
(7)
Difficult
Sections
First,
Segmental Practice, Continuity Rule;
(9) Parallel Sets (PSs), Conjunctions,
Cycling;
(14) Memorizing, Close Your Eyes
and Play;
(39) Damper (Sustain) Pedal,
Physics of the piano sound.

(52) Practice Routines: Bach

Inventions, Sinfonia
Piano practice routines should be
either memorizing or technical sessions,
don't mix them because playing other
things during memory sessions will
confuse the material being memorized.
The first process when starting a new
piece is to memorize; so let's learn three of
Bach's 2-part Inventions: #1, #8, and #13.
I will go through #8 in detail. After
learning #8, try #1 by yourself and then
start on #13. We learn all three
simultaneously here, but if that proves too
taxing, try two (#8 and #1), or even just
#8. It is important to try only what you can
handle easily, because the objective here is
to demonstrate how easy it is. As Combe
said, how young or old you are, or how
many years you have taken piano lessons,
is not that important. You can start
learning these Inventions practically
anytime you want, and use them to
practice the methods of this book, as with
the Fr Elise. Nothing terrible will happen
to students with lower skill levels; they
will progress more slowly, but will learn a
lot in the process. Below is a step by step

example of how to start learning a piece;

however, true technique is developed after
the learning is over, when you can play it
to your heart's desire, and can concentrate
on the music.
Invention
#8,
day
one,
memorizing. The time signature is 3/4 so
there is one beat per quarter note and each
bar (measure) has 3 beats. The key
signature shows one flat, which places the
key one step counter-clockwise from C
major on the circle of fifths -- or F major
(not D minor because the music does not
use C# and starts and ends with notes of
the F major chord). In bar one, the first
beat note of the RH is missing ("start with
softer note" rule). Play with a slight accent
on notes 2 and 4 (beat notes), and the
heaviest accent on the first note of bar two
these are clever uses by Bach of basic
rhythm rules dictated by the time
signature. The pedal is not used in any of
the Bach Inventions.
Start by memorizing in small
segments, bars 2 to 4 of the LH, including
the first four notes of bar 5 (continuity
rule). It should take about a minute to
memorize; then try playing it at speed.
Then close your eyes, and play this LH
section in your head (Mental Play, MP,
don't play on the piano), mentally
visualizing every key or note (keyboard or
photographic memory), and fingering.
Then do the same for the RH, bars 1 to 4,
including the first 4 notes of bar 5. Now
return to the LH and see if you can play it
without the score, and similarly with the
RH. You should never have to refer to this
part of the score again, unless you have a
blackout, which will happen once in a
while. Go back and forth between the LH
and RH until you are comfortable, with
and without the piano (MP). This will take
a few more minutes. The whole procedure
takes about 5 minutes; less for a fast

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learner. You will find fingering

suggestions on most sheet music; for
example, W. A. Palmer's "J. S. Bach,
Inventions and Sinfonias" by Alfred.
Now memorize bars 5 to 7, including
the first beat of bar 8. This should take
another 5 minutes. These are HS practices
but you are free to try HT at any time;
however, do not waste time practicing HT
if you do not make easy progress because
we have a schedule to follow! When
starting bars 5 to 7, don't worry about
forgetting the previously memorized bars - put them out of your mind. This will
reduce mental tension and confusion (by
not mixing different memorized sections),
and make you partially forget the
previously memorized section, forcing you
to re-memorize later for better retention.
Memorizing is partly the job of the
subconscious brain, so let it do its job
while the conscious brain moves on to the
next. Once you are comfortable with bars
5-7, connect bars 1-7, including the first
beat of bar 8. It may take 3 minutes to do
both hands, separately, including MP
practice.
Next memorize bars 8-11, and add
them to the previous sections. Let's assign
7 minutes to this part, for a total of 20
minutes to memorize bars 1-11 and to
bring them up to speed, HS, both hands. If
you have technical difficulties with some
parts, don't worry, we will work on that
later; just memorize it.
Next, abandon bars 1-11, don't even
try to remember them -- it is important to
remove all sense of anxiety from the
conscious brain and let it concentrate on
the immediate task, and work on bars 1223. Use the following segments (the
conjunctions should be obvious): 12-15,
16-19, and 19-23. Bar 19 is practiced
twice in order to give extra work for the
difficult 4th finger in the LH. Work only

on bars 12- 23 until you can play them in

succession, HS, both hands, which should
take 20 minutes.
Then finish off bars 24 to end (34).
Use the following segments: 24-25, 26-29,
and 30-34. This may require 20 minutes,
for a total of 1hr to memorize the whole
Invention HS. You can now either quit and
continue tomorrow, or review the three
sections. Don't worry about whether you
will remember everything tomorrow (you
probably won't), but have fun, maybe even
try to connect the three sections or to play
the beginning parts HT to see how far you
can go. Work on parts that give you
problems when you try to speed them up,
breaking them into as small segments as
possible. You can also start on the second
piece, Invention #1. Between days 1 and 2,
practice MP away from the piano
whenever you have time (but not when
driving a car).
Day two: review each of the three
sections, Invention #8, then connect them.
The only requirement on the 2nd day is to
play the whole piece HS from beginning to
end, both on the piano and in MP,
completely memorized. Work on bringing
up the speed, using parallel sets, and go
as fast as you can without making
mistakes. Practice relaxation. If you start
to make mistakes, slow down and cycle
the speed up and down in short segments.
It may be easier to memorize playing fast,
and you might get memory lapses playing
slowly, so practice at different speeds.
Beginners have most difficulties at chord
changes, which often take place at the
beginning of a bar. Chord changes create
difficulties because the change requires a
new set of fingerings and notes.
Start staccato practice so that you
convert parallel playing to playing with
finger independence. This should also help
with increasing speed and relaxation.

121

Staccato practice does not mean nonmusical play, so pay attention to

musicality. Practice softly, even where "f"
is indicated.
At about this time, you should feel
quiet hands. If you cannot get close to the
final speeds, you will need to be satisfied
without quiet hands. Return to HS work
for increasing speed later. Otherwise,
make sure that you have quiet hands and
can play faster than final speed HS, before
starting HT. Watch your fingers and
suppress any involuntary, unnecessary
finger movements so that you have both
quiet hands and quiet fingers. Quiet hands
is one of the most important lessons
embedded in the Inventions because you
will need it when playing HT.
If completely comfortable HS on the
2nd day, you might start HT, using the
same small segments used to learn HS.
The first note of bar 3 is a collision of the
two hands, so use only the LH for this
note, and similarly in bar 18. Accentuate
the beat notes to synchronize the two
hands.
Pay attention to the rhythm and
dynamics from the very beginning,
checking with the sheet music. Then slow
down and work on accuracy. To prevent
the slow play from speeding up,
concentrate on each individual note.
Repeat this fast-slow speed cycle and you
should improve noticeably with each
cycle. Wherever you have technical
difficulties, use the parallel set exercises to
increase speed quickly, followed by
staccato practice. Practice time: less than
an hour.
Day three, technique session: learn
HT in the three major sections as you did
with HS. As soon as you notice confusion
with HT, go back to HS to clear things up.
Increase the speed HS. Those with
insufficient technical skill will have to

play slower, because relaxation is more

important than speed.
From here on, you will have to
depend on post practice improvement to
experience any major improvement.
However, in 3 hours over 3 days, you have
memorized the piece, can play HT, and
can MP the entire piece HS.
Start memorizing Invention #1,
while you polish up #8. Memorize #1
completely, then practice the two pieces
alternately without the sheet music. Work
on #1 until you start to forget #8, then go
back and refresh #8 and work on it until
you start to forget #1, working in
segments. Remember that you want to
forget a little so that you can relearn,
which is what is needed to establish long
term memory. This also removes the
anxiety over whether you will successfully
memorize or not because the brain
functions best when it is relaxed and
worry-free. There are psychological
advantages to using these "win-win"
methods: if you forget, that is exactly what
you were looking for; if you can't forget,
that's even better! You might find that
forgetting is harder than you thought. The
amount you can memorize at one time
increases as you gain experience and add
more memorizing tricks. Because memory
is associative, the more you memorize, the
more you can memorize because the
number
of
associations
increase.
Memorizing is also a positive feedback
process in which the faster you memorize,
the faster you can play, and the faster you
play, the easier it is to memorize because
at faster speeds you memorize at higher
levels of abstraction.
Day four: There is not much you
can do to rush the first piece technically
after two or three days. For several days,
practice #8 by playing HS, then HT, at
different speeds according to your whim

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of the moment. All technical work is done

HS; HT is only for coordinating the two
hands and making music. As soon as you
feel ready, practice HT, but return to HS if
you start making mistakes, have memory
lapses HT, or have problems getting up to
speed. Practice HT in segments,
jumping from segment to segment at
random. Start with the last small segment
and work backwards to the beginning.
Isolate the trouble spots and practice
them separately. Most people have a
weaker LH, so bringing the LH up to
faster than final speed may present
problems. For example, the last four notes
of the LH in bar 3 (Inv. #8), 4234(5),
where (5) is the conjunction, may be
difficult to play fast. In that case, break it
up into three parallel sets (PSs): 42, 23,
and 345. Then connect them: 423 and
2345. 423 is not a PS (4 and 3 play the
same note), so you cannot play this as fast
as PSs. First practice the PSs as chords and
then practice relaxation, playing in rapid
quads. Then convert the chords to PSs,
then join them and practice them staccato
to develop finger independence. You
should feel a distinct improvement the
next day, and a lot of improvement after a
week.
When you can play it HT, start
playing HT in your mind (MP). This
should take a day or two. Those who have
difficulty with HT MP should use only HS
at first, and make HT MP a long term
objective. MP HT only what you can do
comfortably; your MP ability will slowly
grow with time; it may take months or
even years for older pianists.
By day 5 or 6, you should be able to
start piece #13 and begin practicing all
three pieces every day. An alternate
approach is to learn only piece #8 well
first, then after you have gone through the
entire procedure and have become familiar

with it, start #1 and #13. The main reason

for learning several pieces at once is that
these pieces are short and you will be
playing too many repetitions in one day if
you only practiced one. Over-practicing
will not gain you much technique and can
lead to bad habits and loss of musicality.
Remember, from day one, you will be
playing at speed (HS, in segments), and
from day two, you should be playing at
least some sections faster than final speed
this leads to a lot of repetitions in a
short period of time.
Beyond day two or three, how fast
you progress will depend more on skill
level than memory ability. Bach designed
these Inventions for learning to coordinate
the two hands as well as hand
independence. In #8, one hand plays
staccato while the other plays legato which
requires independence of the two hands.
Be sure to practice forearm rotation with
bars 15, 21-3 in RH and 19-20, 24-5 in
LH; all other bars should be played quiet
hands. All three pieces discussed here
should be completely memorized in one to
two weeks and should begin to feel
comfortable, at least with the first piece.
Let's say that for over a week, all
you did was to memorize new pieces. Now
if you go back to old pieces that were
memorized previously, you should find
that you don't remember them as well any
more. This is normal and is a good time to
re-polish those old pieces. You are done;
congratulations!
Most people have a weaker LH;
bring the LH technique up as close to the
RH level as possible. Bach is particularly
useful for balancing the hands because
both hands play similar passages. You
know immediately that the LH is weaker if
it cannot keep up with the RH. For other
composers, such as Chopin, the LH is

123

usually easier and does not provide a good

LH test.
Bach's music has a notorious
reputation of being difficult to memorize
and play fast, and is highly susceptible to
fast play degradation. If this is the first
time you used the methods of this book,
you will be memorizing and playing at
speeds you never dreamed possible;
however, be mindful of fast play
degradation and always play slowly
before quitting.
The Bach Inventions provide more
challenges for the LH because the bass
hammers and strings are heavier. The
amount of technical material he crammed
into these compositions is incredible:
finger independence (quiet hands, control,
speed), RH-LH coordination as well as
independence of the two hands (multiple
voices, staccato vs. legato, colliding hands,
ornaments), harmony, making music,
strengthening the LH as well as the weaker
fingers (finger 4), all major parallel sets,
uses of the thumb, standard fingerings, etc.
The ornaments are parallel set exercises;
they are not only musical ornaments but
are also an integral part of technical
development. Using the ornaments, Bach
asks you to practice parallel sets with one
hand while simultaneously playing another
part with the other hand, and creating
music with this combination!
Be careful not to play Bach too loud,
even where F is indicated. Instruments of
his time produced much less sound than
modern pianos so that Bach had to write
music that is filled with sound, with few
breaks. One of the purposes of the
numerous ornaments and trills in Bach's
time was to fill in the sound. Thus his
music tends to have too much sound if
played loudly on modern pianos.
Especially with Inventions and Sinfonias,
in which the student is trying to bring out

all the competing voices, there is a

tendency to play each succeeding voice
louder, ending up in loud music. The
different voices must compete on the basis
of musical content, not loudness. Playing
more softly will also help to achieve total
relaxation and true finger independence
and control. One way to avoid playing too
loud is to subordinate one hand (play it
softer), and alternate this between the two
hands in different sections. Generally, the
lagging hand should be subordinated; #8
starts with the LH as subordinate because
it lags the RH. Pay attention to the
conversations between the two hands, and
the harmonies they produce.
To learn a Sinfonia (3-part
Inventions), try #15 which is easier than
most of the others, if slowed down. It is
very interesting, and has a section in the
middle where the two hands collide and
play many of the same notes. As with all
Bach compositions, this Sinfonia contains
a lot more than first meets the eye, so it
can be a lot of fun to play. However, it is
allegro vivace! Quite difficult to play at
speed, requiring high level technique. The
time signature is a strange 9/16, which
means that the groups of six 1/32 notes in
bar 3 must be played as three beats, not
two (three pairs of notes instead of two
triplets). This time signature results in the
three repeat notes (there are two in bar 3)
that have thematic value and they march
across the keyboard in characteristic Bach
fashion. When the two hands collide in bar
28, raise the RH and slide the LH under it,
both hands playing all the notes. If the
thumb collision is problematic, eliminate
the RH thumb (upper hand) and play only
the LH thumb. In bar 36, be sure to use the
correct
RH
fingering:
(5),(2.3),(1.4),(3.5),(1.4),(2.3).
Finally, let's discuss the last
necessary step in memorizing -- analyzing

124

the structure, or the "story", behind the

music. The memorizing process will be
incomplete until you understand this story.
For Invention #8, the first 11 bars
comprise the "exposition". Here, the RH
and LH play basically the same thing, with
the LH delayed by one bar, and the main
theme is introduced. The RH is dominant,
teaching the LH what to do. The "body"
consists of bars 12 to 28, where the roles
of the two hands are initially reversed,
with the LH leading the RH, followed by
some intriguing developments in which
the two hands compete for supremacy. The
ending starts at bar 29 and brings the piece
to an orderly finish. The ending is the
same as the end of the exposition -- the
piece effectively ends twice, which makes
the ending more convincing. Beethoven
developed this device of ending a piece
twice and raised it to incredible heights.

(53) Bach Used Parallel Sets to

Compose His Inventions
There is an essay on Bach's
Inventions and their history, etc., by Dr.
Yo Tomita. Each Invention uses a
different key that was important in the
Well Temperaments favored during Bach's
time and therefore exhibits key color;
unfortunately, key color disappears when
the piano is tuned to today's Equal
Temperament. The Inventions were
initially written for his oldest son Wilhelm
Friedemann Bach when he was nine years
old, around 1720. They were subsequently
updated and taught to other students.
Today, students should be able to start
learning the Inventions before age seven
because we have figured out how to
practice them.
Here, we analyze Bach's 2-part
Inventions from structural points of view
in order to explore how and why he
composed them. Bach used advanced

musical
concepts
in
harmony,
counterpoint, etc., that music theoreticians
are still debating to this day, while Hanon,
Czerny, etc., wrote "lesson music" just for
their finger training value. Below, we
examine the Inventions at the simplest
structural level, which leads to an
astounding
Discovery: each Invention is based
on a small number of parallel sets (PSs)!
Now, you might say, "Any composition
can be decomposed into PSs, so what's
new?" The new element is that each
Invention is based only on one or two
chosen PSs, starting with the simplest and
introduced in order of increasing
complexity with increasing Invention
number. Before I made this discovery, I
had catalogued the PSs according to
complexity [(10) Parallel Sets Catalogue],
and Bach basically used the same
sequence of complexity! To demonstrate
this, we list these PSs below for each
Invention. In order to concentrate on
simple PSs, Bach avoids the use of thirds
and more complex intervals (in one hand);
thus he wanted his students to master
simple PSs before the more complex ones.
I use the term "linear" to denote PSs
in which the fingers play sequentially
(e.g., 12345), and "alternating" when
alternate fingers play (132435). PSs are
joined to form "motifs" in these
Inventions. Because the motifs were
created using specific PSs they were not
chosen because of their musical content,
but were chosen for their pedagogical
value and the music was then added by the
genius of Bach. Thus only Bach could
have achieved such a feat; which explains
why Hanon failed. Another reason why
Hanon failed was that he did not know
efficient practice methods while Bach did.
Only one representative member of
each PS is listed below for each Invention;

125

Bach used them in many variations, such

as reversed, inverted, etc., a composition
tool called symmetry operations [(67)
Mozart's Formula, Beethoven and Group
Theory].
List of the PSs in each Invention
(listed for the RH; LH is similar):
#1: 1234 and 4231 (linear followed
by alternating); this was a mistake because
the first Invention should deal only with
the simplest (linear) sets. Accordingly, in a
later modification of this Invention, Bach
replaced the 4231 with two linear sets,
432,321. This modification provides the
strongest evidence for my thesis that Bach
used PSs as the structural units in the
Inventions. This modification teaches how
to cope with different rhythms without
introducing new PSs. We now have an
explanation of why there are two
Invention #1s!
#2: Linear sets as in #1, but with a
wider variety of conjunctions. An added
complexity is that the same motif,
appearing at different times, requires
different fingerings.
#3: 324 and 321 (alternating
followed by linear). A short alternating set
is introduced.
#4: 12345 and 54321 with an
unusual conjunction. These longer linear
sets and the unusual conjunctions increase
the difficulty.
#5: 4534231; full blown alternating
sets.
#6: 545, 434, 323, etc., the simplest
example of the most basic 2-note PSs
joined by one conjunction; these are
difficult when the weak fingers are
involved. Although they are simple, they
are an extremely important basic technical
element, and alternating them between the
two hands is a great way to learn how to

control them (using one hand to teach the

other). Arpegic PSs (531) are introduced.
#7: 543231; this is a combination of
#3 and #4 and is therefore more complex
than either one.
#8: 14321 and the first introduction
of "Alberti" type combination 2434. Here,
the progression in difficulty is created by
the fact that the initial 14 is only one or
two semitones which makes it difficult for
combinations involving the weaker
fingers. It is amazing how Bach not only
knew all the weak finger combinations,
but was able to weave them into real
music. Moreover, he created situations in
which we had to use the difficult
fingerings he wanted us to practice.
#9: The lessons here are similar to
those in #2 (linear sets), but are more
difficult. The PSs are strung together into
longer motifs and played with more
difficult ornaments.
#10: This piece consists almost
entirely of arpegic sets. Because arpegic
sets involve larger distances between
notes, they represent another progression
in difficulty, especially for youngsters.
Bach was obviously aware that arps are
harder than scales.
#11: Similar to #2 and #9; difficulty
is increased by making the motifs longer
than for the preceding pieces. In all the
preceding pieces, there is only a short
motif followed by a counterpoint section
which makes it easier to concentrate on the
PSs.
#12: This one combines linear and
arpegic sets, and is played faster than
previous pieces.
#13: Arpegic sets, played faster than
#10.
#14: 12321, 43234; a more difficult
version of #3 (5 notes instead of 3, and
faster).

126

#15:
3431,
4541,
difficult
combinations involving finger 4. These
finger combinations become especially
difficult to play when many of them are
strung together.
The above list shows that:
(i) There is a systematic introduction
of increasingly complex PSs.
(ii) There is a progressive increase in
difficulty, with emphasis on developing
the weaker fingers.
(iii) The "motifs" are carefully
chosen PSs and conjunctions, selected for
their technical value.
The fact that motifs, chosen for their
technical usefulness, can be used to create
some of the greatest music ever composed
is intriguing. This is nothing new to
composers:
that famous melody in
th
Beethoven's 9 symphony is just a play on
the simplest structure, the major scale. To
the average music aficionado who has
fallen in love with Bach's music, these
motifs take on special significance with
seemingly deep musical value because of
the familiarity created by repeated
listening. It is not the motifs themselves,
but how they are used in the composition
that produces the magic. If you look only
at the motifs, there is hardly any difference
between Hanon and Bach, yet no one
would consider the Hanon exercises as
music. The music consists of the motifs
and the counterpoint section, so named
because it acts as the counterpoint to what
is being played by the other hand. The
counterpoint serves many purposes, such
as creating music and teaching a myriad of
technical lessons.
Thus music is created by some
"logical" sequence of notes that is
recognized by the brain; we shall explore
this idea more fully in the [(68) Theory,
Solfege] section.

Bach's lessons: Bach was not a

trained analyst, teacher, or writer, in the
sense that he left no instruction manuals
on how to teach. His most proficient
language was music. Therefore the best he
could do was to embed his lessons into his
compositions: the human language was
woefully inadequate (how would one
describe key color??). The structures of his
Inventions suggest that he was aware of
most of the major principles of this book
(PSs, segmental and HS practice, quiet
hands, HS memorizing, etc.) because,
without them, the Inventions can be
devilishly difficult to memorize and to
play. Of course, you can say that about
practically any piece of music, but in
Bach's case, it is extreme. Thus it is
important to "read" those embedded
lessons: they indicate that he may have
been the greatest piano teacher that ever
lived. He also tried to exhaustively cover
all scales, key colors, etc., and may even
have left us instructions on how to tune the
chromatic scale (Larips.com, , Bach's
temperament).

(54) Mozart's Rondo in Sonata No.

11, A major, K331(300i)
The term sonata has been applied to
many types of music and does not have a
unique definition because its definition
evolved with time. In the earliest times, it
meant music or song. Until Mozart's time,
"sonata" meant instrumental music with
one to four parts: Sonata, Minuet, Trio,
and Rondo. A sonatina is a small sonata.
There is also a sonata allegro, initially
developed as the first part of a sonata,
symphony, concerto, etc.; it generally
contained an exposition, a development,
and a recapitulation. The sonata allegro is
important historically because this basic
structure was gradually incorporated into
most compositions. Curiously, no part of
127

this sonata (K331) is in sonata allegro

format (Hinson, P. 552); instead, the
Sonata part is replaced by a theme and 6
variations. Variation V is Adagio and
should not be rushed. Then comes a break
in the form of a minuet-trio, a form of
dance. The minuet originated as a French
court dance with 3 beats and was the
predecessor of the waltz. The waltz format
also includes mazurkas that originated as
Polish dances, which is why Chopin
composed so many mazurkas. The
(Viennese) waltzes have the accent on the
first beat; the Mazurkas have the accent on
the second or third beat. Waltzes started
independently in Germany as a slower
dance with three strong beats; it then
evolved into the popular dances that we
now refer to as "Viennese". "Trio" refers
to music played with three instruments;
therefore, you will hear three voices in this
trio, a violin, viola, and cello. Trios
gradually went extinct as quartets gained
popularity. Both the minuet and trio in this
sonata have the time signature 3/4. Thus
every first beat carries the accent; knowing
that it is in a dance (waltz) format makes it
easier to play the minuet-trio correctly.
The trio should have a totally different air
from the minuet (a convention in Mozart's
time); this change in air gives the
transition a refreshing feel. Don't forget
the "Menuetto D. C." (Da Capo, which
means return to the beginning) at the end
of the Trio; thus you play minuet-triominuet. The final section is the Rondo,
which has the general structure
ABACADA. . . , that makes good use of a
catchy melody, A. This entire sonata is
sometimes referred to as a variation on a
single theme, which is probably wrong,
although the Rondo resembles Variation
III, and the Trio resembles Variation IV.
We now discuss how to practice the
Rondo.
It
has
the
structure

(BB')A(CC')A(BB')A'-Coda. The time

signature is a lively cut time; can you
figure out the key of BB'? The rest of this
Rondo is in A, as is the formal key of this
sonata. This Rondo starts with the "B"
structure, constructed from a short motif of
only 5 notes, repeated twice with a rest
between them in bars 1-3; it is repeated
without the rest in bar 4. He uses the same
motif as a conjunction between these
repetitions at the end of bar 3. It is then
repeated at half speed in bars 7 and 8 and
the last 2 bars provide the ending. Bar 9 is
the same as bar 8 except that the last note
is lowered instead of raised; this abrupt
change in the repeating pattern is one way
to signal an ending. The half speed units
are disguised by adding two grace notes in
the beginning, so that, when the entire B is
played at speed, we only hear the melody
without realizing that the whole section is
created using only one 5-note motif! He
repeated the same motif 8 times in 8 bars
to compose one of his famous melodies.
He multiplied a one second motif by 16
times, and because the BB' uses B twice,
the total multiplication factor is 32 times!
More details are presented in the section
on structural analysis of repetitions in (67)
Mozart's Formula, Beethoven and Group
Theory. This type of analysis is helpful for
memorization and mental play after all,
mental play is how he composed them.
The technically challenging parts are
(1) the fast RH trill of bar 25, (2) the fast
RH runs of bar 36-60, (3) the fast broken
RH octaves of bars 97-104, and (4) the fast
LH Alberti bass of bars 119-125. Examine
them and start practicing the most difficult
one first. The broken chords in the LH (bar
28, etc., and in the Coda) should be played
very fast, like grace notes. Match the first
note of the LH broken chords with the RH
octaves.

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(1) For fast trills, go to (35) Trills

and Tremolos. Don't try to learn bar 25,
HT by slowing it down. Make sure that the
HS work is completely done using bars 25
and 26 as a practice segment, then
combine the 2 hands at speed. Always
learn to combine things HT at speed (or
close to it) first, and use slower speeds
only as a last resort because if you
succeed, you will save lots and lots of time
and avoid forming bad habits. Advanced
pianists never have to combine hands by
slowing down. In fact, slowing down HT
accurately is more difficult than
combining the hands at final speed; it
makes no sense for beginners to use the
more difficult method.
(2) Use PSs to get up to speed
quickly for bars 36-60, being extra careful
to get the fingering right. To prevent
missing notes, use staccato practice.
(3) The broken octave sequence of
bars 97-104 is not just a series of broken
octaves, but two melodies, an octave and a
half-step apart, chasing each other.
(4) Use PSs for the fast Alberti [(9)
Parallel Sets (PSs), Conjunctions, Cycling]
of bars 119-125.
How do you make music that sounds
like Mozart? Simply follow the expression
markings on the music. For Mozart, each
marking has a precise meaning, and if you
follow every one of them, including the
time signature, etc., the music becomes an
intimate, intricate conversation.
Let's examine the first 8 bars in
detail.
RH: The first four notes (bar 1) are
played legato followed by an eighth note
played light staccato. The staccato creates
an anticipation that something is coming
and the rest heightens the anticipation.
This construct is repeated; then the 4-note
motif is repeated at double speed (2 motifs
per bar) in bar 4, and climaxes at the C6,

bar 5, played legato firmly. The two

following staccato notes form the
conjunction to the ending bars 5-8, played
staccato, sustaining the level of
excitement. The series of falling notes in
bars 8-9 brings this section to a close, like
a vehicle slowing down to a stop. It is
Allegretto, and therefore should not be
played too fast. Meanwhile:
LH: The LH accompaniment
provides a rigid skeleton; without it, the
whole 9 bars would flop around aimlessly.
The clever placement of the ties (between
the 1st and 2nd notes of bar 2, etc.) not
only emphasizes the cut time nature of
each bar, but brings out the rhythmic idea
within this exposition; it is like a fox trot
dance slow, slow, quick-quick-slow in
bars 2-5, repeated in bars 6-9. Because
every note must be staccato in bars 6-8,
the only way to bring out the rhythm is to
accent the first note of each bar. After all
the preceding staccatos, both notes of bar
9 (both hands) are legato and slightly
softer in order to provide an ending, and
both hands lift at the same instant.
The strategic placing of legato,
staccato, ties, accents, etc., is the key to
playing
Mozart,
while
accurately
maintaining the rhythm. A typical example
is the last 3 chords at the end it is an
unbelievably simple device (a hallmark of
Mozart): the first chord is a staccato and
the remaining two are legato. Play it any
other way, and the ending becomes a flop.
Therefore, these last 3 chords should not
be pedaled although some scores
(Schirmer) have pedal markings on them
no wonder students have trouble
bringing out the Mozart in the music!
Better pianists tend to play this Rondo
without pedal. Hopefully, you should now
be able to continue the analysis for the rest
of this Rondo and produce music that is
uniquely Mozart.

129

After you are comfortable HT

without the pedal, add the pedal, which is
optional. In the section starting at bar 27,
the combination of broken LH chords, RH
octaves, and pedal (as indicated in most
editions) creates a sense of grandeur that is
representative of how Mozart created
grandeur from the simplest constructs. The
pedal is in principle inappropriate here
because most octaves must be played
staccato with strategic legato octaves
needed for the expression. Think of the
oxymoron of a staccato octave that is
pedaled! Mozart correctly indicated the
staccato but wrote no pedal markings
(pedals weren't invented yet). Less pedal is
always looked upon by the pianist
community
as
indicating
superior
technique; if you have the technique, the
music can come out better without it
because you have more control.
The rest of this sonata (preceding the
Rondo) is beautiful Mozart and a lot of fun
to play. Because it is so long, I did not
memorize it so that I could use it to
practice sight reading; it is relatively easy.

(55) Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu,

Op. 66, Polyrhythms
You should learn Chopin's Fantaisie
Impromptu, Op. 66 because:
(1) everyone likes this composition
and respects anyone who can play it,
(2) without the efficient learning
methods it is very difficult to learn
(3) the exhilaration of suddenly
being able to play it, correctly, is
unmatched,
(4) the challenges of the piece are
ideal for experiencing the effectiveness of
efficient practice methods; it can be very
educational,
(5) this is the kind of piece that you
will be working on all your life in order to

do "incredible things", so you might as

well start now!
(6) It teaches hand independence, a
new skill for playing polyrhythms, and
some magical things you can do with
polyrhythms, such as playing three times
faster than your maximum speed (!).
Many students have difficulty with
this piece because they can't get started
and this makes them doubt their ability to
learn it. After about two years of piano
lessons (or even sooner for some), you
should be able to tackle this piece using
the learning tricks of this book. Even if
you can't quite get to the speeds you want,
you will learn many valuable lessons
about how to practice difficult material.
Figure out the key first. Hint: after
the G# "announcement", it starts with C#
in bar 3 and the composition ends with C#.
The Largo starts with Db (same note as
C#!). But is each in a major or minor key?
The large number of sharps and flats
worries beginners because they are more
familiar with the white keys. However, the
black keys are easier to play once you
know the flat finger and Thumb Over
methods, because they stick out, reducing
the chances of hitting adjacent notes and
making legato easier by using the front
pads of the fingers. Chopin may have
chosen these "far out" keys for this reason,
because the scale does not matter in the
Equal Temperament [(77) Circle of Fifths,
Temperaments] that his tuner probably
used. We know who Chopin's tuner was,
but don't know the temperament that he
tuned; however, the best tuning for far out
keys is Equal Temperament which makes
it the most likely tuning. With the Well
Temperaments used up to Beethoven's
time, some Chopin pieces can produce
annoying dissonances. Students should be
informed that Chopin chose black keys
because they are easier to play and taught

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B major scale (maximum number of black

keys) to beginners instead of C major.
HS, LH: Although the last page is
the most difficult, we shall break the rule
about starting with the difficult parts and
start with the easier beginning because of
the need to learn how to play polyrhythms.
Speed should not be a limiting factor for
the LH, because it is not very fast. The
suggested LH fingering for bar 5 is
532124542123. Start by practicing bar 5
by cycling it continually. Practice without
the pedal.
Practice in small segments and
memorize them. Suggested segments are:
bars 1-4, 5-6, 1st half of 7, 2nd half of 7,
then 8, 10 (skip 9 which is the same as 5),
11, 12, 13-14, 15-16, 19-20, 21-22, 30-32,
33-34, then 2 chords in 35. If you cannot
reach the 2nd chord, play it as a very fast
ascending broken chord, with emphasis on
the top note. For the wide LH stretch in
the second half of bar 14 (starting with
E2), the fingering is 532124 if you can
reach it comfortably. If not, use 521214.
One difficulty in bar 7 is that the 4th
finger must be lifted quickly so as to be
able to play the ensuing 5 and 3 without
the 4 inadvertently hitting a note. With
finger 4, do not try to lift it because that is
a slow motion that will cause stress;
instead, flick it out straight into the flat
finger position, a faster motion. If other
fingers flick out with the 4, that is OK.
Many pianists (including famous ones like
Horowitz) developed a bad habit of
completely curling fingers 4 and/or 5 to
prevent them from hitting keys
inadvertently. It is better to cultivate the
habit of stretching them out into the flat
finger position. Once you develop the
curling habit, it will be impossible to get
rid of it.
After each segment is memorized
and satisfactory, connect them in pairs.

Then play the whole LH from memory.

Increase the speed by cycling and don't
forget to practice mental play. In
Chopin's music, the pinky and thumb
notes are most important, so practice
playing these two fingers with authority,
especially for the RH (below).
Now add the cartwheel motion to the
cycling. Cycle the first 6 (or 12) LH notes
of bar 5 (where the RH first joins in).
Cartwheeling is useful for small hands
because it expands the reach and makes it
easier to relax because there is less need to
keep the fingers spread widely apart. Use
flat finger position and add a small amount
of glissando motion.
HS, RH: The RH is the bigger
challenge, but all you have to do is apply
the methods already discussed. Practice
the fast runs using parallel sets. For the
rising arpeggio in bar 7, use the thumb
over method; it is too fast for thumb under.
The fingering should be such that both
hands tend to play the pinky or thumb at
the same time; this makes it easier to play
HT. This is why it is not a good idea to
fool around with the fingerings of the LH - use the fingerings as marked on the
score.
HT, Polyrhythm: To understand
this piece, we must analyze the
mathematical basis of the 3 versus 4
polyrhythm. The RH plays very fast, say 8
notes per second (actually, a little slower).
At the same time, the LH is playing at a
slower rate, 6 notes per second. If all the
notes are played accurately, the audience
hears a note frequency equivalent to 24
notes per second, because this frequency
corresponds to the smallest time interval
between notes. That is, if your RH is
playing as fast as it can, then by adding a
slower play with the LH, Chopin
succeeded in accelerating this piece to 3
times your maximum speed!

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But wait, not all of the 12 notes are

present; there are only 7, so 5 notes are
missing. These missing notes create an
additional "pattern". This pattern creates
a wavelike effect within each measure and
Chopin reinforced it by using a LH
arpeggio that rises and falls like a wave in
synchrony with this pattern. The
acceleration of a factor of 3 and the extra
pattern are mysterious effects that the
audience can feel but they have no idea
what created them, or that they even exist.
Mechanisms that affect the audience
without their knowledge (such as magic
tricks) produce more dramatic effects than
ones that are easily understood (such as
loud, legato, or rubato). The great
composers have invented an incredible
number of these hidden mechanisms.
Musicians are actually just magicians, but
can claim to have special talents because
of widespread historical beliefs.
Start practicing the polyrhythm with
either the first or second half of bar 5
where the RH comes in for the first time.
We use the second half because of the
smaller stretch of the LH and there is no
timing problem with the missing first note
in the RH for the first half. The easiest
way to learn the 3,4 timing is to do it at
speed from the beginning. Don't try to
slow down and figure out where each note
should go, because that will introduce an
unevenness that will become impossible to
correct later on. First, cycle the six notes
of the LH continually, then switch hands
and do the same for the eight notes of the
RH, at the same tempo as you did for the
LH. A metronome may be useful for this
step. Next cycle only the LH several times,
and then let the RH join in. Initially, you
only need to match the first notes of each
cycle accurately; don't worry if the others
aren't quite right. In a few tries, you should
be able to play HT fairly well. If not, stop

and start all over again, cycling LH, HS

and then adding the RH. Since almost the
whole composition is made up of things
like the segment you just practiced, it pays
to practice this well, until you are very
comfortable and accurate. To accomplish
this, change the speed. Go very fast, then
very slowly. As you slow down, you will
be able to take note of where all the notes
fit with respect to each other. Fast is not
necessarily difficult, and slower is not
always easier. You will be practicing this
composition HS for years after you
initially complete the piece because it is so
much fun to experiment with this
fascinating composition, and HS is the
only way to correct any unevenness in the
LH that develops from playing HT too
much.
Learning HT at speed, instead of
slowing it down and figuring out where
each note fits, is a necessary skill that
every pianist must learn. If you learn it by
slowing it down, you will have to go
through the same time-consuming
procedure with every different polyrhythm
and every change of fingering. Once you
learn to do it at speed, every polyrhythm
becomes simple you will play any new
polyrhythm almost instantly. This is a
form of finger independence that has many
other uses.
Outlining can be helpful; simplify
the six notes of each LH arpeggio (e.g.,
C#3G#3C#4E4C#4G#3) to two notes
(C#3E4, played with 51). There should be
no need to simplify the RH. This ensures
all notes, from the two hands that fall on
the same beat, to be played accurately
together. Also, for students having
difficulty with the 3-4 timing, this
simplification will allow play at any speed
with the difficulty removed. By first
increasing the speed in this way, it will be

132

easier to pick up the polyrhythm. Then

gradually add the missing notes.
If you are learning this piece for the
first time, the 3X polyrhythm frequency
may not be audible initially because of
lack of accuracy. When you finally "get
it", the music will all of a sudden sound
"busy". Thus the piece can be made to
sound faster by slowing down and
increasing the accuracy. Although the RH
carries the melody, the LH must be clearly
heard; otherwise, both the 3X effect and
the extra pattern will disappear.
This composition begins with the
loud octave G# fanfare that introduces the
rhythm, played by the LH. The missing
note in bar 5 gives the impression that the
rhythmic unit is one bar. The missing note
is then restored in bar 11, thus doubling
the "pattern" repeat rate, giving the
impression of a sudden acceleration. In the
second theme (bar 13), the flowing melody
of the RH is replaced by a new melody
consisting of four notes per bar, giving the
impression of quadrupling the rhythm.
This "rhythmic acceleration" culminates in
the climactic forte of bars 19-20. This
Allegro section is based on the illusion of
hyper speed, without actually playing
faster, using polyrhythm and rhythmic
acceleration.
The audience is then treated to a
breather by a "softening" of the rhythm
created by the delayed RH melodic
(pinky) note and the gradual fading,
accomplished by the diminuendo and
ritenuto down to PP. The whole cycle is
then repeated, this time with added
elements that heighten the climax until it
ends in the crashing descending broken
chords. For practicing this part, cycle each
broken chord as parallel sets.
Most Chopin pieces can be played
within a wide range of speeds. However, if
you play faster than Allegro, the 3x4

multiplication effect disappears. This is

because the 3X speed becomes too fast for
the ear to follow. Above about 20 Hz,
repetitions begin to take on the properties
of sound to the human ear. Therefore
above 20 Hz we hear a new "low
frequency sound". Thus 20 Hz is a "sound
threshold". This is why the lowest note of
the piano is an A at about 27 Hz. Here is
the big surprise: there is evidence that
Chopin heard this sound threshold! Note
that the first part is labeled Allegro agitato.
On the metronome, Allegro corresponds to
a 3X speed of 10 to 20 Hz, the right
frequency to hear the multiplication, just
below the "sound threshold". "Agitato"
means enunciate each note clearly so that
the 3X frequency is audible. When this
fast section returns after the Moderato
section, it is labeled Presto, corresponding
to 30 to 40 Hz -- he wanted us to play it
below and above the sound threshold!
Therefore, there is mathematical evidence
suggesting that Chopin knew about this
threshold. Was Chopin's accuracy so high
that he could produce the "low frequency
sound"?!! What is certain is that the
multiplication effect disappears, and there
is little doubt that Chopin heard that.
Many pianists play the first section too
fast, above the sound threshold, which we
now know is a mistake because that is not
what Chopin intended. It is doubtful if
anyone has the accuracy to produce the
"low frequency sound". It would be an
interesting experiment to program a
computer to play this piece with sufficient
accuracy produce both the 3X and "low
frequency sound" effects.
The Moderato section is the same
theme repeated four times with increasing
complexity. Therefore, learn the first
repetition first because it is the easiest,
which makes it easier to learn the other
three. Then learn the 4th repetition

133

because it is the most difficult and will

require the most practice time. As with
many Chopin pieces, memorizing the LH
well is the quickest way to build a firm
foundation for memorizing because the
LH usually has a simpler structure that is
easier to analyze, memorize and play.
Moreover, Chopin often created different
versions of the RH for each repetition
while using essentially the same notes in
the LH as he did in this case; therefore, if
you learn the first repetition, you already
know most of the LH parts for all the
repetitions.
Notice that the 4,3 polyrhythm is
now replaced by a 2,3 polyrhythm played
much more slowly. It is used for a
different effect, to soften the music and to
enable a freer, tempo rubato. Now, you
can play very slowly, yet the music is
filled with sound! As with the 3,4
polyrhythm, practice HT at speed instead
of working out where each finger goes at
slow speed. The trill in the 1st bar of the
4th repetition, combined with the 2,3
timing, makes the 2nd half of this bar
difficult. Since there are 4 repetitions, you
might play it without the trill in the first
repetition, then an inverted mordent the
2nd, a short trill the 3rd, and a longer trill
the last time around.
The Presto part is similar to the first
except that it is played faster, resulting in a
totally different effect, and the ending
(from bar 46) is different. This ending is
difficult for small hands and may require
extra RH cycling work. Here, the RH
pinky carries the melody, but the
answering melancholic, thumb octave note
is what enriches the melodic line. Be sure
to observe the P in order to make the FF
more effective. The piece ends with a
nostalgic restatement of the slow
movement theme in the LH. Let's reiterate

that, for Chopin, the thumb and pinky play

the most important notes.
Distinguish the top note (G#) of the
LH melody (bar 7 from the end) clearly
from the same note played by the RH by
playing it louder, holding it longer, and
then sustaining it with the pedal. The G#
is the most important note in this piece.
Thus the beginning sf G# octave is not
only a fanfare introducing the piece, but a
clever way for Chopin to implant the G#
into the listeners' minds. Therefore, don't
rush this fanfare; take your time and let the
G# sink in. If you look throughout this
piece, you will see that the G# occupies all
the important positions. In the slow
section, the G# is an Ab, which is the same
note. This G# is another one of those
devices in which a great composer is
repeatedly "hitting the audience on the
head with a two-by-four (G#)", but the
audience has no idea what hit them. For
the pianist, knowledge about the G# helps
interpret and memorize the piece. Thus the
emotional climax of this piece comes at
the end when both hands play the same G#
(bars 8 and 7 from the end). Therefore,
this LH-RH G# must be executed with the
utmost care, and clearly heard (quite
difficult), while maintaining the fading RH
G# octave.
When you are satisfied with all
technical aspects, insert the pedal; it
should be cut with every chord change
which occurs either once per bar or twice
per bar. The pedaling is a rapid up and
down ("cutting the sound") motion at the
first beat, but you can lift the pedal earlier
for special effects. No pedal for bars 11, 9,
8, 6, 5 from the end.
One cautionary note: even after you
can play the piece satisfactorily, it is
important to practice HS so that you do
not develop bad habits in the LH. Bad
habits in the RH are audible and are

134

therefore not problematic; you can easily

detect and correct it. However,
inaccuracies in the LH are not easily
audible, and any error will cause the 3X
multiplication to disappear.

(56) Beethoven's Moonlight: First,

Third, Movements
Moonlight Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2,
First Movement
Beethoven's
compositions
are
probably the best music with which to
study and illustrate musical principles
because he used everything and almost
never wasted anything; all the principles
appear and apply everywhere, in their
clearest extremes. Thus his music contains
the
densest
examples
of
these
principles/structures and has the lowest
risk of giving us misleading clues because
they are extreme. Thus when he applies a
principle, you can't miss it if you know
what to look for. For the casual listener
who is not analyzing his music, these
principles are invisible, which amplifies
their
effectiveness
because
they
mysteriously control the audience without
their knowledge. Part of deep music is the
use of principles that control the audience
without their knowledge, the magic in
music.
Beethoven often "broke the rules" to
produce glorious music. Why did
"breaking the rules" produce better music?
Simply because those rules were wrong!
Without a proper understanding of music,
it is too easy to deduce "musical laws" that
are incorrect because the real world is
often counter-intuitive. Thus Beethoven
teaches us not only what is right, but also
what is wrong.
The most important controversy
concerning this movement is the pedaling.
The "conventional pedaling" frequently
used ignores the instructions by Beethoven

("senza sordini" don't lift the pedal for

the entire piece!), as amply described
elsewhere (Wikipedia, Chapman, Brian,
[click on "Moonlight print version"]). This
produces music with clear harmony. But
the pianist has two options for playing this
piece; either take Beethoven's indication
literally, or use conventional pedaling as
too many pianists have done historically
obviously, the two methods will result in
totally different music.
Some evidence points to the
conventional pedaling as the one
Beethoven had in mind (Chapman). After
all this piece is easy enough for anyone to
play, and was widely played during
Beethoven's
time,
probably
using
conventional pedaling, yet there is no
record of Beethoven objecting to such
pedaling.
Thus,
the
conventional
interpretation of "senza sordini" was that it
was a short-hand way for Beethoven to say
that the pedal should be used throughout,
but can be lifted judiciously as needed.
Use "conventional" pedaling when you
want to play a clear, harmonious
Moonlight that most audiences expect.
Concentrate on bringing out the harmonies
and de-emphasize the dissonances, such as
the jarring ninths. This is the "safe" way to
play it but . . . . . . . .
The increasingly accepted view is
that "senza sordini" should be taken
literally and points out its wonderful
consequences (below). Beethoven always
indicated his expression markings with the
greatest care; everything he wrote down
was there for a very good reason. Some
pianists argue that the continuous pedal
worked for Beethoven because the pianos
of his time did not have the sustain of
today's grands and that continuous pedal
on today's grands would "muddy" the
music (Wikipedia Beethoven, section on
"Beethoven's Pedal Mark"). If this were

135

true, we should be able to use continuous

pedal on an upright or other inferior piano
with less sustain of course, it still
muddies the music. Therefore, the correct
interpretation is that this "muddiness" was
intentional. It produces a constant,
dissonant, background "roar", which not
only creates an ominous, ever present,
sadness, but also a stark contrast against
the beautiful harmonies of the piece. The
dissonances make the harmonies stand
out! Two Beethoven extremes -- an
extreme pedal and extreme dissonance vs
harmony!
This particular use of the pedal is
an invention by Beethoven, and
represents an unique innovation in the
universe of piano music at a time when
the pedal was not even considered a
serious musical invention. It was enabled
for the first time by the sonority of the new
pianos of that time, and Beethoven took
full advantage of it. Extreme contrasts are
a hallmark of Beethoven; thus the first
movement is played full pedal while the
third hardly uses any. I have greatly
enjoyed playing according to Beethoven's
intention of a sad, even painful music with
deeper emotions, achieved by contrasting
the painful dissonances with the clearest
harmonies. Only by playing Beethoven's
way and exploring its marvelous
consequences (using today's grands) can
anyone understand why he marked it
"senza Sordini" he meant it!
The first bar presents clear harmony.
Then Beethoven jars you with the first
dissonance (full tone down from C#), a B
octave in the LH in bar 2, producing the
start of a dissonant "background roar".
Thus in just 2 bars, he has introduced his
concept of the contrast between harmony
and dissonance. Bars 3 & 4 complete this
introduction, with clear harmonies riding

on a background of growing dissonance

created by the pedal.
Bar 1 is not just a series of 4 triplets.
They must be logically connected;
therefore, pay attention to the connection
between the top note of each triplet and
the bottom note of the next triplet, but with
the accent on the recurring bottom note.
This connection is especially important
when transitioning from one bar to the
next, and the lowest note often has
melodic value, as in bars 4-5, 9-10. The
RH of bar 5 starts with the lowest note, E,
and the music rises all the way to the G#
of the 3-note theme. Therefore, this theme
should not be played "alone" but is the
culmination of the arpegic rise of the
preceding triplets.
By bar 5, the dissonant background
is complete, and he introduces his 3-note
theme - the same note repeated three times
- you can't have a clearer harmony than a
note with itself (works even if the piano is
out of tune!). Beethoven frequently
inserted sarcasm into his music, and this
device may have been his way of
ridiculing the fact that too many pianos
were out of tune. Note that there is a PP
marking only on those three notes the
audience must search for those notes
amongst the background dissonance. The
speed of this piece will depend on the
sonority (sustain) of the piano; it will be
played faster on a typical upright, but
slower on a quality grand. Thus the
numerous arguments in the literature about
how fast to play this piece miss the senza
sordini factor. As with most Beethoven's
compositions, if you want to play it
correctly, you must play it exactly
according to his instructions.
Beethoven explores this harmonydissonance contrast with some beautiful,
but sad, melodies and harmonies, until, in
bar 16, he introduces the concept of pain

136

with the dissonant 9th in the RH. This is

the only Beethoven composition that I
know of, in which he used pain; therefore,
this sonata is unique not only because of
the use of a dissonant background, but also
because it contains a musical description
of pain. This is a sad piece, but true
sadness is painful, and Beethoven inserts
pain by punctuating this composition with
dissonant 9ths at the deepest depths of
despair. In "conventional" play, the lower
note is played so softly that the dissonance
becomes inaudible, which misses an
important element of this movement. Note
that, at the same time, there is the repeated
"tolling of the bell" the almost endless
repetition of the B in the RH (over 5 bars),
which builds up the tension that concludes
by descending in the following bars,
further increasing the desperate sadness.
The 9th dissonance is created against this
repeated B which should be emphasized
because it is the beat note.
The repeated beat notes carry a
melodic line that extends over many bars,
creating tension, and eventually resolves
to release that tension. The magic of
Beethoven's repeated notes is that he uses
chord progressions such that even through
a chord progression, the same note can be
repeated. Thus Beethoven invented
minimalist music [(57) Beethoven's
Pathetique, Op. 13, First Movement], now
taken up by the likes of Phillip Glass, and
used it extensively. We shall see more
examples in the first movements of his
Pathetique and Appassionata, discussed
below. Minimalism was just one
component of his complex, immortal
music, and it always resolves into
something special. This device is used
several times, so make sure that you don't
miss any of them.
Immediately following the dissonant
9th in bar 16 is the cresc.-decresc. in the

LH, which echoes the emphasis on the 9th

and confirms its prominent role, a sigh of
extreme sadness.
If you have difficulty reaching the
RH ninth of bar 8, play the lower note
with the LH; similarly, at bar 16. In these
instances, you cannot completely hold the
legato in the LH, but the legato in the RH
is more important, and lifting the LH will
be less audible because of the pedal. If you
can reach it easily, play the ninth with the
RH because that will allow you to hold
more notes in the LH. Bars 32-35 is a
series of rising triplets of increasing
tension. Bars 36-37 should be connected,
because is it one smooth release of that
tension.
The beginning is PP to bar 25 where
there is a crescendo, decreasing to P in bar
28, and returning to PP in bar 42. In most
cresc. and decresc., most of the increase or
decrease should come near the end, not
near the beginning, especially in soft
music. There is an unexpected crescendo
in bar 48, and an abrupt jump to P at the
first note of bar 49. This is the clearest
indication that Beethoven wanted a clear
harmony superposed on a dissonant din
created by the pedal, in support of "senza
sordini". If you don't lift the pedal in
between, the inescapable effect is a
harmonious P passage buried in the loud,
dissonant background produced by the
preceding bars. This produces a much
more dramatic effect than if the pedal were
cut to play the P. If there were any
questions about the use of the "background
roar" these two bars should put an end to
those doubts. These two bars are
Beethoven's way of saying, "If you still
don't get it, I can't help you".
Bar 60 is a "false ending"; an
ordinary composer would have ended the
movement there by returning to the
starting key, but Beethoven nostalgically

137

picks up the 3-note theme again, and

gradually ends the piece, softer and softer,
to the final PP. Most of Beethoven's
compositions have this "double ending" a
very effective device for ending a
composition with conviction. Most
composers have difficulty finding one
good ending; Beethoven usually gives us
two, and the final one is a marvel of
ingenuity, as if to ridicule the "standard
endings". Thus it is a good idea to play the
first ending as if it were the end, and then
pick up the music into the true ending.
Having decided to fully engage the
damper pedal throughout, the first rule in
practicing this piece is not to use the pedal
at all until you can play it comfortably HT.
This will enable you to learn how to play
legato, which can only be practiced
without the pedal. Start by memorizing
HS, say bars 1-5, and immediately commit
it to mental play. Pay attention to all the
expression markings. It is in cut time, but
the first two bars are like an introduction
and have only one LH octave note each;
the rest are played more strictly cut time.
Continue memorizing in segments until
the end. I found the first half of this
movement particularly easy to forget, and
it was necessary to use mental play for
secure memorization.
The LH octaves must be held.
Beethoven considered octaves to be
special (probably because they are the
only intervals that are just [tuned
perfectly]); therefore always pay special
attention to octaves when playing his
music. Play the LH C# octave of bar 1
using fingers 51, but immediately slip the
4, then 3 finger onto the lower C#,
replacing the 5, holding this lower C#
down. You will end up holding the octave
31 before you reach bar 2. Now hold the 3
as you play the B octave of bar 2 with 51.
In this way, you maintain complete legato

in the LH going down. You cannot

maintain complete legato with the 1 finger,
but hold that as long as possible. In the
transition from bar 3 to 4, the LH octave
must ascend. In that case, play the F# of
bar 3 with 51, then hold the 5 and play the
next G# octave with 41. Similarly, for bars
4 to 5, play the second G# octave of bar 4
with 51, then replace finger 1 with 2 while
holding it down (you may have to lift the
5) so that you can play the following chord
of bar 5, fingers 521, and maintain the
legato. Hold as many notes as you can,
especially the lower note for the LH and
the upper note for the RH, throughout the
whole movement. There are usually
several ways to "hold", so experiment to
see which works best. The choice of a
specific hold depends on hand size. For
example, the LH octave of bar 1 could
have been played 41 or 31 so that you do
not have to replace any fingers; this has
the advantage of simplicity, but has the
disadvantage that you need to remember
that when you start the piece. Decide on a
specific hold procedure when you first
memorize the piece and always use that
same one.
Why hold the note legato when you
are eventually going to hold all the notes
with the pedal anyway? If you lift the key
but hold the note with the pedal, the
backcheck releases the hammer, allowing
it to flop around, and this "looseness" of
the action is audible the nature of the
sound changes. Moreover, as commander
of the piano, you always want the
backcheck to hold the hammer so that you
have complete control over the entire
piano action. This control is important
you can't control the PP if the hammer is
flopping around. Holding improves
accuracy because the hand never leaves
the keyboard and the held note acts as a
reference for finding other notes.

138

The final two chords should be the

softest notes of the entire movement,
which is difficult because they contain so
many notes. For HT play, this movement
presents no problems. Once you have
memorized the whole movement and can
play it HT satisfactorily, add the pedal.
Third movement
This movement is difficult because
of
the
speed.
Many
Beethoven
compositions cannot be slowed down
because of their rhythm. In addition, it
requires a minimum reach of a 9th,
comfortably. Those with smaller hands
will have more difficulty learning this
piece. It is a variation on the first
movement played very fast and agitato
this is confirmed by the observation that
the top double octave of bar 2 is an
abbreviated form of the 3-note theme of
the first movement.
For those who are learning this
sonata for the first time, the most difficult
section is the two-hand arpeggio ending
(bars 196-198; this movement has 200
bars). We start with this difficult section,
RH first. Skip the first note of bar 196 and
practice the following 4 ascending notes
(E, G#, C#, E), as parallel sets, which we
cycle. Make an elliptical, clockwise
motion (as seen from above) of the hand.
We divide this ellipse into two parts: the
upper part is the half towards the piano
and the lower part is the half towards your
body. When playing the upper half, you
are "thrusting" the hand towards the piano,
and when playing the lower half, you are
"pulling" the hand away from it. These
ellipses can be extremely narrow; don't
exaggerate them. First, play the 4 notes
during the upper half and return the hand
to its original position using the lower
half. This is the thrust motion for playing
these 4 notes. The fingers tend to slide
towards the piano as you play each note.

Now make a counter clockwise motion of

the hand and play the same 4 ascending
notes during the lower half of the ellipse.
Each finger tends to slide away from the
piano as it plays each note. Those who
have not practiced both motions may find
one better than the other. Advanced
players should find both motions equally
comfortable.
For the RH descending arp, use the
first 4 notes of the next bar (same notes as
in preceding paragraph, an octave higher,
and in reverse order). Again, the pull
motion is needed for the lower half of the
clockwise motion, and the thrust is used
for the upper half of the counter clockwise
rotation. For both ascending and
descending arps, practice both thrust and
pull until you are comfortable with them.
Now see if you can figure out the
corresponding exercises for the LH.
Notice that these cycles are all parallel sets
and therefore can eventually be played
extremely fast.
Having learned what the thrust and
pull motions are, "why do we need them?"
First, the thrust and pull motions use
different sets of muscles. Therefore, given
a specific application, one motion has to
be better than the other. Students who are
not familiar with these motions may
randomly pick one or switch from one to
the other without even knowing what they
did. This can result in unexpected flubs.
A neutral position is the collapsed
ellipse, a straight line; however, you use a
different set of muscles whether you
approach the neutral from the thrust or the
pull. That is, under certain circumstances,
a neutral position approached from either
thrust or pull is better. The difference in
feel is unmistakable when you play them.
This is why you need to learn both. The
pull motions use the fleshy parts of the
fingers whereas the thrust motions tend to

139

use the fingertips which tends to injure the

fingertips and to strain the attachment of
the fingernails. This is an example of
experimentation that everyone must learn
to conduct.
The other difficulties in this
movement are concentrated in the arps and
alberti accompaniments; once these are
mastered, you have conquered 90% of this
movement. Those without sufficient
technical skill should be satisfied with
getting up to about quarter note = MM120
on the metronome. Once you can play the
entire movement comfortably at that
speed, you might try to mount an effort
towards presto (above 160). It is probably
not a coincidence that with the 4/4
signature, presto corresponds to the rapid
heart beat of a excited person. Note how
the LH accompaniment of bar 1 sounds
like a beating heart.
Most students will have more
difficulty with the LH than the RH;
therefore, once the RH of bars 196-8 is
fairly comfortable, start practicing the RH
arps of bars 1 and 2, while still practicing
the LH part of bars 196-8. One important
rule for playing arps rapidly is to keep the
fingers near the keys, almost touching
them. Use flat finger positions for black
keys and curled positions for white keys.
In bars 1 to 2, only the D is played with
curled fingers (RH). Learn to quickly
flatten or curl any finger.
The pedal is used only in two
situations: (1) at the end of bar 2, at the
double staccato chord, and all similar
situations, and (2) bars 165-166, where the
pedal plays a critical role.
Next, practice is the tremolo type
RH section starting at bar 9. Work out the
fingering of the LH, bars 9-10, carefully -those with smaller hands may not be able
to hold the 5th finger down for the
duration of the 2 bars. If you have

difficulty interpreting the rhythm of this

section, listen to several recordings to get
some ideas. For the difficult RH bars 9 10, break it up into 2-note PSs; first
practice them as intervals (PS #1), then as
2-note PSs, then work on finger
independence using forearm rotation and
staccato practice.
Then comes the LH Alberti bass
starting at bar 21, and similar RH parts
that appear later; see (9) Parallel Sets
(PSs), Conjunctions, Cycling for how to
practice them. The next difficult segment
is the RH trill of bar 30. This first trill is
best performed using 3,5 fingering and the
second one requires 4,5, see (35) Trills and
Tremolos. If you can't trill that fast, just
play a turn. For those with small hands,
these trills are as difficult as the arps at the
end, so they should be practiced from the
very beginning. These are the basic
technical requirements of this piece. Bar
187 is an interesting combination of a
"scale" and an arp; if you have difficulty
figuring out its rhythm, listen to several
recordings to get some ideas. Don't
overlook the fact that bars 188 and 189 are
adagio.
Start HT practice after all these
technical problems are solved HS. There is
no need to practice using the pedal until
you start HT. Bars 163, 164, are played
without pedal. Then application of the
pedal to bars 165, 166, gives them a
special meaning. Because of the fast pace,
there is a tendency to play too loud. This is
not only musically incorrect, but
technically damaging; practicing too loud
can lead to fatigue and speed walls; the
key to speed is relaxation. It is the P
sections that create most of the excitement.
For example, the FF of bar 33 is only a
preparation for the following P, and in
fact, there are very few FF's in the entire
movement. The section from bar 43 to 48

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is played P, leading to just one bar, #50,

played F. Polish up every section using
staccato practice.

(57) Beethoven's Pathetique, Op. 13,

First Movement
This movement is an excellent
example of Beethoven's use of extreme
contrasts. Knowing these extremes makes
it easier to play it correctly and create the
magic that is Beethoven.
Grave: this section is almost devoid
of rhythm, whereas the following Allegro
is the height of rhythmic music. Another
obvious contrast is volume. The first
chord of bar 1 is F and all the remaining
notes are P. Because even this most
obvious concept is not always understood,
there has been some controversy as to how
to make the transition from F to P,
especially as regards the use of the pedal.
Beethoven did not indicate any pedal
markings, so a purist should play the entire
sonata without pedal; however, if you
choose to use the pedal, it should be used
in such a way that it cannot be noticed and
does not interfere with Beethoven's
contrasts. Some have advocated fluttering
the pedal. But this is wrong because it
does not produce maximum contrast. The
solution is simplicity itself. If you use the
pedal, simply cut the pedal and
immediately play the P. Maximum volume
contrast!
The second, equally important
contrast, is speed. Grave is a slow tempo.
Yet there are runs at 1/128 speed! Set to a
metronome, these fastest runs are humanly
impossible to execute. It is obvious what
Beethoven is telling us: "this section is of
slow tempo, but play the fast runs as fast
as you can". Thus the concept of repetitive
rhythm has clearly been thrown out the
window.

The run in bar 4 is very fast; there

are 9 notes in the last group of 1/128
notes; therefore, they must be played as
triplets, at twice the speed of the preceding
10 notes. This requires 32 notes per beat,
impossible for most pianists, so you may
have to use some rubato; the correct speed
may be half the indicated, according to the
original manuscript. The 10th bar contains
so many notes that it spans 2 lines in the
Dover edition! Again, the last group of 16
notes at 1/128 speed is played at twice the
speed of the preceding 13 notes,
impossibly fast. The 4-finger chromatic
fingering [(33) Fast Chromatic Scales]
may be useful at such speeds. You can
start these runs at a slightly slower speed
and accelerate to your maximum at the
end. Every student learning this Grave for
the first time must carefully count the
notes and beats so as to get a clear idea of
the rhythm. These crazy speeds can be an
editor's error, but is probably Beethoven's
way of saying "as fast as you can".
The first and 3rd movements are
variations on the theme in the Grave. The
LH carries the emotional content, although
the RH plays the catchier melody. (Aside:
the popular song, "You Are My Sunshine"
was taken almost verbatim from the 3rd
movement.) Pay attention to the hard
staccato and sf in bars 3 and 4. In bars 7
and 8, the last notes of the three rising
chromatic octaves must be played as 1/16,
1/8, and 1/4 notes, which, combined with
the rising pitch and the cresc., create the
dramatic effect of increasing tension. This
is vintage Beethoven, with maximum
contrast: soft/loud, slow/fast, singlenote/complex-chords,
nonrhythmic/rhythmic.
Knowing
these
contrasts
greatly
simplifies
the
interpretation.
In addition, this Grave contains
many other musical elements, such as the

141

use of chromatics (semitones). Although I

have not found any explanations of why
chromatics produce music, there are plenty
of statements in the literature to the effect
that music in the romantic age became
increasingly chromatic. Here, it is easy to
see that the most intensely musical notes
are chromatic.
Allegro: by contrast to the Grave,
this section is dominated by a lively
rhythm. He starts by using the simplest
device, an octave tremolo. Beethoven
loved the octave and used it extensively.
The octave holds a special place within the
chromatic scale because it is the only
interval that is just (perfect harmony)
everywhere on the piano, regardless of
temperament (tuning) or key signature.
Beethoven certainly knew this and took
full advantage of it. Pianists familiar with
temperaments know that octaves are
"stretched" [See (xi) in (79) Tuning Tools
and Skills], and this stretch adds a certain
mystery and extra excitement to the
octave; mystery because, in spite of the
stretch, the harmony is perfect, and
excitement because of the higher
frequency caused by the stretch. The
octave is played as a tremolo, which
doubles the speed.
Let's work on the LH octave
tremolos starting at bar 11. For some,
these tremolos seem impossible, and many
students have injured their hands by overpracticing them. The last thing you want to
do is to practice this tremolo for hours in
the hopes of building endurance -- that is
the surest way to acquire bad habits and
suffer injury.
Since the octave tremolos are needed
for both hands, we will practice both; if
the RH catches on faster, you can use it to
teach the LH. To speed up this tremolo
(C2-C3), practice the 51 PSs. Start by
practicing repeated 5.1 octaves [PS #1,

(10) Parallel Sets Catalogue]. If the LH

tires, practice the RH Ab4-Ab5 octave that
you will need later. Once the repeated
octaves becomes satisfactory (four quads
at the desired speed or faster, relaxed,
without fatigue), change over to PSs. A
quick way to increase speed is to play a
fast double octave, 5.1,5.1, then
immediately follow with two 51,51 PSs;
ie, replace the octaves with PSs. When
these become satisfactory, increase to
three, then four, etc. In the final motion,
the tremolo is played mostly with forearm
rotation. This agitated LH tremolo controls
the emotions while the audience is trying
to figure out the curious RH. Therefore,
the "magic" is controlled by the dynamics
and chromatics of the LH, in addition to
the stretched octaves.
Practice everything softly and work
on relaxation. When you find the right
motions, hand positions, etc., you will
actually feel the fatigue draining out of the
hand as you play and you should be able to
rest and even rejuvenate the hand while
playing rapidly. You have learned to relax!
At this point, some pianists can
immediately play the tremolos at any
speed they want. If, however, the tremolos
are still just PSs, we need a more detailed
procedure.
To convert the PSs to technique,
practice finger tremolo using exaggerated
finger motions, playing a very slow
tremolo, lifting fingers high and lowering
them to play the keys with finger motion
only. Then speed up to the fastest
comfortable speed by decreasing the
amount of motion. Now repeat with
forearm rotation only: fix the fingers to the
hands and play the tremolo using only arm
rotation, slowly, in exaggerated way. All
up and down motions must be rapid; to
play slowly, simply wait between motions,
and practice rapid and complete relaxation

142

during this wait. Now gradually speed up

by reducing the motions, to your fastest
comfortable speed. After each is
satisfactory, combine them; because both
motions contribute to the tremolo, you
need very little of each, which is why you
will be able to play very fast.
At the fastest speeds, the pinky can
dominate over the thumb; in this case, add
as much power thumb position [(31)
Thumb, Most Versatile Finger, Power
Thumb] as you need to balance the two
fingers. Then finish off with staccato
practice. Practice this series from PS #1 to
staccato practice just enough for maximum
post practice improvement. Do not over
practice. Then repeat the next day, etc.,
until you can play the tremolo as fast and
as long as you want.
Note that the volume is P until bar
14, then increases until bar 18 (most of the
increase should be within bar 18) and
suddenly returns to P in bar 19. These
volume changes must be controlled more
by the LH than the RH. Beethoven was a
master of these dynamics that seem to
have no logical explanation, yet "work"
musically. Many students make the
mistake of starting the cresc. in bar 12,
reaching a maximum at bar 15.
Another
rhythmic
device
is
Beethoven's clever and careful use of the
time signature to indicate where the
volume accents should go. Pianists must
be careful here because even respected
editors such as Schirmer have made
mistakes that ruin Beethoven's original
intent. Use the Urtext edition (Dover),
which is more accurate. For example, in
the third bar of the Allegro, Schirmer
indicates a syncopated sf on the second
beat, which makes no sense. Schirmer may
have inserted this sf in the belief that these
mysterious RH intervals are modified
forms of the theme in the Grave. This sf is

not present in the Dover edition, which

restores the correct cut-time rhythm; that
is, follow the time signature! The incorrect
rhythm would be impossible to play at the
correct speed no wonder students using
the Schirmer edition can't get up to speed
despite diligent practice!
An important volume accent occurs
in the LH at bars 37 and 41 where the
preceding cresc. indicates that the LH
tremolo volume must increase rapidly in
anticipation of the sf in bars 38 and 42.
These are unique volume accents so
prevalent in Beethoven's compositions.
Thus to make the music "sound like
Beethoven", these volume accents must be
carefully observed.
Schirmer makes another mistake in
bar 139, the third bar in the Allegro after
the second Grave, where an accent is
indicated on the E octave, another
meaningless syncopation. Again, this
accent is not indicated in the Dover edition
and the music strictly follows the time
signature. It is extremely important to
follow the time signature by giving extra
weight to the first beat in the complex
rhythmic section from bar 149 to 194, in
such a way that the audience can follow
the rhythm. These bars comprise one of
the best examples of Beethoven's use of
rhythm to dominate the music, so that the
rhythm should be exaggerated while
faithfully following the time signature.
Thus Schirmer's volume accent indications
in bars 149 - 155 are all wrong; instead,
follow the time signature as indicated by
Beethoven (Dover edition).
Repetition in rhythm is important
because it enables us to control time,
which we normally can not. Beethoven
used repetition to great effect. Note the LH
Bb tremolo starting at bar 43; it continues
for six bars (48 Bb's!) and ends with a Bb
octave for two bars, where the Bb is taken

143

over by the RH for a total of 56 Bb's. Then

he changes the tremolo to a "Bb hold" for
the next 12 bars in the LH (bars 51 to 62),
which then resolves into the next
repetition of Ab's. Thus the 68 repeated
Bb's are used to control the emotion for 20
bars using the LH, while the audience is
distracted by the interesting activity in the
RH. This use of the stealth control of the
emotions with the LH while distracting
the audience's attention with the
interesting RH gives depth to Beethoven's
music. Most pianists think that the LH is
just a common type of accompaniment to
the RH that carries the main melody
that's what Beethoven wants the audience
to think; in the meantime, the real
emotions are controlled by the repeated
Bb; that is why it is the beat note and is
held. Deeper music is easier to play
correctly if you know its structure. These
LH repetitions continue for a long time,
until it finally resolves into the Eb of bar
89, so that the Eb must be clearly
emphasized. Thus the repetitions, and the
tensions they create, followed by the final
resolution, are basic components of
Beethoven's music. The interminable
repeated notes represent minimalist music
that Beethoven invented and used
frequently. These are usually hidden by
distracting the audience with a more
catchy material playing at the same time.
Speed is obviously an important
element of the Allegro. This speed
contrasts with the slow movement of the
Grave; thus the Grave is there so that you
will appreciate the speed and rhythm of
the Allegro. Getting 10 fingers to move
faster than the human brain is quite a
challenge. By converting the LH octaves
into a rapid tremolo at the start of this
Allegro, he immediately doubled the
speed, a simple device for any
accomplished pianist. Later on, he uses the

Alberti construct (bar 90) to quadruple the

speed. Most composers use the Alberti
because they harmonize; Beethoven added
another use to quadruple the speed.
These bars contain so many notes that they
allow exquisite control of the emotions in
a way that the audience is unable to figure
out, which makes the music timeless.
Therefore, in the alberti sections, every
note of the alberti must be heard; it is a
mistake to play so fast that only the
melodic line of the RH pinky is heard.
Because of these types of devices, it is not
possible to arbitrarily slow down or
accelerate a Beethoven composition
without compromising the original intents
of the composer.
Volume (FF) is used in this piece to
indicate the ending of this movement: an
incredibly simple device. As usual, he
gives us a false ending in bar 294, which
then leads to the real ending in bars 308-9.
This FF must be louder than anything else
in this movement for the ending to be
convincing and final. The final two chords
are exact quarter notes, unlike the gaudy
full notes of the false ending (bars 293-4)
Beethoven is injecting humor by
ridiculing such gaudy "standard endings"
by making it obviously flowery.
Although speed is essential in this
Allegro, it is often played too fast. Such
speeds result in the almost total loss of the
deeper concepts that saturate Beethoven's
music and make them immortal. Certainly,
it is possible to drive the audience to
delirium by mere speed and that device is
a legitimate pianistic license after all,
this is entertainment, but that is not the
real Beethoven, in which every note, rest,
etc., is important and must be heard.

144

(58) Beethoven's Appassionata, Op.

57, First Movement
This sonata is the piano version of
his
symphony! Both were written at
about the same time. Beethoven modified
the "fate motif" of his 5th symphony, and
used it to compose this movement. What
appears to be the first three notes of an
arpeggio that starts this movement is
actually a modified form of the fate motif
(three repeat notes and a surprise note,
[(67) Mozart's Formula, Beethoven and
Group Theory], ending with the accent on
the third "surprise" note, F. In this
construct, the second note of the 4-note
fate motive is silent, resulting in a 3-note
"arpeggio". He tells you that he is using
the fate motif by displaying it in bar 10.
For those not analyzing this movement in
detail, it seems as if he just stuck the fate
motif there because it "fit"; the reality is
that the entire movement is based on it.
Because this "arpeggio" is a modified fate
motif, the accent is on the third note, not
the first, as in a normal arpeggio. The
Appassionata starts with the second
movement of his 5th symphony, and the
following movements basically follow the
symphony. Not only his music, but the
way he constructed this sonata is also
beyond incredible, as we shall see.
The starting "arpeggio" is played in
double octaves, quite possibly to take
advantage of the stretch effect [section (xi)
in (79) Tuning Tools and Skills]; stretch is
smaller for a single octave. I don't know if
he knew about stretch, but he must have
heard it; otherwise, there would be no
compelling reason to use a double octave.
Piano tuners use double octaves to check
unison tunings, etc., because of this special
property. It is an incredible characteristic
of Beethoven's music that every note,
construct, etc., that he used, such as a
5th

double octave, was placed there for a

specific reason.
He used the fate motif as
conjunctions to connect sections or
musical phrases or even bars; the fact that
the accent is on the last note makes it a
perfect conjunction. One application is to
connect the beginning of the introduction
(bars 0-11), with its ending (bars 14-15):
the conjunction is the repeated fate motifs
in bars 12-13. Another use occurs at the
end of bar 16, where it is used to launch
bar 17.
The next use as conjunction is
astounding, and it connects bar 34 to bar
35; the last triplet of bar 34 and the first
note of bar 35 form the fate motif. The
preceding long series of triplets creates a
tension that is finally resolved by the
motif. Simultaneously, it launches you into
the main theme of this movement
(starting at bar 35), one of the most
beautiful musical passages ever composed,
constructed entirely out of the modified
fate motif. The repeated triplets leading to
bar 35 is Beethoven's version of
minimalist music which he used to great
effect to build up tension and provide a
continuous series of notes with which to
create tension in this case an
anticipation of something special to come
(the main theme).
Yet another use as conjunction
appears between bars 78 and 79, where it
is used to launch a new section; there are
similar applications elsewhere. In bars
130-134, the fate motif is spelled out
without modification. These bars again
serve as a conjunction between sections.
By far the most interesting
conjunction application appears in bars
235-240, where he uses the "group
theory"
(symmetry
transformation)
method to create a long conjunction. He
used the "pitch space" to compose the 5th

145

symphony [(67) Mozart's Formula,

Beethoven and Group Theory], but here,
he adds the "time space" to gradually slow
down the fate motif, and then suddenly
accelerate it to launch the final section of
this movement. Of course, he also uses the
volume and pitch spaces to great effect.
Beethoven was using "group theory" type
space concepts by 1805, before
mathematicians and physicists discovered
their importance around 1830 a true
genius.
For decades, I had wondered about
the mysterious trills that appear in this
movement, such as at bars 3 and similar,
and bars 44-46. They obviously carry
thematic value, but without understanding
the role of the trills, it wasn't clear how to
play them, and every pianist played them
differently; obviously, they didn't know
either. I finally realized that the trills,
followed by its ending turn, was a
modified form of the fate motif! This
interpretation gave a clear indication of
how to play them the trill represents the
repeat notes (trills certainly repeat notes!)
and the turn at the end represents the
surprise note and carries the accent, and
that is why these trills have thematic
value. Now I know exactly how to play
them! The resulting music was
breathtaking.
The
similarity
between
the
beginning arpeggio and the main theme
starting at bar 35 is has been noted
(Gutmann). The arpeggio is a schematized
form of the main theme, to ensure that its
rhythm is implanted in the audiences'
mind. The schematic is inverted, to hide
his diabolic scheme from the audience.
Beethoven had psychologically prepared
us for the main theme by giving us only its
rhythm! This is why he repeats it, after
raising it by a curious interval -- he wanted
to make sure that we recognized this

unusual rhythm. He used the same device

at the beginning of the 5th symphony,
where he repeated the fate motif. Thus,
when the main theme appears, we feel
familiar with it. Beethoven does not
indicate a special accent on the third note
of the arpeggio (the time signature takes
care of that!), which is intentional because
this accent must appear natural and should
not be overdone; THAT is reserved for the
final section near the end, to teach the
"ignoramuses" a lesson.
This final section starts with an
accelerated version of the main theme. In
bar 243, there is (at last!) the sf on that
"surprise note". Beethoven is asking the
audience, "NOW do you see where the
accent is?" Not only accented, but the
interval jump to the accented note is
expanded compared to the main theme, to
produce an unmistakeable exaggeration
with a jarring harmony. This outlandish sf
note must be played as outlandishly as
possible because, by now, the audience
has heard the same construct hundreds of
times (but don't even realize it, although
they somehow feel it) and no amount of
outlandishness is too much an effect
few composers have ever achieved.
Speed is obviously important in this
composition, and it is technically difficult.
This means that most pianists will be
playing it at their top speed. But at bar 81,
Beethoven needed a slight acceleration (as
recognized by Chapman click on
"Sonatas for the Piano"). How did
Beethoven solve this problem, when,
possibly, he himself couldn't play any
faster? He deleted one note from the
previous six-note groups of phrases, so
that, playing at the same speed between
notes, the tempo is accelerated by 20%,
the exact acceleration he wanted! You
can't be any more mathematically precise
and concise! Some might argue that this

146

acceleration "violates the time signature",

and that the correct way to play is to keep
the over-all tempo constant but to slow
down the 5-note group. This is an example
of how Beethoven "broke the rules" to
compose great music, proving that many
"established rules of music" are wrong. If
"accel." is permissible, why not an
increase in speed of 20%? Of course, the
final decision is up to the pianist because
whether you accelerate by 20% or slow
down the 5 notes, you are breaking some
kind of rule.
There is not only the acceleration in
bar 81, but also the deceleration in bar 82
under the two octave Gs, where the sixth
note is restored in the left hand. This extra
note tells you exactly how much to slow
down, which then enables the reacceleration in bar 83.
We can examine any bar as an
example of how Beethoven composed
deep, or immortal music. Of course,
musicality, something that can't be
quantified, is probably the largest part of
immortality. But there is an amazing
amount of complexity that can be
quantified practically everywhere you look
in Beethoven's works. This complexity
certainly contributes to depth in music
because no audience can figure out all the
complexities at once and they change
rapidly as the music progresses. Let's list
some of the complexities built into one bar
(81):
1. the 20% acceleration discussed
above,
2. the 5-note grouping, which
introduces an aura of uncertainty and
mystery absent in the "standard" 6-note
groupings of the preceding bars,
3. the change in key signature from
F minor to C major at bar 67,
4. the clear RH melodic line of the
familiar "arpeggio" heard at the very

beginning (this is what the audience is

supposed to be "following"), while
5. the actual emotions are controlled
by the rapid LH notes,
6. nothing is unfamiliar here because
the rapid LH grouping is derived from the
"arpeggio" itself, played at break-neck
speed,
etc., there are more!
Thus there are frequently 5 or more
musical elements crammed into every bar.
This must be one reason why, no matter
how many times you listen to Beethoven,
you can hear something new.
The use of group theoretical type
concepts and complex structures might be
extra dimensions that Beethoven wove
into his music, perhaps to show us how
smart he was. It may or may not be the
mechanism by which he generated the
music. Whatever the reality, the above
analysis gives us a glimpse into the mental
processes that inspire music. Simply using
these devices shouldn't result in music. Or,
are we coming close to something that
Beethoven knew but didn't tell us?

147

CHAPTER TWO
Piano Topics
(59) Project Management
Every time pianists learn a new piece
of music, they go through an exercise in
project management (PM). Since
pianists must learn many pieces and
complete each from start to final
performance, they become experts in PM.
Once they learn PM, it can be applied to
anything they do in life, whether they are
studying guitar, violin, or flute, or are
architects, sculptors, carpenters, gardeners
or generals of an armies; Alexander the
Great used PM principles to create his
empire.
The rules for PM are simple; what
makes PM complex is the required
knowledge base as expected, the
success depends on knowledge. We
discuss here the basic PM framework with
a few examples from piano.
Basic Rules
(1) Preparation: A project must
have a plan based on knowledge of what is
needed to start, execute, finalize, and
maintain it after completion. It must have
an objective and a time table. It is
necessary to first gather all the information
needed to complete the project.
Piano:
Is this composition for
"playing for fun", performing, teaching, or
specific technical development? Are all
the practice methods for all the difficult
sections known? How long will it take to
learn this piece?
(2) Start: The start is determined by
everything that follows and reflects the
plan of action for the project. Therefore, in
order to know how to start, you must know

how you are going to execute, finalize, and

maintain.
Piano: memorize everything, Mental
Play, reading, music theory.
(3) Execution:
(i) Never try the impossible; work in
manageable chunks -- even easy chunks;
the easier, the better. Simplify. Successive
chunks should overlap.
Piano: HS & segmental practice,
parallel sets, continuity rule.
(ii) Make sure that each chunk is
finished before going on to the next one.
Practically all chunks of a project support
each other; this is one reason why they
should be contiguous (continuity rule).
Contiguity is most important in projects
such as weeding the yard or in warfare.
Piano: continuity rule, get up to
faster than final speed HS, completely
finish HS before starting HT, completely
memorize before you start practicing.
(iii) Every system has knowledge or
experience based "tricks" that lead to
success. Any education is helpful because
education teaches not only knowledge, but
also how to seek knowledge. Know the
pitfalls: what not to do.
Piano: HS & segmental practice,
parallel sets, hand motions, slow play,
staccato practice, relaxation; in short,
efficient
practice
methods.
Avoid
exercises or falling into the "talent trap",
know which intuitive methods are counterproductive.
(iv) The project must pass periodic
tests to see if it is progressing according to
plan and even the best laid plans often
need to be modified or improved.
Piano: mental play, recording your
play, lessons with teachers, informal or
preliminary performances, start play from
anywhere in the piece.
(4) Finish: Most failures occur due
to incorrect assumptions, unattainable

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goals, or insufficient/wrong knowledge

base. Education provides the knowledge
needed to evaluate your assumptions,
knowledge base, etc. To finalize a project,
you must have a precise definition of the
goal.
Piano: performance at recitals, using
finished pieces to further advance
technique and musicality. Absolute pitch
and genius can be taught.
(5)
Maintenance:
Worthwhile
projects are useful for a long time and
require maintenance. The time and
resources required for maintenance can
exceed those needed to finish the project.
Piano: maintain repertoire, continue
improving each piece; periodically check
for accuracy of the notes, rhythm,
expression. Playing cold. Use finished
pieces for improving technique.

cures discussed are rest and a gradual

return to playing using stress-free
methods.
Example: I had developed a pain in
my left palm while practicing piano. My
hand doctor immediately diagnosed the
cause, a notch in my tendon, but could
not tell me how I injured my hand or how
to cure it because he did not have enough
information about my daily activities. He
showed me how to feel these notches by
pressing on the tendon and moving my
finger. I soon figured out that the pressure
of my golf grip had created notches in my
tendons. The transverse tendons were
pressed against the longitudinal tendons,
creating notches in the tendons and these
notches moved up and down in my hand
during piano playing; the resulting friction
caused inflammation and pain after long
piano practice sessions. I had been using
golf clubs with old, hard grips; so I bought
clubs with softer grips and added pads in
my golf glove cut out from Dr. Scholl's
self-stick foot-pads, and my pain problem
disappeared in a few years. However,
years of gripping the club too hard has
done permanent damage to my hands so
that my fingers are not as independent as
they should be. I knew nothing about
relaxation in those days - relaxation in golf
is just as important as in piano.
Fingertips can be injured by playing
too hard in the curled finger position. This
condition can be temporarily alleviated by
properly bandaging the finger tip. The
curled finger configuration can cause
bruising of the fingertips because there is
minimum padding between the bone and
skin at the tip and the tip area is small. In
the curled configuration, you can also peel
the flesh off from under the fingernail if
the fingernail is cut too short. Avoid both
types of injury by using the flat finger
position. There is an extra fold of skin

(60) Injury, Health

Hand injury is not a major issue for
students up to about the intermediate level.
For advanced pianists, it is a major issue
because the human hand was not made to
withstand such extreme use. Injury
problems with professional pianists are
similar to those of professionals in sports,
such as tennis or golf. Because relaxation
is an essential component of piano
technique, one might think that injury
should not occur. Unfortunately, the
physical demands of how some advanced
pianists practice are such that injuries do
occur. Students who use the methods of
this book must be aware of the possibility
of injury because they will quickly start
practicing material that require high
technical skills and energy.
Every injury has a cause. Although
there are numerous documented accounts
of injuries and cures, definitive
information on causes and cures for
pianists has been elusive. The only general
149

protruding from under the finger nail

which acts as a bellows and expands to
prevent tearing when this area is stressed.
When finger nails are cut too short, this
flab can be snipped off, the bellows
protection is gone and, when stressed, the
nail peels off and gets infected. This
infection is extremely painful and difficult
to cure because it is impossible to apply
antibiotics under the nail.
Most hand injury is of the repetitive
stress injury (RSI) type. Carpal Tunnel
Syndrome (CTS) and tendonitis are
common ailments. Anecdotal accounts
suggest that surgery usually does not solve
the CTS problem and can do more harm
than good for playing the piano. In
addition,
surgery
is
irreversible.
Fortunately, massage therapists have
recently solved the problem of curing
CTS. Why massage therapists? Because
both pianists and massage therapists use
the fingers as their main tools of their
professions. Therefore, they suffer from
the same injuries. However, massage
therapists are in a position to experiment
and find cures while pianists are not
medically trained and have no idea how to
even diagnose their ailments. It turns out,
fortunately, that pain is felt long before
irreversible damage occurs so that the
syndrome can be cured if treated as soon
as you feel pain. Although pain is usually
felt near the wrists, the cause of the pain is
not at the wrists but mainly in the arms
and neck where large muscles and tendons
can exert harmful forces on the tendons
running through the transverse ring of
tendons at the wrist that bundle all the
tendons running to the fingers. This is why
surgery at the wrist may not cure the pain
and wrist surgery can aggravate the
problem because the wrong area was
operated upon.

The group with the most advanced

methods for CTS is the SET (Structural
Energy Therapy,) massage specialists;
they start with cranial and then progress to
deep tissue treatments of the relevant areas
of the head, arms, and body. Cranial is
necessary because it gives the quickest
relief and the tissue work alone does not
cure the problem. Until you receive
treatment, it is hard to believe that the
bones of the skull are related to CTS. See
the SET site for more details. You can
learn what is involved in treating CTS, to
what extent it is curable, and how to find
the appropriate therapist. There is a simple
test for advanced cases of CTS. Stand in
front of a mirror and dangle the arms
straight down, completely relaxed, and in
their "normal" positions. If the thumbs are
closest to the mirror, you are OK. If more
knuckles are visible (arms turned
inwards), you have more advanced CTS.
Also, the body stance should be straight.
Practically no one has a perfectly straight
stance, and it may also be necessary to
straighten any inappropriate stance with
massage therapy in order to treat the CTS
completely. Although massage therapy is a
cure, not just a temporary relief, it requires
several sessions, can be moderately
painful, and may require periodic
maintenance.
The asymmetric playing motions of
athletes such as golfers and tennis players
create asymmetric changes in bone
density, bone structure and musculature.
Right handed golfers will have higher
bone densities in their right hips but
develop osteoporosis in the left hip in old
age; it may be beneficial for RH golfers to
practice
hitting
lefty
to
reduce
injuries/problems caused by asymmetry
and to prevent osteoporosis.
Stress reduction methods of piano
practice, such as Taubman, Alexander, and

150

Feldenkrais, can be effective both for

preventing injury, and for recovering from
injury. In general, it is best to keep the
playing finger (except the thumb) in line
with the forearm as much as possible in
order to avoid repetitive stress injuries. Of
course, the best preventive measure is not
to over-practice with stress. The HS
method is especially beneficial because
stress is minimized and each hand gets to
rest before damage can occur. The body's
ability to heal rapidly is amazing; just the
ten or twenty seconds of rest between hard
workouts can be enough time to heal
certain types of damage. The "no pain, no
gain" approach is extremely harmful.
Piano playing can require tremendous
exertion and energy, but it must never be
painful.
Piano practice can be healthy or
unhealthy depending on how you practice.
We tend to concentrate too much on the
mental benefits of becoming a "talented"
musician and forget the importance of
physical health. Many students forget to
breathe while practicing difficult material;
this reduces oxygen flow to the brain when
it needs it most, resulting in anoxia and
symptoms similar to sleep apnea (organ
damage, high blood pressure, diabetes,
etc.).
Piano practice is a form of physical
activity requiring moderate energy
expenditure for both the brain and the
whole body and can put pianists in
excellent physical shape when performed
correctly. There is no sports activity that is
harmful to pianists but the hands must
obviously be protected by wearing gloves
whenever possible.
Never force a sick child to practice
piano because of the risk of aggravating
the illness and of brain damage, especially
if they are running a fever. Under normal
circumstances, which means plenty of

rest and sleep, fever is good because it is

one of the weapons the body uses to fight
illnesses. According to the literature, brain
damage occurs above fevers of 107
degrees which is rare because a
functioning body regulates its temperature.
Temperatures over 103 degrees can benefit
from medication/treatments to reduce the
temperature (for babies, the limits are
lower) to alleviate discomfort. Those
under 18 years old should not use aspirin
to lower body temperature, so always
know which medication is best for
children.
But dedicated piano students with
fixed times of daily practice are not
normal. Some people think that a
harmless illness, such as a cold, might still
allow them to practice piano. After all,
there is nothing to do while resting with a
cold. It is important for parents to
understand that playing the piano involves
significant exertion, especially of the
brain, and not treat piano as a relaxing
pastime when illness strikes. Youngsters
with even mild colds should not be made
to practice piano, unless the child is
willing to do so on his own. Infections do
not affect the whole body equally; they
settle opportunistically in stressed organs
such as the brain during piano practice;
therefore, for youngsters practicing piano,
the danger fever may be as low as 102
degrees. Fortunately, most people lose the
urge to practice the piano even when only
mildly sick; this is a signal that they
should not practice.
Learning the health consequences of
piano practice is important because any
activity can be conducted in a healthy or
unhealthy
way.
Stress-free,
psychologically sound approach to piano
practice can improve a person's health
whereas practicing without concern for
well-being can cause irreversible damage.

151

Excessive pressure and nervousness from

competitions can damage the emotional
attitudes towards performances and
destroy the love of music. Correct piano
practice methods can be a healthy activity
as effective as proper diet and exercise and
get pianists in excellent emotional and
physical shape.

(61) Hearing Loss

Age related hearing loss can start as
early as age 40 and by age 70, most people
have lost some hearing. Ear damage can
occur from over-exposure to loud sounds
and can also be caused by infections and
other causes such as diabetes. The person
may lose hearing in the low frequency or
high frequency range. This is often
accompanied by tinnitus (ringing sound in
the ear). Those who lose hearing in the
low frequency range tend to hear a low,
roaring or throbbing tinnitus, and those
who lose hearing in the high frequency
range tend to hear a high pitched whine.
There is no known cure or effective
treatments for either hearing loss or
tinnitus. Those who are clinically deaf can
benefit greatly from cochlea implants.
A damaged ear can more easily
suffer additional damage than a healthy
ear. Because damage is painful, those with
hearing loss are more sensitive to loud
sounds -- even moderately loud sounds
that do not bother normal people can be
painfully loud because they can cause
more damage. Therefore, if there is a
hearing impaired person in the room, don't
make the mistake of turning up the sound
thinking that they will hear it better!
That is why hearing aid technology
is so difficult you can't simply amplify
all sounds. Soft sounds must be amplified
but loud sounds must be attenuated, a
process called "compression" in the
industry. Compressed sounds, especially

music, sound terrible to most people so

that patients with even the most expensive
hearing aids costing over $10,000.00 do
not wear them unless necessary. Those
wearing hearing aids for the first time
must go through a period of gradual
acclimation to the compression; the
audiologist gradually increases the
compression over a period of weeks or
months. Patients with hearing aids wear
them in order to understand conversations,
not for music which generally sounds
better without hearing aids.
The first thing that happens when
hearing is impaired is the difficulty of
understanding conversations. The most
common reaction, and mistake, is to stop
communicating. Lack of communications
will quickly cause the "communications
part" of the brain to atrophy, which is
the main reason for wearing hearing
aids to restore communications and
delay the brain atrophy as much as
possible. By the time a person needs a
hearing aid, the brain usually has atrophied
so that the soft background noises, when
amplified by the hearing aids, can flood
the brain causing brain fatigue. This is
very bothersome because the irritating
background noise carries no useful
information, giving the user another
reason for not wearing it. Clearly, today's
hearing aids are not good solutions, at any
cost. For those with sufficiently severe
hearing loss, cochlea implants appear to be
a viable solution, but are expensive and
prescribed only for patients that are legally
deaf.
When purchasing hearing aids,
most vendors will provide a 30 day period
for testing the devices (look for vendors
who provide 60 days because 30 days is
too short, and the vendors know it) during
which you can return them for a full
refund. Test them thoroughly during this

152

period to see if they really help, especially

when purchasing the more expensive
models costing thousands of dollars.
Inexpensive models without adequate
compression can hasten hearing loss if the
volume is turned up too high.
There is no method for diagnosing
tinnitus except from the comments of the
patient. The tester provides sample sounds
and the patient tells the tester which sound
is closest to his tinnitus. For tests and
treatments you need to see an ENT (Ear
Nose Throat) specialist. For nonpathological cases, ear damage is
generally caused by exposure to loud
sounds. There is a wide difference in
tolerance to loud sounds. However, there
is a strong tendency for those exposed to
louder sounds to suffer more hearing loss
and tinnitus. It is likely that hearing loss
by pianists and piano tuners (as well as
rock band members, etc., and people who
routinely listen to very loud music) is
much more widespread than is generally
reported.
Tinnitus is present in 100% of people
100% of the time, but is so soft in normal
people that it cannot be heard unless the
person is in a soundproofed room. The
human hearing mechanism "turns up the
amplification" when there is no sound
until some tinnitus becomes audible. There
are many causes of tinnitus, and some may
originate in the brain. Tinnitus is almost
always an indication of the onset of
hearing loss so that if you notice tinnitus,
but are not aware of hearing loss, it is a
good idea to see an ENT doctor to get
hearing tests to serve as future references,
as the hearing loss worsens with time.
For those who do not have audible
tinnitus, there is probably no need to avoid
loud music, within reasonable limits. Thus
practicing the piano at any loudness
should be harmless up to about age 30.

Those who already have tinnitus should

avoid exposure to loud piano. However,
tinnitus usually "sneaks up" on you, so
that the onset of tinnitus often goes
unnoticed until it is too late. In order to
prevent further hearing loss, most pianists
must switch to practicing on digitals with
the volume durned down.
Therefore, everybody should receive
tinnitus education and wear ear protection
after age 40 - 50 during piano practice,
especially if there is any noticeable
tinnitus, which is the easiest measure of
hearing loss -- louder tinnitus indicates
greater hearing loss, so avoid activities
that increase tinnitus. Ear protection is
initially an abhorrent idea to most pianists
but when you consider the consequences,
it is definitely worthwhile. Moreover, once
you start to use it regularly, you may start
to feel sorry for those not wearing
protection, because you know how quickly
they will start to suffer ear damage. Before
wearing protection, do everything possible
to reduce sound intensity, such as
soundproofing the room (adding carpets to
hard floors, curtains to hard walls, etc.),
voicing the hammers, and generally
practicing softly [(25) Staccato Practice,
Soft Practice, even loud passages -- which
is a good idea even without possibility of
ear damage]. Ear damage is cumulative
and partly self-healing, so occasional loud
sounds can be harmless. Soundproofing a
room is easy because you only need to
prevent multiple reflections, which can be
accomplished by soundproofing only two
or three surfaces (most rooms have at least
six surfaces).
Ear protectors (noise canceling is not
necessary) are readily available from
hardware stores because many workers
using construction or yard equipment need
such protection. For pianists, an
inexpensive unit or light headphones will

153

suffice because you need to hear some

music. Commercial noise canceling
protectors completely surround the ear and
provide a better sound barrier; turn off the
noise cancellation, and you will still get
sufficient protection. Although the sound
through the headphones will be different
from the original, the human ear adapts
readily and you will quickly get used to
the new sound. It is worthwhile to try ear
protection just to experience these
different sounds. For example, you will
realize that the piano makes many strange
(mechanical) sounds you never noticed
before! For lower quality pianos, ear
protection will result in sound simulating a
higher quality instrument because the
undesirable
high
harmonics
and
extraneous sounds are filtered out; that is,
sound filters tend to preferentially filter
out the more harmful sounds.
The brain automatically processes
any incoming data, whether you want it to
or not. This is what music is -- the brain's
automatic response to sounds. Thus when
you wear ear protection, this stimulus is
reduced, and a part of the brain's
processing power is freed to do other jobs.
You may find that progress is faster
when wearing ear protection! In the
future, piano students will wear ear
protection (or turn the volume down for
digital pianos), just as many athletes and
construction workers use helmets today. It
doesn't make any sense for us to spend the
last 30 or more years of our lives without
hearing an important lesson Beethoven
taught us.
It may not be an accident that
Beethoven became prematurely deaf. We
must practice Beethoven's music with
possible ear damage in mind. His music
has some unique characteristics not found
in other composers' music, and one of
them may be ear damage. Beethoven

invented
minimalist
music
[(57)
Beethoven's Pathetique, Op. 13, First
Movement] which he incorporated into
most of his compositions. This type of
music hits the same note repeatedly, thus
over-stressing that part of the auditory
system.
The specific type of piano is also
important. Most uprights that do not
produce sufficient sound are probably least
damaging. Concert grands that transfer
energy efficiently into the strings with
long sustain probably do not cause as
much damage as medium quality pianos in
which a large amount of energy is
imparted into the initial, percussive bang
associated with the hammer striking the
strings. Thus the medium size grands
(about 6 ft) may be most damaging. In this
regard, the condition of the hammer is
important, since a worn hammer can
produce a much louder initial bang than a
properly voiced hammer. This is why
worn hammers cause more string breakage
than new or well voiced hammers. With
old, hardened hammers, probably most
pianos can cause ear damage. Thus proper
voicing of the hammer may be more
important than many people realize, for
practicing pianissimo, playing musically,
technical development, and protecting the
ear. If you have to close the lid of a grand
in order to play softly, or to reduce the
sound to a pleasant level, the hammers
probably need voicing.
Some of the loudest sounds are
produced by even tiny ear phones used to
listen to music. Parents should warn their
youngsters not to keep turning up the
volume, especially if they subscribe to the
culture that plays loud music. Some
youngsters will fall asleep with their ear
phones blasting; this can be very
damaging because ear damage is
cumulative. It is a bad idea to give gadgets

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with ear phones to youngsters -- postpone

it as long as possible. Make sure to
educate them about ear damage when they
start using such devices.
Important: On the other hand, this
is the time to introduce them to the "right
type" of music but you must learn how to
give them recordings of music you want
them to listen to, and how to play them on
their devices. Then they can listen to good
music while walking to school or riding in
a car.
Except for some special cases of
tinnitus (such as those in which you can
alter the sound by moving your jaws, etc.),
there is no cure for ear damage, especially
tinnitus. Large doses of aspirin can cause
tinnitus; in that case, stopping its use can
sometimes reverse the damage. Small
amounts of aspirin taken for cardiac
purposes (81mg) apparently do not cause
tinnitus, and there are some claims in the
literature that these small amounts may
delay the onset of tinnitus. Loud tinnitus
can be debilitating because it is present all
the time, it only increases with age and
some sufferers have been driven to
thoughts of suicide. Although there is no
cure, there are remedies. There are hearing
aids that supply sufficient background
sounds so that the brain turns down the
amplification. Many people believe that
the sound masks the tinnitus, but that is
not the case. Because the brain
automatically turns up the amplification
when there is no sound, absolute quietness
can cause the tinnitus to become
annoyingly loud. Thus a person with loud
tinnitus has three hearing problems: (1)
hearing loss, (2) the tinnitus masks soft
sounds, making them even less audible,
and (3) the tinnitus prevents the brain from
increasing the amplification to hear soft
sounds.

Another approach to treating tinnitus

is to train the brain to ignore the tinnitus.
The brain is amazingly trainable, and part
of the reason why tinnitus causes suffering
is the inappropriate brain response of the
person. The brain has the ability to either
concentrate on the sound, thereby driving
you crazy, or to ignore it, in which case
you won't hear it unless you are reminded
of it. Thus the treatment starts with
teaching the patient that others have
succeeded in living with tinnitus with
minimal discomfort. Then the patient
receives ear training in such a way as to be
able to ignore the tinnitus. Fortunately, the
brain is quite adept at learning to ignore a
constant sound, sometimes by creating its
own anti-sound, as in the case with
excessive use of the [(13) Metronome].
If you read enough stories about
tinnitus suffers and hearing loss, you will
probably follow the advice to wear ear
protection after age 40 - 50 when
practicing the piano, at least when
practicing loud passages for long periods
of time. At the first hint of tinnitus, it is
imperative that you start ear protection
procedures because once the tinnitus
starts, ear deterioration can proceed
rapidly with exposure to loud sounds, with
significant deterioration every year. Look
for an ENT specialist, especially one
experienced in tinnitus treatments. Ear
protection applies to other members of the
household exposed to loud piano practice;
therefore, if at all possible, isolate the
piano room acoustically from the rest of
the house. Most quality (glass) doors will
be sufficient. There are a few herbs and
"natural"
medications
that
claim
effectiveness against tinnitus. These do not
work, and the ones that seem to benefit
some people have significant side effects.

(62) Teaching
155

Teaching Babies: Babies can hear

before birth. Many maternity wards screen
babies immediately after birth in order to
identify hearing impaired babies who will
need remedial treatments immediately.
Hearing impaired babies do not receive
auditory stimuli and their brain
development will be retarded because
auditory inputs affect practically every
part of the brain. Extra auditory
experiences, such as music, will help the
brain to develop.
The memory of external sounds is
initially empty. Thus any sounds heard at
that stage are special, and all subsequent
sounds are referenced to them. Babies (of
most species, not only humans) use sound
to identify and bond to the parents. Of all
the sound characteristics that the baby uses
for this identification, absolute pitch (AP)
[Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch] is
probably a major characteristic, which
may explain why every youngster can
readily pick up AP and why they lose it
later. Some parents expose babies to music
before birth to accelerate the babies'
development. There is evidence in the
literature that babies learn sounds while in
the womb (search the internet for the
newest reports). For implanting AP, a
electronic piano is better than an acoustic
because it is always in tune.
Practically every world class
musician, athlete, etc., had parents who
taught them at an early age; thus
"prodigies" are created, not born, and
parents exert greater control over
"prodigy" production than teachers or
brain power. Constantly test the child for
hearing, rhythm (clapping hands), pitch
(singing), motor control, attention span,
what interests them, etc. As soon as they
are ready (walking, speech, music, art,
math, etc.), they must be taught,
supported, and encouraged. There are

"tipping points" beyond which they will

take off on their own; provide extra
support until this point is reached [see
nucleation growth theory in (48) Origin
and Control of Nervousness].
Babies learn differently from adults
because their brains are changing. Adults
must be taught; in young children, you
only have to awaken the concept in their
brains, and provide a supportive
environment as their brains take off in that
direction. They can quickly advance so far
that the parents can't teach them any more.
Good examples are Mental Play (MP)
[(15) Mental Play (MP)] and AP. Awaken
MP by letting them listen to music and
asking if they can sing it back to you. Let
them get the idea that there is music in
their head, not only the music they hear.
Get them musical toys that are in tune.
They should listen to music in tune,
because off-tune sounds will quickly
confuse the AP. Then teach them the scale
(teach C, D, E . . ., used by most music
schools, and do re mi, as both will be
needed), then teach them the C4 octave. At
this age, learning AP is automatic and
almost instantaneous; when you teach
them C4, they will recognize that no other
note is C4, because they have no other
memory to confuse them. This is why it is
so critical to teach them as soon as they
are ready. Then teach them relative pitch,
such as octaves; then 2-note intervals
(child has to identify both notes), then 3
note chords or any 3 random notes played
simultaneously -- all the way up to 10
notes, if possible. These musical lessons
can be taught between the ages of 2 and 8.
This process will be greatly accelerated if
someone plays the piano from before their
birth. For babies in the womb, sound pitch
remains the same in the amniotic fluid so
that they can learn AP before birth.

156

Long before their first piano lesson,

parents can show them pictures of
enlarged music notes (tadpoles!) and
familiarize them with the music staff,
where the notes go, and where to find
them on the piano. If the parents are not
pianists, one parent can take piano lessons
with the child; this is a good way to get
youngsters started.
Piano Lessons:
MP should be
taught from the very first lessons (or
before, by parents) in order to train the
youngsters to play music in their minds.
Teach MP when memorizing new pieces.
If this is done at the correct pitch,
youngsters will acquire AP after only a
few lessons with little effort; in fact, most
children who have AP learned it before
starting their lessons. Support their MP by
providing good music to listen to, and
train them to recognize compositions by
name and composer. Singing or a musical
toy (in tune) is a good way to teach pitch,
rhythm, and motor control. As soon as
they start piano lessons, MP is further
developed by memorizing and creating a
memorized repertoire. Be prepared to
support them if they immediately start
composing at any age provide ways to
record their music or teach them dictation.
If they start composing at an early age,
don't be surprised if they prefer to invent
their own music notation don't ignore
this or force them to change to
conventional dictation; support them,
because they will naturally transition to
conventional dictation with time, out of
necessity. Formal composition lessons are
not needed until the student asks for them,
when they feel the need for help to achieve
certain musical objectives, such as how to
end a piece. This can happen at any time,
but generally after their teen years.
If MP is not taught, the students may
not even realize that they are doing it, and

not fully develop it. Moreover, because

they are not aware of what they are doing,
they will tend to neglect MP as they get
older and their brains get bombarded with
other pressing matters. As they neglect the
MP, they will lose their AP. Therefore,
both MP and AP are easily acquired when
young, but both are "use it or lose it"
skills.
At this stage, "play by ear" should
also be taught [(18) Play by Ear (PBE),
Composing].
Children should be tested for their
readiness to take piano lessons at ages
between 2 and 8. The first lessons for
beginners, especially children under 7
years old, should be brief, 10 to 15
minutes. Increase the lesson time only as
their attention span and stamina increase.
If more time is necessary, divide the
lesson into sessions with breaks in
between ("cookie time", etc.). The same
rules apply to practice times at home. You
can teach a lot in 10 min.; it is better to
give 15 min. lessons every other day (3
days/week) than one hour once a week.
After about 15 min., forcing youngsters to
practice is useless because they are not
paying attention; letting them quit will
train them to want to practice more,
instead of disliking practice.
Children's brains are faster than
adults'; they may appear slow because
their memory abilities may not be fully
Human
Memory
developed
[(16)
Function], but they are capable of
understanding
complex
concepts,
especially in music. Youngsters can listen
to, and play, Chopin at any age. Do not
feed them music just because it is classical
or it was written by Bach. Play what the
youngsters enjoy, but it is important to
expose them to every genre so that they
have the knowledge to make intelligent
choices. There is controversy about which

157

genres are healthy for brain development.

My opinion is that classical and most of
pop, and some rock "classics" are good,
whereas some types of rock, heavy metal,
and atonal music are not, because the
classics are generally based on basic biophysical principles. Here are some
examples from classical music; there are
lots more on the internet and youtube.
Most youngsters are ready for many
more things than most adults and even
teachers realize and once they are ready,
the sky is the limit. Therefore, it is a
mistake to assume that all kids must be
treated as kids. They can be surprisingly
advanced in many respects and treating
them as kids only holds them back. Kiddie
music exists only in the minds of adults,
and generally does more harm than good.
You can get most youngsters
interested in piano by presenting them
with a puzzle: can they figure out how to
play the eight notes of the C major scale
with only five fingers? After struggling
with the puzzle for a while, you can show
them how to use the thumb. Then you can
wow them by playing the scale at faster
and faster speeds, many octaves up and
down, then with both hands, etc., followed
by some music. Using this method at
family parties unrelated to piano, I have
gotten several youngsters interested, and
they are now accomplished pianists.
For at least the first two years of
lessons (longer for youngsters) teachers
must insist that the parents participate in
the teaching/learning process. The parents'
first job is to understand the methods that
the teacher is teaching. So many practice
methods and performance preparation
procedures are counter-intuitive that the
parents must be familiar with them so that
they can avoid countermanding the
teacher's instructions. Unless the parents
participate in the lessons, they will fall

behind after a few lessons and can become

a hindrance to the child's progress. Using
this book as a textbook to teach both the
students and their parents can save the
teacher a lot of time. The parents must
decide how long the students practice each
day, since they are most familiar with the
time demands on the students and also
know the students' ultimate objectives.
Mental development is the main
reason for listening to classics -- the
"Mozart Effect", which is highly
dependent on the choice of music. The
reasoning goes something like this.
Assume that the average parent has
average intelligence; then there is a 50%
chance that the child is smarter than the
parents. That is, 50% of parents cannot
compete on the same intellectual level as
their baby! So, how do parents teach
music to babies whose musical brain can
quickly develop to much higher levels
than their own? By letting them listen to
and play the great classics! Let them talk
to, and learn directly, from Mozart,
Chopin, etc. Music is a universal
language; unlike the crazy languages that
we speak; music is partly inborn, so babies
can communicate in music long before
they can say "mama". Therefore, classical
music can stimulate a baby's brain long
before the parents can communicate with
the baby even on the most basic levels.
This is why classical music is valuable;
too much of today's music aimed at
youngsters was composed for commercial
values, to create "rock stars", etc., and not
for brain development; those should be
avoided. Music can benefit or harm the
brain depending on how it is used.
Memorizing, Reading, Theory:
The teacher must balance the students'
memorizing and reading abilities. The
Suzuki violin method emphasizes playing
from memory at the expense of reading,

158

especially for youngsters, and this is the

best approach for piano also. It is easier to
practice reading after you can play
reasonably well, just as babies learn to
speak before they learn to read. The
abilities to memorize, speak, and make
music are natural evolutionary traits that
we all have; reading is something that was
added later as a consequence of our
civilization. For example, there are many
musical concepts that can not be written
down, such as color, touch, playing with
authority and confidence, etc.
Reading should be taught from the
very beginning, but only enough to read
music for learning a new piece. Reading
should be encouraged as long as it does
not interfere with playing from memory
and there should be no pressure to develop
advanced reading skills in the beginning.
However, the teacher must make sure that
this lack of emphasis on reading does not
result in a poor reader who automatically
memorizes everything and can't read.
Parental help is often helpful for
monitoring the students' reading ability
because the teacher is not always there
when the student is practicing. Parents can
unwittingly create poor memorizers or
poor readers by helping their children out
instead of letting them struggle with their
weaker skills. Because becoming a poor
reader or memorizer happens over a long
period of time, there is ample time to
detect and correct the trend. If not
corrected early, it can become frustratingly
difficult to correct. Just like talent,
prodigy, or genius, readers and
memorizers are not born, they are created.
Especially for beginners, it does not
pay to embark upon an intensive reading
program just to be able to read because
most of it will be quickly forgotten; the
only time students permanently learn
reading skills is when the need arises. The

initial slow reading speed is certainly

frustrating to both teacher and student, but
it is beneficial and necessary to allow the
students to struggle through this slow
reading stage; don't help them out by
finding the notes for them because, if you
do, they will never learn.
Don't forget to teach "play by ear"
[(18) Play by Ear (PBE), Composing]!
Many classical teachers consider PBE to
be a skill for pop or jazz players and not
teach it, which is a mistake because it is an
essential component of AP, MP, and
absolutely necessary for composing.
Practice Routines: The piano lesson
should not be a routine in which the
student plays the lesson piece and the
teacher assigns a new piece. It is the
teacher's job, when starting a new piece, to
go through it in segments, examining the
fingerings, analyzing the music, and
basically bringing the student up to
speed during the lesson, at least HS or in
segments. All the practice methods needed
to solve technical problems must be
covered. The teacher can save the students
time by demonstrating all the necessary
elements of technique. It should not be left
to the student to acquire technique by trial
and error. Practicing 30 minutes every 2 or
3 days is the absolute minimum necessary
to make any progress. Half an hour every
day is adequate for significant progress for
youngsters. Serious students need to
practice more.
Too many piano lessons are open
ended: they are not graded, which is bad
because you don't monitor the rate of
progress, a major violation of (59) Project
Management practices. The main piano
grading system is the ABRSM system:
ABRSM: About ABRSM. Every teacher
should make use of this system and the
parents should gauge their children's
progress using it. There is no need to

159

attend the tests for students not intending

to progress beyond amateur level, but they
should still follow the protocols of the
exams to monitor their progress.
Alternatively, the teacher should outline a
yearly objective, such as adding certain
pieces to the student's repertoire, while
maintaining all the old finished pieces in
playing condition. Thus, the teacher
should have a list of each student's
repertoire and ask the student to play an
old piece as part of the lesson.
Parents must help their children to
gather relevant music into their ipods and
music libraries, etc., from an early age.
This is another reason why lesson pieces
should be performable music, not
exercises and "technique pieces", because
practice time is one of the few remaining
times when students can listen to piano
music.
Performing:
The best way to
motivate students to practice, and the best
way to teach the art of making music, is to
hold recitals. When the students must
perform, all the teacher's instructions, the
necessary practice time, etc., take on
entirely new meanings and urgency. The
students become self-motivated. It is a
mistake to teach piano without a program
of performance because piano is a
performing art.
Some teachers fear that many
students are afraid to perform and dislike
performing. This is often a sign that the
teacher does not know performance
training. Students must be taught that
piano is a performing art and that part of
learning piano is to learn how to perform.
Of course, every student is different and
there is that occasional student who only
enjoys playing for themselves, and the
teacher must be flexible. The majority of
students should be expected to perform
and follow a program of yearly recitals.

Formal
recitals
and
music
competitions are full of pitfalls and must
be approached with care and a lot of
planning, see Sherman, Russell,. However,
teachers can organize their own recitals
using less stressful formats, with
tremendous benefits to the students.
Competitions have only one first prize
winner and everybody else is a loser.
Teachers can organize recitals in which
there is no first prize winner: the award is
the performance regardless of skill level.
Popular, or "fun" music, such as
duets, are useful for performance training.
Above all, the program must be designed
to produce a rewarding atmosphere of
accomplishment and not a competitive one
where anything short of miraculous
perfection, playing the most difficult
pieces the student can manage, is a failure.
The emphasis must be on music, not finger
calisthenics. Under such a system, most
students will volunteer to play the more
difficult pieces, thus reducing the stresses
associated with recitals -- give the students
a voice in deciding what to play.
It is important to teach a student all
about nervousness and stress and not to
shove them out on a stage with no
preparation in the hope that they will
somehow manage on their own. That is
analogous to throwing a person into the
middle of a deep lake to teach him how to
swim he might end up with a lifelong
fear of water.
Performance training must start with
the first piano lessons. Various skills, such
as recovering from blackouts, preventing
blackouts, covering mistakes, sensing
mistakes before they occur, snippet
playing, starting from arbitrary places in a
piece, choice of pieces to perform,
audience communication, etc., should be
taught. Regular recitals must be scheduled.

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"Performing" is nothing special, it is an

everyday normal situation.
One way to introduce students to
performing is to hold recitals among the
students themselves and to have them
discuss
their
fears,
difficulties,
weaknesses, and strengths to get them all
acquainted with the main issues. Students
will understand the issues better when they
actually feel them and then discuss them
openly with their peers. The purpose is not
so much to reach beyond each student's
capabilities, but to find out where each
belongs in the hierarchy of excellent to
poor performers. Any nervousness they
might feel becomes less scary when they
realize that everyone experiences the same
things, that nervousness is perfectly
natural, and that there are various ways to
combat them or even take advantage of
them -- it is part of the process of
becoming a "professional performer". In
particular, once they go through the entire
process from start to finish of performance
training, the whole procedure becomes
much less mysterious and frightening.
In a group of students, there is
always one that is best at performing. The
others can learn by watching and
discussing how these good ones cope with
each issue. Then there are students who
just freeze on a stage these need special
help, such as learning very simple pieces
to perform, or given several chances to
perform in one recital, or perform with a
group or in duets. Avoid forcing students
into situations for which they are not
prepared.
Recitals should be designed to
strengthen performance capability. One of
the hardest things to do is to perform the
same composition several times on the
same day or on successive days. Such
repeat performances provide the best
training for strengthening performance

skills. For teachers or schools with a

sufficient number of students (25 or more),
the following, used by Combe, is a good
scheme. Group the students into beginner,
intermediate, and advanced. On Friday,
hold a recital of the beginners, with their
parents and friends as audience. Beginners
should participate in recitals from their
first year of lessons, as early as 4 or 5
years of age. At the end of this recital, the
advanced students also play, which makes
it worthwhile for the audience to attend.
On Saturday, the intermediate students
play, with their parents and friends as
audience; again, the advanced students
play at the end. On Sunday, the advanced
students hold their recital with a few select
students from the other two groups. Their
parents and friends are the audience and
special guest performers and audiences
might be invited. In this way, the advanced
students get to perform the same piece
three days in a row. The Sunday recital of
the advanced students should be recorded
and archived, as they make excellent
souvenirs. If this type of recital is held
twice a year, each advanced student will
perform six recitals every year. If these
students are also entered into competitions
(typically involving an audition, a final,
and, if they win, a winner's concert), they
will have adequate performance training,
about 9 performances a year.
Teachers with fewer students can
arrange for performances at nursing
homes, enter their students in state
sponsored music programs, or organize
recitals with several other teachers.
Example lesson for starting a new
student: A text book should be used so
that teachers can assign relevant pages to
read for the students and parents.
Students can be taught from age two.
For those younger than age 4, an important

161

component of lessons is listening to all the

major compositions (mostly at home) from
Bach to all the classics, including
concertos and symphonies. No child is
"too young" for Chopin! Parents should be
encouraged to let the students listen to a
list of good music and the teacher should
have a set of such music (DVDs, internet
sites) ready, see examples of good music
(item #16). It is not necessary for the
students to sit down and concentrate on the
music; it only needs to be part of the
student's environment, something the
parents play for their own enjoyment, or
soft background music during dinner, play,
in their ipods, or while doing home work.
It is difficult to use classical music as
background music (cocktail music is
easier) because soft parts are too soft, loud
parts are too loud, and exciting sections
are too riveting and require mental
attention. Youngsters today are finding
less time for good music; taking piano
lessons is one of the best solutions. Find a
good music channel on TV and always
turn it on when nobody is watching it.
The First Lesson: The first lesson
is important because (1) it sets the tone for
all following lessons and informs the
students and parents what is taught, (2) the
student is evaluated during this lesson, and
(3) the type of piano available for practice
should be discussed.
This lesson can be as long as 2 hours
even for youngsters down to age 6
(although subsequent lessons will be much
shorter), and should be broken up into
three sessions with breaks in between for
rest and snacks. For younger students, this
lesson will be shorter, but there should be
a separate, longer session for the parents.
Obviously, the parents must attend and
discuss whether they should attend every
lesson; this will depend on how busy the
parents are, how much music they know,

the degree with which they are involved in

their children's education, etc. Here are the
three sections of the first lesson:
The beginning session consists
mainly of discussions with parents and
student. So have comfortable sofas and
drinks and snacks ready. The teacher
discusses how learning piano raises the
effective intelligence and improves
memory. Education, musicality, and
performance (making music) are the main
objectives. The concepts of mental play,
absolute pitch, learning tricks, efficient
practice methods, play by ear, intuitive
methods, (no) exercises, musicality and
controlling nervousness are explained
briefly. Finally, the benefits of a piano
education are explained, such as learning
project management, brain development,
and preparation for better performance in
school, at home, and at work. Methods of
teaching talent and genius should be
discussed. This may take close to an hour.
Take a break.
The student is evaluated in the
second part. Teach the student a well
known duet, such as Chopsticks. The
teacher first plays the LH part and teaches
the student the RH (no accompaniment:
student starts G5 and teacher F5). Test the
following:
1. Learning rate: can the student
learn the RH quickly?
2.
Rhythm:
explain
waltz
(Chopsticks); check for rhythm, accuracy.
3. Communication: play softer or
louder, faster or slower, see if the student
can follow by just listening to your play,
without your telling him to follow you -can you communicate with the student
using music alone?
4. Switch hands, so the teacher plays
the RH and student learns the LH (with the
LH). Then see if he can play HT.

162

This may take 10 to 15 minutes; then

take a break, before the third part.
5. If the student can play HT, teacher
can play the accompaniment. Now you can
immediately show the parents that the
student can play both hands and play duet
with the teacher in one lesson!
If this is too difficult for the student,
then the teacher might play the melody
part and teach the student an easy twofinger accompaniment and do 1 to 5
above, or otherwise simplify the student's
part so that it is manageable.
Now for some home work.
6. Teach C Major scale, using
doremi, from middle C, one octave, how
to pass the thumb (TU). This is home work
to be practiced for the next lesson.
7. Check for pitch capability (relative
pitch) by letting student sing the notes of
the scale.
8. Check for absolute pitch, easy if
you have two pianos. If not, teach C to G
on piano, then hum one note to see if
student can find it on the piano or tell you
the name of the note. Sometimes, this is
the first time that the students or parents
find out that a student has absolute pitch!
9. Assignment: most students
(especially parents) already know the
melody to the doremi song from the movie
Sound of Music. Give the student the
assignment of figuring out how to sing the
song using doremi instead of the lyrics.
Play the melody several times to make
sure that the student knows it. The
assignment is that the student should be
able to sing it using doremi in the next
lesson: do-re-mi,- do-mi-do-mi,-re. . . . .
.etc.
If appropriate, discuss what type of
piano to use for practice. In general,
electronic pianos are best for beginners
unless they already have a acoustic piano.
Most home acoustic pianos are out of tune

and will destroy the students' absolute

pitch and are not adequately maintained.
By the time the students are good enough
to require a acoustic piano, they will need
a high quality grand, which is not
necessary
for
beginner
students.
Therefore, if they have a acoustic piano,
discuss piano maintenance and help them
find piano tuners, etc..
Finally, the teacher gives the parents
an assessment of the student's abilities:
learning
rate,
rhythm,
RP,
AP,
communication, mental maturity, what the
students need to learn, what they know.
Subsequent Lessons: Most teachers
will have their own teaching routines for
subsequent lessons. The most important
point is to start right away with
meaningful music that can be performed in
preparation for the student's first
performance. Dates for the year's recitals
should be set.
End of Lesson section.
Today, MP is still difficult to teach
because this book is the first time that it
has been included as a necessary
component of piano education, and the
teaching protocols have not been
established and time tested; the best book
on MP is by Richard, Francois L.,.
Because MP occurs in the students' minds,
it is difficult for the teacher to evaluate it,
just as rhythm and counting are difficult to
evaluate without a piano unless the
students are asked to count vocally or
make hand motions. Playing contemporary
music, especially improvisation and
playing from fake books, is a good way to
practice MP and "play by ear", and to
learn music theory.
Teachers
should
communicate
constantly with other teachers, exchange
ideas, and learn from each other; they
must have email and internet connections.

163

There is nothing as potentially damaging

to a student as a teacher whose teaching
methods are frozen in time. In this
information age, there is no such thing as
secret methods of teaching piano, and the
financial success of the teacher depends
on open communications. An important
topic of communication is the exchange of
students. Most students can benefit greatly
by having been taught by more than one
teacher. Teachers of beginners should pass
their students to higher level teachers as
soon as they are ready.
Of course, most teachers will try to
keep their best students and to teach as
many students as they can. One way to
solve this problem is for teachers to form
groups consisting of teachers with
different
specialties
(beginners,
intermediate, advanced, classical vs pop,
etc.). Students looking for teachers should
look for groups of teachers rather than
teachers who operate individually.
Starting
teachers
often
have
difficulty finding their first students.
Joining a group of teachers is a good way
to get started. Also many established
teachers have to turn away students
because of a lack of time, especially if the
teacher has a good reputation. Those
teachers are good sources of students. One
way to increase the pool of potential
students is to offer to go to the students'
homes to teach. For at least the first few
years of a new teacher, this might be a
good approach for increasing the potential
student pool.
Piano lessons are not only about
music, they are also about growing up;
the objective is to produce mature,
independent musicians, not perpetual
students looking for guidance all their
lives.
Piano Teaching Books: Without
standardized textbooks, every starting

teacher had to re-invent teaching systems

with little guidance. Teaching piano was a
Herculean task not for the faint of heart.
With a textbook, the teacher and student
will know exactly what is taught, how, and
why. This will save the teachers time and
the teachers can then concentrate on
demonstrating technique and teaching
musicality. Best of all, students can
progress at the fastest rate possible, with
every teacher. The certainty of achieving
well defined goals will popularize piano
playing and provide more secure careers
for teachers.
A book can contain more
information than any single teacher might
hope to know and can reference other
books and sources of information that lead
to unlimited amounts of useful knowledge
developed by all teachers. Unfortunately,
older books on piano were written by
pianists with no training for writing such
books and who did not know all the
practice methods, and were no more
informative than that single teacher. Thus,
most piano teachers' claims that "you can't
learn piano from a book" had turned out to
be true because no textbook for practice
methods had been written. Most of the
practice methods are now known, so that
"you can't learn from a book" only reveals
the lack of knowledge of the speaker; it is
equivalent to saying "I can't write such a
book". Today, books are necessary for
teaching if all students are to progress
at the fastest rate possible with every
teacher.
Let me digress to point out that the
importance of books is overlooked by
practically everybody, not just piano
teachers. My own experience is a
particularly illuminating example because
I am a scientist, to whom books are
necessary; yet I, too, am guilty.

164

(1) In my physics classes in college,

there were always a few classmates who
understood everything and aced all exams,
the "geniuses". I did not realize until after
graduation, that these fellows didn't just
understand or figure out, on their own,
what the rest of us did not know. They just
knew where to find the information -- they
were reading and learning things beyond
what were being taught in the courses! At
first, I had thought that finding answers to
homework problems in a book was
cheating -- what a mistake! The only thing
that matters in the real world is that you
know the answers; it doesn't matter how
you get them. But knowing that there are
answers in books isn't enough because you
need to develop a system of finding the
right material to read, which takes a long
time to learn, and reading books can take
up a lot of time that you may not have.
(2) I ran into similar problems later
in graduate school. Universities often
invite famous speakers, such as nobel
prize winners, to give lectures on
advanced topics, so I attended most of
them. They were quite discouraging to me
because I could not understand the
lectures. Yet there were plenty of people
in the audience who asked relevant
questions after each lecture, indicating that
they understood the material. Again, I
found out that they had read the writings
of the speaker (and others) on those topics
before attending the lectures.
(3) Another example was a fellow
researcher at Cornell University who spent
several hours almost every morning in the
library for years, researching equipment
used in our research. He eventually found
ways to improve our instruments and
started a company to manufacture them.
But this process is difficult; it took him
years to achieve his goal.

Conclusion: there are valid reasons

for ignoring books: learning from books is
not easy, especially for pianists! Yet, if
you want to excel, books are necessary.
What I have done for piano is to conduct
the research during my lifetime and
assembled the results into one book,
readily accessible to every student and
teacher.

(63) The Myth of Franz Listz's

Teaching Methods
The materials of this book are known
best practice methods. The methods have
been documented here and their sources
are referenced . By contrast, there have
been thousands of teachers who claimed to
teach the "Franz List Methods" or trace
their teaching lineages to Liszt (and
therefore to Beethoven: Beethoven Czerny - Liszt), yet there isn't a single
book or reference that defines or describes
what that method is! Thus the implication
that a terrific "Franz Liszt Method" of
teaching exists has no factual
documented evidence.
There are a dozen Franz Liszt
societies and over ten thousand
publications on Listz! Numerous books
have been written about him (see Taylor,
Walker, Listz's Teaching Bibliography,)
but the only reference to Listz's technical
teachings are a few meager pages in
Walker. The only other descriptions of
Liszt's methods are lists of Liszt's
exercises and etudes with no instructions
on how to practice them. There are endless
accounts of Liszt's accomplishments and
technical prowess, yet there is not one
reference on how he learned.
Evidence in the literature indicates
that Liszt could not describe how he
acquired technique; he could only
demonstrate how he played. Because he
was a pianist, not a trained analyst, this is
165

understandable; he was a musician and

could play or demonstrate, but did not
know how to teach or write a manual for
learning piano. He only taught students
who were already technically proficient.
Thus, "going to a teacher who teaches the
Liszt Method for learning how to play the
piano" makes no sense unless you are
already a concert pianist. But all piano
students learn piano to become concert
pianists, not after they can already play.
Even Liszt's teaching lineage to
Beethoven has little meaning because
Liszt basically ignored Czerny's methods
and the popularity of Czerny as teaching
material has been declining now for
decades, to the extent that it is often cited
as representing what is wrong with the
"old, obsolete" teaching methods, (e.g.,
Whiteside, and this book).
Thus going back to Liszt (or most
famous pianists) does not help us to learn
piano practice methods. Chopin is an
exception
because
his
students
documented some of his teaching methods
(Eigeldinger, Jean-Jacques,). Bach is an
interesting case. As with Liszt, Bach never
wrote a treatise on teaching piano because
he was a musician, not a writer. Therefore,
he embedded piano lessons in his
"teaching compositions" such as the
Inventions and the WTC. Thus, if we can
"read" his lessons in his music, they can be
quite beneficial. Unfortunately, Hanon
misread Bach and took us on a 100 year
detour in the wrong direction. Thus
reading Bach's lessons isn't easy unless
you already know them.
My limited survey of teachers who
claim to teach the "Liszt Methods" such as
Combe and Van Cliburn's mother, reveals
that most of them are familiar with similar
principles, such as HS practice, chord
attack, thumb-over, segmental practice,
etc., that are particularly applicable to

Bach's teaching compositions. Thus the

claim to teach Liszt's method does
increase the probability of finding a better
teacher.
Until about the year 2000, when
efficient practice methods began to replace
"talent" and exercises on a wider scale,
piano pedagogy had never adequately
defined or documented efficient practice
methods; they weren't needed when
progress was attributed to talent, not to
teaching methods. Combe had been
teaching efficient practice methods for
decades and knew she had a piano
revolution in her hands (my conversations
with Combe) but, like Bach and Liszt, she
lacked the necessary education to manage
such a project. Now that this book has
been written, progress is guaranteed;
however, because of the large number of
teachers still teaching the intuitive
methods, and the need for the new
generation of teachers to complete their
ancillary education, this revolution may
require another generation of teachers to
complete.

(64) Why the Greatest Pianists Could

Not Teach
We have historically looked to
famous artists for guidance, thinking that
if they can do it, they can teach it.
Typically, if great pianists were asked how
to play a passage, they would sit at the
piano and play it out, but couldn't tell you
how to do it because the language of the
pianist is spoken by the hands and the
piano. They had no idea how the fingers
were moving, or even how they had
learned to move the fingers. They had
never received any training in teaching.
There are two extremes among the
ways to acquire technique. One is the
analytical one, in which every detail of the
practice method is analyzed. The other is
166

the artist's approach, in which the person

imagines a certain musical output and the
body responds in different ways until the
desired result is obtained. This artist's
approach can not only be a quick shortcut,
but can also yield unexpected results that
may exceed the original idea. It also has
the advantage that a "genius" without
analytical training can be successful.
Teachers love this method because they
can teach without knowing anything, and
if the student fails, he just isn't talented.
Piano is an art and it seemed logical to
teach it the artists' way.
The disadvantage is that there is no
assurance of success. Technique acquired
in this way cannot be taught analytically,
except by saying that "you must feel the
music this way" in order to play it.
Unfortunately, for those who still can't
play, this kind of instruction is of no help,
except as a demonstration that it can be
done. If the analytical approach can be
researched and documented properly,
everyone can succeed, just as everyone is
expected to graduate from high school.
A possible disadvantage of the
analytical, knowledge based approach is
that pianists might lose the "talented" label
that was a major factor that made piano
attractive, commanded respect, and
commercially viable. That should not
happen because effective teaching
methods will produce even better pianists
and musicians than before. Truth and
honesty should always triumph over fake
claims of artistry. But musicians should
still learn their musical magic tricks [(65)
Creating Geniuses] because that is part of
the entertainment.
It is important to understand why
certain practice methods work; otherwise
there is no evidence that the method works
and no way to adapt it to a specific
student's needs. This requirement of

understanding was often outside the

expertise of the pianist or teacher because
biological, scientific, etc., knowledge is
generally required. Thus there were
fundamental
impediments
to
the
development of piano teaching methods:
artists and piano teachers were never
trained or sufficiently educated to teach.
All piano teachers had to invent their own
teaching methods, and even after fifty
years of teaching, their methods were
inadequate because there is only so much
that each teacher could learn without
higher education. They were never trained
in the art of distinguishing the right from
the wrong methods so that their teachings
always
contained
some
wrong
assumptions and methods. Pianists tended
to be poor communicators (outside of
music) because they had precious little
time to communicate with each other.
These problems prevented any meaningful
development of teaching methods even at
conservatories, yet they accepted only
advanced students. Without conservatory
type teaching, few students attained the
advanced levels necessary to be accepted.
These obstacles gave piano learning a
reputation as something far more difficult
than it really was.
The answer to these problems is
efficient practice methods that enable
students to acquire technique quickly,
freeing sufficient time to receive the
education needed to understand the piano
and to teach. We are entering a new,
exciting era of learning piano that can be
enjoyed by everyone because learning
piano will finally be based on knowledge,
not talent. Combe is the first teacher I met
that taught practice methods. As her
students wrote on one of her birthday
cards, "Thank you, Mlle. Combe, for
music all our lives!"

167

(65) Creating Geniuses

The biggest mistake in piano
pedagogy in the last two hundred years
was the assumption that talent is inborn.
This meant that talent couldn't be taught.
Now we know that proper practice
methods can make practically anybody
into a "talented" pianist! I saw this all the
time at the hundreds of student recitals and
piano competitions that I had witnessed.
The statement "you won't succeed without
talent" means that the speaker does not
know how to teach. Fortunately, there is
now a growing realization that genius can
be taught (Olson).
Knowledge is an amazing thing. We
are the same humans we were thousands
of years ago yet, today, we build
skyscrapers and use the internet because
we have new knowledge. Knowledge can
replace, or be more powerful than, raw
brain power. To see this, suppose we take
an average 5th grader today and time-port
him back to Egypt 8,000 years ago and
that he had written down everything he
knows about math. He would have been
recorded in history as the greatest
mathematical genius that ever lived!
Therefore we can create geniuses by
teaching genius capabilities. Here are
some of the processes that can create
geniuses:
(1) It is important to start young,
when the brain is developing rapidly.
Historically, practically all famous
geniuses were created by their parents who
were already musicians, sports figures,
performers, etc., and knew how to teach
their very young children. The most
extreme example of this success is Jesus,
who became god in the eyes of many
because his mother claimed an immaculate
conception to protect herself and her baby
at a time when women who became
pregnant before marriage were often

stoned to death. Thus Jesus's training to be

god started before his birth and, in terms
of "professional training", paralleled those
of Mozart and other famous musicians, as
well as Tiger Woods in golf, the Williams
sisters in tennis, and Michael Jackson in
entertainment. It can't be just a
coincidence that almost all musical
geniuses had parents who were musicians.
Teachers are not as successful as parents
because parents have access to their
children 24/7, from before they are born.
(2)
Another
factor
is
the
unbelievable difference in learning speed
between the "right" and "wrong"
approaches, which makes students with
the "right" approaches appear to be far
more "talented". Specifically, babies
should be exposed to music from birth in
such a way that they acquire Absolute
Pitch [Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch]
automatically, effortlessly. They should be
tested for AP as soon as possible and
trained to improve their AP as youngsters.
Other important elements to teach for
piano are the practice methods, which
include: Mental Play [(15) Mental Play
(MP)], memorization, piano technique,
music listening, etc., as outlined in this
book. MP picked up as an infant is
possibly just as potent as absolute pitch
picked up at the same age, something that
becomes impossible after the teen years. A
toddler can pick up absolute pitch without
even trying, and that absolute pitch can be
so accurate that no amount of training will
come close to it if we tried to learn
absolute pitch in later years. Imagine what
a similar process in MP might do to a
young mind! This early training may be
particularly important for cultivating the
ability to compose. Thus play by ear [(18)
Play by Ear (PBE), Composing] must be
encouraged at this stage.

168

(3) One way of measuring genius is

the IQ (Intelligence Quotient). There are
three types IQ that can be raised by
learning piano:
(i) The intrinsic IQ -- how good the
brain is. This is the most difficult IQ to
raise, but performing musical feats will
exercise the brain in such a way that it
works better, just as exercising will
strengthen the muscles and nurture the
nervous system. One of the objectives of
learning piano is to increase the mental
speed and stamina, and to train the brain to
work all the time without requiring periods
of rest. This will increase blood supply to
the brain. Babies are routinely tested for
hearing immediately after birth because
deafness will retard brain development;
thus additional music training will
accelerate the development, especially
because auditory inputs affect practically
every part of the brain.
(ii) The effective IQ -- how well the
brain is used. A person who uses the brain
more effectively will appear smarter. This
difference is obvious for piano because
pianists can do things on the piano that
non-pianists absolutely can not do. Thus it
is easy for pianists to raise their effective
IQ to much higher levels than their
intrinsic IQ, at least, at the piano.
(iii) Perceived IQ -- how others
judge your IQ. Mozart, Beethoven, etc.,
have some of the highest perceived IQs. A
unique feature of the perceived IQ is that it
can be raised far above even the effective
IQ. The intrinsic and effective IQs are real
-- it is possible to measure them. Perceived
IQ is purely "in the eyes of the beholder";
it can be raised to any level by using
methods or tricks just as magicians do, to
perform "miracles". All accomplished
musicians do this routinely. Musicians are
magicians with their own bag of tricks.
Using music as an algorithm to memorize

5 hours of repertoire is such a trick.

Mozart used mental play to read sentences
backwards. Learning Absolute Pitch is
another. Perceived IQ has no upper limit;
religious icons have raised theirs so high
that they are perceived to have
supernatural powers or even as gods.
Every pianist should be aware of these
different IQs and cultivate them it is
part of being a musician.
(4) A genius is a person who has
genius skills. Let's take Mozart as an
example and see what these "genius skills"
are, and which ones can be taught.
(i) Mozart had absolute pitch (AP).
We now know that infants can learn AP
effortlessly, and even adults can learn it,
but requires more effort. This genius skill
can be taught.
(ii) He could memorize practically
any amount of music, even hearing it only
once. We have developed, and understand,
memory methods. If a person has AP,
knows memory methods, composes music
(knows music theory), and has mental play
abilities, this type of memory capability is
certainly achievable. Our daughter
attended a piano competition in which one
of her best friends was competing. She
paid special attention because it was her
good friend. She had never heard this
piece before but, the next day, she played
the entire piece for her teacher, and got
most of the notes right (but not the
fingerings). Therefore, this capability can
be taught; Mozart is certainly not the only
one.
(iii) He could compose an entire
composition in his head and write it down,
backwards and forwards, from anywhere,
even one hand or voice at a time. This is
just a case of a highly developed mental
play. It was especially easy for Mozart
because he used a fixed formula [(67)
Mozart's Formula, Beethoven and Group

169

Theory] for practically all of his

compositions. Mental play is definitely
teachable, especially because we all do it
everyday [(15) Mental Play (MP)].
(iv) He could speak sentences
backwards. This is also mental play; all he
did was to write the sentence on an
imaginary blackboard and read it
backwards, so it is easily teachable.
(v) He had technique; he could play
anything. We have shown that there are
practice methods that can solve technical
problems, and many pianists will agree
that there are probably many pianists
today whose technical abilities are better
than Mozart's. Therefore, this is eminently
teachable.
(vi) He composed glorious music.
This is the only controversial item because
it all depends on the definition of
"glorious". Certainly, there have been
enough composers since Mozart's time so
that the ability to compose is not unique to
him. In addition, we expect every
composer to be different so that it doesn't
make sense to compare composers.
Therefore, as long as a person composes,
this item should also be in the teachable
category.
The conclusion is that there is
nothing Mozart did that can't be
taught!
(5) It is quite probable that Mozart
did not become a musician because he was
a genius, but he became a genius with a
extremely high perceived IQ because of
his music training. The ability to compose
is a natural consequence of having the
genius skills and is therefore not
mysterious, even for Mozart.
Music has a powerful effect on the
functioning of the brain and its motor
control (Sacks, Oliver,). This is one of the
reasons why we usually use music when
dancing or exercising. The best evidence

for this comes from Alzheimer's patients

who have lost their ability to dress
themselves because they cannot recognize
each different type of clothing. It was
discovered that when this procedure is set
to the proper music, these patients can
often dress themselves! "Proper music" is
music that they heard in early youth or
their favorite music. Thus mentally
handicapped people who are clumsy when
performing daily chores can suddenly sit
down and play the piano if the music is the
right type that stimulates their brains.
Therefore, they may not be musically
talented; instead, it may be the music that
is giving them new capabilities. Another
evidence comes from patients with
syndromes that prevent them from
communicating with other humans;
however, given a computer, they can
suddenly communicate because computer
communications are always exactly
identical whereas human speech is not. To
them things that are not identical are
totally different, which makes it difficult
to communicate with other humans.
Therefore, auditory inputs can give the
brain capabilities that it does not normally
have. If music can produce such profound
effects on the handicapped, imagine what
it could do to the brain of a budding
genius, especially during the brain's early
development in childhood.
Conclusion: Creating geniuses is the
process of teaching genius skills at the
appropriate time which is "as young as
possible", before age four in most cases.
The known genius skills are: mental play,
absolute pitch, play by ear, and efficient
practice methods. These skills in turn
enable secondary genius skills such as
great memory, technique, sight reading,
and composing/improvising. What is so
amazing is that the four genius skills can
all be taught, yet were seldom taught

170

because of the mistaken belief that they

were inborn talents. Why did such wrong
beliefs persist for two hundred years?
Because geniuses had to be taught at a
young age by parents before they started
lessons, and therefore it appeared to the
teachers as if those skills were inborn and
therefore not teachable. Even the ability to
compose is a consequence of having
mental play, absolute pitch, and play by
ear. There is no known process for
musical geniuses to be created
biologically at birth but we know how
they can be created by teaching.

the definition I chose seems most

appropriate: "a scientific method is any
method that works every time for
everybody". That is, you don't need to be
a scientist to use science in fact,
everyone uses scientific methods every
day, especially in developed countries.
For scientists, science is infinitely
complicated. For everybody else, you can't
live without science because science
simplifies everything: life would be much
harder without electricity, phones, cars,
television, inexpensive foods, etc., all
products of scientific progress. Without
science, there won't even be a piano to
play because the piano is one of the most
science intensive mechanical machines
ever created. I have interacted with plenty
of scientists including Nobel laureates;
nevertheless, piano tuners are some of the
best practicing physicists I have ever met
because, without understanding physics,
no piano tuner will be able to tune,
regulate, and maintain pianos.
One misunderstanding I encountered
is that science is too difficult for artists.
This boggles the mind. The mental
processes that artists go through in
producing the highest levels of music or
other arts are at least as complex as those
of scientists contemplating the origin of
the universe. One remark I hear too often
goes something like "I'm not smart enough
for science", which only reveals a lack of
understanding of what science is. Not
studying science, because the person is not
smart enough, is like saying that he is not
smart enough to go to school. The reality
is that going to school is the fastest way to
become smarter. Everyone studies science
to empower themselves, to be able to do
things they couldn't do before, to solve
problems and to simplify life.
Science is empowerment. Although
smart scientists are needed to advance

(66) Scientific Approach to Piano

Practice
I had wondered for most of my life
why nobody can agree on the definition of
the scientific method. This dilemma was
embarrassing because I am a scientist. I
have finally solved that riddle! The
definition of anything depends on (1) the
person defining it, (2) the person for
whom it is intended and (3) the purpose
for which the definition was created. For
example, to a cook in a diner, an omelet is
something he makes and sells; to a
customer, it is something to eat for
breakfast.
Except
for
scientific
terminology defined for specific purposes,
relatively few definitions have universal
applicability. Therefore, no matter how
you define anything, someone is going to
find it objectionable, in addition to the fact
that defining anything correctly for any
specific set of circumstances is difficult
enough.
Science, in its broadest sense, is the
study of the universe (or truth) and is
therefore infinitely complex. Such a
definition is of no use to a person trying to
learn piano. The definition needed in this
book is one which explains the relevance
of science to piano practice. To that end,
171

science, everyone benefits from science,

especially the less gifted. Thus another
way of defining science is that it simplifies
difficult tasks and makes previously
impossible tasks possible.
Science is easier than art because in
art, you depend on mental leaps whereas
in science, you go one small step at a time.
What many pianists do not know is the
extent to which the greatest musicians
used science to compose [(67) Mozart's
Formula, Beethoven and Group Theory,
(55) Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu, Op.
66, Polyrhythms]. There is widespread
belief that people are born with different
interests or abilities in art or science;
however, the majority of people can be
artists or scientists depending on their
exposure to each field, especially in early
childhood. Genius can be taught [(65)
Creating Geniuses].
Experience has shown that the
scientific method works best if certain
guidelines
are
followed.
Major
components of the scientific method are:
(i) Definitions: Without the precise
definitions presented throughout this book
(HS practice, parallel sets, thumb over,
etc.), most of the discussions would
become cumbersome and ambiguous.
With the right definitions, complex
concepts can be discussed concisely and
accurately.
(ii) Research: In scientific research,
you perform experiments, get the data, and
document the results in such a way that
others can understand what you did and
can reproduce the results. Unfortunately,
that is not what had been happening in
piano teaching. Liszt never wrote down his
practice methods and probably never even
analyzed them. A tremendous amount of
research had been conducted by all the
great pianists, the past geniuses.
Unfortunately, very little of that had been

documented; piano pedagogy was not

scientific.
(iii) Documentation: It is an
incalculable loss that Bach, Chopin, Liszt,
etc., did not write down their practice
methods; today, they are mostly buried in
their compositions. Those composers
probably did not have sufficient resources
or training to undertake such an unfamiliar
task as analysis and documentation. An
important function of documentation is the
elimination of errors. Once an idea is
written down, we can check for its
accuracy and remove any errors and add
new findings. Documentation is used to
create a one-way street in which the
material can only improve with time.
It is necessary to communicate with
all other specialists doing similar work and
to discuss new research results. In this
respect, the piano world has been woefully
inadequate; most books on piano playing
don't even have references and they rarely
build on previous works. The book
reviews in this book note if there are
references; books without references are
not scientific because every such book has
to re-invent the wheel every time. It is the
reason why piano pedagogy made no
progress for 200 years until the recent mad
dash towards documentation enabled by
the internet. Documentation now provides
hope that piano pedagogy can catch up to
other developed fields of education.
Without documentation, teaching methods
can develop forwards as well as
backwards, as shown by Hanon, who set
us back 100 years.
(iv) Theory: Scientific results must
always lead to some theory or principle
that can be verified by everybody.
Explanations like "it worked for me," or
"I've taught this for 30 years" or even "this
is how Liszt did it" aren't good enough. If
a teacher had been teaching the procedure

172

for 30 years, he should have had plenty of

time to figure out why it works, but it
didn't work out that way in piano because
scientific principles were not followed.
The explanations are often more important
than the procedures they explain. For
example, HS practice works because it
simplifies a difficult task. Once this
principle of simplification is understood,
you can start looking for more things like
that, such as shortening difficult passages
or outlining. The nicest property of theory
is that we don't need to be told every detail
about how to apply the method -- we can
fill in the details from our understanding
of the method. There is no standard
method that applies to everybody, because
everybody is different, and understanding
is needed to design the right practice
method for each individual.
More research will produce some
amazing scientific discoveries in music.
The inefficient, time-consuming practice
routines of the past had prevented
musicians from getting the necessary
education
outside
of
music
for
understanding and learning music. Perhaps
the greatest discoveries in music will come
from brain studies and neuroscience.
Music conservatories must take the
initiative to research music scientifically
and apply knowledge-based methods of
teaching. We still do not understand the
biological changes that accompany the
acquisition of technique and how the
human (especially the infant) brain
develops. Understanding these will allow
us to directly address them instead of
having to repeat something 10,000 times.
Neuroscientists today know more about
the musical brain than conservatory
professors (Levitin). Instead of assuming
that you must be a genius to be a musician,
we must research how to make musicians
into geniuses. Evolution of science in the

last 200 yrs has been nothing short of

miraculous, and better education of
pianists will surely yield similar results.
Musicians must take advantage of the
advances achievable using scientific
methods, that have enabled us to perform
miracles daily, in hospitals, factories, and
homes, that even writers of the bible could
not have imagined.

(67) Mozart's Formula, Beethoven

and Group Theory
There is an intimate, if not absolutely
essential,
relationship
between
mathematics and music. At the very least,
they share a large number of the most
fundamental properties in common,
starting with the fact that the equal
tempered chromatic scale is a simple
logarithmic equation and that the basic
intervals are ratios of the smallest integers
that allow the brain to keep track of tonics
in chord progressions [(68) Theory,
Solfege]. Every musician is naturally
curious whether mathematics is involved
in the creation of music. In composition
theory,
mathematical
symmetry
transformations have been a major
compositional device since before Bach
(Solomon, Larry,). This is not surprising
because math applies to practically
everything; math is simply a device for
describing anything quantitatively. One
way to investigate this relationship is to
study the works of the greatest composers
from a mathematical point of view. Here
are a few examples.
Mozart's Formula (Eine Kleine
Nachtmusik, Serenade K525)
Professor Robert Levin of Harvard
(Levin, Robert,:) lectured on "Mozart's
Fingerprints: A Statistical Analysis of his
Concertos" concerning a "specific and
sophisticated hierarchy of musical motives
173

that underlies the Mozart concerto form"

in December of 1977 at a Bell
Laboratories Research Colloquium, at
Murray Hill, NJ. I have to thank Brian
Kernighan (co-author of "The C
Programming Language") for locating the
records to this lecture which was still
stored in his computer after more than 30
years!
Prof. Levin lectured on a hierarchy
of musical motives that were so specific as
to be potentially useful for authenticating
Mozart's compositions. On the one hand, I
was disappointed with the lecture because
of my ignorance of music theory; I was
expecting an easily understandable
musical structure. On the other hand, Prof.
Levin awakened my awareness of
structure in music, and led me to examine
structure in Mozart's music.
If you take just one atom, carbon,
you can change the atomic microstructure
and get anything from hard, brilliant
diamonds to lubricating graphite to light
weight
golf
club
shafts,
to
superconductors, and even buckyballs with
amazing properties and uses. It is the
differences in the repetitive microstructure
of the carbon atoms that gives these
materials such different properties, and my
expertise was in examining these
microstructures.
It was no surprise, therefore, that I
immediately recognized the repetitive
structure of Mozart's music. For those not
accustomed to dealing with structure in
music, this repetitive structure is not easily
recognizable because it appears to have no
obvious relevance to the melodic
progression. I have tested this recognition
with my musical colleagues and it took
most of them a while to recognize this
structure as a part of the music. This lack
of recognition has historically impeded the
pursuit of this microstructure because, for

musicians, it seems so trivially simple that

it does not deserve attention. One of the
best examples of this is the slow
movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No.
21, which is generally considered to be
non-repetitive because the incredible
emotional content hides the repetitions.
Repetition, of course, is key to
almost all music. The time signature
governs the entire piece, so that formal
rhythm is 100% repetitive. Mozart's music
uses mostly a single repetition (2 units in a
row). Bach uses repetitions extensively,
but is not mainly confined to a single type
like Mozart's. In the Inventions, Bach uses
2 repetitions most frequently (3 units in a
row see Invention #8). Repetitions on
larger scales are also important, as
Slenczynska, Ruth, (P. 49) wrote: "play all
repeats marked by the composer" instructions from a seasoned pianist,
because the repetitions are there for
specific purposes.
These types of repetitive structures
are well known among composers, and
articles on music analysis and composition
are starting to discuss them in greater
detail (Brandt). Discussions of pitch sets
and symmetry transformations similar to
those discussed here have appeared in the
literature (Bernard, Solomon).
My structural analysis revealed that
Mozart composed practically all of his
music, from when he was very young,
according to a single formula that
expanded his music by over a factor of ten.
Whenever he composed a new melody that
lasted one minute, he knew that his final
composition would be at least ten minutes
long. Sometimes, it was a lot longer,
because the main part of his formula is a
multiplication by a factor of two; so that
the multiplication after 10 minutes makes
the music 20 minutes long, then 40, etc.!

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The first element of his formula was

to repeat a "motif". These motifs are very
short -- only a few notes, much shorter
than you would think of a musical melody
we always think of melodies, not
motifs. We see the Taj Mahal, but the
individual marble blocks are invisible.
These short motifs simply disappear into
the melody because they are too short to
be recognized; certainly a conscious
construct by the composer to hide them.
The motif would then be modified
two or three times to produce what the
audience perceives as a melody. These
modifications consisted of the use of
various mathematical and musical
symmetries such as inversions, reversals,
harmonic changes, clever positioning of
ornaments, etc., as shown below. These
repetitions would be assembled to form a
section and the whole section would be
repeated. The first repetition provides a
factor of two, the various modifications
provide another factor of two to six (or
more), and the final repetition of the entire
section provides another factor of two, or
2x2x2 = 8 at a minimum. In this way, he
was able to write huge compositions with
a minimum of thematic material.
Because of this pre-ordained
structure, he was able to write down his
compositions from anywhere in the
middle, or one voice at a time, since he
knew ahead of time where each part
belonged. And he did not have to write
down the whole thing until the last piece
of the puzzle was in place. He could also
compose several pieces simultaneously,
because they all had the same structure.
This formula made him appear to be
more of a genius than he really was,
because he could compose so much music,
write it down backwards and forwards,
compose it entirely in his mind, etc. This
naturally leads to the question: how much

of his reputed "genius" was simply an

illusion of such machinations? This is not
to question his genius -- the music takes
care of that! However, many of the
magical things that these geniuses did
were the result of relatively simple
devices that we can learn.
Knowing Mozart's formula makes it
easier to dissect and memorize his
compositions. The first step towards
understanding his formula is to be able to
identify the motif and analyze his
modifications and repetitions. They are not
simple repetitions; Mozart used his genius
to modify and disguise the repetitions so
that they produced music and so that the
repetitions will not be recognized.
Another aspect of his compositions
is the economy with which he expresses
complex ideas; as an example, let's
examine the famous melody in the Allegro
of his Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. This is
the melody that Salieri played and the
pastor recognized in the beginning of the
movie, "Amadeus". That melody is a
repetition posed as a question and an
answer. The question is a male voice
asking, "Hey, are you coming?" And the
reply is a female voice, "Yes, I'm
coming!" The male statement is made
using only two notes, a commanding
fourth apart, repeated three times, and the
question is created by adding two rising
notes at the end (this appears to be
universal among most languages -questions are posed by raising the voice at
the end). The response is a female voice
because the pitch is higher, and is again
two notes, this time a sweeter minor third
apart, repeated (you guessed it!) three
times. It is an answer because the last three
notes wiggle down. The efficiency with
which he created this construct is amazing.
What is even more incredible is how he
disguises the repeated pairs of notes so

175

that when you listen to the whole thing,

you would not recognize the repetitions,
but hear a single melody.
Let's look at another example, the
Sonata #11 in A, K331 (or K300i - the
one with the Rondo Alla Turca ending).
The basic unit (motif) of the beginning
theme is a quarter note followed by an
eighth note. The first introduction of this
unit in bar 1 is disguised by the addition of
the 16th note. This introduction is
followed by the basic unit, completing bar
1. Thus in the first bar, the unit is repeated
twice. He then translates the whole double
unit of the 1st bar down in pitch and
creates bar 2. This is the same device used
by Beethoven at the start of his 5th
symphony where he gives you the "fate"
motif and then repeats it at a lower pitch.
The third bar is the basic unit repeated
twice. In the fourth bar, he again disguises
the first unit by use of 16th notes. Bars 1
to 4 are then repeated with minor
modifications in bars 5-8. From a
structural viewpoint, every one of the first
eight bars is patterned after the first bar.
From a melodic point of view, these eight
bars produce two melodies with similar
beginnings but different endings. Since the
whole eight bars is repeated, he has
basically multiplied his initial idea
embodied in the first bar by 16! If you
think in terms of the basic unit, he has
multiplied it by 32. But then he goes on to
take this basic unit and creates incredible
variations to produce the first part of the
sonata, so the final multiplication factor is
even larger. He uses repetitions of
repetitions. By stringing the repetitions of
modified units, he creates music that
sounds like a long melody.
In the second half of this exposition,
he introduces new modifications to the
basic unit. In bar 10, he first adds an
ornament with melodic value to disguise

the repetition and then introduces another

modification by playing the basic unit as a
triplet. Once the triplet is introduced, it is
repeated twice in bar 11. Bar 12 is similar
to bar 4; it is a repetition of the basic unit,
but structured in such a way as to act as a
conjunction between the preceding three
related bars and the following three related
bars. Thus bars 9 to 16 are similar to bars
1 to 8, but with a different musical idea.
The final two bars (17 and 18) provide the
ending to the exposition.
With these analyses as examples,
you should now be able to dissect the
remainder of this sonata. You will find
that the same pattern of repetitions is
found throughout. As you analyze more of
his music you will need to include more
complexities; he may repeat three or even
four times, and mix in other modifications
to hide the repetitions. He is a master of
disguise; the repetitions and other
structures are not obvious when you listen
to the music without analyzing the
structure.
Mozart's formula certainly increased
his productivity. Yet he may have found
certain magical (hypnotic? addictive?)
powers to repetitions of repetitions and he
probably had his own musical reasons for
arranging the moods of his themes in the
sequence that he used. That is, if you
further classify his melodies according to
the moods they evoke, it is found that he
always arranged the moods in the same
order. The question here is, if we dig
deeper and deeper, will we find more of
these
simple
structural/mathematical
devices, stacked one on top of each other,
or is there more to music? Almost
certainly, there must be more, but no one
has yet figured it out, not even the great
composers themselves -- at least, as far as
they have told us. Thus the only thing we
mortals can do is to keep digging.

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For further analysis of this Sonata

(#11, K331), see Scoggin, Nancy,, P. 224.
Mozart is not the inventor of this
formula and similar formulas were used
widely by composers of his time. Some of
Salieri's compositions follow a very
similar formula; perhaps this was an
attempt by Salieri so emulate Mozart. In
fact a large fraction of all music is based
on repetitions. The beginning of
Beethoven's 5th symphony discussed
below is a good example and the familiar
"chopsticks" tune uses "Mozart's formula"
exactly as Mozart used it. Therefore,
Mozart simply exploited a fairly universal
principle of music composition.
The simplest form of Mozart's
formula appears in the famous "Twinkle,
Twinkle, Little Star" song where the motif
is a single note which is repeated. This
tiny melody embodies most of the basic
rules of composition, and was composed
before Mozart was born. Since Mozart
undoubtedly heard it as a child, it is
possible that he started composing by
adopting it as a model, and eventually
used it for almost all of his compositions.
This hypothesis explains why Mozart used
this formula from his earliest composing
days it is the first melody most
youngsters hear at an early age. Mozart
may have initially based his compositions
on this formula and, as he developed it,
discovered that he didn't need anything
else, especially because it enabled him to
compose everything in his head without
having to write anything down.
Beethoven & Group Theory (5th
Symphony, Appassionata, Waldstein)
The use of mathematical devices is
deeply embedded in Beethoven's music.
Therefore, Beethoven is the best place to
dig for information on the relationship
between mathematics and music. I'm not

saying that other composers did not use

mathematical devices. Practically every
musical composition has mathematical
underpinnings and every famous composer
has used incredible mathematical devices
to compose. However, Beethoven
stretched everything to extremes and such
extremes are most useful because the
underlying principles can be identified
with certainty.
We all know that Beethoven never
studied advanced mathematics, yet he used
group theory type concepts to compose
this famous symphony (Bernard, Jonathan
W.,, and search "group theory" or
"symmetry in music" on the internet). In
fact, he used what crystallographers call
the
Space
Group
of
symmetry
transformations! Group Theory governs
many advanced technologies, such as
quantum mechanics and nuclear physics
that are the foundations of today's
technological revolution. At this level of
abstraction, a crystal of diamond and
Beethoven's 5th symphony are one and the
same! I will now explain this.
The Space Group that Beethoven
used has been applied to characterize
crystals, such as silicon and diamond, and
is the basis for analyzing useful properties
of crystals. It's like the physicists needed
to drive from New York to San Francisco
and the mathematicians handed them a
map! That is how we perfected the silicon
transistor, which led to integrated circuits,
the computer, and the internet. So, what is
the Space Group? And why was this
Group so useful for composing this
symphony?
Mathematicians found that groups
consist of Members and Operations, such
that if you perform an operation on a
member, you get another member of the
same group. A familiar group is the group
of integers: -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. One

177

operation for this group is addition: 2 + 3

= 5. Note that the application of the
operation + to members 2 and 3 yields
another member of the group, 5. Since
operations transform one member into
another,
they
are
also
called
Transformations. A member of the Space
Group can be anything in any space: an
atom, a frog, or a music note. The atom
and frog reside in our 4-dimensional
space-time. The music note operates in
any musical dimension such as pitch,
speed, or loudness. The Operations of the
Space Group relevant to crystallography
are (in order of increasing complexity)
Translation, Rotation, Mirror, Inversion,
and the Unitary Operation. These are
almost self explanatory (translation means
you move the member some distance in
that space) except for the Unitary
Operation which basically leaves the
member unchanged. However, it is subtle
because it is not the same as the equality
transformation, and is therefore always
listed last in textbooks. Unitary Operations
are generally associated with the most
special member of the group, which we
might call the Unitary Member. In the
integer group noted above, this member
would be 0 for addition and 1 for
multiplication (5+0 = 5x1 = 5); this
demonstrates that figuring out the unitary
operator is not simple.
Let me demonstrate how you might
use this Space Group, in ordinary
everyday life. Can you explain why, when
you look into a mirror, the left hand
becomes a right hand (and vice versa), but
your head doesn't rotate down to your
feet? The Space Group tells us that you
can't rotate the right hand and get a left
hand because left-right is a mirror
operation, not a rotation. Note that this is a
strange transformation: your right hand
becomes your left hand in the mirror;

therefore, the wart on your right hand will

be on your left hand image in the mirror.
This can become confusing for a
symmetric object such as a face because a
wart on one side of the face will look
strangely out of place in a photograph,
compared to your familiar image in a
mirror. Although the right hand becomes a
left hand, a mirror cannot perform a
rotation, so your head stays up and the feet
stay down. Curved mirrors that play
optical tricks (such as reversing the
positions of the head and feet) are more
complex mirrors that can perform
additional Space Group operations, and
group theory will be just as helpful in
analyzing images in a curved mirror.
The solution to the flat mirror image
problem appeared to be easy because we
had a mirror to help us, and we are so
familiar with mirrors. The same problem
can be restated in a different way, and it
immediately becomes much more difficult,
so that the need for group theory to help
solve problems becomes more obvious. If
you turned a right hand glove inside out,
will it stay right hand or will it become a
left hand glove? I will leave it to you to
figure that one out (hint: use a mirror).
Let's see how Beethoven used his
intuitive understanding of symmetry
transformations to compose his 5th
Symphony. That first movement is
constructed using a short fate motif
consisting of four notes. The first three are
repetitions of the same note. Since the
fourth note is different, it is called the
surprise note and Beethoven's genius was
to assign the beat to this note. This motif
can be represented by the sequence 5553,
where 3 is the surprise note and the bold
indicates the accent. This is a pitch based
space group; Beethoven used (and was
aware of) a space with at least three
dimensions: pitch, time, and volume. I will

178

consider only the pitch and time

dimensions in the following discussions.
Beethoven starts his 5th Symphony
by first introducing a member of his
group: 5553. After a momentary pause to
give us time to recognize his member, he
performs a translation operation: 4442.
Every note is translated down. The result
is another member of the same group.
After another pause so that we can
recognize his translation operator, he says,
"Isn't this interesting? Let's have fun!" and
demonstrates the potential of this operator
with a series of translations that creates
music. In order to make sure that we
understand his construct, he does not mix
other, more complicated, operators at this
time. Recall, above, that Translation is the
simplest operator.
In the ensuing series of bars, he
successively incorporates the Rotation
operator, creating 3555, and the Mirror
operator, creating 7555. Somewhere near
the middle of the 1st movement, he finally
introduces what might be interpreted as
the Unitary Member: 5555. Note that
Beethoven simply repeats these groups of
4 identical notes, which is the Unitary
Operation on a unitary member, and is
introduced last! Recall that the Unitary
transformation is the most complex.
In the final fast movements, he
returns to the same group, but uses only
the Unitary Member, and in a way that is
one level more complex. The whole motif
is repeated three times. What is curious is
that this is followed by a fourth sequence - a surprise sequence 7654, which is not a
member. Together with the thrice repeated
Unitary Member, the surprise sequence
forms a Supergroup from the original
group. He has generalized his group
concept! The supergroup now consists of
three members and a non-member of the
initial group, which satisfies the conditions

of the initial group (three repeats and a

surprise).
Thus, the beginning of Beethoven's
Fifth Symphony, when translated into
mathematical language, reads like the first
chapter of a textbook on group theory,
almost sentence for sentence!
Group theory is one of the highest
forms of mathematics. Beethoven presents
the material in the correct order as they
appear in textbooks. He even demonstrates
the generality of the concept by creating a
supergroup from the original group.
Incredible.
Beethoven was particularly fond of
this four-note theme, and used it in many
of his compositions, such as in (58)
Beethoven's Appassionata, Op. 57, First
Movement. Being the master that he is, he
carefully avoids the pitch space for the
Appassionata and uses time (tempo) space
and volume space (bars 234 to 238). This
is further support for the idea that he had
an intuitive grasp of spaces in group
theory and consciously distinguished
between these spaces. It seems to be a
mathematical impossibility that this many
agreements of his constructs with group
theory happened by accident, and is virtual
proof that he was experimenting with
these concepts. What is truly amazing is
that Beethoven figured all this out long
before mathematicians or physicists
realized their importance, before Group
Theory was born as a branch of
mathematics!
Why was this construct so useful in
this symphony? It provides a uniform
platform on which to hang his music. The
simplicity and uniformity allow the
audience to concentrate only on the music
without distraction. It also has an addictive
effect. These subliminal repetitions (the
audience is not supposed to figure out that
he used this particular device) can produce

179

a large emotional effect. It is like a

magician's trick -- it has a much larger
effect if we do not know how the magician
does it. It is one of many tricks with which
Beethoven controlled the audience without
their knowledge. Just as Beethoven had an
intuitive understanding of this group type
concept, we may all feel that some kind of
pattern exists, but are unable to figure it
out. Mozart accomplished a similar effect
using repetitions. Can you recognize the
repetitions in this 5th symphony similar to
Mozart's?
Perhaps the most important factor is
the concept of space; when you stay in one
space and conduct transformations in that
space, the brain can follow it more easily,
just as starting in one key and conducting
chord progressions along the circle of
fifths makes it easy for the brain to keep
track of tonics [(68) Theory, Solfege].
Knowledge of these group type
devices is useful for playing his music,
because it tells us exactly which tool
Beethoven is using to create his music.
Another example of this can be found in
the 3rd movement of his Waldstein
sonata, where the entire movement is
based on a 3-note motif represented by
155 (the first CGG at the beginning). This
initial theme is repeated throughout the
movement and becomes increasingly
insistent as the movement progresses. By
then, the audience is addicted to it and
does not even notice that it is dominating
the music.
Music is a form of mathematics and
the great composers explored and
exploited this relationship, as we just saw
with Beethoven. Most basic theories of
music can be expressed mathematically:
harmony is a series of ratios, and harmony
gives rise to the chromatic scale, which is
a logarithmic equation [(68) Theory,
Solfege, (76) Chromatic Scale, (77) Circle

of Fifths, Temperaments]. Most music

scales are subsets of the chromatic scale,
and chord progressions are the simplest
relationships among them. Music and
mathematics are inseparably intertwined,
especially within the human brain and its
automatic functions, and a knowledge of
these relationships can be useful, as
demonstrated by every great composer.
Math can only become more useful in
music as mathematical understanding of
music expands and as artists learn to take
advantage of it. Art is a shortcut way of
using the human brain to achieve results
not achievable in any other way. Scientific
approaches to music deal with simpler
aspects of music that can be treated
analytically and is especially useful for
eradicating incorrect concepts: science
supports art. It is wrong to say that music
is not math; art should be free to explore
anything the artist desires, and excluding
math not only handicaps the artist, but
directly contradicts the works of the
greatest artists.

(68) Theory, Solfege

Music Theory (Scoggin) today is a
set of rules that were reverse-engineered
from existing music. It is detailed and
complex, and is very useful for musicians.
It is an established field of music and is
outside the scope of this book. Here, we
address the question of why the brain
follows these musical rules, specifically
for the piano. There are studies on related
subjects; see Patel, Aniruddh D.,.
The brain automatically processes
all sensory inputs. It commits them to
memory for later use and processing, uses
them to figure out if anything dangerous or
interesting is about to happen, where
sound is coming from, etc.; innumerable
actions so automatic that, for the vast
majority of them, we are not even aware of
180

what the brain is doing. Recognition of

music is the result of such automatic brain
actions; but, what are they?
The (76) Chromatic Scale is
logarithmic("log") and the auditory
system operates on a log frequency system
so that both the cochlea, where the
frequencies are detected, and the brain,
where they are analyzed, have log
structures. Unlike the eye, where the
optical frequencies are calibrated on an
absolute scale using quantum mechanical
transitions (so that everybody sees the
same colors), the auditory frequency scale
is uncalibrated. Therefore, the only way
for the brain to process auditory
information is to calculate ratios between
frequencies. On a log scale, ratios are
easily recognized because ratios are
distances on the log scale that's the
principle behind the slide rule. (On a loglinear plot, ratios are fixed distances.) That
is why intervals are important in music
and explains why the brain likes harmony
because the brain can recognize
frequencies that are harmoniously related.
Each harmony is a fixed type of sound and
does not produce time dependent beats as
do dissonant sounds.
The fact that harmonies are
recognized by the brain indicates that the
brain works with frequency ratios. The
chromatic scale contains all the important
harmonic intervals (fifths, fourths, etc.)
and has the same log structure as the
auditory system, allowing the brain to
process music written using it; thus the
chromatic scale is a functional replica of
the cochlea. The piano is a replica of the
cochlea which is copied into the brain and
enables the brain to compute ratios of
frequencies using logarithms as is done
with slide rules. The piano is just a slide
rule that enables the brain to compute
ratios of frequencies that harmonize! If the

slide rule were enlarged to the size of a

piano keyboard, the markings on the slide
rule: 2, 4, 8, 16, etc., would line up
perfectly with C1, C2, C3, etc., on the
keyboard.
The infinite number of notes of the
chromatic scale is particularly simple
because any note in that infinity can be
reached by using only the twelve notes of
the octave. Thus it is the simple and
tractable nature of processing music in
the brain that distinguishes music
written in the chromatic scale from
other sources of sound. By using a
logarithmic scale and a system of
recognizable harmonies, we have reduced
an intractable set of the infinity of pitches
into an easily tractable twelve notes of the
octave! However, it produces only a subset
of music because music can be produced
by banging a stick on a hollow log,
without invoking the chromatic scale.
Harmonic music is a product of the
attempt by the brain to keep track of
frequencies by computing ratios of
frequencies in logarithmic space. If the
brain can not keep track of frequencies, it
has no way of processing frequency
information except by memorizing huge
amounts of auditory inputs. We now have
an explanation of why harmonic music is
so special to the brain it can memorize
and process frequencies in music with a
minimum of effort by using log
computations.
Thus our ability to enjoy music is
partly inborn. The chromatic scale,
although a purely human invention, turns
out to be a functional replica of the log
nature of the auditory system. This gives
rise to the theory that the brain prefers the
simplest inputs that it can handle, which
can explain many properties of music that
previously had no clear explanations and
provides new insights into what music is:

181

(1) harmonies are ratios of

frequencies that are easily recognized and
computed in log space; scales are special
because they contain all the major
harmonies,
(2) repetitions of motifs are special,
because of their simplicity,
(3) the most popular melodies are
also the simplest,
(4) repetitive rhythms simplify the
memory process,
(5) music using the chromatic scale
is an acquired taste, but is readily acquired
because both the chromatic scale and the
auditory system are logarithmic,
(6) chord progressions are the
simplest relationships between scales in
log space; the progression creates tension
because, with each progression, the brain
must keep track of an additional tonic,
(7) returning to the starting tonic is
satisfying because it frees the brain from
having to remember the tonic changes,
(8) dissonances are unpleasant
because the brain has no way of
processing them,
(9) music appreciation is partly
inborn because it is part of the automatic
brain processing of audio inputs,
etc.
This theory does not explain why we
enjoy music. A possible explanation is that
any auditory input is automatically
processed by the brain as pleasant or
unpleasant. Suppose that 90% is
interpreted as unpleasant and 10% as
pleasant; the composer simply chooses the
pleasant 10% to compose his music. Once
the pleasant ones are identified, it should
be possible to find out why they are
pleasant. Of course there is nothing
stopping composers from using the
unpleasant sound combinations and still
write music, just as hot peppers and bitter
melons are relished by humans.

Everybody agrees that music is a

language. The alphabet of musical
language contains such components as the
chromatic scale, loud, soft, fast, slow,
legato, staccato, etc.. But these are not
single letters as in the language alphabet,
but are entire spaces of their own. Every
space has its own set of symmetries, and
that
explains
why
symmetry
transformations are important in music,
and why Beethoven used group theory and
its symmetry transformations, to compose
[(67) Mozart's Formula, Beethoven and
Group Theory]. Because the piano can
reach the largest volume of this language
space, it is the most dominating instrument
in the musical universe.
A chord is a group of intervals with
the same tonic; this makes the tonic a
special frequency and explains why music
follows chord progressions:
chord
progressions are the simplest ways with
which the brain can keep track of
frequencies, by remembering the tonics.
When plotted on log-linear plots, the
chromatic scale forms a straight line, and
all harmonizing intervals appear at fixed
distances from the tonic, making it easy
for the brain to recognize intervals
(harmonies) no matter where they appear
on this straight line (relative pitch). This
explains why anyone who appreciates
music can easily learn relative pitch.
Because the brain is keeping track of
frequencies during chord progressions, the
progression must return to the originating
chord for the music to end; otherwise, the
brain feels that something is incomplete: it
has to remember both the starting and
ending tonics, whereas if the music returns
to the original chord, it has to remember
only one tonic, or even none at all,
depending on how it is keeping track of
tonics.

182

Conclusion: a theory based on the

logarithmic structure of the cochlea and
brain, and automatic brain computations in
log space using ratios, can explain many
major characteristics of music, such as
why harmonies are pleasant and why
dissonances are not, and the chord
progression rules.
As with learning to read, it is a good
idea to learn as much theory (Scoggin,
Nancy,,) as possible with each piece of
music you learn. Teachers must pay
special attention to theory lessons
contained in every lesson piece because
this is the best way to teach theory so that
the lessons will be retained for life -students are automatically reminded of the
theory every time they play the piece.
Serious piano students must take solfege:
Solfege is lessons are necessary for
singers and composers. It consists of
increasingly complex series of exercises
involving different scales, intervals,
chords, time & key signatures, rhythms,
accidentals, dictation, etc, for voice/music
training. It teaches universal music
lessons, that are indispensable for
advanced pianists, such as scale structures,
circle of fifths, chord progressions,
learning relative & absolute pitch
[Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch], genres of
music, sight reading, fake books, etc.
Without solfege, budding pianists who feel
the urge to compose will be handicapped,
unable to figure out where to start, how to
write it all down. There is no shortage of
books and internet sites that can get you
started,
such
as:
http://www.vocalist.org.uk/books_for_sing
ers.html.
In solfege classes, the doremifasolasi
system is used (use si [easier to sing], not
ti which was introduced later so that no
two key names start with the same letter).

The doremi nomenclature derived from an

old hymn and "solfege" derived from so(l)
and fa (fifth and fourth), so that
traditionally, solfege has been sung in
doremi. Solfege books are available in
stores or over the internet and is best
started in a group class environment.

(69) Disadvantages of Learning

Piano
Are there disadvantages to learning
piano? The biggest disadvantage is lack of
education. A youngster learning piano
seriously must make the decision between
education in language, economy, science,
mathematics, information technology,
engineering, etc., etc., and his love of
music. It is no surprise that many rational,
intelligent youngsters opt out of music.
Every parent and potential musician must
address this issue because the decision can
lead to a life of unnecessary hardships
even if the music part is reasonably
successful, versus a successful life in other
fields.
Today, an accomplished pianist is
frequently in an untenable situation in
which he is viewed as "talented" or even
"genius", yet is under-educated. Thus
interviews and books by accomplished
musicians often become self-serving
vehicles ("talented musician") with no
meaningful content (under-educated),
because a rounded education is needed for
meaningful discussions on today's topics
of interest. How did this happen? Because
the inefficient teaching methods do not
leave enough time for aspiring pianists to
learn anything else but piano. Most
conservatories specialize only in music
and have negligibly small departments
providing non-music education.
The answer to this disadvantage lies
in improved teaching methods that free
sufficient time for pianists to study other
183

fields. IQ and education are inseparable.

World IQ in developed nations is rising
about 1 point per decade because of
advancing education, whereas piano
pedagogy has been stagnant for 200 years.
In short, good practice methods can
eliminate this problem.
It is no surprise that learning piano
can raise the IQ if done properly, but can
lower the IQ and prevent the students from
getting their much needed education, if
done improperly. Education in other fields
is necessary for learning piano skills. This
means standardized textbooks and
teaching methods, and application of
scientific methods of pedagogy, something
which has been recognized since the
beginning of piano teaching, but has not
been
successfully
executed
(e.g.,
Whiteside - P. 249, Prokop - P. 246, etc.).
We must transition from emphasis on
talent to emphasis on education which
works because it is the most honest
approach to learning piano. Emphasis on
inborn talent is not honesty because
"talent" (IQ) is not totally inborn it
depends most strongly on education, and
robs the student of the opportunity to
learn.
A related disadvantage is economic.
It is generally recognized that a music
career does not pay as well as other
careers. This is even more reason why
musicians must make every effort to
receive education in other fields. There are
a few musicians whose earnings are
astronomical but, for the majority, their
best option is a multi-expertise career, not
solely music. Thus a more technically
oriented, multi-disciplinary approach to
music
education
directed
towards
increasing the efficiency and costeffectiveness of music pedagogy is the
best approach instead of sweeping
everything under the "talent" rug, which

has gotten most musicians nowhere for

hundreds of years. Once the talent rug is
removed, piano teachers will be
accountable for their students' progress
and will need to learn more effective
teaching methods. There is the hope that,
with enough good teachers, interest in
piano might increase sufficiently to
improve the economics. Good practice
methods can also solve this problem
because they can increase the popularity of
piano and increase the demand for music
education.
Another disadvantage is the lack of
good teachers and good piano instruction
books. This book, some other recent
publications, and material on the internet,
are starting to correct this problem. As a
result, the quality of piano teachers is also
improving.
Even the efficient practice methods
of this book come with some
disadvantages. These methods make things
too easy; thus students who grew up with
these methods do not have the
experience of struggling with difficult
material. But when they get to
conservatories, they suddenly face difficult
problems with which they must struggle
and don't know how to handle them. The
efficient methods are based on simplifying
everything into easy bits and learning
them quickly. At advanced levels, you
may need to learn the bigger units quickly:
the ability to cope with difficult problems
that take more effort to solve must be
practiced. This book gives you a great
head-start but it is only a beginning.

(70) Grand, Electronic, Upright

Pianos
Grand, Upright, or Electronic?
Grands become necessary at advanced
levels (four to six years of lessons).
Because advanced material cannot be
184

played on lower quality pianos, the

students can't even practice them. There
are great pianists who became technically
advanced practicing mostly on uprights, so
it is possible, but difficult. There is no
evidence that you need a grand for initial
technical development, although a few
piano teachers will insist that any serious
student must practice on a grand. An
argument can be made in favor of
uprights, at least for beginners, because
they are more difficult to play and may be
better for early finger development. They
may be superior even for intermediate
students because uprights are less
forgiving and require greater technical
skill to play. For students up to
intermediate level, any differences among
uprights and grands are inconsequential
compared to other factors such as student
motivation, quality of teachers, practice
methods, and proper piano maintenance.
The most important factor for
acoustics (grands and uprights, as
distinguished from electronic [digital]
pianos) is maintenance. Acoustics require
maintenance at least once a year. Too
many acoustics are under-maintained
because their owners do not know what
maintenance is needed, which makes it too
difficult to practice pianissimo and
musicality, acquire technique, or learn
absolute pitch. Digitals do not require
maintenance.
Electronic Pianos: Today's (2015)
best electronic pianos are still inferior to
good grands for sound and tone control,
but are improving rapidly. The best
electronics are now competitive with
grands for technical development. Most
inexpensive speakers can not compete
with the soundboard of a grand and future
electronics will surely come with better
speaker systems. Uprights do not provide

sufficient advantages for technical

development to warrant their use over
quality electronics that are readily
available, comparatively inexpensive, and
require
no
maintenance.
Today's
electronics will last about ten years under
constant, daily use, at which point the
actions tend to become sticky and noisy.
Another reason for upgrading to a new
electronic every five to seven years is that
the newer models are cheaper and better.
Because the quality of the action is the
main problem with electronics, the best
way to test one is by playing fast trills.
Because electronic pianos have some
unique advantages, most serious pianists
now own both an acoustic and an
electronic. Here are some reasons:
(i) For less than the price of an
average new upright, you can buy a new
electronic piano with all the features you
need: weighted 88 keys, 128 polyphony,
headphone, volume control, touch control,
organ,
string,
voice,
harpsichord,
metronome, recording and midi/analog
out, transposition, different tunings
(temperaments),
and
canned
accompaniments.
Many
electronics
provide even more, but these are common
features you can expect. The argument that
a acoustic piano is a better investment than
an electronic is false because, except for
collectors' items, no acoustic is a good
investment, especially when the initial cost
and depreciation are so high for new
instruments. The maintenance costs of
acoustics are substantial, since they
require tuning, voicing, and regulation at
least once a year, plus periodic repairs.
(ii) The electronics are always in
tune. Very young children exposed
sufficiently to perfectly tuned pianos
acquire absolute pitch automatically,
although most parents never discover this
because the children are never tested and,

185

if it is not discovered and maintained, it is

lost during the teen years. The acoustic
piano begins to go out of tune the minute
the tuner leaves your house, and some
notes will be out of tune most of the time.
Because too many acoustic pianos are
inadequately maintained, the fact that the
electronics are always in tune is a big
advantage.
(iii) You can use headphones or
adjust the volume so that you can practice
without disturbing others. The ability to
turn down the volume is also useful for
reducing ear damage when practicing loud
passages: an important factor for anyone at
any age. Although younger pianists can
tolerate loud sounds, by the time they start
hearing tinnitus and losing their hearing at
age 50, it is too late hearing loss will
quickly accelerate thereafter with age.
Protecting the ears starting as early as age
20 is the best way to avoid such a fate.
If you are an advanced player, even
an electronic will create considerable
"playing noise" (with the volume turned
off) that can be quite loud to anyone
nearby and these vibrations can transmit
through the floor to rooms under the
piano. Therefore it is a mistake to think
that the sound from an electronic (or an
acoustic with "silent" feature) can be
completely turned off.
(iv) Electronics are more portable
than acoustics. Although there are light
keyboards with similar features, it is best
for piano practice to use the heavier
electronics so that they do not shift while
playing loud, fast music. Even these
heavier electronics can be easily carried by
two persons, and will fit in many cars.
(v) Variable touch weight is more
important than many people realize.
However, you have to know what "touch
weight" means before you can use it to
advantage. In general, the touch weight of

electronics is a little lighter than that of

acoustics. This lighter weight was chosen
for two reasons: to make it easier for
keyboard players to play these electronics
(keyboards are even lighter), and to make
them easier to play compared to the
acoustics. The disadvantage of the lighter
weight is that you may find it more
difficult to play a acoustic after learning
on an electronic. The touch weight of
acoustics is heavier because it is expensive
to make acoustics lighter. One advantage
of heavier weight is that you can feel the
keys of a acoustic while playing, without
inadvertently depressing some wrong
notes. However, this can also lead to
careless playing with some inadvertent
finger motions because you can
accidentally hit a key of a acoustic without
making any sound. You can practice
getting rid of these uncontrolled motions
by practicing on an electronic and
choosing a light touch weight so that any
inadvertent strike will produce a sound.
Many who practice only on acoustics don't
even know that they have such
uncontrolled motions until they try to play
on an electronic, and find out that they are
hitting a lot of extra keys (and buttons!).
The light touch is also useful for acquiring
difficult technique quickly. Then, if you
need to play on a acoustic later on, you
can practice with increased weight on the
electronic after you acquire the technique.
This two-step process is usually faster than
trying to acquire technique at a heavy key
setting.
(vi) Recording piano music is one of
the most difficult things to do using
conventional recording equipment. With
an electronic piano, you can do it with the
push of a button. You can easily build up
an album of all the pieces you learned.
Everyone should cultivate a habit of
recording every finished piece from the

186

very beginning of lessons. Too many

students never record their performances,
which is the main reason for excessive
nervousness and difficulties during
performances.
(vii) Most pianists who follow good
practice methods and become proficient
when young will end up composing their
own music. Electronic pianos are helpful
for recording your compositions so that
you don't need to write them down, and
for playing them in different instruments,
as appropriate for each composition. With
some additional software or hardware, you
can even compose entire symphonies and
play every instrument yourself. There is
even software that will transcribe (though
imperfectly) your music onto sheet music.
On the other hand, there is nothing like a
quality grand to help you compose the
sound from a great piano somehow
inspires the composing process. Therefore,
if you are a professional composer, most
electronics will be inadequate for
inspiration although they will suffice for
mundane composition chores.
(viii) If you can acquire technique
rapidly, there is nothing stopping you from
broadening your horizon beyond classical
music and playing popular music, jazz,
blues, etc. You will appeal to a wider
audience if you can mix music genres and
will have more fun. The electronic piano
can
help
by
providing
the
accompaniments, drums, etc., for those
types of music. Electronics are more easily
transportable for gigs that can become a
significant activity depending on the
genre.
(ix) The above is only the beginning;
electronics will improve in leaps and
bounds every year. One interesting
development is piano modeling (Pianoteq),
instead of the sampling used by most
manufacturers. Good sampling requires

tremendous amounts of memory and

processing power, which can slow down
the piano response. It is also limited by the
original piano used for the sampling.
Modeling is more versatile, requires much
less memory and software, and enables
features such as partial soft pedal,
controlling the hammer shank flex or
letting you play Chopin's Pleyel.
(x) We should all move towards WT
(Well Temperaments) and away from ET
[Equal Temperament that is universally
accepted today, see (77) Circle of Fifths,
Temperaments]. Once you decide to use
WT, you will need several of them.
Learning to discern and bring out key
color is a most valuable skill as an
advanced musician. ET is the worst tuning
for this because key color absolutely
disappears. With electronic pianos, you
can get most of the useful temperaments
by flicking a switch.
The touch weight of a piano is not a
simple matter of adding or subtracting lead
weights to the keys to change the force
required to depress them. The touch
weight is a combination of the down
weight, the inertia of the keys and
hammers, and the force required to
produce a certain volume of sound. The
down weight is the maximum weight that
the key will support before it will start to
move down. This is the weight that is
adjusted using lead weights, etc. The down
weight of all pianos, including the
"weighted key" electronics, is standardized
at about 50 grams and varies little from
piano to piano regardless of touch weight,
although it is slightly lighter (10-20%) in
weighted key electronics than most
acoustics. The non-weighted keyboards
are much lighter.
When playing a piano, this 50 gram
weight is a small fraction of the force
required to play -- most of the force is

187

used to produce the sound. In acoustic

pianos, this is the force needed to impart
velocity to the hammer. In electronics, it is
the electronic reaction to the key motion
and a fixed mechanical resistance. In both
cases, you also have to overcome the
inertia of the mechanism in addition to
supplying the force for producing the
sound. Electronics have a smaller inertial
component because they have only the
inertia of the keys whereas the acoustics
have the additional inertia of the hammer
mechanism; this makes the acoustics less
sensitive to inadvertent hitting of the keys.
Therefore, you will feel the most
difference
between
acoustics
and
electronics when playing fast or staccato
and little difference when playing slow
legato.
The touch weight is the effort
required to produce a certain volume of
sound and has little to do with down
weight. For acoustics, touch weight is
determined mostly by hammer mass and
voicing (hardness of the hammer). There is
only a narrow range of hammer masses
that is ideal because you want heavier
hammers for larger sound but lighter ones
for faster action. The touch weight can be
adjusted by the piano technician by
hammer voicing, rather than by changing
the down weight. For electronic pianos,
touch weight is controlled in the software
by switching to the sound of a softer
hammer for heavier touch weight and vice
versa, which simulates a acoustic grand;
there is no mechanical change to the down
weight of the keys or other inertial
components. Thus if you switch to the
heaviest key weight, you might feel that
the sound is somewhat muffled and if you
switch to the lightest weight, the sound
might be more brilliant. In electronic
pianos, it is easier to change the touch
weight without adversely affecting the

sound because there is no hammer to

adjust. The maximum dynamic range of
most electronic pianos is limited by the
speakers, so that the dynamic range of
acoustic grands is larger.
You can demonstrate this subjective
judgment of key weight by turning the
volume down using the electronic piano
and trying to achieve the same loudness.
We conclude that there are small
differences in the touch weight between
grands and electronics, with the grands
tending to be heavier, but those differences
are not sufficient to cause major problems
when switching from one to the other. The
fear that practicing on an electronic will
make it difficult to play on a grand is
unfounded; in fact, it is more likely to be
easier, although it may take a few minutes
of playing on the grand to get used to it.
One exception is acoustics that are out of
regulation, such as compacted hammers
they are much harder to play than
electronics. Unfortunately, too many
acoustics are under-maintained, making
them difficult to play. Many teachers think
that practicing on digitals doesn't work
because the students can't play the same
pieces on acoustics, but the fault lies in the
acoustics, not the digitals, because those
acoustics were not properly maintained.
Therefore, students who learn on digitals
should practice on acoustics as often as
possible, because there are differences,
and it takes some time to learn how to play
the acoustics.
Electronics provide the sound via
software so that reproducing the touch
weight of grands exactly is difficult.
Yamaha "solved" this problem by
inserting an actual grand mechanism into
their electronic (AvantGrand model),
which more than doubles the cost of the
electronic, but retains all the advantages of
the electronic. Because the hammers do

188

not produce the sound by hitting strings,

the feel is not exactly the same. But the
eventual question we should consider is
"Should an electronic emulate an acoustic
exactly, or should the electronic eventually
have its own properties that can be
superior to the best acoustics?" Right now,
the exact emulation is important because
concert pianists must still perform on
acoustics and nobody can predict if
electronics will ever replace good
acoustics. That time may eventually come
because (1) the electronics are improving
so rapidly, (2) a vast majority of pianists
will start learning on electronics, and (3)
with better speakers, etc., there will soon
come a time when a pianist can overpower
any orchestra when playing a concerto,
whereas today, even the best acoustic in
the world cannot overpower a large
orchestra. For some "pop" concerts,
digitals are already replacing acoustics.
Half size and three-quarter size
electronic pianos should be cost effective
to produce. They can be sold or rented to
piano teachers and schools that rent them
to the youngest students for extra income,
given financial terms that guarantees
positive cash flow for everybody. Today,
the availability of pianos for small, young,
fingers is a major limiting factor. Small
pianos will benefit instrument makers
financially because they will increase the
number of good pianists that will need full
sized pianos.
Some pianists have asked their
tuners to increase the down weight (with
the hope of increasing finger strength), but
this throws the piano out of regulation and
is bad for technical development (velocity,
musicality).
If you are a beginner purchasing
your first piano, an electronic is the
obvious choice, unless you can afford a
quality grand and have space for it. Even

in that case, you will probably want an

electronic piano also because the cost of
the electronic will be negligible compared
to the grand, and it gives you so many
features that the grand does not have.
Uprights: Acoustic uprights are less
expensive than grands, they take up less
space, and for small rooms, large grands
may produce too much sound so that they
cannot be played full blast with the lid
open without hurting or even damaging
the ears, not only of the pianist, but also
everyone in the house. The electronics
have these same advantages plus many
more. Owners of uprights too often neglect
hammer voicing entirely because this
neglect results in more sound. Since
uprights are essentially closed instruments,
the neglect of voicing is less noticeable.
Uprights also tend to be less expensive to
maintain, because expensive repairs are
not worthwhile and are not performed. Of
course, there are quality uprights that are
competitive with grands in feel and sound
quality, but they cost as much as grands.
Among uprights, spinets are the
smallest and generally the least expensive
pianos; most do not produce satisfactory
sound, even for students. The small height
of spinets limits the string length, which is
the main limitation on sound output. In
theory, the treble should produce
satisfactory sound (there is no limitation
on string length even for spinets), but most
spinets are weak in the treble because of
poor quality of construction; therefore, be
sure to test the highest and lowest notes if
you are evaluating a spinet simply
compare it with a larger piano. Console or
larger uprights can be good student pianos.
Old uprights with poor sound are generally
not salvageable, no matter what their size.
Do not place an upright too close to a wall;
this will deaden the sound. To position the

189

piano, place it very close to the wall; then

play middle C while pulling the piano
away from the wall, until you get
maximum sound.
Uprights have been "obsoleted" by
the electronics and there is no reason to
buy a new upright, although some piano
teachers and most piano stores might
suggest otherwise. Many piano teachers
have not had enough experience with
electronics and are more accustomed to
the feel and sound of the uprights and tend
to recommend acoustics as "real pianos",
which is a mistake. The difficulty of
purchasing a quality upright, the problems
encountered with having it properly
"prepped" before and after delivery (see
following section), and the need to keep it
regulated and in tune, are not worth the
slight difference in touch or tone, if any.
The rule concerning uprights is
simple: if you already have one that is
playable, there is no reason to get rid of it
until you buy an electronic or a grand; if
you don't have a piano, there is no
compelling reason to buy an upright.
Students above intermediate level will
want a grand piano because the most
technically difficult music is harder to play
on most uprights and inexpensive
electronic
keyboards.
Because
of
decreasing
demand
and
profits,
manufacture of uprights may cease in the
near future.
Grands: The advantages of most
grands are: greater dynamic range
(loud/soft), open structure allowing the
sound to escape freely (which provides
more control and expression), richer
sound, faster repetition, smoother action
(use of gravity instead of springs), a "true"
soft pedal [(40) Soft Pedal: Hammer
Voicing], better sound (easier to tune
accurately)
and
more
impressive

appearance. An exception is the class of

"baby" grands (less than about 5'-2")
whose
sound
output
is
usually
unsatisfactory and are not true grands. A
few companies are beginning to produce
baby grands with acceptable sound, so for
these very new pianos, don't write them
off without testing them. Larger grands
can be classified into two main classes, the
"student grands" (those below about 6 to 7
ft), and the concert grands. The concert
grands provide more dynamic range, better
sound quality, superior action, and more
tonal control.
As an example of this "quality versus
size" issue, consider the Steinway pianos.
The baby model, model S (5'-2"), is
essentially a decorative furniture and very
few produce sufficient quality sound to be
considered playable and are inferior to
many uprights. The next larger size group
consists of models M, O, and L (5'-7" to
5'-11"). These models are similar and are
excellent student pianos. However,
advanced pianists would not consider them
to be true grands because of poorer
sustain, too much percussive sound, and
notes with too much harmonic content.
The next model, A (6'-2"), is borderline,
and B(6'-10"), C(7'-5"), and D(9') are true
grands. One problem with evaluating
Steinways is that the quality within each
model is variable. On average, there is a
significant improvement in sound quality
and output with each increase in size.
Grands require hammer voicing
more frequently than uprights; otherwise,
they become too "brilliant" or "harsh", at
which point most owners will end up
playing the grand with the lid closed. With
compacted hammers, it is impossible to
play, and therefore practice, PP. Many
homeowners ignore voicing entirely
because they know nothing about it. The
result is that such grands produce too

190

much and too harsh sound, and are

therefore played with the lid down. There
is nothing technically wrong with playing
a grand with the lid closed; however, some
purists will express dismay at such
practice, and you are certainly throwing
away something wonderful for which you
made
a
significant
investment.
Performances at recitals almost always
require the lid to be open, resulting in a
more sensitive piano. Therefore you
should always practice with the lid open
before a performance even if you normally
practice with it closed. In a large room, or
in a recital hall, there is much less multiple
reflection of the sound so that you do not
hear the deafening roar that can result in a
small room.
A concert hall will absorb the sound
from the piano so that, if you are
accustomed to practicing in a small room,
you will have difficulty hearing your own
playing. If the music stand is raised, it will
intercept the sound and you may not be
able to hear your own playing at all!
One of the biggest advantages of
grand pianos is the use of gravity as the
return force of the hammer. In uprights the
restoring force for the hammer is supplied
by springs. Gravity is always constant and
uniform across the entire keyboard
whereas non-uniformities in the springs
and friction can create non-uniformities in
the feel of the keys of an upright.
Uniformity of feel is one of the most
important properties of well-regulated,
quality pianos, because it is impossible to
play PP if the feel is not uniform.
Many students who practice on
uprights or digitals are intimidated by the
appearance of huge grands at recitals and
competitions, but these grands are easier to
play than uprights. One fear that these
students have concerning these grands is
that their actions may be heavier.

However, touch weight is something that

is adjusted by the technician regulating the
piano and can be adjusted to any number
regardless of whether the piano is an
upright or a grand.
Advanced students will of course
find it easier to play demanding pieces on
grands than uprights, mainly because of
the faster action and uniformity. Good
grands can save you a lot of time when
acquiring advanced skills. The main
reason for this is that it is easy to develop
bad habits when struggling with difficult
material on uprights. Challenging material
can be more difficult on electronic pianos
(and impossible on models without proper
touch weight) because they are less
forgiving of minor unintended motions of
the fingers. Some advanced pianists
purposely practice on electronics for this
reason, because you need better technique
to play on less forgiving pianos.
Some people with small rooms
agonize over whether a large grand would
be too loud in such a space. Loudness is
usually not the most important issue, and
you always have the option of closing the
lid to different degrees. The maximum
loudness of the medium and large grands
is not that different, and you can play
softer with the larger grands. It is the
multiple sound reflections that are most
bothersome. Multiple reflections can be
easily eliminated by a carpet on the floor
and sound insulation on one or two walls.
There is no need to insulate all walls
because you just need to prevent multiple
reflections so that even just one wall can
make a big difference. If the piano fits into
a room, then it is usually acceptable from
the sound point of view.

(71) Purchasing & Piano Care

Buying digital pianos is simple,
whereas buying acoustics can be a
191

nightmare. For digitals, all you need to

know is your price range, the desired
features, and perhaps the manufacturer.
Useful internet reviews are available for
comparison. You don't need a piano
technician to evaluate the piano. All
established manufacturers, such as
Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Technic, Kawai,
Kurzweil, and Casio produce digitals of
uniformly good quality. The quality is so
consistent that you can buy them online
and assemble them yourself. The main
disadvantage of digitals at this writing is
that they are not equipped with sufficiently
good audio systems, but this can be
remedied by also buying a good audio
system because its price has become
affordable.
Purchasing a acoustic piano:
Buying a acoustic piano can be a trying
experience
whether
you
are
knowledgeable about pianos or not, and
whether buying new or used. Many piano
stores will rent the piano with an
agreement to apply the rental to the
purchase price if it is eventually
purchased. In that case, make sure that to
negotiate for the best purchase price
before discussing the rental. After
agreeing to a rental, there will be little
negotiating power on price. At most
dealers, it is difficult to test the piano by
playing it because it is too expensive to
keep every model properly tuned and
regulated all the time. Thus buying a
acoustic piano is a hit-or-miss proposition
and a stressful and time-consuming
experience. For mass produced pianos
such as Yamaha or Kawai, the quality of
their new pianos is more uniform because
most of the "prep" is done at the factory.
The sound quality of the more expensive
"hand made" pianos can vary considerably
so that buying these pianos is more
difficult.

"Hand made" does not mean good. It

has come to mean "more expensive" and
they have a wider distribution of quality:
good ones are very good, and bad ones are
terrible. Thus the prices of the few good
ones are bid up excessively, which tends
to raise the prices of even the bad ones
because many customers do not know how
to test a piano and just pay by brand name.
This has started a death spiral of ever
fewer good acoustics at ever increasing
prices on the one hand, and a healthy
competition among rapidly improving
digitals at decreasing prices. So few
acoustics are sold now that the number of
piano technicians keeps decreasing,
making the acoustics less affordable,
resulting in fewer sales. Already, uprights
are starting to go extinct. The numbers of
piano restorers and tuners have been
decreasing at alarming rates for decades.
Because the average age of the remaining
workers is increasing, this trend is
expected to continue. The most telling sign
of this death spiral is the difficulty of
finding exact prices of any new quality
acoustic, whereas the prices of the digitals
are openly advertised everywhere. A few
digital manufacturers, such as Yamaha,
have kept their prices higher by using
exclusive distributors, but this practice
will not be sustainable. The list prices of
the acoustics are artificially jacked up and
the true sale price is always bargained
down, which adds to the difficulty of
buying one.
Good used acoustic pianos are
difficult to find in piano stores or even at
piano restorers because playable pianos
sell first and most dealers are left with
inventories of inferior ones. Obviously, the
best acoustics are to be found among the
private sales and where the prices are
lower. The uninitiated will need to hire a
piano tuner/technician to evaluate the used

192

pianos in private sales, especially because

you will need a tuner even after the
purchase; however, this can get expensive
if the locations are far away or if you need
to test many pianos. The best place to find
bargains is the classified section of
newspapers at large metropolitan areas.
Most such advertisements are placed on
Friday, Saturday, and especially on
Sunday. You will also need a lot of
patience because good private sales are not
always there when you need them.
However, the wait can be worthwhile
because the same piano will cost half as
much (or less) at a private sale compared
to the store or restorer. Their costs are high
because of the high cost of selling each
piano and the small number of sales. There
is a steady demand for good, reasonably
priced pianos. This means that it is not
easy to find bargains at widely accessible
sites, such as the internet piano markets,
because good pianos sell quickly.
Conversely, such sites are excellent places
to sell, especially if you have a good
piano.
The price of pianos can be roughly
classified according to whether they are
worth rebuilding. Those worth rebuilding
cost at least twice as much when new.
Practically all uprights and all mass
produced grands (Yamaha, Kawai, etc),
are not rebuilt because it is impossible: the
rebuilding trade and necessary parts are
non-existent. However, their qualities are
very consistent so that you don't have to
worry about getting a lemon. Pianos worth
rebuilding are Steinway, Bsendorfer,
Bechstein, Mason and Hamlin, Knabe, and
a few others.
Only a few name brand pianos "hold
their value" when kept for many years.
The rest quickly lose their value so that
trying to sell them years after purchase
(new) is not worthwhile. "Hold value"

means that their resale value will keep up

with inflation; it does not mean that you
can sell them for a profit. Thus if you
bought a piano for $1,000 and sold it 30
years later for $10,000, you have made no
profit if inflation is 10X during those 30
years. In addition, you will incur the cost
of tuning and maintenance of $2000 to
$6000 for this example. It is cheaper to
buy a brand new 7 ft Yamaha grand every
30-40 years than to buy a new Steinway M
and completely restore it every 30-40
years; therefore, the choice of which piano
to buy does not depend on economics but
on what type of piano you want.
For more details on how to buy a
piano, consult Fine's book (Fine, Larry,).
Even with the most famous brands, a
newly purchased piano will immediately
lose 20% to 30% of its purchase price
upon delivery, and will in general
depreciate to half of the price of an
equivalent new piano in about 5 years. As
a rough "rule of thumb" a used piano will
cost about half the price of the new one of
the same model in a piano store and about
1/3 at a private sale.
The main problems with buying new
acoustic pianos are the proper prep work
before delivery and follow-up tunings after
delivery. Too often, they are delivered
without adequate prep work under the
excuse that it can be done after delivery.
But work after delivery is expensive, so
stores minimize them, even if the new
owner is knowledgeable and demands that
the work be done. A buyer who knows
little about pianos can end up with a piano
in unsatisfactory condition. You can't
always blame the stores because most of
them operate on very thin margins. Even
for buying new pianos, it is a good idea to
enlist the help of a piano tuner whom you
will need anyway after the purchase. The

193

electronic pianos do not have any of these

problems.
Steinways are most respected
because well made units are very good.
Unfortunately, their quality varies widely
because they are hand made and picking
out a good one is a difficult task. Although
you may hear tales of concert pianists
testing many units before picking one for
it's terrific sound, the process is actually
one of picking one with the lowest number
of undesirable properties. And the final
quality of sound is highly dependent on
how the technician adjusted the sound,
something about which most concert
pianists know very little.
Piano Care: All new acoustic pianos
need at least a year of special care and
tuning after purchase, in order for the
strings to stop stretching and the action
and hammers to equilibrate to the
conditions in the house. Most piano
dealers will try to minimize the cost of
servicing the new pianos as explained
above. In this regard, among the less
expensive models, Yamaha, Kawai,
Petroff, and a few others may be easier to
buy because most of the prep work is
completed at the factory. A new piano will
need about 4 tunings the first year in order
to stabilize the stretching of the strings.
All pianos require maintenance in
addition to regular tuning. In general, the
better the quality of the piano, the easier it
is to notice the deterioration caused by
normal wear and tear, and therefore the
more maintenance it should receive. That
is, more expensive pianos are more
expensive
to
maintain.
Typical
maintenance chores are: leveling the keys,
reducing friction (such as polishing the
capstans), eliminating extraneous sounds,
re-shaping the hammers and voicing them
(needling), checking the innumerable
bushings, adjusting the jack, back-check

and let-off, etc.; they are all lumped into

the term "regulation".
Voicing the hammer is probably the
most neglected maintenance procedure.
Worn, hard, hammers can cause string
breakage, loss of musical control, and
difficulty in playing softly. It also ruins the
tonal quality of the piano, making it harsh
and unpleasant. Many tuners do not have
sufficient training at voicing; in that case
you may have to look for a voicing
specialist, such as piano restorers. If the
action is sufficiently worn, it may need a
general regulation job, which means
restoring all parts of the action to their
original specifications; it can be cost
effective to simply install a new action.
If the bass wire-wound strings are
rusted in old pianos, this can deaden those
notes. Replacing these strings is
worthwhile if those notes are weak and
have no sustain. The upper, non-wound
strings generally do not need replacing
even if they appear rusted. However, for
extremely old pianos, all the strings can be
so stretched out that they have lost all
elasticity. Such strings are prone to
breakage and cannot vibrate properly,
produce a tinny sound, and should be
replaced.
Acoustic pianos need to be tuned at
least once a year and preferably twice,
during the fall and spring, when the
temperature and humidity are midway
between their yearly extremes. Many
advanced pianists have them tuned more
frequently. In addition to the obvious
advantages of being able to create better
music and to sharpen your musicality,
there are many compelling reasons for
keeping the piano tuned. One of the most
important is that it can affect your
technical development. Compared to an
out-of-tune piano, a well-tuned piano
practically plays itself -- you will find it

194

surprisingly easier to play. Thus a well

maintained
piano
can
accelerate
technical/musical development. An out-oftune piano can lead to flubs and memory
problems. Many important aspects of
expression such as color can be brought
out only on well-tuned pianos. Since we
must always pay attention to practicing
musically, it does not make sense to
practice on a piano that cannot produce
music. This is one of the reasons why I
prefer Well Temperaments (with their
crystal clear harmonies) to the Equal
Temperament, in which only the octaves
are clear. Higher quality pianos have a
distinct edge because they not only hold
the tuning better, but can also be tuned
more accurately. Lower quality pianos
often have extraneous beats and sounds
that make accurate tuning impossible.
Pianists who always practice on a
piano in tune will have a difficult time
playing on one that is out of tune. The
music doesn't come out, they make
unexpected mistakes, and have memory
blackouts. This holds true even if they
know nothing about tuning and can't even
tell if a particular note is out of tune. For
pianists unfamiliar with tuning, the best
way to test the tuning is to play a piece of
music. Good tuning is like magic to any
pianist. By playing a piece of music, most
pianists can readily hear the difference
between a poor tuning and an excellent
one, even if they cannot tell the difference
by playing single notes or intervals.
Therefore,
along
with
technical
development, every pianist must learn the
benefits of good tuning. It may be a good
idea to play an out-of-tune piano once in a
while in order to know what to expect in
case you are asked to perform on one with
questionable tuning.

(72) Using the Subconscious Brain

We are only beginning to study the

many sub-brains we have and the different
ways to use them. We have at least a
conscious and a subconscious part. Most
people are unskilled at using the
subconscious, but the subconscious is
important because (1) it controls the
emotions, including nervousness, (2) it
functions 24 hrs a day whether you are
awake or asleep, (3) it can do some things
that the conscious cannot do, simply
because it is a different kind of brain, and
(4) for half the human population, the
subconscious should be statistically
smarter than the conscious; it doesn't make
sense not to use this part of the brain. The
subconscious is associated with all the
zillions of automatic processes that the
brain conducts every moment, including
our responses to music.
The subconscious controls emotions
in at least two ways. The first is a rapid,
fight or flight reaction -- generation of
instant anger, fear, etc. When such
situations arise, you must react faster than
you can think, so the conscious brain must
be bypassed by something that is
hardwired and preprogrammed for
immediate reaction. We might even
classify this as another part of the brain
the part that automatically processes
incoming information instantly, whether
the input it visual, auditory, touch, smell,
etc. Thus the subconscious itself has many
components.
The second subconscious function is
a slow, gradual recognition of deep or
fundamental situations, that can be too
complex for the conscious to handle.
Feelings of depression during a midlife
crisis might be a result of the
subconscious: it has had time to figure out
all the negative situations that develop
with age and the future begins to look less
hopeful. When trying to evaluate such a

195

future situation, the conscious brain would

have to list all the possibilities, evaluate
each, and try to remember them. The
subconscious functions differently. It
evaluates various situations in a nonsystematic way; how it picks a particular
situation for evaluation is not under
conscious control; that is automatically
controlled by every day events. It is as if
the subconscious stores its conclusions in
"emotion buckets": for each emotion, there
is a "bucket", and every time the
subconscious comes to a conclusion, say a
happy one, it deposits the conclusion in a
"happy bucket". The fullness of each
bucket determines the emotional state.
This explains why people often can sense
what is right or wrong, or good or bad,
without knowing exactly what the reasons
are ("sixth sense"). Thus the subconscious
affects our lives much more than most of
us realize. It may control how we feel
about piano music or our desire to
practice.
The
subconscious
affects
nervousness. This knowledge is important
because it is scary if you start getting
nervous and don't know what is going to
happen. Knowing that it is the
subconscious brain evaluating a situation
requiring special attention and that certain
inputs to the brain can calm the
subconscious, can help.
Are there ways to communicate with
the subconscious? The events in daily life
determine which are important factors and
the subconscious gravitates towards them.
These important ideas lead to important
conclusions and when a sufficient number
of such conclusions piles up, the
subconscious will contact you. This
explains why, all of a sudden, an
unexpected intuition will flash through
your conscious mind. Any idea that is
important, or any puzzle or problem that

you had tried to solve with great effort, is

automatically
a
candidate
for
consideration by the subconscious. Thus
thinking hard about an idea is one way to
present the problem to the subconscious.
In order to solve a problem, the
subconscious must have all the necessary
information. Therefore it is important to
do all the research and gather as much
information about the problem as you can.
In college, this is how I solved many
homework problems that my smarter
classmates could not solve. They tried to
just sit down, do their assignments, and
hoped to solve these difficult problems.
Problems in school assignments are such
that they are always solvable with the
information given in the classroom or
textbook. Thus, you only need to assemble
the right parts to come up with the answer,
unless the teacher wants you to do some
outside research. What I did, therefore,
was not to worry about being able to solve
any problem immediately but to think
about it intensely and make sure that I
have studied all the course material. If I
could not solve the problem right away, I
knew that the subconscious would go to
work on it. The most effective procedure
was not to wait until the last minute to try
to solve such problems the subconscious
needs time. Some time afterwards, the
answer would suddenly pop up in my
head, often at strange, unexpected times.
They most frequently popped up in the
early morning, when my mind was rested
and fresh; perhaps the subconscious works
best during sleep, when the brain is not
preoccupied with conscious work. Thus,
you can learn to present material to the
subconscious and to receive conclusions
from it. In general, the answer would not
come if I intentionally asked my
subconscious for it, but would come when
I was doing something unrelated to the

196

problem. This is because when you

consciously ask the subconscious, the
conscious brain interferes and leads you
down the wrong path (that's why the
conscious couldn't solve the problem in
the first place).
You can also use the subconscious to
recall something you had forgotten. First,
try to recall it as hard as you can, and then
abandon the effort. After some time, the
subconscious will often recall it for you.
Try this when you can't recall the name of
a composition, composer, acquaintance,
etc.
We do not yet know how to talk
directly with the subconscious. And these
communication channels are very different
for each person, so everyone must
experiment to see what works best.
Clearly, you can improve communications
with it as well as block the communication
channels. Many of my smarter friends in
college became frustrated when they found
out that I had found the answer when they
couldn't, and they knew they were smarter.
That type of frustration can stall the
communications within the brain. It is
better to forget about the problem and
engage in sports, see a movie or do other
things you enjoy, and the subconscious
will do a better job because it needs the
freedom to follow its own ideas. If you
practice a difficult piano passage hard, but
get no satisfactory results, and you run out
of new hand motions, etc., see if the
subconscious can give you new ideas
when you practice the next time part of
PPI may be the work of the subconscious!

(73) New Discoveries of this Book

I made discoveries and generated
new ideas while writing this book that are
not discussed in the literature; some are
just enhancements to existing material.

1. Every piano teacher must teach

Mental Play [(15) Mental Play (MP)].
2. Memory methods must be taught;
music is an algorithm for memory [(14)
Memorizing, Close Your Eyes and Play].
3. Hypothesis: Memory resides in a
memory field and recall is mediated by the
overlap of memory fields similarly to
quantum
mechanical
probabilities
calculated from the overlap of wave
functions. We don't lose memory, we just
can't recall them [(16) Human Memory
Function].
4. The concept of Parallel Sets is
generalized and catalogued; they are
methods for solving technical problems
and diagnostic tools for finding them [(9)
Parallel
Sets
(PSs),
Conjunctions,
Cycling].
5. Bach's Inventions are based on
Parallel Sets and contain lessons on
practice methods [](53) Bach Used
Parallel Sets to Compose His Inventions.
6. Gravity is the basic force in the
Arm Weight Method because man evolved
under gravity; piano playing forces are
designed to equal gravity [(8) Relaxation,
Gravity].
7. Hanon type exercises have a long
list of disadvantages; technique is acquired
most efficiently by learning performable
music [(43) Problems with Hanon
Exercises].
8. Correct practice methods are
frequently counter-intuitive [(1) Practice
Routines, the Intuitive Method]; piano
learning methods must be knowledge
based, not talent based [(65) Creating
Geniuses].
9. Most (all?) babies, exposed to
music at the correct pitch from birth, will
acquire absolute pitch effortlessly [(17)
Absolute & Relative Pitch].
10. Controlling nervousness must be
taught, using mental play, memory

197

methods, efficient practice methods, and

emphasizing musicality instead of
technical skills; special breathing routines
can eliminate nervousness [(48) Origin
and Control of Nervousness].
11. Most of what is considered
genius today can be taught (efficient
practice methods, mental play, memory
methods, absolute pitch, and play by ear)
and is most effective at the youngest ages;
the ability to compose is a natural
consequence of this process [(65) Creating
Geniuses].
12. There are simple microstructures
in music such as the use of repetitive small
motifs of just a few notes [(67) Mozart's
Formula, Beethoven and Group Theory].
13. The beginning of Beethoven's 5th
symphony
(and
Appassionata,
1st
movement,
bars
235-239
[(58)
Beethoven's Appassionata, Op. 57, First
Movement]) is based on "group theory",
and was written before mathematicians
"discovered" group theory [(67) Mozart's
Formula, Beethoven and Group Theory].
14. The starting "arpeggio" of
Beethoven's
Appassionata
is
a
schematized, inverted form of his main
theme starting at bar 35 [(58) Beethoven's
Appassionata, Op. 57, First Movement].
This "arpeggio" is played in double
octaves to increase the "stretch" see (xi) in
[(79) Tuning Tools and Skills].
15. The first movement of
Beethoven's Appassionata is composed
almost entirely of modified forms of the
fate motif of his 5th symphony, including
the trills.; it is a piano version of that
Beethoven's
symphony
[(58)
Appassionata, Op. 57, First Movement].
16. Beethoven composed "immortal
music" by combining so many elements
into every bar that it is impossible for the
listener to figure out what all the elements
are, when played at full speed. This makes

his music effectively infinitely complex

[(58) Beethoven's Appassionata, Op. 57,
First Movement].
17. Beethoven invented minimalist
music and used it extensively as one
component of his music [(57) Beethoven's
Pathetique, Op. 13, First Movement].
18. The two speeds for the fast
sections (first and third) of Chopin's
Fantaisie Impromptu, Op. 66, straddle the
vibration/sound transition, suggesting that
Chopin heard this effect [(55) Chopin's
Fantaisie
Impromptu,
Op.
66,
Polyrhythms]. Therefore, the first part
must not be played too fast.
19. The auditory system detects
frequencies using a logarithmic scale
which is mathematically identical to the
chromatic scale. Hypothesis: this scale is
mapped into the brain which recognizes
harmonies because ratios of frequencies in
logarithmic space are distances on this
map. The brain uses these distances
(harmonies) to keep track of tonics and
chord progressions. The piano is a
computer in logarithmic space, like the
slide rule. A large part of musical
language is inborn because it is part of the
automatic brain processing of audio
inputs, including these mathematical brain
operations that we call harmony [(68)
Theory, Solfege].
20. Specific breathing routines, and
methods for practicing them, are described
for eliminating performance anxiety [(48)
Origin and Control of Nervousness], [Post
Practice Improvement, Sleep].

(74) Topics for Future Research

Any treatment of any field must
provide a list of future research topics to
advance the field. The topics listed below
and the discoveries of the preceding
section might provide subjects for

198

research, such
conservatories.

as

thesis

topics

at

(1) Mental Play needs to be

developed into a full blown curriculum,
containing
such
sub-topics
as
memory/recall,
absolute
pitch,
composition, brain training (speed,
stamina,
musicality),
performance
training, and mental practice methods
away from the piano.
(2) Controlling nervousness must be
developed into a curriculum. Research into
the physiology and medical treatments of
nervousness are needed. Using practice
recitals and teaching "fun" music, etc.,
should be investigated for performance
training. The neurological mechanism by
which breathing routines eliminate
performance anxiety needs investigation.
(3) A systematic approach to
efficient practice methods is the best way
to teach piano. Therefore we need to know
the minimum set of necessary practice
methods with a systematic teaching
procedure that all teachers are expected to
know.
(4) Which teaching methods used
today are incorrect? How do you
counteract intuitive tendencies in students,
their parents, and teachers? When are
exercises helpful, when are they a waste of
time?
(5) We need a list of genius tricks we
can all learn and separate them from true
genius skills that are inborn.
(6) Babies are now tested for hearing
at birth. Why not teach all babies absolute
pitch by playing the appropriate music?
We need statistics on how many babies
will learn AP this way and at what age
they begin to lose it if it is not maintained.
How quickly can the very young learn
AP?

(7) What is the logarithmic structure

in the cochlea, how is the chromatic scale
mapped in the brain, and how does the
brain use this map?
(8) The chromatic scale is a human
invention, but the brain seems to interpret
the chromatic transition (semitone) as
special, as evidenced by its widespread use
in "romantic" classical music. What is the
explanation for this effect? My guess is
that the answer is related to the mapping
of the logarithmic scale (image of cochlea)
in the brain.
(9) I have hypothesized that human
memory is stored in "memory fields" in
various areas of the brain and memory
recall is determined by the overlap of these
fields. Can these fields be imaged? Can
this hypothesis be tested?
(10) Why is music such a good
memory algorithm? The logarithmic
nature of the chromatic scale and the
relationship between logarithms and chord
progressions may provide some leads.
(11)
Lower bench height is
advantageous because it makes flat finger
positions, etc., easier and enables quick
sideways motion of the hand using
forearm rotation instead of wrist motion.
The best bench height needs to be
investigated.
(12) What are the physical bases of
warming up and conditioning? Can we
attach battery operated muscle stimulators
to keep the fingers in permanently warmed
up condition without actually playing the
piano?
(13) We need to know the physical
basis of fast trills because trills are the
ultimate momentum mode of play, and are
difficult to analyze. Programming a
robotic arm to trill should provide the
answers. Or a scientifically trained pianist
who can trill might be the fastest, cheapest
way. Or we might take electronic

199

measurements of the muscles of a pianist

trilling. We need to define the momentum
mode more clearly.
(14) We should "read" Bach's music
to tease out his practice methods, and
match them with the minimum set of
efficient practice methods.
(15) Bach seems to have attempted
to exhaustively study various fundamental
musical concepts. Parallel sets is one
example [(53) Bach Used Parallel Sets to
Compose His Inventions]. Keys (scales)
and key colors are another. Are there
others? Did he try to exhaust all possible
tonal musical constructs of the twelve
notes of the octave? The number of
possible combinations are 12! (factorial)
times the factorial of the number of notes
in several bars, etc., can this number be
estimated? Then we must consider which
ones are musical and how this number is
affected by the length of the composition.
If he succeeded, where is it, and anything
we compose can be found somewhere in
Bach's music. This topic is important
because of the possibility that we have
already exhausted just about everything
that can be composed using tonal
constructs and that, to find more fertile
grounds of composition, we must go
outside of tonal music. Is this the cause of
the rise of atonal music? Or is atonal
music just an advanced form of acquired
taste?
(16) There is little question that
microstructure in music is important. But
what are the relationships between the
microstructures that create the music? Part
of the answer seems to lie in the fact that
harmonies and certain chord progressions
follow
the
simplest
mathematical
relationships that are especially easily
processed in the human auditory system
based on the logarithmic nature of
auditory processing. This theory also

explains why dissonances and certain

chord progressions are unpleasant
(because there is no simple way to process
them in the brain). Can we discover other
structures beyond the microstructure that
creates the music?
(17) Microstructural analysis should
be conducted with all important classics.
With enough statistics from a sufficient
number of such analyses, we may be able
to discover composing principles used by
the greatest composers.
(18) Only a small number of
Beethoven's music was analyzed here and
they
proved
to
have
similar
microstructures. If similar microstructures
are found in other Beethoven compositions
(the Waldstein definitely is one), it will
verify that he and probably many other
composers
(Mozart,
certainly),
consciously used this device (one or a
small number of motifs for an entire
movement).
(19) Is Beethoven's music damaging
to the ear? His music contains some of the
loudest passages in music because they
contain simultaneous components that
compete with each other. Perhaps the
most damaging part may be the loud
minimalist music he uses, in which he
repeats one note many times, producing
fatigue in that part of the ear. This
question is relevant because Beethoven
suffered hearing loss by the time he wrote
his 5th symphony.
(20) Mathematics in music must be
investigated because it is such a fertile
field.
(21) Even Chopin may not have been
able to produce the second sound [(55)
Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu, Op. 66,
Polyrhythms], but he almost certainly
noticed that, at the higher speed, the
multiplication effect of polyrhythmic
music disappears. It would be interesting

200

to use a computer with sufficient accuracy

to produce the second sound and compare
the music below and above the threshold.
(22) We should study the economic
feasibility of half and three-quarter sized
pianos. In grand pianos, the actions can be
easily swapped, without having to build an
entirely new piano.

201

CHAPTER THREE
Tuning Your Piano
(75) Introduction to Tuning
Too many pianists are unfamiliar
with how the piano works and what it
means to tune in the temperaments, or
what it means to voice or regulate the
piano. This is especially surprising
because piano maintenance directly affects
the ability to make music and acquire
technique. There are many concert pianists
who do not know the difference between
Equal and Well temperaments while some
of the compositions they play formally
require one or the other.
Just as electronic pianos are always
in tune, acoustic pianos must soon become
permanently in tune, for example, by using
the thermal expansion coefficient of the
strings to electronically tune the piano (see
Gilmore, Self-Tuning Piano; self-tuning
acoustics have the added advantage that
you can change the temperament by
pushing a button). Today, practically all
home pianos are out of tune almost all the
time because it starts to go out of tune the
moment the tuner leaves your house or if
the room temperature or humidity
changes. Future pianos will always be in
tune. The problem of needing frequent
hammer voicing must also be solved. You
might suddenly realize that it was the
piano, not you, that limited technical
development and musical output; worn
hammers will do it every time!
This chapter has all the information
needed to learn how to tune your own
piano. Piano Servicing, Tuning, and
Rebuilding, by Arthur Reblitz, is a helpful
reference. The hardest part of learning to
tune is getting started. For those fortunate

enough to have someone teach them, that

is obviously the best route. Try the
suggestions in this chapter and see how far
you can get. That's basically how I
learned,
by
reading
books
and
experimenting.
Even some concert pianists do not
know enough to tell their tuners what they
need. Tuners can hear piano sounds that
most people, even pianists, don't notice.
Those who practice tuning will become
sensitized to the sounds of out-of-tune
pianos. It will probably take about a year
to start feeling comfortable with tuning,
assuming that you have the time to
practice for several hours at least once
every one or two months, as the piano
goes out of tune.
It is important to be able to
communicate with your tuner for proper
tuning and maintenance because proper
maintenance directly impacts the ability to
acquire technique and the tuner knows
nothing about your specific needs. Too
many students have difficulties with
playing pianissimo because the hammers
are worn/compacted and the actions are so
out of regulation that playing pianissimo is
impossible. These students will never be
able to even practice pianissimo! Musical
expression and tone control also become
impossible if the piano is out of tune.
These under-maintained pianos are
responsible for the perception that piano
practice is ear torture. An out-of-tune
piano is a major cause of flubs and bad
habits, and can destroy your absolute pitch
even if you had acquired it as a young
child. Every pianist will be mazed at how
much easier it is, to play a well tuned
piano.
Another factor is that you generally
have no choice of a piano when asked to
perform. You might encounter anything
from a wonderful concert grand, to

202

spinets, to (horrors!) a cheap baby grand

that was neglected since it was purchased
40 years ago. Your understanding of what
you can/cannot do with each of these
pianos should be the first input into
deciding what and how to play.
Once you start practicing tuning, you
will quickly understand why someone
vacuuming the floor, kids running around,
the TV or HiFi blaring away, or pots
clanging in the kitchen is not conducive to
accurate, quality tuning. Why a quick, $70
tuning is no bargain compared to a $150
tuning in which the tuner reshapes and
needles the hammers. Yet when owners
are queried about what the tuner did to
their pianos, they have no idea. A
complaint I frequently hear from owners is
that, after a tuning, the piano sounds dead
or terrible. This happens when the owners
do not have a proper reference from which
to judge the piano sound. They were
incorrectly influenced by their past
history; they had become accustomed to
the sound of detuned pianos with
compacted hammers. When the tuner
restores the sound, they don't like it
because they had not developed the skills
to play a properly tuned piano. The owner
will need to know a minimum of tuning
technicalities in order to judge whether the
tuner did a good job. Concert pianists
aren't just fussy piano owners; it is those
pianists that fuss over their pianos that
develop into concert pianists.
Piano tuning does not require good
ears, such as absolute pitch, because all
tuning is accomplished by comparison
with a reference using beats between two
frequencies, starting with the reference
frequency of a tuning fork. In fact an
absolute pitch ability may interfere with
the tuning for some people. Therefore, the
only hearing skill you need is the ability to
hear and differentiate between the various

beats when two strings are struck. This

ability develops with practice and is not
related to knowledge of music theory,
musicality, or "good ears".

(76) Chromatic Scale

In music, pitch space is limited by
how we produce sound, such as by voice
(a few octaves only) or by musical
instruments (pianos have only 88 notes),
and by our ability to write the music on
sheet music. Although violins, etc., can
produce an infinite number of notes
(frequencies), violin music is written
mostly using the finite number of notes of
the chromatic (piano) scale. Here, we
explain why we are confined to the
chromatic scale and why, out of the
infinity of notes that the human ear can
hear and that the violin can produce, we
throw away 99.999999 . . . . % - an infinity
- of available pitch space.
Although many musical instruments
can produce an infinity of notes, there is
no way to notate this infinity so that
someone else can reproduce your
composition.There are a few exceptions
such as the violin glissando (slide),
vibrato, etc. Even for these "exceptions",
there is no way to notate exactly how to
execute them. But, aren't we severely
limited by using such a small number of
notes and throwing away an infinity?
Animals do not need to notate their
songs or produce their music using
keyboards. Therefore, they sing a
completely different type of music.
Having an infinity of notes has its
advantages; this may be how a baby
penguin can distinguish its parents from
thousands of other penguins nearby, by
their voices. Thus the piano, with its
comparatively minuscule number of notes,
has an inordinately huge influence on

203

human music. Does this loss of an infinity

of notes restrict us musically?
Mathematicians are well aware of,
and have solutions to, this problem of
finite
bandwidth;
it
is
called
"completeness", which measures the
accuracy with which any notation
approximates the real thing. Completeness
in music asks the question, "given a
specific composition, how well does this
music
notated
using
this
scale,
approximate the composition?" The
answer is that it is sufficiently complete in
a large number of cases; that is, the
chromatic scale can approximate any
music fairly accurately. No better system
has yet been found; this is analogous to
digital photography where you do not need
an infinite number of pixels to take a
picture, although any real object has an
effectively infinite (very large) number of
pixels (photons hitting the camera).
But the main reason why we are
confined to the chromatic scale is
harmony, not completeness. A scale must
also contain all the major intervals so that
a maximum number of notes will then
harmonize with each other, making it
possible for the brain to keep track of
tonics and chord progressions [see (68)
Theory, Solfege for a theoretical
explanation]. Unlike vision, the frequency
of sound is not calibrated on an absolute
scale in the brain. Absolute pitch (perfect
pitch) is a memory; not everybody has it
and it can change with time. The use of
intervals is the only way in which the
brain can compare frequencies and the
chromatic scale contains all the intervals
that the brain needs, as we now show.
The brain's requirement of harmony
leads to the piano octave, that must
include as many intervals as possible. We
need the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and
octave. Starting from C4, we have now

placed E4, F4, G4, A4, and C5, a total of 6

notes into the C major scale (all white
keys). In order to allow transpositions, two
more full tones (white keys) and the black
keys need to be added so that the
chromatic octave consists of 12 equal
semitones. This is made possible by a
fortuitous mathematical coincidence that
when the octave is divided into twelve
semitones, it also contains all the
harmonizing intervals to a very good
approximation (but not exact, see below).
This requirement to include all the
necessary intervals explains why the tonic
(C in this case), is the most important note
in a scale: it is involved with every
interval, and tells us how the brain finds
the tonic by harmonizing every note to
it. Thus, after you play a few notes of a
scale, the brain figures out the tonic
because it is the only note related to all the
others by harmony. The prominence of the
tonic also explains how the brain keeps
track of chord progressions by referencing
each new tonic to the tonic of the first
scale used, and why the music must return
to that starting scale at the end of the
composition; otherwise the brain is left
"hanging", having to remember one or
more tonics instead of none.
Harmony allows more than one note
to be played simultaneously without
creating dissonances. The sounds are so
scrambled in dissonances that the brain
can not figure out what it is which
explains why the brain prefers harmonies;
however, they don't just sound good
they provide the only mechanism by
which the brain can keep track of the
frequencies of sound. That is why music
with harmony is easier to listen to than
music without, and why harmony is the
basis of most music, even when only one
note is played at a time.

204

Therefore, harmony, completeness,

and practicality are three main reasons for
the existence of the chromatic scale. The
properties that all intervals are ratios and
that the frequency doubles with each
ascending octave are properties of a
mathematical
function
called
the
logarithm. That is, the chromatic scale is a
logarithmic scale which the brain can use
for detecting and processing frequencies.
The ear evolved a logarithmic detection
mechanism (Psychoacoustics,) so as to
hear a large frequency range. This
logarithmic nature makes it easy to
construct a musical instrument that
accommodates the entire frequency range
of the human ear. If the chromatic scale
were linear (not logarithmic), we would
need a piano keyboard over half a mile
wide!
There is another useful property of a
logarithmic scale: scales can be
transposed. Starting with any note on the
chromatic scale, you can construct another
scale with exactly the same interval ratios
as C major, without having to add or
subtract notes. Although we take
transpositions for granted, it is possible
only because of the logarithmic nature of
the chromatic scale.
The chromatic scale is arbitrarily
pegged at A = 440 Hz so that every
musician can harmonize with each other.
This means that no one is born with
absolute pitch; it must be learned. Unlike
the auditory system, the visual system is
calibrated on an absolute scale based on
quantum mechanical chemistry, so that
every normal person is born with absolute
vision red is red to everybody, and it
never changes with age.
Three octaves of the chromatic scale
are shown in Table 3.1. Each successive
frequency change in the chromatic scale is
called a semitone and an octave has 12

semitones. Black keys on the piano are

shown as sharps, e.g. the # on the right of
C represents C#; all the semitones are
shown only for the highest octave. The
major intervals and the integers
representing the frequency ratios for those
intervals are shown above and below the
chromatic scale, respectively. The number
associated with each interval, e.g. four in
the 4th, is the number of white keys,
inclusive of the two end keys, for the Cmajor scale and has no further
mathematical significance. The frequency
ratios (bottom row) are the desired ratios
for perfect harmony, not the exact
numbers from the chromatic scale, as
explained below. The missing integer 7 is
also explained below.
The ratio of the frequencies of any
two adjacent notes of the chromatic scale,
called a semitone, is always the same.
There are 12 semitones in an octave and
each octave is a factor of two in frequency.
Therefore, the frequency change for each
semitone is given by
Semitone12 = 2, or
Semitone = 21/12 = 1.05946, Eq. 3.1
Eq. (3.1) defines the chromatic scale
and allows the calculation of the frequency
ratios of intervals in this scale. How do
these intervals compare with the frequency
ratios of the ideal intervals (bottom row)
of Table 3.1? The comparisons are shown
in Table 3.2 and demonstrate that the
intervals from the chromatic scale are
extremely close to the ideal intervals.
The errors for the 3rds are the worst,
over five times the errors in the other
intervals, but are still only about 1%.
Nonetheless, these errors are audible, and
some piano aficionados have generously
dubbed them "the rolling thirds" while in
reality, they are unacceptable dissonances.

205

It is a defect that we must live with, if we

are to adopt this scale (there is no better
choice). The errors in the 4ths and 5ths
produce beats of about 1 Hz near middle
C, which is barely audible in most pieces
of music; however, this beat frequency
doubles for every higher octave.
It is a mathematical accident that the
12-note chromatic scale produces so many
interval ratios close to the ideal ratios.
Only the number 7, out of the smallest 8
integers (Table 3.1), results in a totally
unacceptable dissonance. The chromatic
scale is based on a lucky mathematical
accident in nature! No wonder early
civilizations believed that there was
something mystical about this scale.
Increasing the number of keys in an octave
does not result in much improvement of
the intervals until the numbers become
quite large, making that approach
impractical.
Note that the frequency ratios of the
4th and 5th do not add up to that of the
octave (1.5000 + 1.3333 = 2.8333 vs.
2.0000). Instead, they add up in
logarithmic space because (3/2)x(4/3) = 2.
In logarithmic space, multiplication
becomes addition; that is why when you
add a fourth to a fifth on the piano, you get
an octave. Why might this be significant?
The geometry of the cochlea has a
logarithmic component. Analyzing ratios
of frequencies therefore becomes simple
because instead of multiplying or dividing
two frequencies, you only need to add or
subtract their logarithms. For example, if
C3 is detected by the cochlea at one
position and C4 at another position 2mm
away, then C5 will be detected at a
distance of 4 mm, exactly as in the slide
rule calculator. Therefore, intervals are
simple to analyze in a logarithmically
structured cochlea.

Although we are not born with

absolute pitch, we are born to recognize
harmonies because of the logarithmic
auditory system; another consequence is
that the ear hears a large difference in
pitch between 40 and 42.4 Hz (a semitone
or 100 cents), but hears almost no
difference between 2000Hz and 2002.4 Hz
(about 2 cents), for the same difference of
2.4 Hz. Because the chromatic scale is
logarithmic, and the brain is equipped to
compute in logarithms, everyone can
recognize relative pitch (unlike absolute
pitch, for which the brain has no absolute
calibration). The only way to acquire
absolute pitch is to remember it in
memory.
Eq. 3.1 is not the way in which the
chromatic
scale
was
historically
developed. Musicians first started with
intervals and tried to find a music scale
with the minimum number of notes that
would produce those intervals. The
requirement of a small number of notes is
obvious since it determines the number of
keys, strings, holes, etc. needed to
construct a musical instrument. This
minimum number turned out to be 12
notes per octave.
When we play intervals, we are
performing mathematical computations in
logarithmic space on a mechanical
computer called the piano, as was done in
the 1950's using the slide rule. Thus the
logarithmic nature of the chromatic scale
has more consequences than just providing
a wide frequency range. It is also related to
how the brain identifies, processes and
interprets music [(68) Theory, Solfege].
When you play a piano, a similar
mathematical process takes place in the
brain!

206

Tables 3.1-2

207

(77) Circle of Fifths, Temperaments

A temperament is a set of interval
relationships that defines a specific
chromatic scale. The temperament for Eq.
3.1 is called Equal Temperament (ET)
because every semitone is the same
they are all equal. The harmonies in ET
are not perfect, as shown in Table 3.2 [see
(76) Chromatic Scale]. No matter what
tempering scheme you use, these errors
cannot be eliminated. But ET has the
advantage that you can transpose freely
because every scale is the same.
Temperament is not an option but a
necessity; we must choose a temperament
in order to accommodate the mathematical
difficulties discussed below. Most musical
instruments based on the chromatic scale
must be tempered. For example, the holes
in wind instruments and the frets of the
guitar must be spaced for a specific
tempered scale. The violin is a devilishly
clever instrument because it avoids all
temperament issues by spacing the open
strings in fifths. If you tune the A(440)
string correctly and tune all the others in
fifths, these others will be close, but not
tempered.
You
can
still
avoid
temperament problems by fingering all
notes except one (the correctly tuned A440). In addition, the vibrato is larger than
the temperament corrections, making
temperament inaudible. Paganini may
have (secretly) tempered all his open
strings so that he could do things other
violinists could not.
Tempering is required because (1)
none of the intervals are perfect except for
the octave and (2) a chromatic scale tuned
to one scale (e.g., C-major with perfect
intervals) does not produce acceptable
intervals in other scales. If you wrote a
composition in C-major and then
transposed it, or effected a chord

progression, terrible dissonances will

result. Tempering schemes were therefore
devised to minimize these dissonances by
minimizing the de-tuning from perfect
intervals in the most important intervals
and shifting most of the dissonances into
the less used intervals. This tended to
concentrate the errors into one interval
which came to be known as "the wolf".
It might come as a shock to some
that the piano is a fundamentally flawed
instrument! The piano gives us every note,
but locks us into one temperament; on the
other extreme, the violin is free of
temperament restrictions, but we must
finger every note. Many attempts have
been made to find better scales than the
chromatic scale, mainly by increasing the
number of notes per octave using guitars,
organs, etc., but none of these scales have
gained acceptance. It is relatively easy to
increase the number of notes per octave
with a guitar-like instrument because all
you need to do is to add strings and frets.
Recent schemes being devised involve
computer generated scales in which the
computer adjusts the frequencies with
every key change, called adaptive tuning
(Sethares, William A.,).
There is healthy debate about which
temperament is best musically. ET was
known from the earliest history of tuning.
There are definite advantages to
standardizing to one temperament, but that
is probably not desirable in view of the
diversity of opinions on music and the fact
that much music now exist, that were
written with specific temperaments in
mind, such as Bach's WTC. Therefore we
must explore the different temperaments.
The Circle of Fifths: The most basic
concept
needed
to
understand
temperaments is the circle of fifths. Start
with C4 and go up in 5ths. After two 5ths,
you will go outside the C4-C5 octave.

208

Now go down one octave so that you can

keep going up in 5ths and still stay within
the C4-C5 octave. Do this (up in 5ths and
down in octaves to stay in the C4-C5
octave) for twelve 5ths, and you will end
up at C5! That is why it is called a circle.
Not only that, but every note you hit when
playing the 5ths is a different note. This
means that the circle of fifths hits every
note once and only once, a key property
useful for tuning every note of the scale
and for studying scales mathematically.
This works for any note, not just C.
Since a fifth and a fourth add up to
an octave, a Circle of Fourths
accomplishes the same results as a circle
of fifths.
Pythagorean, Equal, Meantone,
and "Well" Temperaments. Historical
developments are central to discussions of
temperament because mathematics was no
help; practical tuning algorithms could
only be invented by the tuners of the time.
Pythagoras is credited with inventing the
Pythagorean Temperament at around 550
BC, in which the chromatic scale is
generated by tuning in perfect 5ths, using
the circle of fifths. Unfortunately, the
twelve perfect 5ths in the circle of fifths
do not make an exact factor of two.
Therefore, the final note you get is not
exactly the octave note but is too high in
frequency by what is called the
"Pythagorean comma", about 23 cents (a
cent is one hundredths of a semitone).
Since a 4th plus a 5th make up an octave,
the Pythagorean temperament results in a
scale with perfect 4ths and 5ths, but the
octave is dissonant. It turns out that tuning
in perfect 5ths leaves the 3rds in bad
shape, another disadvantage of the
Pythagorean temperament. Now if we
were to tune by contracting each 5th by
23/12 cents, we would end up with exactly
one octave and that is one way of tuning

an Equal Temperament (ET) scale. The ET

scale was already known within a hundred
years or so after invention of the
Pythagorean temperament. Thus ET is not
a "modern temperament" (a frequent
misconception).
Following the introduction of the
Pythagorean temperament, all newer
temperaments were efforts at improving
on it. The first method was to halve the
Pythagorean comma by distributing it
among two final 5ths. One major
development
was
Meantone
Temperament, in which the 3rds were
made just (exact) instead of the 5ths.
Musically, 3rds play more prominent roles
than 5ths, so that meantone made sense,
because during its heyday music made
greater use of 3rds. Unfortunately,
meantone has a wolf worse than
Pythagorean.
The next milestone is represented by
Bach's Well Tempered Clavier in which
music was written with "key color" in
mind, which was a property of Well
Temperaments (WT). These were non-ET
temperaments that struck a compromise
between meantone and Pythagorean. This
concept worked because Pythagorean
tuning ended up sharp, while meantone is
flat. In addition, WT presented the
possibility of not only good 3rds, but also
good 5ths. The simplest WT (to tune) was
devised by Kirnberger, a student of Bach.
But it has a terrible wolf. "Better" WTs
were devised by Werckmeister and by
Young (which is almost the same as
Valotti). If we broadly classify tunings as
Meantone, WT, or Pythagorean, then ET is
a WT because ET is neither sharp nor flat;
however, in piano industry today, WT is
used to mean "non-ET".
The violin is tuned Pythagorean, so
the 5ths are just. Since the 3rds can always
be fingered just, it has all the advantages

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of the Pythagorean, meantone, and WT,

with no wolf in sight! In addition, it can
play an infinite number of frequencies
within its frequency range. Little wonder
that the violin is held in such high esteem
by musicians.
Violins must be tuned Pythagorean
because adjacent strings are often played
together, and they must harmonize. Note
that all open strings are used in spite of the
fact that they are tuned neither ET nor
WT. One reason why vibrato is needed is
to cover up the Pythagorean dissonances
especially when several instruments play
together; however, vibrato is not possible
with the open strings. Some have argued
that, because the violin can play any note,
the concept of tuning, and therefore
temperament,
are
meaningless.
Nonetheless, the open strings must be
tuned, and Pythagorean is the most
practical. In addition, even violin music
must be annotated using the finite notes of
the chromatic scale that requires a
temperament.
Since about 1850, ET became
universally accepted because of its musical
freedom and the trend towards hiring
tuners to tune the piano. ET is the most
difficult temperament to tune, requiring
professional tuners. All the other
temperaments are generically classified as
"historical temperaments", which is a
misnomer because ET was known before
some WT's were invented. Many WTs are
easy to tune, and most harpsichord owners
had to tune their own instruments, which
is why they used WT. This historical use
of WT gave rise to the concept of key
color in which each key, depending on the
temperament, endowed specific colors to
the music, because of the small de-tunings
that create "tension" and other effects.
After listening to music played on pianos
tuned to WT, ET tends to sound muddy

and bland. Thus key color can enhance

music. On the other hand, there is always
some kind of a wolf in the WTs that can
be annoying.
For playing most of the music
composed around the times of Bach,
Mozart, and Beethoven, WT works best.
The great composers were acutely aware
of temperament. You will see a dramatic
demonstration of WT if you listen to the
last movement of Beethoven's Waldstein
played in ET compared to WT. This
movement is heavily pedaled, emphasizing
the harmony, a wonderful effect
Beethoven intentionally built into this
movement, that mostly disappears in ET.
From Bach's time to about Chopin's
time, tuners and composers seldom
documented their tunings and we have
precious little information on those
tunings. At one time, in the early 1900s, it
was believed that Bach used ET because,
how else would he be able to write music
in all the keys unless you could freely
transpose from one to the other? Some
writers even made the preposterous
statement that Bach invented ET! Such
arguments, and the fact that there was no
"standard WT" to choose from, led to the
acceptance of ET as the universal tuning
used by tuners, to this day. Standardization
to ET also assured tuners of a good career
because ET was too difficult for anyone
but trained tuners to tune accurately.
As pianists became better informed
and investigated the WTs, they rediscovered key color. In 1975, Herbert
Anton Kellner concluded that Bach had
written his music with key color in mind
and that Bach used a WT, not ET, as
generally assumed at that time. But which
WT? Kellner guessed at a WT which most
tuners justifiably rejected as too
speculative.
Subsequent
search
concentrated on well known WTs such as

210

Kirnberger, Werckmeister, and Young.

They all produced key color but still left
open the question of what Bach used. In
2004, Bradley Lehman proposed that the
strange spirals at the top of the cover page
of Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier"
manuscript represented a tuning diagram
(see Larips.com, ), and used the diagram
to produce a WT that is fairly close to
Valloti. Bach's tunings were mainly for
harpsichord and organ, since pianos as we
know them today didn't exist at that time.
One requirement of harpsichord tuning is
that it be simple enough so that it can be
done in about 10 minutes on a familiar
instrument, and Lehman's Bach tuning met
that criterion. Thus we now have a pretty
good idea of what temperament Bach
used. Bach was interested in key color, so
that he could not have used ET which is
colorless in the sense that all keys have the
same color.
It is generally accepted by piano
tuners that the best WT is Young. If you
want to hear what a clear harmony sounds
like, try Kirnberger, which has a large
number of just intervals.
We now see that picking a WT is not
only a matter of solving the Pythagorean
comma, but also of gaining key color to
enhance music in a way, we are turning
a disadvantage into an advantage. The
price we pay is that composers must learn
key color, but they have naturally done so
in the past. It is certainly a joy to listen to
music played in WT, but it is even more
fascinating to play music in WT. Key
color has become irrelevant today because
of the universal adoption of ET. The
availability of different temperaments with
digitals may re-awaken interest in key
color as an element of advanced pianism.
Chopin is an enigma in this regard
because he loved the black keys and used
keys far from "home" (home means the

specific scale used to "set the bearings"

during tuning, see below, usually C
major). He probably found the black keys
easier to play because they stick out, so
that the fears many students feel when
they see all those sharps and flats in
Chopin's music is not justified. Chopin
used one tuner who committed suicide,
and there is no record of how he tuned.
Because Chopin used the "far out" keys,
some of his compositions will hit the wolf
if the piano is tuned to WT. Thus ET may
be the best temperament for Chopin,
especially because he created his own
sounds instead of depending on pure
harmony.
Conclusions: We should get away
from ET because of the joy of playing
clear harmonies with WT; if we must pick
one WT, it should be Young; otherwise, it
is best to have a choice of WTs, as we can
with electronic pianos. If you want to hear
pure harmonies, try Kirnberger. The WTs
will teach us key color which not only
enhances the music, but also sharpens our
sense of musicality. ET may be the best
for Chopin.

(78) Polishing Capstans, Hammer

Voicing
Polishing the Capstans: They may
need polishing if they have not been
cleaned in several years. Press down on
the keys slowly to see if you can feel a
friction in the action. See Reblitz, Arthur,
for how to access the actions. For piano
parts names see [(80) Grand Piano Action
Diagram]. To get to the capstans, lift the
action off the keys by unscrewing the
screws that hold the action down for the
grand. For uprights you generally need to
unscrew the knobs that hold the action in
place; make sure that the pedal rods, etc.,
are disengaged.

211

Then the keys can be lifted out after

removing the key stop rail. Make sure that
all the keys are numbered so that you can
replace them in the correct order. This is a
good time to remove all the keys and clean
any previously inaccessible areas as well
as the sides of the keys. You can use a
mild cleaning agent such as a cloth
dampened with Windex for cleaning the
sides of the keys.
See if the top, spherical contact areas
of the capstans are tarnished. If they do not
have a shiny polish, they are tarnished.
Use any good brass/bronze/copper polish
(such as Noxon) to polish and buff up the
contact areas. Reassemble, and the action
should now be much smoother.
Hammer Voicing. A common
problem seen with many pianos is
compacted hammers. The condition of the
hammer is much more important to the
proper development of piano technique
and for cultivating performance skills,
than many people realize. Numerous
places in this book refer to the importance
of practicing musically. But you can't play
musically if the hammer can't do its job, a
critical point that is overlooked even by
many tuners (often because they are afraid
that the extra cost will drive customers
away). Therefore, if you ask the tuner to
tune the piano, he will in general not voice
the hammers; you must discuss hammer
voicing with him. For a grand piano, a
sure sign of compacted hammers is when
you find the need to close the lid in order
to play soft passages. Another sure sign is
that you tend to use the soft pedal to help
you play softly. Compacted hammers
either give you a loud sound or none at all.
Each note tends to start with an annoying
percussive bang that is too strong, and the
sound is overly bright. It is these
percussive bangs that are so damaging to
the ear. A properly voiced piano enables

control over the entire dynamic range and

produces a more pleasing sound.
Let's first see how a compacted
hammer can produce such extreme results.
How do small, light hammers produce
loud sounds by striking with relatively low
force on strings under such high tension?
If you were to try to push down on the
string or try to pluck it, you will need quite
a large force just to make a small sound.
The answer lies in an incredible
phenomenon that occurs when tightly
stretched strings are struck at right angles
to the string. It turns out that the force
produced by the hammer at the instant of
impact is theoretically infinite! This nearly
infinite force is what enables the light
hammer to overcome practically any
achievable tension on the string and cause
it to vibrate.
Here is the calculation for that force.
Imagine that the hammer has struck the
string and is at its highest point (grand
piano). The string at this point in time
makes a triangle with its original
horizontal position (this is just an idealized
approximation, see below). The shortest
leg of this triangle is the length between
the agraffe and the impact point of the
hammer. The second shortest leg is from
the hammer to the bridge. The longest is
the original horizontal configuration of the
string, a straight line from bridge to
agraffe. Now if we drop a vertical line
from the hammer strike point down to the
original string position, we get two right
triangles back-to-back. These are two
extremely skinny right triangles that have
very small angles at the agraffe and at the
bridge; we will call these small angles
"theta"s.
The extra tension force F (in addition
to the original string tension) produced by
the hammer strike is given by f =
Fsin(theta), where f is the force of the

212

hammer. It does not matter which right

triangle we use for this calculation (the
one on the bridge side or on the agraffe
side). Therefore, the extra string tension F
= f/sin(theta). At the initial moment of the
strike, theta = 0, and therefore F = infinity!
This happens because sin(0) = 0. Of
course, F can get to infinity only if the
string cannot stretch and nothing else can
move. What happens in reality is that as F
increases towards infinity, something
gives (the string stretches, the bridge
moves, etc.) so that the hammer begins to
move the string and theta increases from
zero, making F finite (but still much larger
than your finger force).
This force multiplication explains
why a small child can produce quite a loud
sound on the piano in spite of the hundreds
of pounds of tension on the strings. It also
explains why anyone can break a string
just playing the piano, if the string is old
and has lost its elasticity. If the string
cannot stretch, theta remains close to zero,
thus increasing F. This situation is greatly
exacerbated if the hammer is also
compacted so that there is a large, flat,
hard groove that contacts the string. In that
case, the hammer surface has no give and
the instantaneous "f" in the above equation
becomes very large. The result is a broken
string.
The above calculation is a gross
over-simplification and is correct only
qualitatively. In reality, a hammer strike
initially throws out a traveling wave
towards the bridge, similarly to what
happens when you grab one end of a tight
rope and flick it. The way to calculate such
waveforms is to solve certain differential
equations that are well known. The
computer has made the solution of such
differential equations a simple matter and
realistic calculations of these waveforms
can now be made routinely.

The above calculation shows that it

is not the transverse vibration energy of
the string, but the tensile force on the
string, that is responsible for the piano
sound. The energy imparted by the
hammer is stored in the entire piano, not
just the strings. This is analogous to the
bow and arrow -- when the string is pulled,
all the energy is stored in the bow, not the
string. All of this energy is transferred via
the tension in the string.
The compacted hammer produces
not only a louder sound (because of the
force multiplication just described) but
also a brighter sound because it contains
higher harmonics. The higher harmonics
form because the impact occurs in a
shorter time; when things happen faster,
the string generates higher frequency
sounds.
Because the same amount of energy
is dissipated in a shorter amount of time
for the compacted hammer, the initial
percussive sound level can be much higher
than for a properly voiced hammer. Such
short sound spikes can damage the ear.
Common symptoms of such damage are
tinnitus (ringing in the ear) and hearing
loss at high frequencies. Piano tuners,
when they must tune a piano with such
worn hammers, would be wise to wear ear
plugs. It is clear that voicing the hammer
is at least as important as tuning the piano,
especially because we are talking about
potential ear damage. The damage is not
immediately noticeable because it happens
too fast, but it is cumulative.
The two important procedures in
voicing are hammer re-shaping and
needling. When the flattened strike point
on the hammer exceeds about 1 cm, it is
time to re-shape the hammer. Note that
you have to distinguish between the string
groove length and flattened area; even in
hammers with good voicing, the grooves

213

may be over 5 mm long. In the final

analysis you will have to judge on the
basis of the sound. Shaping is
accomplished by shaving the "shoulders"
of the hammer so that it regains its
previous rounded shape at the strike point.
It is usually performed using 1 inch wide
strips of sandpaper attached to strips of
wood or metal with glue or double sided
tape. You might start with 80 grit garnet
paper and finish it off with 150 grit garnet
paper. The sanding motion must be in the
plane of the hammer; never sand across
the plane. There is almost never a need to
sand off the strike point; leave about 2 mm
of the center of the strike point untouched.
Needling is not easy because the
proper needling location and needling
depth depend on the particular hammer
(manufacturer) and how it was originally
voiced. Especially in the treble, hammers
are often voiced at the factory using
hardeners such as lacquer. Be careful:
needling mistakes are irreversible.
Because of the way in which the hammer
is manufactured, the stress on the felt is
largest at the strike point. Therefore, if this
point is needled too much, the hammer
will split into two and will need to be
replaced (see Reblitz, Arthur,, P. 197).
Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to
find a replacement hammer exactly like
the old one. Deep needling is usually
required on the shoulders just off the strike
point. Very careful and shallow needling
of the strike point area may be needed.
The tone of the piano is extremely
sensitive to shallow needling at the strike
point, so that you must know exactly what
you are doing. When properly needled, the
hammer should allow you to control very
soft sounds as well as produce loud sounds
without harshness. You get the feeling of
complete tonal control. You can now open
your grand piano fully and play very

softly! You can also produce those loud,

rich, authoritative tones.

(79) Tuning Tools and Skills

For additional information on tuning,
see Howell, W. D.,, Fischer, J. C.,,
Jorgensen, Owen H.,, or Reblitz, Arthur,
in the Reference section and Zach's Piano
Supplies and Tuning Tools, Parts, for
tuning tools and piano parts.
Tools. We shall learn aural tuning -tuning by ear. All professional tuners must
be good aural tuners even if they use
electronic tuning aids. Professional tuners
nowadays use electronic tuning aids, but
we will not consider them here because
everyone must learn aural tuning first. You
will need:
(1) the larger rubber muting wedges
for grands and the smaller ones with wire
handles for uprights, four of each type,
(2) felt muting strips, about 4 ft long,
5/8 inch wide. They are used to mute the
two side strings of the 3-string notes in the
octave used to "set the bearings", see
below. They also come as ganged rubber
wedges but these don't work as well. The
strips also come in rubber, but rubber does
not mute as well and is not as stable as felt
(they can move or pop out while tuning).
The disadvantage of the felt strip is that it
will leave a layer of felt fiber on the
soundboard after you are finished, which
will need to be vacuumed out (not easy).
You can buy these by mail order or you
can ask your tuner to buy them for you.
(3) A tuning lever (also called a
tuning hammer) with an extendable
handle, a head that attaches to the tip of
the handle, and an interchangeable socket
that screws into the head. It is a good idea
to have a piano tuning pin which you can
insert into the socket using a vise grip so
that you can screw the socket into the head
firmly. Otherwise, if you grab on the
214

socket with the vise grip, you can scratch

it up. If the socket is not firmly in the
head, it will come off during tuning. Most
pianos require a #2 socket, unless your
piano has been re-strung using larger
tuning pins. The standard head is a 5
degree head, which is the angle between
the socket axis and the handle. Both the
heads and sockets come in various lengths,
but "standard" or "medium" length will do.
(4) Two tuning forks, A440 and
C523.3. Tap the tip of the fork firmly
against a muscular part of the knee and
test the sustain. It should be audible for 10
to 20 seconds when placed close to the ear.
Whistles are not sufficiently inaccurate.
Ear muffs are necessary for protection,
since ear damage is a tuner's occupational
hazard. It is necessary to hit the keys hard
(pound the keys -- to use a tuners' jargon)
in order to tune properly as explained
below, and the sound intensity from such
pounding can damage the ear, resulting in
premature hearing loss and tinnitus.
Preparation. Prepare for tuning by
removing the music stand so that the
tuning pins are accessible (grand piano).
Tuning is accomplished by first "setting
the bearings": tuning one center octave,
which is then copied to all other strings.
For setting the bearings, mute all the side
strings of the triplet strings within the
"bearings octave" (C4 - C5) using the
muting strip so that when any note within
the muted area is played, only the center
string will vibrate. Close to two octaves
may need to be muted; think through the
entire tuning algorithm first to determine
the highest and lowest notes to mute. Use
the rounded end of the wire handle of the
upright rubber mute to press the felt into
the spaces between the outer strings of
adjacent notes.
Getting Started. The first things to
learn are what not to do, in order to avoid

destroying the piano, which is not

difficult. If a string is tightened too much,
it will break. These initial instructions are
designed to minimize problems from
amateur mistakes. Plan ahead in case you
break a string. A broken, even when left
for long periods of time, is no disaster to a
piano. Find a tuner you can call before
conducting the first practice sessions.
Once you know how to tune, string
breakage is rare except for very old or
abused pianos. The tuning pins are turned
by such small amounts during tuning that
the strings almost never break.
The most important consideration for
a beginner tuner is to preserve the
condition of the pinblock. The pressure of
the pinblock on the pin is enormous. Now
you may never have to do this, but if you
were to hypothetically turn the pin 180
degrees very rapidly, the heat generated at
the interface between pin and pinblock
would be sufficient to burn the wood and
turn it into charcoal. Clearly, all rotations
of the pin must be conducted in slow,
small, increments. If you need to remove a
pin by turning it, rotate only a quarter turn
(counter clock-wise), wait a moment for
the heat to dissipate from the interface,
then repeat the procedure, etc., until the
pin feels loose.
I will describe everything assuming a
grand piano, but the corresponding motion
for the upright should be obvious. There
are two basic motions in tuning. The first
is to turn the pin so as to either pull or
release the string. The second is to rock
the pin back towards you (to pull on the
string to increase tension) or rock it
forwards towards the string, to decrease
tension. The rocking motion, if done to
extreme, will enlarge the hole and damage
the pinblock. The hole is elliptical at the
top surface of the pinblock because the
string is pulling the pin in the direction of

215

the major axis of that ellipse. Thus a small

amount of backwards rocking does not
enlarge the ellipse because the pin is
always pulled into the front end of the
ellipse by the string. Also, the pin is not
straight but bent elastically towards the
string by the pull of the string. The rocking
motion is used to move the string by
extremely small amounts. A small forward
rocking, within the elasticity of the wood,
is harmless. Use the rotation whenever
possible, and use the rocking motion only
when absolutely necessary for that tiny,
final adjustment. For the highest octave,
the motion needed is so small that the
rocking method will be necessary.
Start with the strings in the C3-C4
octave. Lower notes are harder to tune
because their beat frequencies are too low,
and the higher notes are difficult because
the amount of pin rotation needed to tune
is small. Choose G3 as the practice note
and number the strings. Each note in this
region has three strings. Starting from the
left, number the strings 123 (for G3), 456
(for G3#), 789 (for A3), etc.
Play G3 and note if it is in perfect
tune, or makes beats, indicating that it is
out of tune. Our first exercise, below, is to
tune G3 and to compare the result with the
sound before tuning. Place a large wedge
between strings 3 and 4 in order to mute
string 3 so that when you play G3, only
strings 1 and 2 can vibrate. Place the
wedge about midway between the bridge
and agraffe.
There are two types of tuning: unison
and harmonic. In unison, one string is
tuned identically to another. In harmonic
tuning, one string is tuned to a harmonic of
the other, such as thirds, fourths, fifths,
and octaves. The three strings of each note
are tuned in unison, which is easier than
harmonic tuning, so let's practice that first.

(i) Engaging and Manipulating the

Tuning Lever. If the tuning lever has
adjustable length, pull it out about 3 inches
and lock it in place. Hold the end of the
handle of the tuning lever with the RH and
the socket with the LH and engage the
socket over the pin. Orient the handle so
that it is approximately perpendicular to
the strings and pointing to your right.
Lightly jiggle the handle with the RH and
push the socket down with the LH so that
it is securely engaged, as far down as it
will go. From day one, develop a habit of
jiggling the socket by holding the end of
the handle between the thumb and
forefinger (RH fingers 1 & 2) so that it is
securely engaged. At this point, the handle
is probably not perfectly perpendicular to
the strings; choose the socket position that
is closest to perpendicular.
Now find a way to brace the pinky
side of the RH on the piano so that you
can apply firm pressure on the lever by
holding its end with thumb and forefinger.
Grab the tip of the handle with the thumb
and one or two fingers, and brace the hand
on the wooden piano frame or brace the
pinky against the tuning pins depending on
what is directly under the handle. If the
handle is closer to the plate (the metal
frame) over the strings, you can brace the
hand against the plate. Do not grab the
handle like you hold a tennis racket and
push-pull to turn the pin -- this will not
give enough control, until you become an
accomplished tuner. Practice these bracing
positions making sure that you can exert
controlled, constant, powerful pressure on
the handle, but do not turn any pins yet.
The lever handle must point to the
right (three o'clock position) so that when
it is turned towards you (the note goes
sharp), you counteract the force of the
string and free the pin from the front side
of the hole (towards the string). This

216

allows the pin to turn more freely because

of the reduction in friction. When the
handle is turned away from you (tuning
flat), both you and the string are trying to
turn the pin in the same direction.
Therefore the pin would turn too easily,
except for the fact that both your push and
the string's pull jam the pin against the
front of the hole, increasing the friction
and preventing the pin from rotating too
easily. Thus by placing the handle on the
right side, both the sharp and flat tunings
meet with some resistance and is easy to
control.
If the handle were placed pointing to
the left (nine o'clock position), you run
into trouble for both the sharp and flat
motions. For the sharp motion, both you
and the string jam the pin against the front
of the hole, making it doubly difficult to
turn the pin, and damaging the hole. For
the flat motion, the lever lifts the pin off
the front edge of the hole and reduces the
friction. In addition, both the lever and
string are turning the pin in the same
direction. Now the pin turns too easily.
The lever handle must point to the
left for uprights. Looking horizontally at
the tuning pins, the lever should point to 9
o'clock for uprights. In both grands and
uprights, the lever handle is on the side of
the last winding of the string.
Professional tuners do not use these
lever positions. Most use 1-2 o'clock for
grands and 10-11 o'clock for uprights and
Reblitz recommends 6 o'clock for grands
and 12 o'clock for uprights. In order to
understand why, let's first consider
positioning the lever at 12 o'clock on a
grand (it is similar at 6 o'clock). Now the
friction of the pin with the pinblock is the
same for both the sharp and flat motions.
However, in the sharp motion, you are
going against the string tension and in the
flat motion, the string is helping you.

Therefore, the difference in force needed

between sharp and flat motions is much
larger than the difference when the lever is
at 3 o'clock, which is a disadvantage.
However, unlike the 3 o'clock position, the
pin does not rock back and forth during
tuning so that when you release the
pressure on the tuning lever, the pin does
not spring back -- it is more stable -- and
you can get higher accuracy.
The 1-2 o'clock position is a good
compromise that makes use of both of the
advantages of the 3 o'clock and 12 o'clock
positions. Beginners do not have the
accuracy to take full advantage of the 1-2
o'clock position, so my suggestion is to
start with the 3 o'clock position, which
should be easier at first, and transition to
the 1-2 o'clock position as your accuracy
increases. When you become good, the
higher accuracy of the 1-2 o'clock position
can speed up your tuning so that you can
tune each string in a few seconds. At the 3
o'clock position, you will need to guess
how much the pin will spring back and
over-tune by that amount, which takes
more time. Clearly, exactly where you
place the lever will become more
important as you improve.
(ii) Setting the Pin. It is important to
"set the pin" in order for the tuning to
hold. If you look down on the pin, the
string comes around the right side of the
pin (grands -- it is on the left for uprights)
and twirls around it. Therefore rotating the
pin cw (clockwise), will tune sharp and
vice versa. The string tension is always
trying to rotate the pin ccw (counter clockwise, or flat). Normally, a piano de-tunes
flat with use. However, because the grip of
the pinblock on the pin is so strong, the
pin is never straight but is always twisted.
If it is rotated cw, the top of the pin
will be twisted cw with respect to the
bottom. In this position, the top of the pin

217

wants to rotate ccw (the pin wants to

untwist) but can't because it is held by the
pinblock. But remember that the string is
also trying to rotate it ccw. The two forces
together can be sufficient to quickly detune the piano flat when something loud is
played.
If the pin is turned ccw, the opposite
happens -- the pin will want to untwist cw,
which opposes the string force. This
reduces the net torque on the pin, making
the tuning more stable. In fact, you can
twist the pin so far ccw that the untwisting
force is much larger than the string force
and the piano can then de-tune itself sharp
as you play. Clearly, you must "set the
pin" correctly in order produce a stable
tuning, as we shall do below.
(iii) Tuning Unisons. Now engage
the tuning lever on the pin for string 1. We
will tune string 1 to string 2. The motion
you will practice is: (1) flat, (2) sharp, (3)
flat, (4) sharp and (5) flat (tune). Except
for (1), each motion must be smaller than
the previous one. As you improve, you
will add or delete steps as you see fit. We
are assuming that the two strings are
almost in tune. While tuning, follow two
rules: (a) never turn the pin unless you are
simultaneously listening to the sound, and
(b) never release the pressure on the tuning
lever handle until that motion is complete.
One common mistake beginners
make is to place the lever on the wrong
tuning pin. Since turning the pin does not
cause any audible change, they keep
turning it until the string breaks. One way
to avoid this is to always start by tuning
flat (which reduces the tension) and to
never turn the pin without listening to
the sound.
Start with motion (1) flat: keep
playing the note every second or two with
the LH so that there is a continuous sound,
while pushing the end of the lever handle

away from you by holding the fat tip of the

lever firmly with the thumb and 2nd finger
and pushing with the thumb. Don't lift the
key completely, as this will stop the
sound; play with a quick up-and-down
motion so that there is no break in the
sound. The pinky and the rest of your RH
should be braced against the piano. The
required motion of the lever is a few
millimeters. First, you will feel an
increasing resistance, and then the pin will
start to rotate. Before the pin begins to
rotate, you should hear a change in the
sound. As you turn the pin, listen for string
1 going flat, creating beats with string 2;
the beat frequency increasing as you turn.
Stop at a beat frequency of 2 to 3 per
second. The tip of the tuning lever should
move less than one cm. Remember, never
rotate the pin when there is no sound
because you will immediately lose track of
where you are with respect to how the
beats are changing. Always maintain
constant pressure on the lever until that
motion is completed.
What is the rationale behind the
above 5 motions? Assuming that the two
strings are in reasonable tune, you first
tune string 1 flat in step (1) to make sure
that in step (2) you will pass the tuning
point. This also protects against the
possibility that you had placed the lever on
the wrong tuning pin; as long as you are
turning flat, you will never break a string.
After (1) you are flat for sure, so in
step (2) you can listen to the tuning point
as you pass through it. Go past it until you
hear a beat frequency of about 2 to 3 per
second on the sharp side, and stop. Now
you know where the tuning point is, and
what it sounds like. The reason for going
so far past the tuning point is that you
want to set the pin, as explained above.
Now go back flat again, step (3), but
this time, stop just past the tuning point, as

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soon as you can hear any incipient beats.

The reason why you don't want to go too
far past the tuning point is that you don't
want to undo the "setting of the pin" in
step (2). Again, note exactly what the
tuning point sounds like. It should sound
perfectly clean and pure. This step assures
that you did not set the pin too far.
Now conduct the final tuning by
going sharp (step 4), by as little as you can
beyond perfect tune, and then bringing it
into tune by turning flat (step 5). Note that
your final motion must always be flat in
order to set the pin. Once you become
good, you might be able to do the whole
thing in two motions (sharp, flat), or three
(flat, sharp, flat).
Ideally, from step (1) to final tune,
maintain the sound with no pause, and
always exert pressure on the handle; never
letting go of the lever. Initially, you may
have to practice this motion-by-motion.
When you become proficient, the whole
operation will take only a few seconds.
Until you develop "tuning muscles"
you will tire quickly and may have to stop
briefly to recover. The constant hand/arm
pressure, and the mental and auditory
concentration required to focus on the
beats, can be quite a strain and can quickly
cause fatigue. You will need to develop
"tuning stamina" gradually. Most people
do better by listening through one ear than
through both, so turn your head to see
which ear is better.
A common mistake beginners make
is to listen for beats by pausing the tuning
motion. Beats are difficult to hear when
nothing is changing. If the pin is not being
turned, it is difficult to decide which of the
many things you are hearing is the beat
that you need to concentrate on. What
tuners do is to keep moving the lever and
listening to the changes in the beats.
Therefore, slowing down the tuning

motion doesn't make it easier. The

beginner is between a rock and a hard
place. Turning the pin too quickly will
result in all hell breaking loose and losing
track of where you are. Turning too slowly
will make it difficult to identify the beats.
Therefore work on determining the range
of motion you need to identify the beats
and the right speed with which you can
steadily turn the pin to make the beats
come and go. In case you get hopelessly
lost, mute strings 2 and 3 by placing a
wedge between them, play the note and
see if you can find another note on the
piano that comes close. If that note is
lower than G3, then you need to tune it
sharp to bring it back, and vice versa.
Now that you have tuned string 1 to
string 2, reposition the wedge so that you
mute 1, leaving 2 and 3 free to vibrate.
Tune 3 to 2, then remove the wedge and
see if the G is now free of beats. You have
tuned one note! If the G was in reasonable
tune before you started, you haven't
accomplished much, so find a note nearby
that is out of tune and see if you can "clean
it up". Notice that in this scheme, you are
always tuning one single string to another
single string. In principle, if you are really
good, strings 1 and 2 are in perfect tune
after you finish tuning 1, so you don't need
the wedge any more. You should be able
to tune 3 to 1 and 2 vibrating together. In
practice this doesn't work until you
become really good, because of a
phenomenon called sympathetic vibration.
(iv) Sympathetic Vibrations. The
accuracy required to bring two strings into
perfect tune is so high that it is a nearly
impossible task except for the most highly
trained tuner. In practice, it is easier
because when the frequencies approach
within a certain interval called the
"sympathetic vibration range", the two
strings change their frequencies towards

219

each other so that they vibrate with the

same frequency. This happens because the
two strings are not independent, but are
coupled to each other at the bridge. When
coupled, the string vibrating at the higher
frequency will drive the slower string to
vibrate at a slightly higher frequency, and
vice versa. The net effect is to drive both
frequencies towards the average frequency
of the two. The size of the sympathetic
vibration range depends on the strength of
the coupling and is quite significant for the
piano, about 0.3 cent. The sympathetic
vibration range is like a black hole for
beats; when beats approach the
sympathetic vibration range, it gets sucked
in and disappears; therefore tuners never
hear beats slower than that at the edge of
the sympathetic vibration range.
When two strings are tuned in
unison, you have no idea whether they are
in perfect tune or merely within the
sympathetic vibration range (unless you
are an experienced tuner). Now if you
were to try to tune a third string to the two
strings in sympathetic vibration, the third
string will bring the string closest to it in
frequency into sympathetic vibration. But
the other string may be too far off in
frequency. It will break off the
sympathetic vibration, and will sound
dissonant. The result is that no matter
where you are, you will always hear beats
-- the tuning point disappears! It might
appear that if the third string were tuned to
the average frequency of the two strings in
sympathetic vibration, all three should go
into sympathetic vibration. This does not
appear to be the case unless all three
frequencies are in perfect tune. If the first
two strings are sufficiently off, a complex
transfer of energy takes place among the
three strings. Even when the first two are
close, there will be higher harmonics that
will prevent all beats from disappearing

when a third string is introduced. In

addition, there are frequent cases in which
you cannot totally eliminate all beats
because the two strings are not identical.
In theory, this three-string problem
may be analogous to the three-body
problem in physics, which has no unique
solution although two-body problems
always have unique solutions. The fact
that a good tuner can tune one string to
two does not invalidate this physics
analogy because there are special
configurations of three-body problems that
have unique solutions.
Therefore, a beginner will become
totally lost, if he were to try to tune a third
string to a pair of strings. Until you
become proficient at detecting the
sympathetic vibration range, always tune
one string to one; never one to two. In
addition, just because you tuned 1 to 2 and
3 to 2, it does not mean that the three
strings will sound "clean" together.
Always check; if it is not completely
"clean", you will need to find the
offending string and try again.
Note the use of the term "clean".
With enough practice, you will soon get
away from listening to beats, but instead,
you will be looking for a pure sound that
results somewhere within the sympathetic
vibration range. This point will depend on
what types of harmonics each string
produces. In principle, when tuning
unisons, you are trying to match the
fundamentals. In practice, a slight error in
the fundamentals is inaudible compared to
the same error in a high harmonic.
Unfortunately, these high harmonics are
generally not exact harmonics but vary
from string to string. Thus, when the
fundamentals are matched, these high
harmonics create high frequency beats that
make the note "muddy" or "tinny". When
the fundamentals are de-tuned ever so

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slightly so that the harmonics do not beat,

the note "cleans up". Reality is even more
complicated because some strings,
especially for the lower quality pianos,
will have extraneous resonances of their
own, making it impossible to completely
eliminate certain beats. These beats
become troublesome if you need to use
this note to tune another one. Experienced
tuners can keep track of these extraneous
beats and tune around them.
(v) Making that Final Infinitesimal
Motion. We now advance to the next level
of difficulty. Find a note near G5 that is
slightly out of tune, and repeat the above
procedure for G3. The tuning motions are
now much smaller for these higher notes,
making them more difficult. In fact you
may not be able to achieve sufficient
accuracy by rotating the pin because even
a small rotation will pass the tuning point
for both going flat and sharp. We need to
learn a new skill. This skill requires you to
pound on the notes, so put on your ear
muffs or ear plugs.
Typically, you would get through
motion (4) successfully, but for motion (5)
the pin would either not move or jump
past the tuning point. In order to make the
string advance in smaller increments, press
on the lever at a pressure slightly below
the point at which the pin will jump. Now
strike hard on the note while maintaining
the same pressure on the lever. The added
string tension from the hard hammer blow
will advance the string by a small amount.
Repeat this until it is in perfect tune. It is
important to never release the pressure on
the lever and to keep the pressure constant
during these repeated small advances, or
you will quickly lose track of where you
are. When it is in perfect tune, and you
release the lever, the pin might spring
back, leaving the string slightly sharp. You
will have to learn from experience, how

much it will spring back and compensate

for it during the tuning process.
The need to pound on the string to
advance it is one reason you often hear
tuners pounding on the piano. It is a good
idea to get into the habit of pounding on
most of the notes because this stabilizes
the tuning. The resulting sound can be so
loud as to damage the ear, and one of the
occupational hazards of tuners is ear
damage from pounding. Use of ear plugs
is the solution. When pounding, you will
still easily hear the beats even with ear
plugs. You can minimize the pounding
force by increasing the pressure on the
lever. Also, less pounding is required if the
lever is parallel to the string instead of
perpendicular to it, and even less if you
point it to the left. This is another reason
why many tuners use their levers more
parallel to the strings than perpendicular.
Note that there are two ways to point it
parallel: towards the strings (12 o'clock)
and away from the strings (6 o'clock). As
you gain experience, experiment with
different lever positions as this will give
you many options for solving various
problems. For example, with the most
popular 5-degree head on your lever, you
may not be able to point the lever handle
to the right for the highest octave because
it may hit the wooden piano frame.
Practice tuning unisons above G5 using
pounding.
(vi) Equalizing String Tension.
Pounding is also helpful for distributing
the string tension more evenly among all
the non-speaking sections of the string,
such as the duplex scale section, but
especially in the section between the capo
bar and the agraffe. There is controversy
as to whether equalizing the tension will
improve the sound. There is little question
that the even tension will make the tuning
more stable. However, whether it makes a

221

material difference in stability may be

debatable, especially if the pins were
correctly set during tuning. In many
pianos, the duplex sections are almost
completely muted out using felts because
they might cause undesirable oscillations.
In fact, the over-strung section is muted
out in almost every piano. Beginners need
not worry about the tension in these "nonspeaking" sections of the strings. Thus
heavy pounding, though a useful skill to
learn, is not necessary for a beginner.
My personal opinion is that the
sound from the duplex scale strings does
not add to the piano sound. In fact, this
sound is inaudible and is muted out when
they become audible in the bass. Thus the
"art of tuning the duplex scale" is a myth
although most piano tuners (including
Reblitz!) have been taught to believe it by
the manufacturers, because it makes for a
good sales pitch. There is no way to tune
the duplex scale because you can't hear it,
but it makes sense to equalize the string
tension by pounding in order to stabilize
the tuning. The duplex scale is needed to
allow the bridge to move more freely, not
for producing new sound. Obviously, the
duplex scale will improve the quality of
the sound because it optimizes the
impedance of the bridge, but not because it
produces any sound. The facts that the
duplex scale is muted out in the bass and is
totally inaudible in the treble prove that
the sound from the duplex scale is not
audible.
Even in the treble, where the duplex
scale is inaudible, it is "tuned" in the sense
that the aliquot bar (located between the
hitch pin and bridge) is placed at a
location such that the length of the duplex
part of the string is approximately at a
harmonic length of the speaking section of
the string in order to optimize the
impedance ("aliquot" means fractional or

harmonic). If the sound from the duplex

scale were audible, the duplex scale would
have to be tuned as carefully as the
speaking length. However, for impedance
matching, the tuning need only be
approximate, which is what is done in
practice. If the duplex scale is inaudible,
what is the aliquot bar for? I believe it is
for reducing the coupling between
adjacent strings, which narrows the
sympathetic
vibration
range,
thus
improving the tuning.
Some manufacturers have stretched
this duplex scale myth to ridiculous
lengths by claiming a second duplex scale
on the pin side. Since the hammer can only
transmit tensile strain to this length of
string (because of the rigid Capo bar), this
part of the string cannot vibrate to produce
sound. Consequently, practically no
manufacturer specifies that the nonspeaking lengths be tuned.
The
disconnect
between
the
designers and sales people is truly
unbelievable! The duplex scale and aliquot
bars do improve the sound, but not
because they vibrate but because they
improve the acoustic impedance and
control the string coupling.
(vii) Rocking It in the Treble. The
most difficult notes to tune are the highest
ones. Here you need incredible accuracy in
moving the strings and the beats are
difficult to hear. Beginners can easily lose
their bearing and have a hard time finding
their way back. The required motions are
so small that you will need the pin
rocking motion to tune. Since the motion
is so small, rocking the pin does not
damage the pinblock. To rock the pin,
place the lever parallel to the strings and
pointing towards the strings (away from
you). To tune sharp, pull up on the lever,
and to tune flat, press down. First, make
sure that the tuning point is close to the

222

center of the rocking motion. If it is not,

rotate the pin so that it is. Since this
rotation is much larger than that needed
for the final tuning, it is not difficult, but
remember to correctly set the pin. It is
better if the tuning point is front of center
(towards the string) because the tuning
will be more stable, but bringing it too far
forward would risk damaging the pinblock
when you tune flat. Rocking to tune flat
can damage the pinblock because the pin
is already jammed up against the front of
the hole. Practice tuning unisons in the
highest octave.
(viii) Rumblings in the Bass. The
lowest bass strings are second in difficulty
(to the highest notes) to tune. These strings
produce sound composed mostly of higher
harmonics. Near the tuning point, the beats
are so slow and soft that they are difficult
to hear. Sometimes, you can "hear" them
better by pressing your knee against the
piano to feel for the vibrations than by
trying to hear them with your ears,
especially in the single string section. You
can practice unison tuning only down to
the last double string section. See if you
can recognize the high pitched, metallic,
ringing beats that are prevalent in this
region. Try eliminating these; often, you
need to de-tune slightly in order to
eliminate them. If you can hear these high,
ringing, beats, it means that you are well
on your way to becoming a tuner. Don't
worry if you can't even recognize them at
first-- beginners are not expected to. The
lowest single string section can only be
tuned using harmonic tuning.
(ix) Harmonic Tuning. Once you
are satisfied with the ability to tune
unisons, start practicing tuning octaves.
Take C4 and C5 and mute out the upper
two strings of each note by inserting a
wedge between them. Tune the upper note
to the one an octave below, and vice versa.

This is called harmonic tuning because

you are tuning the higher note to a
harmonic of the lower note. As with
unisons, start near middle C, then work up
to the highest treble, and then practice in
the bass. Repeat the same practice with
5ths (C4 - G4), 4ths (C4 - F4), and major
3rds (C4 - E4), which you will need during
the tuning process.
(x) Tempering. After you can tune
perfect harmonics, try de-tuning to see if
you can hear the increasing beat frequency
as you deviate very slightly from perfect
tune. Try to identify various beat
frequencies, especially 1bps (beat per
second) and 10bps, using 5ths. You will
need these skills later for tempering.
(xi) What is Stretch? Harmonics in
piano strings are never exact because real
strings attached to real ends do not behave
like ideal mathematical strings. This
property of inexact harmonics is called
inharmonicity. The difference between the
actual
and
theoretical
harmonic
frequencies
is
called
stretch.
Experimentally, it is found that most
harmonics are sharp compared to their
ideal theoretical values, although there can
be a few that are flat.
According to one research result
(Young, Robert W.,, 1952), stretch is
caused by the stiffness of strings. Ideal
mathematical strings have zero stiffness.
Stiffness is an extrinsic property -- it
depends on the dimensions of the wire. If
this explanation is correct, then stretch
must also be extrinsic. Given the same
type of steel, the wire is stiffer if it is fatter
or shorter. One consequence of this
dependence on stiffness is an increase in
the frequency with harmonic mode
number; i.e., the wire appears stiffer to
harmonics with shorter wavelengths.
Stiffer wires vibrate faster because they
have an extra restoring force, in addition

223

to the string tension fatter wires are

harder to bend. This inharmonicity from
stiffness has been calculated and agrees
with measured stretch to within several
percent so that this single mechanism
appears to account for most of the
observed stretch.
These calculations show that stretch
is about 1.2 cents for the second mode of
vibration at C4 and doubles about every 8
semitones (the first mode is the lowest, or
fundamental frequency, one cent is one
hundredth of a semitone, and there are 12
semitones in an octave). Stretch is smaller
for lower notes, especially below C3,
because the wire wound strings are quite
flexible. Stretch increases rapidly with
mode number and decreases even more
rapidly with string length. In principle,
stretch is smaller for larger pianos and
larger for lower tension pianos if the same
diameter strings are used. Stretch presents
problems in scale design since abrupt
changes in string type, diameter, length,
etc., will produce a discontinuous change
in stretch. Very high mode harmonics, if
they happen to be unusually loud, present
problems in tuning because of their large
stretch -- tuning out their beats could
throw the lower, more important,
harmonics audibly out of tune.
Since larger pianos tend to have
smaller stretch, but also tend to sound
better, one might conclude that smaller
stretch is better. However, the difference
in stretch is generally small, and the tone
quality of a piano is largely controlled by
properties other than stretch.
In harmonic tuning you tune, for
example, the fundamental or a harmonic of
the upper note to a higher harmonic of the
lower note. The resulting new note is not
an exact multiple of the lower note, but is
sharp by the amount of stretch. What is so
interesting is that a scale with stretch

produces "livelier" music than one

without! This has caused some tuners to
tune in double octaves instead of single
octaves, which increases the stretch.
The amount of stretch is unique to
each piano and, in fact, is unique to each
note of each piano. Modern electronic
tuning aids are sufficiently powerful to
memorize the stretch for all the notes of
individual pianos. Tuners with electronic
tuning aids can also calculate an average
stretch for each piano or stretch function
and tune the piano accordingly. In fact,
there are anecdotal accounts of pianists
requesting stretch in excess of the natural
stretch of the piano. In aural tuning, stretch
is naturally, and accurately, taken into
account. Therefore, although stretch is an
important aspect of tuning, the tuner does
not have to do anything special to include
stretch, if all you want is the natural
stretch of the piano.
(xii)
Precision,
Precision,
Precision. The name of the game in tuning
is precision. All tuning procedures are
arranged in such a way that you tune the
first note to the tuning fork, the second to
the first, etc., in sequence. Therefore, any
errors will quickly add up. In fact, an error
at one point will often make some
succeeding steps impossible. This happens
because you are listening for the smallest
hint of beats and if the beats were not
totally eliminated in one note, you can't
use it to tune another as those beats will be
clearly heard. In fact, for beginners, this
will happen frequently before you learn
how precise you need to be. When this
happens, you will hear beats that you can't
eliminate. In that case, go back to your
reference note and see if you hear the
same beat; if you do, there is the source of
your problem -- fix it.
The best way to assure precision is
by checking the tuning. Errors occur

224

because every string is different and you

are never sure that the beat you hear is the
one you are looking for, especially for the
beginner. Another factor is that you need
to count beats per second (bps), and your
idea of, say 2bps, will be different on
different days or at different times of the
same day until you have those "beat
speeds" well memorized. Because of the
critical importance of precision, it pays to
check each tuned note. This is especially
true when "setting the bearings" which is
explained below. Unfortunately, it is just
as difficult to check as it is to tune
correctly; that is, a person who cannot tune
sufficiently accurately is usually unable to
perform a meaningful check. In addition,
if the tuning is sufficiently off, the
checking doesn't work. Therefore, I have
provided methods of tuning below that use
a minimum of checks. The resulting tuning
will not be very good initially, for Equal
temperament.
The
Kirnberger
temperament (see below) is easier to tune
accurately. On the other hand, beginners
can't produce good tunings anyway, no
matter what methods or temperaments
they use. At least, the procedures
presented below will provide a tuning
which should not be a disaster and which
will improve as your skills improve. In
fact, the procedure described here is
probably the fastest way to learn. After
you have improved sufficiently, you can
then investigate the checking procedures,
such as those given in Reblitz, or "Tuning"
by Jorgensen.

225

(80) Grand Piano Action Diagram

There are more detailed diagrams at:

https://www.pianoparts.com/grand/
and many models showing how they
work on Youtube.

226

(81) Kirnberger II, Equal

Temperaments
Tuning consists of "setting the
bearings" in an octave near middle C, and
then "copying" this octave to all the other
notes. You will need various harmonic
tunings to set the bearings and only the
middle string of each note in the "bearings
octave" is initially tuned. Once one string
of each note is tuned in this way, the
"copying" is performed by tuning in
unison and octaves.
In setting the bearings, we must
choose which temperament to use. As
explained in (77) Circle of Fifths,
Temperaments, most pianos today are
tuned to Equal Temperament (ET), but
the historical temperaments may be
showing signs of gaining popularity,
especially the Well Temperaments (WT).
Therefore, I have chosen ET and one WT,
Kirnberger II (K-II), for this chapter. K-II
is one of the easiest temperaments to tune;
therefore, we will visit that first. Most
people who are unfamiliar with the
different temperaments may not notice any
difference at first between ET and K-II;
they will both sound terrific compared to a
piano out of tune. Most pianists, on the
other hand, should hear a distinct
difference and be able to form an opinion
or preference if certain pieces of music are
played and the differences are pointed out
to them. The easiest way to listen to the
differences for the uninitiated is to use an
electronic piano that has all these
temperaments built into it, and to play the
same piece, using each temperament. For
easy test pieces, try Bach's Inventions; for
one of the best examples, try the 3rd
movement of Beethoven's Waldstein
Sonata. Chopin pieces may sound
somewhat strange in WT.

Beginners should learn K-II first so

that you can get started without too much
difficulty, and then learn ET. One
drawback of this scheme is that you may
like K-II so much over ET that you may
never decide to learn ET, especially
because ET is more difficult. Once you get
used to K-II, ET will sound a little lacking,
or "muddy". However, you cannot really
be considered a tuner unless you can tune
ET. Also, there are many WTs that you
may want to look into, that are superior to
K-II in reducing wolves.
You can start tuning ET anywhere,
but most tuners use the A440 fork to start,
because orchestras generally tune to A440.
The objective in K-II is to have C major
and as many "nearby" scales as possible to
be just (have perfect intervals), so the
tuning is started from middle C. C4 =
261.6, but most tuners will use a C523.3
tuning fork to tune C4 partly because the
higher harmonic gives twice the accuracy.
Now, the A that results from K-II tuned
from the correct C does not result in A440.
Therefore, you will need two tuning forks:
A for ET and C for K-II. Alternatively,
you can just start with only a C fork and
start tuning ET from C. Having two tuning
forks is an advantage because whether you
start from C or from A, you can check the
tuning when you get to the other note.
Prepare for tuning by practicing the
basic tuning skills of the previous section.
Tuning the Piano to the Tuning
Fork. One of the most difficult steps in the
tuning process is tuning the piano to the
tuning fork. This difficulty arises because:
(1) the tuning fork has a different (usually
shorter) sustain than the piano so that the
fork dies off before you can make an
accurate comparison and (2) the fork puts
out a pure sine wave, without the loud
harmonics of the piano strings. Therefore,
you cannot use beats with higher

227

harmonics to increase the accuracy of the

tuning as you can with two piano strings.
One advantage of electronic tuners is that
they can be programmed to generate
square wave reference tones that contain
large numbers of high harmonics. These
high harmonics (which create those sharp
corners of square waves you will need to
know polynomial math or Fourier
transforms to understand this) are useful
for increasing the tuning accuracy. We
must therefore solve these two problems in
order to tune the piano accurately to the
tuning fork.
Both difficulties can be solved if we
can use the piano as the tuning fork and
make this transfer from fork to piano using
some high piano harmonic. To accomplish
such a transfer, find any note within the
muted notes that makes loud beats with the
fork. If you can't find any, use the note a
semi-tone down or up; for example, for
tuning fork A4, use A4b or A4# on the
piano. If these beat frequencies are a bit
too high, try these same notes an octave
lower and choose the better one, say A3#.
Then memorize the beat frequency that the
fork makes with A3#. Now tune the A4 on
the piano so it makes the same frequency
beats with A3#. To hear the fork, place the
tip of the handle against the triangular
cartilage (ear lobe) that sticks out towards
the middle of the ear hole. Adjust the
loudness of the fork by pressing the ear
lobe in or out using the end of the fork.
Another method is to press its stem
perpendicular onto any hard, flat surface.
Develop a habit of holding the fork at the
narrow neck of the handle so that the
fingers do not interfere with their
vibrations.
WT: Kirnberger II. Mute all side
strings from F3 to F4, using the felt strip,

so that you are tuning only the center

strings.
Tune C4 (middle C) to the C tuning
fork. Then use
C4 to tune G3 (4th), E4 (3rd), F3
(5th), and F4 (4th). Use
G3 to tune D4 (5th) and B3 (3rd).
Then use
B3 to tune F#3 (4th),
F#3 to tune Db4 (5th),
F3 to tune Bb3 (4th),
Bb3 to tune Eb4 (4th) and
Eb4 to tune Ab3 (5th). All tunings up
to here are just. Now tune A3 such that the
F3-A3 and A3-D4 beat frequencies are the
same.
You are done with setting the
bearings!
Now tune up in just octaves to the
highest notes, and then down to the lowest
notes, using the bearings octave as
reference. In all these tunings, tune just
one new octave string while muting the
others, then tune the remaining one or two
strings in unison to the newly tuned string.
Example: to tune C6 to the tuned
center string of C5, mute strings 1 and 3 of
C6 and use C5 to tune the center string of
C6. Then un-mute 3 and tune it to 2, and
then tune 1 to 2.
This is one time you might break the
"tune one string against one" rule. If your
reference note is a (tuned) 3-string note,
use it as it is. This will test the quality of
your tuning. If you have a hard time using
it to tune a new single string, then your
unison tuning of the reference note may
not have been sufficiently accurate and
you should go back and clean it up. Of
course, if after considerable effort, you
cannot tune 3 against 1, you will have no
choice but to mute two of the three strings
in the reference note in order to advance.
When all the treble and bass notes are
done, the only un-tuned strings left are the

228

ones you muted for setting the bearings.

Tune these in unison to their center
strings, starting with the lowest note, by
pulling the felt off one loop at a time.
WTs have the advantage that they
provide the clearest harmonies. And K-II
is simple enough for amateur tuners to
learn. Their disadvantage is that, if they go
slightly out of tune, it becomes noticeable;
therefore WTs require more frequent
tunings. Since ET notes are intentionally
detuned, a slight deterioration in tuning is
not as noticeable as in WT. This difference
is not as bad as it might sound because
even in ET, all unison and octave tunings
are just and are just as readily heard in ET
and WT.
Equal Temperament (ET). I
present here the simplest ET tuning
scheme. More accurate algorithms can be
found in the literature (Reblitz, Jorgensen).
No self-respecting professional tuner
would use this scheme; however, when
you get good at it, you can produce a
useable ET. For the beginner, the more
complete and precise schemes will not
give better results. With those complex
methods, a beginner can quickly get
confused without any idea of what he did
wrong and get hopelessly stuck
somewhere in the middle. With the
method shown here, you can quickly
develop the ability to find out what you
did wrong, and figure out how to correct
it.
Mute the side strings from G3 to
C#5.
Tune A4 to the A440 fork.
Tune A3 to A4.
Then tune A3-E4 in a contracted 5th,
by tuning E4 slightly flat until you hear a
beat of about 1 Hz. The contracted 5th
should beat a little under 1 Hz at the
bottom of the muted range (A3) and about

1.5 Hz near the top (C5). The beat

frequencies of the 5ths should increase
smoothly with increasing pitch. Keep
tuning up in contracted 5ths until you
cannot go up any more without leaving the
muted range, then tune one octave down,
and repeat this up-in-5ths and down-oneoctave procedure until you get to A4. For
example, you started with a contracted A3E4. Then tune a contracted E4-B4. The
next 5th will take you above the highest
muted note, C#5, so tune one octave
down, B4-B3. All octaves are, of course,
just. To get the contracted 5th, start from
just and tune flat in order to increase the
beat frequency to the desired value and set
the pin correctly at the same time. If you
had done everything perfectly, the last D4A4 should be a contracted 5th with a beat
frequency of slightly over 1 Hz without
any tuning. Then, you are done. You have
just done a "circle of (contracted) fifths".
The miracle of the circle of fifths is that it
tunes every note once, without skipping
any within the A3-A4 octave!
If the final D4-A4 is not correct, you
made some errors somewhere. In that case,
reverse the procedure, starting from A4,
going down in contracted 5ths and up in
octaves, until you reach A3, where the
final A3-E4 should be a contracted 5th
with a beat frequency slightly under 1 Hz.
For going down in 5ths, you create a
contracted 5th by tuning the lower note
sharp from just. However, this tuning
action will not set the pin. In order to set
the pin correctly, you must first go too
sharp, and then decrease the beat
frequency to the desired value. Therefore,
going down in 5ths is more difficult than
going up in 5ths.
An alternative method is to start with
A3 and tune up to C4 by going up in 5ths,
and checking this C with a tuning fork. If
your C is too sharp, your 5ths were not

229

sufficiently contracted, and vice versa.

Complete the tuning by starting from A4
and tuning down to C4.
A similar variation is to tune up in
5ths from A3 about half way to G#, and
then tune down from A4 to G#.
ET can be tuned using the circle of
fourths instead of fifths as described
above, by tuning in expanded fourths
instead of contracted fifths. It has the
advantage that it is two steps shorter and is
therefore a bit more accurate.
Once the bearings are set, continue
as described in the Kirnberger section.
ET is slightly out of tune. This is an
advantage in the sense that if it goes
slightly more out of tune, it is not
noticeable, so you can get away with
fewer tunings. Another advantage is that
the above tuning algorithm is so simple
that it is impossible to forget.

(82) References
Banowetz, Joseph, The Pianist's
Guide to Pedaling, Indiana University
Press; First Edition (April 1, 1985).
Beginner books, Humphries;
Beyer , ; Faber Piano Adventures:
http://pianoadventures.com/publications/m
ainLibraries/pa/level1.html.
Bernard, Jonathan W., Space
and Symmetry in Bartok, Journal of Music
Theory 30, no. 2 (Fall, 1986): P.185-200.
Bertrand, Ott, Liszt et la
Pedagogie
du
Piano,
Collection
Psychology et Pedagogie de la Musique,
(1978) E. A. P. France.
Lisztian Keyboard Energy: An Essay
on the Pianism of Franz Liszt : Liszt Et LA
Pedagogie Du Piano, Hardcover
September 1, 1992.

Beyer
http://imslp.org/wiki/Vorschule_im_Klavi
erspiel,_Op.101_(Beyer,_Ferdinand).

Boissier,
August,
and
Goodchild, Neil J., (Boissier) A Diary
of Franz Liszt as Teacher 1831-32,
translated by Elyse Mach.
(Goodchild)
Liszt's
Technical
Studies: A Methodology for the Attainment
of Pianistic Virtuosity. Pianistic virtuosity
via six principles illustrated by exercises;
no useful information on how to practice.
Brandt, Anthony, How Music
Makes
Sense,
http://cnx.org/contents/ae269fb8-8bf24884-8fc818c4ed1c66ff@22/How_Music_Makes_S
ense .
Chapman, Brian, Ludwig Van
Beethoven, Moonlight Sonata,
and in Beethoven, Sonatas for the
Piano.
http://www.qedinteractive.com.au/ht
ml/jbc/bethvint.htm .
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, Flow:
The Psychology of Optimal Experience,
2008, Harper Perennial Classics.
Easy Bach, First Lessons in Bach Book 1: Piano Solo: Walter Carroll,
Bach -- Selections from Anna
Magdalena's
Notebook
(Alfred
Masterwork Editions).
Exercises: Hanon, etc., Look
these up on the internet:
Cortot, Cramer-Bulow, Czerny,
Dohnanyi, Hanon, Plaidy, or at:
IMSLP
(mostly
free):
http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page .
Fay, Amy, Music Study in
Germany, see chapter XXIV, near end.
Fine, Larry, The Piano Book,
Brookside Press, 4th Ed., Nov. 2000.
Fischer, J. C., Piano Tuning,
Dover, N.Y., 1975.
Gilmore, Don A., about The SelfTuning Piano .

230

Grand Piano Diagrams, The

Piano Deconstructed .

Gutmann, Peter, in Classical

Notes, Ludwig Van Beethoven Piano
Sonata #23, Op. 57, "Appassionata".
Howell, W. D., Professional Piano
Tuning, New Era Printing Co., Conn.
1966.
Jorgensen, Owen H., Tuning,
Michigan St. Univ. Press, 1991.
Kang, etc., Brain Flush, Kang,
Xie
L.,
HXu
QChen
MJLiao
YThiyagarajan MO'Donnell JChristensen
DJNicholson CIliff JJTakano TDeane
RNedergaard M (2013 Oct 18). Sleep
drives metabolite clearance from the adult
brain. Science. 342, 373-7.
Kotier, Steven, The Rise of
Superman: Decoding the Science of
Ultimate Human Performance, 2014, New
Harvest.
Larips.com, http://www.larips.com
.
Levin, Robert, Improvisation and
Musical Structure in Mozart's Piano
Concertos. L'interpretation de la Musique
Classique de Haydn Schubert. Colloque
international, vry, 13-15 Octobre 1977.
Geneva 1980, Minkoff, 45-55. (English
version of a paper delivered in French.)
Levin, Robert and Leeson, Daniel
N.: On the Authenticity of K. Anh. C 14.01
(297b), a Symphonia [recte: Symphonie]
Concertante for Four Winds and
Orchestra. Mozart-Jahrbuch 1976/77, 7096.
Listz's Teaching Bibliography,
below is a list containing information
on Liszt's teachings; the contents are
disappointing. Liszt's father, Adam, did a
terrific job of teaching Liszt but, after
soaring to fame, Liszt only gave "master
classes" to students who were already
concert pianists, while complaining about

the conservatories that could not teach.

The few teachers who knew how to teach
were the parents of Mozart, Beethoven,
Chopin, Liszt, etc. That tells us something
valuable. The anointed teachers: the great
Masters and their students were led astray
by the grandeur of "talent", dogma,
endless practice, etc., (instead of research,
knowledge,
documentation,
empowerment, etc.) and piano pedagogy
ended up in a dead end with no way out.
(1) Life and Liszt, Arthur Friedheim,
Taplinger, NY, 1961.
(2) The Piano Master Classes of
Franz Liszt: 1884-1886, Diary Notes of
August Gollerich, Indiana Univ. Press,
1996.
(3) Living with Liszt: From the Diary
of Carl Lachmund, an American Pupil of
Liszt 1882-1884, Pendragon Press,
Stuyvesant, NY, 1995.
(4) Memories of a Musical Life,
William Mason, Century Co., NY, 1901.
(5) My Musical Experiences, Bettina
Walker, R. Bently & Son, London, 1892.
(6) There are a diary by Lina
Schmalhausen, the other articles already
cited (by Fay, Amy, and Boissier, August,
and Goodchild, Neil J.,), and the books by
Ronald Taylor and Alan Walker.
Moscheles, Ignace, Life of
Beethoven, 1841.
Olson, Steve, COUNT DOWN: The
Race for Beautiful Solutions at the
International Mathematical Olympiad,
2004. Olson explains the creative thinking
process of these competitors and defies the
assumption that genius is born, not made,
as in music.
Patel, Aniruddh D.,
Music,
Language,
and
the
Brain:
9780199755301: Medicine & Health
Science Books @ Amazon.com.

231

http://solomonsmusic.net/bachacon.h

Pianoteq

tm .

https://www.pianoteq.com .

Piccolo, Stefano, The Human

Cells, in Scientific American, October,
2014, P. 76.

Psychoacoustics,
http://www.music.miami.edu/programs/m
ue/Research/mescobar/thesis/web/Psychoa
coustics.htm .
Reblitz, Arthur, Piano Servicing,
Tuning, and Rebuilding, 2nd Ed., 1993.
The most comprehensive book on piano
construction, repairs, and maintenance.

Rogers,
Nancy;
Ottman,
Robert, Music for Sight Singing (9th

Structural

SET,
http://structuralenergetictherapy.com/finda-therapist/ .
Tomita, Yo, J. S. Bach: Inventions
and Sinfonia, 1999.
Treffert, Donald A., Accidental
Genius, Scientific American, Aug. 2014,
P. 54, and Islands of Genius: The
Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired,
and Sudden Savant, Jessica Kingsley
Publishers, 2010.
http://www.amazon.com/BodyguardsStory-Diana-CrashSurvivor/dp/0446527750/ref=sr_1_1?ie=U
TF8&qid=1415503669&sr=81&keywords=trevor+rees-jones .

Michael,

Alzheimer's/Music movie: Alive Inside: A

Story of Music & Memory, http://the-aliveinside-project.myshopify.com or from
Amazon.

Tuning

Tools,

Parts,

Amazon.com: piano tuning tools: Musical

Instruments ,
Schaff Piano Supply Co. - Products ,
Piano Tuning Tools - Hammers
made in the USA .
Young, Robert W., Inharmonicity
of Plain Wire Piano Strings, J. Acoust.
Soc. Am., 24(3), 1952.

Rubinstein, Anton; Carreo,

Teresa, The Art of Piano Pedaling: Two
Classic Guides, Dover Books on Music,
Paperback August 4, 2003.
Sethares, William A., Adaptive
Tunings for Musical Scales, J. Acoust.
Soc. Am. 96(1), July, 1994, P. 10.
Sheet
Music,
(at
http://www.pianopractice.org/sheetmusic2.
pdf)
Bach: Inventions #1, #4, #8, #13,
Sinfonia #15,
Beethoven: Fr Elise (short version),
Sonata No. 14 (Moonlight, Op. 27),
Mozart: [from Sonata K300 (K331)]
Rondo Alla Turca.
Chopin: Fantaisie Impromptu, Op.
66.
Solomon, Larry, Bach's Chaconne
in D minor for solo violin, see Variation
Techniques.

Rees-Jones,

Trevor

Edition) Spiral-bound January 12, 2013.

Rossato-Bennett,

Therapy,

Energy

Zach's

Piano

Supplies

http://www.amazon.com/gp/node/index.ht
ml?ie=UTF8&me=A2ONYPD9NQF23S&
merchant=A2ONYPD9NQF23S&qid=141
2862674 .

(83) Book Reviews: General

Comments
In the last 100 years, the piano
literature evolved from finger exercises to
using the entire body, relaxation, and
musical performance and, finally, to
practice methods. Therefore, the older
publications contain concepts that are now
discredited. This does not mean that
232

Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt

didn't have proper technique; just that the
literature recorded mostly their great
performances but not what we had to do to
succeed. The piano literature and
pedagogy had been inadequate, up to
around year 2,000. This explains why
"talent" had been such a precious asset,
because students had to teach themselves.
There is universal agreement among
the few teachers who teach the best
practice methods that piano proficiency is
not talent but a set of acquired skills.
These teachers nucleated today's rapidly
growing school of piano pedagogy based
on efficient practice methods: knowledge
is more important than talent for an
overwhelming majority of pianists.
Almost every book deals with a
subset of the same subjects. They treat the
human mind and anatomy and their
relationships to the piano: mental attitude
and preparation, sitting posture, bench
height, role of arms, hands and fingers often with appropriate exercises, and
injury. Then concepts of technique and
musicality: touch, tone, thumb, legato,
staccato, fingering, scales, arpeggios,
octaves, chords, repeated notes, velocity,
glissando,
pedal,
practice
time,
memorization, etc. There is surprisingly
little literature on sight reading. There is a
sprinkling of practice methods associated
with each topic, and these tend to increase
with the newer publications.
A few discourage the use of "thumb
under" for playing fast scales; however,
thumb under is a valuable movement for
some legato applications. Chopin preferred
thumb under for its legato, but taught
thumb over [(30) Thumb Under, Thumb
Over, Glissando Motion, Pivoting] where
it was technically advantageous.
The
lack
of
bibliographies
(references) in many books is a reflection

of inadequate research and documentation.

Each author in effect had to re-invent the
wheel each time, or else, earlier
publications weren't worth referencing.
This is also reflected in the actual teaching
methods. Piano teaching methods were
basically handed down by word of mouth
from teacher to student, reminiscent of the
way in which tribal humans handed down
their folklore and medical practices
through generations. This basic flaw
almost
completely
arrested
the
development of teaching methods and they
remained unchanged for hundreds of years
since Bach's time. Even scholarly works
like Fink's has only a list of suggested
reading material, and Sndor has no
references whatsoever, an inexcusable
omission that reflects the primitive nature
of the literature on piano pedagogy. The
numerous references and book reviews in
Chang's FOPP book amply demonstrate
how useful and necessary, references to
previous works are. There is way too
much useful information available for any
one book, and certainly much more than
any single super teacher could hope to
learn.
Whiteside's book was widely
acclaimed mostly because it was the first
real attempt at a scientific approach to
discovering the best practice methods.
However, according to records of Chopin's
teachings, most of her "discoveries" had
been taught by Chopin, although Chopin's
information was apparently not available
to Whiteside. However, it may be more
than a coincidence that Whiteside used
Chopin's music most extensively in her
teachings. Whiteside's book failed
because,
although
she
conducted
experiments and documented the results,
she did not use clear language, organize
her results, and make any cause-and-effect
analyses, etc., that are needed for scientific

233

projects; she had not received sufficient

scientific
training
or
education.
Nonetheless, her book was one of the best
available at the time of its publication, a
heroic effort.
A large number of teachers claim to
teach the Franz Liszt method [(63) The
Myth of Franz Listz's Teaching Methods],
but there is only fragmentary and
preciously little documentation of what
that method is. There is abundant literature
on where Liszt visited, whom he met, what
he played, what magical feats of piano he
performed, and whom he taught, but there
is practically no record of what a student
must do to acquire technique. Even Liszt
was unable to analyze his technique; when
asked to teach, he could only demonstrate
on the piano. This is almost unbelievable
because Liszt was the most famous teacher
of his time, taught most of his life, and
there are comments in the enormous
literature on Liszt, that his teaching
methods are some of the "most analyzed
methods in the history of piano
pedagogy". This demonstrates the lack of
piano teaching knowledge in those days;
the ability to play does not provide the
knowledge to teach, even after a lifetime
of teaching.
This book (FOPP) is the only one
that provides the most complete set of
practice methods for solving specific
technique problems that should be taught
at the beginner to intermediate stages. The
other books deal mostly with "higher"
levels of piano playing, but almost totally
ignore the practice methods needed to get
there. There are now books and internet
sites that are starting to treat practice
methods, a trend that should continue and
finally enable practically every student to
succeed.
MUST READ Books & Videos
(alphabetically): Cannel, Eigeldinger, Fink

or Sndor, Fraser, Humphries, Neuhaus,

Prokop, Richman and Lister-Sink (video).
The recommendations are based on
whether there is useful information on
acquiring technique.
Recommended books: Macmillan,
Neeley, Onishi, Richard, Scoggin.
Book Review Format: Author,
Title, Year of publication, number of
Pages in book, and whether references are
cited (bibliographies).
The references indicate how
scholarly the book is. These reviews are
not comprehensive; they are concerned
mainly with relevance to acquiring piano
technique and "irrelevant" material have
been mostly ignored.
Askenfelt, Anders, Ed., Five
Lectures on the Acoustics of the Piano,
Royal Institute of Technology Seminar,
Stockholm, May 27, 1988. Five lecture on
the Acoustics of the piano: Contents. A
MUST READ if you really want to
understand how the piano works.
Some of the most advanced series of
lectures on how the piano produces its
sound. The Introduction gives the history
of the piano and presents the terminology
and background information needed to
understand the lectures.
The first lecture discusses piano
design factors that influence tone and
acoustical
performance.
Hammers,
soundboards, case, plate, strings, tuning
pins, and how they work together. Tuners
tune the transverse vibrational modes of
the string, but the longitudinal modes are
fixed by the string and scale design and
cannot be controlled by the tuner, yet have
audible effects.
The second lecture focuses on the
piano tone. The hammer shank has two
bending modes, a shank flex mode and a
faster vibrational mode. The first is caused
by the rapid acceleration of the hammer,
234

much like the flex of the golf club. The

second is most pronounced when the
hammer bounces back from the strings,
but can also be excited on its way towards
the strings. Clearly, the backcheck is an
important tool the pianist can use to reduce
or control these extraneous hammer
motions, and thereby control the tone. The
actual time dependent string motion is
totally unlike the motion of vibrating
strings shown in text books with
fundamentals and harmonics that are
integral fractional wavelengths that fit
neatly between the fixed ends of the string.
It is actually a set of traveling waves
launched by the hammer towards the
bridge and the agraffe. These travel so fast
that the hammer is "stuck" on the strings
for quite a few passes of these traveling
waves back and forth, and it is the force of
one of these waves hitting the hammer that
eventually throws it back towards the
backcheck.
Then,
how
are
the
fundamentals and partials created? Simple
- they are just the Fourier components of
the traveling waves! In non-math terms,
what this means is that the only traveling
waves possible in this system are waves
that have nodes at both ends because the
strings are constrained by the fixed ends.
The sustain and harmonic distribution are
sensitive to the exact properties of the
hammer, such as size, weight, shape,
hardness, etc.
The strings transfer their vibrations
to the soundboard (SB) via the bridge and
the efficiency of this process can be
determined by measuring the acoustical
impedance match. This energy transfer is
complicated by the resonances in the SB
produced by its normal modes of vibration
because the resonances produce peaks and
valleys in the impedance/frequency curve.
The efficiency of sound production is low
at low frequency because the air can make

an "end run" around the piano so that a

compressive wave above the SB can
cancel the vacuum underneath it when the
SB is vibrating up (and vice versa when
moving down). At high frequency, the SB
vibrations create numerous small areas
moving in opposite directions. Because of
their proximity, compressed air in one area
can cancel an adjacent vacuum area,
resulting in less sound. This explains why
a small increase in piano size can greatly
increase sound production, especially for
the low frequencies. These complications
make it clear that matching the acoustical
impedances across all the notes of the
piano is a monumental task, and explains
why good pianos are so expensive.
The above is my attempt at a brief
translation of highly technical material.
My main purpose is to give the reader
some idea of the contents of the lectures.
Clearly, this web site contains very
advanced educational material.
Bree, Malwine, The Leschetizky
Method, 1997 (1913), 92P, no references.
Although this book appeared in
1997, it is a re-publication of 1913
material.
Teaching
lineage:
BeethovenCzerny-Leschetizky-Bree.
Book of exercises for developing
technique, photos of finger positions.
Advocates thumb under method. Hand
position, finger independence exercises,
scales, chords, touch, glissando, pedal,
performance, etc., a relatively complete
treatment. Good book to read after reading
Chang
(FOPP),
shows
fingering
conventions, hints of HS practice and flat
finger positions, and beginnings of TO
motion.
Bruser, Madeline, The Art of
Practicing, 1997, 272P, references &
suggested
readings.
http://artofpracticing.com/
235

Based on starting with preparing the

mind (meditation) and body (stretching
exercises), then goes into some useful
specifics of piano skills. The amount of
piano instruction is unfortunately reduced
by the parallel instructions for other
instruments (mostly string and wind).
Though physical exercise (calisthenics) is
good, exercises such as scales are not
helpful. Contains a small amount of useful
information.

Cannel, Ward, and Marx, Fred,

How to play the piano despite years of
lessons, What music is, and how to make it
at home, 239P., 1976, no references.
MUST READ.
Starts by bashing misconceptions
concerning talent, repeated exercises,
superiority of classical music, etc., that
prevent us from becoming musicians.
Great book for beginners, starting with the
most basic information, playing single
note melodies, etc.
You learn by playing melodies/songs
from the very beginning. One hallmark of
improvisations: no fingering instructions
anywhere in entire book! Then basic
chords (3 notes), then "skeletal
arrangement", a universal scheme of RH
melody and LH accompaniment that
enables you to play almost anything. Then
4-note chords, rhythm (important!),
arpeggios. Bolero (rhumba, beguine,
calypso), tango, shuffle. Circle of 5ths and
chord progressions: classical, romantic,
impressionist, modern very practical and
useful. Play by ear, improvisation. How to
end any piece. A well-designed sequence
from very simple to more complex
concepts, leading the reader along the
simplest possible route. A supplement
with 29 popular songs to practice with and
learn from (guitar and organist markings,
changing arrangements on the fly, making
things more interesting, etc.). Full of easy-

to-understand explanations of basic

concepts and useful tricks. This book is
not for those looking to acquire technique
and play difficult (classical) material.
Cook, Charles, Playing the Piano
for Pleasure, The Classic Guide to
Improving Skills through Practice and
Discipline, Skyhorse Publishing, 2011,
187 P., no index, has list of "books
consulted". Not Recommended
The skimpy Table of Contents and
lack of an index makes it almost
impossible to find any specific topic in this
book; suggest that you write notes (with
page numbers) the first time you read
through it. Some good advice mixed with
some now discredited concepts. Read
Chang (FOPP) before reading this so that
you can distinguish the useful from the
questionable advice. This is an update of a
1960 edition and reads like some newer
ideas grafted onto old, incorrect beliefs.
Mainly for adults, including beginners.
Written from the point of view of
amateurs, defined as non-professional
pianists who do not routinely have to
perform on demand. This reduces the
demands on practice time and technical
skills and makes it easier to make piano
playing pleasurable - thus the title.
However, in order to maintain the type of
repertoire he suggests (which is critical to
success), the amateur must practice an
hour every day.
Written by a music reporter for The
New Yorker, with a serious piano hobby
and who had interviewed Horowitz,
Hofman, Schnabel, Arrau, Rosenthal,
Brailowsky, etc. Researched piano
learning methods by consulting writings
by famous pianists. An excellent example
of how a serious, diligent pianist/reporter
can be brain washed by interviewing
famous personnel who feed him selfserving statements that make them sound
236

like geniuses but provide no useful

information or knowledge. Students and
teachers of the "intuitive methods" fall for
this and accept the intuitive methods
religiously when they are not sufficiently
informed. The famous artists who pour out
these statements have little other choice
because they do not know anything else.
Some nuggets of info: amateur
pianists comprise the single largest
population of musicians; once you become
a "good" amateur pianist, you realize that
the "pros" are not that good, after all.
Practice softly; fast play can be bad and
slow play is generally good for technique;
scales and arpeggios are the foundation of
technique; the more you memorize, the
more you can memorize; use "memory
aids" P. 83; some famous pianists have
never really used exercises to become
proficient. No need to practice Czerny.
Many others.
Some misguided advice: P. 113 technique = exercises = scales + arpeggios
+ Hanon! Stresses the importance of
acquiring a sufficiently large repertoire
and memorizing them, but gives no
instructions on how to do that (such as
practice methods). P. 55 - don't memorize
from the beginning. Many other mistakes.
As you can see, there are numerous
contradictions in this book, a hallmark of
uninformed/misinformed
teaching
methods.
Cortot, Alfred, Rational principles
of pianoforte technique, Salabert Editions,
1930 (!), Paris, France, English
translation; 102 P., Table of Contents
(labeled "Index"), no bibliography or
index. Not Recommended.
The translation from French is
horrible; reads like a translation produced
by a computer translation software with no
knowledge of piano terminology.

Bad: The title is misleading because

this book is just a book of exercises,
reflecting on the lack of understanding
concerning "exercises" almost a hundred
years ago. It was written because, by the
1920s, there was effectively an infinity of
exercises for piano students, presenting the
dilemma "WHICH exercise to use?"
Cortot decided to reduce this "infinity" to
the smallest set possible, but still needed
102 pages. Obviously, it was written
during the height of the exercise craze,
before piano teachers began to realize
(slowly - hasn't completely ended yet!)
that exercises are mostly a waste of time,
and have numerous disadvantages such as
loss of musicality (Cortot was aware of
this), development of brain laziness, loss
of the understanding of efficient practice
methods, etc.
This book is way out of date; it
discusses Thumb Under (TU) as a newly
discovered fingering compared to previous
fingerings using only 4 fingers! There is
no mention of Thumb Over (TO), which is
unconscionable because Cortot's group of
French pianists claimed to teach the
"Franz Liszt Method" and a few pianists
were already aware that Liszt used TO.
Use of the thumb also leading to wider
reaches (P. 60)!, even exceeding one
octave!! Reads like the history of piano
that is just emerging from the dark ages.
Filled with "conventional" advice
that are now obsolete: unusual, difficult
fingering exercises that are almost never
encountered, "don't be discouraged by
monotony of repetitions", "exercise is not
music" (P. 53), considers only finger,
hand, & wrist motions (nothing else!), (P.
72) "no teaching here (practically all
teaching/learning left to teachers &
students)", Czerny, etc., are necessary, etc.
Good: Describes method of sliding
fingers from one note to next. Correct

237

method of practice is soft play; one

effective method is to touch the keys
without depressing them. How to play 2
notes with the thumb. Good treatment of
how to play glissando (wrist motion, black
key gliss [P. 74-5]). There are 2 types of
jumps, one skimming the keyboard
surface, the other raising to shoulder
height, because both are needed for hand
crossing. Stresses the importance of repeat
notes, and their relationships to tremolos
and octaves. Good descriptions of wrist
and finger motions.

Eigeldinger,

Jean-Jacques,

Chopin, pianist and teacher as seen by his

pupils. 1986, 324P, bibliography. A
MUST READ.
The most scholarly and complete
compilation of relevant material on
Chopin concerning teaching, technique,
interpretation, and history. Because of a
lack of direct documentation in Chopin's
time, practically all the material is
anecdotal. Yet the accuracy seems
unquestionable because of the exhaustive
documentation, lack of any detectable
bias, and the obvious fact that such deep
understanding of piano could only have
come from Chopin himself - the results are
in uncanny agreement with the best
teaching
material
available
today.
Eigeldinger has arranged the subjects into
helpful
groupings
(technique,
interpretation, quotes, annotated scores,
fingerings, and Chopin's style). I certainly
wish that there were more on practice
methods but most of Chopin's teachings
were lost because of lack of
documentation.
The technical teachings are presented
concisely on pages 23-64. These teachings
are in almost complete agreement with
those of all the best sources, from Liszt
and Whiteside to Fink, Sndor, Suzuki,
and this book (Chang, FOPP). The

presentation is in stark contrast to

Whiteside; here it is authoritative
(Whiteside sometimes retracts her own
findings), brief (only 41 pages compared
to 350 pages for Whiteside!), organized,
and clear, while covering a similar range
of topics. The second part, pages 65-89,
covers interpretation and therefore
contains much less information on
technique, but is just as informative as the
first section. It touches (very!) briefly on
how to interpret each of his major
compositions. The remaining 200 pages
are
dedicated
to
documentation,
illustrations, Chopin's annotations on his
own compositions and fingerings, and a 10
page "sketch" of basic material to teach
beginners.
Technique: Chopin was self-taught;
there is little known about how he learned
when young except that he was taught by
his mother, an accomplished pianist.
Chopin didn't believe in drills and
exercises (he recommended no more than
3 hr practice/day). Chopin's methods are
not as contrary to Liszt's as they might
appear at first, although Liszt frequently
practiced over 10 hours a day and
recommended exercises "to exhaustion".
Chopin, like Liszt, wrote etudes; these and
Liszt's "exercises" were not mindless
repetitions but specific methods of
technique acquisition, based on music.
Learn to make music before learning
technique. The whole body must be
involved, and use of arm weight is a key
element of technique. He taught thumb
over (especially when the passed note is
black) as well as thumb under, and
allowed any finger to roll over any other
whenever it was advantageous - the thumb
was not unique and had to be "free".
However, every finger was different.
Thumb over (as well as other fingers) was
especially useful in double chromatic

238

scales (thirds, etc.). To Chopin, the piano

had to speak and sing; to Liszt, it was an
orchestra. Since C major scale is more
difficult, he used B major to teach
relaxation and legato. It is easier to start
learning scales staccato, to avoid the
difficult legato problems but he always
came back to his specialty - legato. Wide
arpeggios require a supple hand more than
a wide reach. Rubato is one in which the
rhythm is strictly held while time is
borrowed and returned in the melody. [My
opinion is that this definition is often
misquoted and misunderstood; just
because he said that a few times, it does
not mean that he applied it to everything.
This definition of rubato applied
specifically to the situation in which the
RH plays rubato while the LH keeps strict
time. Chopin certainly also allowed that
rubato was a freedom from strict tempo for
the sake of expression.] Chopin preferred
the Pleyel, a piano with very light action.
His music is definitely harder to play on
modern instruments, especially the
pianissimo and legato.
Elson, Margaret, Passionate
Practice, 2002, 108P., a few references.
Written from the point of view of a
psychologist. Contains precious little
advice on technical development and
practice methods. Has a nice treatment of
mental visualization (see Mental Play in
Chang, FOPP). Useful for those who
commit psychological mistakes (who
doesn't?), and covers the correct/wrong
mental approaches and environmental
factors from practice to performance.
Good for starting students not familiar
with daily requirements of pianists or
those with no performing experience. Art
and psychology can be surprisingly close
"artist type" readers may enjoy this short
book.

Fink, Seymour, Mastering Piano

Technique, 1992, 187P., excellent list of
suggested
reading;
can
purchase
companion video. MUST READ this or
Sndor.
Most scholarly of all books listed
here, as befits the work of a university
professor. Scientific treatise using correct
terminology (in contrast to Whiteside who
invented her own language), easy to
understand, starts with human anatomy
and its relation to the piano, followed by a
list of movements involved in playing,
including the pedal. Scale must not be
played thumb under, but thumb under is an
important movement (P. 115). Illustrates
each movement and the corresponding
piano exercises. Good description of
gravity
drop.
Strictly
mechanical
approach, but this book emphasizes
production of richer tone and playing with
emotion. The motions are difficult to
decipher from diagrams, making it
desirable to purchase the video. You must
read either Fink or Sndor; preferably both
since they approach similar subjects from
different points of view. Some readers
may love one and hate the other. Fink is
based on exercises, Sndor is based more
on examples from classical compositions.
The first half is a treatment of all the
basic motions and exercises for these
motions. These include: pronation,
supination, abduction, adduction, hand
positions (extended, palm, claw), finger
strokes, motions of the forearm, upper
arm, shoulder (push, pull, cycling), etc.
The second section applies these motions
to examples from famous classics, by
Ravel, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Chopin,
Beethoven, Mozart, and others.
Fraser, Alan, The Craft of Piano
Playing, 2003, 431P., bibliography. A
MUST READ; more informative than
Fink or Sndor.
239

Contains an incredible amount of

information, some of which are the most
advanced that you can find anywhere;
however, the book lacks organization,
leaving you to pick up the nuggets as he
throws them out. The materials are
extremely broad-based, taking teachings
from Feldenkrais to awareness training
and Tai Chi Chuan to Chi-Gung, but
clearly from a well educated concert
pianist/composer. The most useful are
precise instructions on specific technical
material: Chopin's glissando motion
(finger "split"), the amount of note overlap in legato, playing with sides of fingers,
interpretation errors in otherwise useful
concepts such as arm weight, correct use
of thumb, chord attack type exercises,
octaves, fortissimo, developing extensor
muscles, uses of forearm rotation,
musicality: rhythm-phrasing-orchestration,
etc. The only weakness I found was that he
comes so awfully close to the ultimate
truth, but doesn't quite get there there is
still room for improvement, and the reader
should research these advanced areas (in
other references) where even newer ideas
may be hiding.

Karl, Piano Technique, 2 books in one,

without any advice on how to actually

acquire such skills.
Takes you through how to practice
Bach's Invention in C major (#1), Three
Part Invention in C major (#1) and
Beethoven's Sonata #1, but more from
analysis and interpretation than technical
skills points of view. He guides you
through the first 3 movements of this
Sonata, then dismisses the most
technically demanding 4th movement as
"presenting no new problems"! Note that
this last movement requires a strong,
difficult, and very fast 5,2,4 fingering
followed by a thumb-over descending
arpeggio in the LH and rapid and accurate
large chord jumps in the RH. These are
where we would have wanted some advice
from Gieseking. Chang's book (FOPP)
plugs up this hole by providing the
missing guidance [(38) Outlining,
Beethoven's Sonata #1, Op. 2-1]. Worth
reading even just for the specific guidance
on the above pieces.
Second book: Leimer, 56P., no
references. Importance of rhythm,
counting, accurate timing, phrasing.
Excellent section on pedaling. Contains
some specific information that is difficult
to find elsewhere.

1972, no references. Teaching lineage:

Leimer-Gieseking.
First
book:
Gieseking,
77P.
Importance of listening, "whole body"
method (a la arm weight school),
concentration, precise practice, attention to
detail. Excellent treatment of how to
analyze a composition for practicing and
memorizing. This book is representative of
most books written by these great
performers. Typical advice on technique
is, "Concentration, precise practice, and
attention to detail will automatically lead
to technique" or "Use your ear" or "All
notes of a chord must sound together"

1986, 225P., no references.

Mental
approach
to
music;
relaxation, awareness, trust. Almost no
technical piano playing instruction. Only
for those who think that mental attitude is
the key to playing piano. Those interested
in specific instructions for practice will
find little useful information.
Hinson, Maurice, Guide to the
Pianist's Repertoire, 2000, 933P., huge
bibliography.
Very complete compilation of piano
compositions, with brief descriptions of

Gieseking, Walter, and Leimer,

Green, Barry, and Gallwey,

Timothy, The Inner Game of Music,

240

important information/characteristics of
each, degree of difficulty, availability of
music scores, useful references for each
composition,
etc.
Main
part
is
"Composers: solo works in Various
Editions", then many useful groupings:
Anthologies
and
Collections
(by
nationality, contemporary, Bach family,
etc), Recital programs by Rubinstein,
Busoni, and Gabrilowitsch, and special
indexes (Black Composers, Women
Composers, by Nationality, etc.).
Hofman, Josef, Piano Playing,
With Piano Questions Answered, 1909,
183P., no references. Teaching lineage:
Moszkowki, Rubinstein.
The first half deals with very useful
general rules and the second half is in
question and answer form. Most of the
book discusses general concepts; not much
detailed technical instruction. Not an
essential book for technique, but makes
interesting reading.
Humphries, Carl, The Piano
Handbook,
Backbeat
Books,
San
Francisco, CA, 2002, no references or
index, 290 pages, and CD of lesson pieces;
wire bound so that it can be placed flat on
the music stand. MUST READ
The most comprehensive book on
learning the piano, from beginner to
intermediate levels, covering all the genres
from classic to contemporary. For more
details, go to the Amazon page and read
the Table of Contents and Preface. The
Table of Contents does not list the
beginning chapter on "The Story of the
Piano" (30 pages of history with beautiful
photos) and the final "Reference" section
(30 pages!) on buying/maintaining pianos,
musical terms, repertoire guide, listening
guide, and recommended reading. Each
lesson is complete with sheet music and
some instructions on how to practice and

details
of
interpretation,
musical
nomenclature/structure, theory, and basics.
The biggest drawback of this book,
like practically every book on piano, is the
insufficient information on practice
methods. Actually, there is a lot embedded
in the lessons, such as forearm rotation,
relaxation, etc., as needed, but if you are
looking for a specific method to solve a
specific problem, how are you going to
find it? Also missing are essential
concepts such as thumb over, parallel sets,
mental play, memory methods, details of
the jump, information on digital pianos,
etc. Thus, in order to fully benefit from
this book, you should read Chang (FOPP)
first. Then you will have a deeper
understanding of what he is trying to teach
and be able to master the lessons more
quickly.
The book treats every genre equally:
Bach Invention on P. 214 and ragtime
(Joplin's Entertainer) on the next page! a
very
musically
healthy
approach
appropriate for today's students. This is a
great companion to Chang because: it
covers beginner material, provides a
complete piano education, explores most
genres of music, and offers numerous
suggestions for music to learn. Great value
for the price, and a book that comes
closest to getting a super teacher.
Lhevine, Josef, Basic Principles in
Piano Playing, 1972, 48P., no references.
Excellent treatment of how to
produce good tone. Brief discussions of:
basic knowledge of keys, scales, etc.,
rhythm, ear training, soft & loud,
accuracy, staccato, legato, memorizing,
practice time, velocity, pedal. Mostly
superficial -- book is too short. Good
general summary, but lacks specific details
and does not contain material you cannot
find elsewhere.

241

Levitin, Daniel J., This is Your

Brain on Music, Dutton, NY. NY., 2006,
314P., bibliography, index.
General: This book is characterized
by the words: definitions, classifications,
science, errors, and statistical/illustrative
details, as explained below; overall, a
good start in the neuroscience of music,
but the difficulty of the subject matter (the
human brain which is mostly not
understood) is painfully obvious.
Appropriately for a scientific
treatment of the neuroscience of music, all
basic terminologies are defined and
various subjects classified so as to enable
precise communications (first 3rd
of
book). This definition and classification
process is in itself an enormous scientific
endeavor because you need a lot of
knowledge in order to define anything in a
scientifically meaningful way. There are
descriptions of musical, neuroscientific,
psychological, etc., experiments that
spawn explanations and theories -- just
what we look for in this book.
Unfortunately, there are errors and
omissions that shouldn't be in a book
published in 2006 that cast doubts on the
quality of the rest of the book. This was
written for a wide audience with very
different levels/types of education; it
provides a glimpse into the community of
neuroscientist musicians working to
unravel the mysteries of music using
modern science.
Details: The Introduction asks some
very relevant questions but the book gives
no answers. The first chapter introduces
and defines terms and concepts such as
pitch and timbre (pronounced tamber).
The surprise is how, in defining the
terminologies to their ultimate depth, you
develop a deeper understanding of music
which he makes crystal clear with lots of
examples. Sample: pitch is detected by the

ear's basilar membrane in proportionate

scale
(mathematicians
would
say
logarithmic scale) which is similarly
mapped onto the brain; this determines the
nature of musical scales and harmonies
(followed by examples).
There are numerous "this is not
known . . ." type of sentences throughout
the book which is indicative of an expert
in his field who knows the limits of our
knowledge.
Some
statements
are
controversial:
"Pitch
is
purely
psychological . . .", while others are
wrong: "the eye sees a continuum of
colors (frequencies) . . ." (it actually sees
combinations
of
discrete
colors
[determined by quantum mechanics],
much like color TVs and printers and is
therefore based on an absolute scale,
unlike the ear). Or this innocuous
sounding but totally uninformed statement
". . . most people cannot name the notes
except for the one in 10,000 who have
absolute pitch." Doesn't he know that
absolute pitch is learned? The level of
ignorance in some sections is inexcusable,
P. 204: "I recently asked the dean of one
of the top music schools . . . at what point
is emotion and expressivity taught? Her
answer was that they aren't taught. There
is so much to cover, repertoire, ensemble,
etc., etc., etc., . . . . there simply isn't time
to teach expressivity . . . . . some of them
come in already knowing how to move a
listener. . . . .etc." Unbelievable! Yet,
probably true of too many music schools.
Sad. Moreover, there is no discussion of
the correct/wrong practice methods and
their effect on "talent", technique, and
brain development.
Best treatment of rhythm that I have
ever seen, P. 55; Whitesides repeatedly
emphasized the importance of rhythm, but
never explained it. Rhythm is "a game of
expectation" and is highly complex -- we

242

find here the precise explanations,

definitions and examples that were
missing in Whitesides that tell us what
rhythm is, and how to create and execute
it.
Loudness is also complex; the ear
compresses loudness to prevent ear
damage and the brain compensates by
expanding it back, so that loudness
response is logarithmic, just as frequency
is. The brain has the capacity to increase
sensitivity in order to detect soft sounds -something composers exploit to great
effect the PP section is what conditions
the brain so that FF sounds explosively
loud, because the amplification had been
turned up for the PP. Most properties of
music are not orthogonal; an important
concept, but something you won't
understand without a science background.
It basically says that practically all musical
parameters such as pitch, speed, loudness,
melody, rhythm, etc., are inter-related;
example: a rising arpeggio will produce
totally different effects if at the same time,
the volume is increased or decreased. This
is why Beethoven's music is so effective.
Gestalt
psychology,
systems
neuroscience, SSIR (shared syntactic
integration
resource),
functionalism,
cognitive
psychology,
cognitive
neuroscience, etc., have been involved in
brain/music
analysis.
Music
uses
practically every part of the brain - more
than language and probably predates it and much of music is concerned with
producing (musical) illusions. Modern
scientific methods, such as the use of MRI
and fMRI, are identifying which part of
the brain is involved in certain functions.
"Constructionists" and "Relationists"
argue about the nature of memory, but
basically, the brain's memory function is
still a complete mystery. Known methods
of memorizing music are far more

advanced than the discussions in this book,

another evidence that our understanding of
the brain lags behind our ability to use it.
The last section deals with effects of
music from before birth, through
childhood and adolescence, to sexual
relationships.
Levitin studied music at a time when
the "intuitive" methods [(1) Practice
Routines, the Intuitive Method] were
prevalent. This book is a strange hybrid of
a scientist and a musician who had not
completely grown out of the old, intuitive
school of music. This demonstrates the
unbelievable brain washing power of the
intuitive teachings.

Lister-Sink, Barbara (Video),

"Freeing The Caged Bird", video, 150
min., 1996, Wingsound, Winston-Salem,
NC. MUST VIEW
Readers of piano books often want to
see videos of the actual playing; well, here
it is, professionally produced. The
teachings are based on the Alexander
Method; discusses finger, hand, arm, body,
motions and bench positions. Covers
relaxation, gravity drop, basic piano
stroke, flat finger vs. curled finger, scales,
arpeggios, etc. Tension free (effortless)
play, avoiding or recovering from injury,
kinesthetic awareness and listening to your
own music. Training program for
relaxation
and
technique:
methods/exercises/tests for stress release,
HS/segmental practice, sight reading, etc.
List of bad habits: heavy arms, lifting
elbows outward, raising shoulders,
unnecessary body motions, curled fingers,
collapsed wrist, etc. Piano is a set of skills,
not talent. Complex tasks consist of simple
steps; start from simplest steps, don't
advance to next step until previous is
completely
mastered.
Though
not
explicitly discussed, you can see TO
("thumb over") in fast passages, students
243

practicing TU, and parallel set type

practice, flexible fingers, etc. If you just
watch this video without preparation, you
will miss a lot; however, if you read
Chang (FOPP), etc., every clip will teach
you many things.
Lloyd, Norman, The Golden
Encyclopedia of Music, Golden Press, NY,
1968.
A handy music encyclopedia where
you can find just about everything in one
place.
Macmillan, Jenny, Successful
Practising: A Handbook for Pupils,
Parents, and Music Teachers, Jenny
Macmillan, Cambridge, 2010, 103P.,
excellent index, list of additional reading
material, and references - a professional
quality teaching manual. Recommended
An organized and structured
textbook for learning piano, based on
Project Management principles (and
therefore has applicability not only to
other instruments but also any project in
general). A fairly comprehensive treatment
of practice methods, including segmental
and hands separate practice, outlining,
Mental Play, performance preparation, etc.
Suggestions for practice methods/planning
for students, parents, and teachers.
Mark, Thomas, What Every
Pianist Needs To Know About The Body,
2003, 155P., can purchase companion
video; no references or index but has 8
suggested reading material.
One of best treatments of human
anatomy and its relation to piano playing
(actually any keyboard), with section for
organists and injury/recovery; scholarly
and
medically/scientifically/technically
accurate. Book is not about technique but
about preparing the body/arm/hand for
technique and covers discussions on
practically every bone/muscle from head
to toe. Also has numerous discussions on

correct/wrong ways to play, such as proper

thumb motions that agree with promoters
of "thumb over", dangers of curled fingers
(debunks belief that flat fingers cause
injury), need for acceleration during key
drop, importance of the tactile awareness
of the front finger pad, etc.
Mathieu, W. A., Harmonic
Experience, 1997, 563P., bibliography,
extensively indexed.
An advanced book on the experience
of harmony; I don't have the music theory
education to truly evaluate this book, but
will review it from the point of view of an
amateur pianist curious about harmony. It
starts with the just intonations: unison,
octave, fifths, etc., and their relationships
to primes 1,2,3,5,& 7. The harmonies are
actually experienced by singing over a
drone, such as the Indian tamboura. Then
reviews the concept of a lattice of notes
for tracking harmony, and then the scales,
from Lydian through Phrygian. An
interesting observation is how the 7th
partial used in blues music fits into this
scheme.
Most of the book is devoted to the
myriads of ways in which Equal
temperament affects harmony which may
be great for composers confined to this
temperament, but a disappointment for
someone seeking simple fundamental
principles of pure harmony and harmonic
progressions (which don't strictly exist in
reality because of the Pythagorean comma
and its consequences). Thus musicians
have no choice but to explore what is
possible with the chromatic scale, and
Mathieu does a terrific job of discussing
the issues that harmony specialists struggle
with. Thus cataloguing the harmonies in
this imperfect system becomes an
enormous task, even when confined to
Equal temperament, where you can base
the catalogue on the various commas

244

remember, he does all this with respect to

how you feel about these harmonies, not
by counting frequencies. To give you
some idea of the contents:
"There are many books that this
book is not: it is not a book about
counterpoint, or figured bass, or melodic
or rhythmic structure, or compositional
development, although all of those
subjects come into play. It is a harmony
book that is meant to reconcile and go
beyond, but not supplant, traditional texts.
.....
REVIEW OF THEORY: We
recognize low-prime frequency ratios
between tones as more than agreeable
they are affective in various ways. The
primes 2, 3, 5, and 7 serve as norms both
as given by nature and internalized by
experience: inner/internalized norms. The
overtone series is only one incarnation of
this, not the source. . . . . . . . . .
Flaws and Limits of the Theory: . . . .
Anyone can create a subjective tautology.
The notion that affective commas are the
driving force behind equal-tempered
harmony can never be objectively proved.
What is presented in this book is an
elaborate, operative system based on what
is presumed to be the clear sensibilities of
the investigator. . . . . . ."
I certainly agree with that; this is not
a conventional textbook on harmony for
the beginner; for that, see Cannel, Neely,
Sabatella.
Neely, Blake, How to Play from a
Fake Book, 87P., 1999; no references, but
has a good list of fake books.
Recommended.
Excellent starter book; fake books
are easy because you don't need to learn
chord progressions they are indicated on
the music, so you won't learn about the
circle of fifths here. However, you must
know scales and chords well; fake books

are all about the accompaniments the

LH. Starts very easily, playing only one
note with the LH (while RH plays single
note melodies), then 5ths, and 3-note
chords. Then progresses through all the
useful chords, chord symbols, how to
make things sound better, etc. From the
beginning, each concept is illustrated by
actually playing a song (60 in all).
Inversions,
common-tone
voicing,
arpeggios, major/minor chords, dominant
7th, augmented, diminished, larger chords,
etc. Major faults are: no fingering
instructions, almost no discussion of
rhythm. Has complete list of: chord
symbols and their notes, all scales & key
signatures. It is a hallmark of
improvisations that fingerings are not
marked so that you develop your own as
the need arises.
Neuhaus, Heinrich, The Art of
Piano Playing, Kahn & Averill, London,
1993, 240P., index of pianists mentioned
in the book, no references. A MUST
READ.
One of the best ways to see what one
type of the "Russian School of Piano" is
like (the "Russian School" is quite diverse
because, historically, nothing in piano was
well organized). Full of detailed
descriptions of how to deal with advanced
technical situations that can not be found
in Chang (FOPP). However, in order to
fully appreciate the benefits and pitfalls of
Neuhaus, you should read Chang first, as
Neuhaus rarely defines anything, there is
no organizational structure in the book,
and is written in the "artsy" style, an
intuitive approach, but mostly in a good
way: the established culture of the Russian
School has built in some protections from
the most obvious pitfalls.
He is aware of, and tries to answer,
critics that the Russian method is all work
and unfriendly to those without talent.

245

Nonetheless, he follows the established

self-serving pattern of ascribing success to
talent instead of telling us how it can be
done. That is, you practically have to
know what it is before you can find it in
the book, if at all (not because it isn't
there, but because there is no way to find
it). Although he disavows this self-serving
tendency on P. 22, he keeps falling into it.
Perhaps the best example of this is the
claim on P. 22 that hands separate practice
is only for emergencies -- what an (unintended) endorsement of this method
from one of the world's most respected
piano teachers! Yet, the implication is that
if you are talented (as he is, of course!),
you shouldn't need it; wow!
He also makes fantabulous claims
about what he can teach, but then follows
with statements to the effect that they can't
be written down in a book. But at least,
this gives hope to the reader that he is
aware of those dreams and that they have
hopefully been achieved. This might be an
improvement over sweeping everything
under the talent rug, but still doesn't help
the student. Because the book is not
structured, and there is no useful index
(only pianists' names), it is nearly
impossible to find discussions on any
specific topic, although it is probably
somewhere in the book.
I will not go into the numerous gems
in this book -- there are too many of them.
It is far from a scientific approach (which
some may prefer because these are the
very topics artists struggle with, spoken in
their own language), but is densely packed
with anecdotes and pointers from a
lifetime of experience at the highest level
of pianism. P. 16: "As for the piano, I was
left to my own devices practically from the
age of twelve" in spite of the fact that both
of his parents were piano teachers.
Beginners reading his book may feel the

same way; he was never completely freed

from the intuitive approach, from his
youth to his death in 1964 (and including
this book); but Russian culture based on
dedication gained him world respect.
Onishi, Aiko, Pianism, Anima
Press, 1996, 124P., index, no references;
originally published in Japanese as
"Approach to Pianism", Zen-On Press.
Recommended.
Tone (single note, etc.), technique,
melody and harmony, interpretational
expressions, exercises (stretching, finger
lifting), learning new pieces, memory,
imagery
(of
musical
emotions),
performing, teaching, pianistic analysis
using Chopin, Debussy, Ravel. A
compendium of correct methods by a well
educated teacher.
Has clear discussions of Thumb
Over (P. 27), use of Parallel Sets for
practicing trills and double thirds (P. 33),
repeated notes (P. 36), etc. Very concise,
but profusely illustrated with diagrams and
music examples. One of few books with
instructions on how to practice. She comes
close to discussing Mental Play.
Prokop, Richard, Piano Power, a
Breakthrough Approach to Improving
your Technique, 1999, 108P., a few
references. A MUST READ; you will see
the same concepts in Chang (FOPP), but
from a different person, providing
independent confirmation.
This book is like a condensed form
of Chang. This pianist, piano teacher, and
composer has done an excellent job of
researching piano technique. He briefly
covers HS and segmental practice,
specifics on relaxation, need for musical
play, memorization, and mental play.
Excellent photos of finger/hand positions,
and examples of what/how to perform
exercises. Importance of extensor muscles
(lifting fingers); accurate lifting of fingers
246

(and pedals), exercises for lifting each

finger. Gives the best description of the
bones, tendons, and muscles of the
finger/hand/arm and how/what motions
are controlled by each. Detailed analysis
of the advantages/disadvantages of small,
medium, and large hands. His use of
"Theorems and Proofs" is somewhat silly
because piano practice is not math. This
compact book is incomplete, missing
items such as Thumb Over versus Thumb
Under (he treats only TU), chord attack,
arpeggios, etc., and there is no space to
treat each topic adequately.
Richard, Francois L., Music in
your head (Mental practice, how to
memorize piano music), FLR Music
Resources, Texas, 2009, 30P., no index or
references. Recommended.
Mental Play, memorizing, ear
training, chord progressions. Author is a
pilot, aviation instructor, and pianist,
living in the self-proclaimed Piano City,
Fort Worth, TX, home of the Van Cliburn
competitions. This is the first book I
have found on clear step-by-step
instructions on using Mental Play to
memorize. Extremely brief, but concrete
instructions with actual examples of
music. Expensive: $23 for a 30 page
paperback.
Richman, Howard, Super SightReading Secrets, 1986, 48P., no
references. A MUST READ.
This is the best book on sight
reading. It contains all the fundamentals;
they are described in complete detail,
teaching us all the correct terminology and
methodologies. It starts from how to read
music, for the beginner, and advances
logically all the way to advanced sight
reading levels; it is especially helpful for
the beginner. It is also concise, so you
should read the whole book once before
starting any actual drills/exercises. Starts

with how to psychologically approach

sight reading. Basic components of sight
reading are Pitch, Rhythm, and Fingering.
After an excellent introduction to music
notations, appropriate drills are given.
Then the sight reading process is broken
down into its component steps of visual,
neural, muscular, and aural processes that
start with the music score and end up as
music. This is followed by drills for
learning "keyboard orientation" (finding
the notes without looking at the keyboard)
and
"visual
perception"
(instantly
recognizing what to play).
Depending on the person, it may take
from 3 months to 4 years to learn true
sight reading; should practice every day.
Finally, one page of ideas on advanced
sight reading.
Sabatella, Marc, A Whole
Approach to Jazz Improvisation, 85P.,
1996, no references, but has a
bibliography of fake books, jazz
instructional books, and jazz history
literature. This book can be browsed free
at Jazz Primer: A Jazz Improvisation
Primer | The Outside Shore .
This not a beginner's book. No actual
music to play; discusses the language of
jazz, understanding how jazz players play,
and
improvisation.
Detailed
definitions/discussions of chords, scales,
and chord/scale relationships (swing,
bebop, fusion, free improvisation, etc.)
these are the heart of jazz theory,
performance, and history; they are also
where students must spend the majority of
their time. Suggests many names of jazz
players that you should listen to ("selected
discography"), and a list of 92 "jazz
standards" (no music score) including
blues, swing, rock, latin, ballad, and
standard/modal jazz. Not a book for
beginners.

247

Sacks, Oliver, Musicophilia, Tales

of Music and the Brain, Vintage Books,
Random House, NY, 2007, 425P., index,
references (bibliography).
A most comprehensive and detailed
compendium of accounts of the
relationship between brain (human
behavior) and music, written by one of the
foremost experts in this field. Although the
book is not organized in a structured
arrangement, the extensive index and
detailed Table of Contents make it
possible to locate most of what you want
in this enormous assemblage of accounts,
observations, and analyses. Because the
subject matter is so complex and
inadequately researched and understood,
there are almost no theories that explain
the observations or solutions to the
problems. However, all the hypotheses,
popular theories, and possible explanations
are discussed, as well as flat statements to
the effect that the phenomenon is not
understood something only the experts
can tell us.
This is a "What's out there" book
from a phenomenological, medical point
of view, not a "How to" book for music
students or pianists. For example, in Part
III, there is nothing about how to
memorize music or how the brain
accomplishes that task. There is precious
little, if any, useful instructions on how to
practice at the piano, although the
headings in each Part sound so tantalizing.
However, it is truly an eye opening
experience to read, in vivid detail, about
the enormous range of effects that music
has on the brain. In almost every case,
Oliver Sacks does not try to explain them,
simply because the explanations aren't
there, but he does tell us how far (or little)
we understand them.
The entire book consists of case
studies and detailed accounts of actual

events and people involved with each of

the topics listed in the Table of Contents:
Part I: Haunted by Music
1. A Bolt from the Blue: Sudden
Musicophilia
2. A Strangely Familiar Feeling:
Musical Seizures
3. Fear of Music: Musicogenic
Epilepsy
4. Music on the Brain: Imagery and
Imagination
5. Brain Worms, Sticky Music, and
Catchy Tunes
6. Musical Hallucinations
Part II: A Range of Musicality,
Sections 7-14
Part III: Memory, Movement and
Music, Sections 15-22
Part IV: Emotion, Identity, and
Music, Sections 23-29
End.
Sndor, Gyrgy, On Piano
Playing, 1995, 240P, no references!
Teaching lineage: Bartok-KodalySndor. A MUST READ, but Fink will
give you similar information at lower cost.
A complete and scholarly, but the
most expensive, book. Contains most of
the material in Fink, stresses arm weight
methods. Discusses: free fall, scale
(thumb-over method; has most detailed
description of scale and arpeggio playing,
P. 52-78), rotation, staccato, thrust, pedals,
tone,
practicing,
memorization,
performance. Takes you through learning
the entire Waldstein Sonata (Beethoven).
Numerous examples on how to apply
the principles of the book to compositions
from Chopin, Bach, Liszt, Beethoven,
Haydn, Brahms, Schumann, many others.
This book is very complete; it covers
subjects from the effect of music on
emotions to discussions of the piano,
human anatomy, and basic playing
motions, to performing and recording;
248

however, many topics are not treated in

sufficient detail. A major defect of this
book is the absence of any references,
casting doubt on whether there was
sufficient research to support the contents
of the book. Because of this defect, some
ideas are incorrect.
Scoggin, Nancy, Baron's AP Music
Theory with Audio Compact Discs,
Barron's Education Series, NY, 2010,
648P.,
index,
no
references.
Recommended
An excellent, comprehensive starter
book on music theory, composition.
Sherman, Russell, Piano Pieces,
1997, 244P., no references.
Consists of five sections dealing with
playing, teaching, cultural issues, musical
scores, and "everything else". The contents
are arranged in no particular order, with no
real solutions or conclusions. Discusses
the politics of art (music), opinions,
judgments, and observations that pianists
can relate with; whether non-pianists can
understand these musings is questionable
but will provide insight. Seating position,
thumb serves as momentum balance.
Fingers = troops, but body = supply line,
support, carrier ship, and manufacturing.
Fingers vs body = sales vs CEO; thus
controlling fingers does not result in
music. Easy pieces are valuable for
learning to make music. What is the value
of learning piano? It is not even a good
career, financially. Should you slide the
finger? What is involved in beauty or
character of piano sound? How important
are quality pianos and good tuners? Pros
and cons of competitions (mostly cons):
preparing for competitions is not making
music and often becomes more like an
athletic competition; is the stress and
effort worth it?; judging is never perfect.
Deals with issues faced by pianists,
teachers and parents; describes many of

the major problems but presents few

solutions. This book touches on numerous
issues, but is as aimless as its title. Read it
only if you have time to burn.
Slenczynska, Ruth, Music at Your
Fingertips, Cornerstone Library, NY, 1976
(reprint of 1968 edition), 162P., no index
or references.
By today's standards this book is
outdated although it contains a lot of
useful information. Statements like "The
point I'm trying to make is that the
pianistic problem doesn't exist that cannot
be solved by determined imagination. No
individual, no book, has all the answers.
Many of the most important solutions are
in your heart, your hands." do not help the
student, is typical of the "intuitive
method", and reveals a sorry lack of
pedagogical education. It is not a well
organized textbook for learning piano, but
a set of opinions and experiences of a
world renowned concert pianist. Click on
the title above and look up the Table of
Contents. Even this Table of Contents is
not a good guide to what is inside because
she picks and chooses what she thinks are
important according to older traditions that
do not address the topics that most
students need today. Although you may
not be able to find what you want, reading
the entire book and discarding what is
obsolete will yield gems that confirm
many accepted teachings, such as always
playing with the lid open for a grand (P.
18) and "silent play" (P. 119), one way of
practicing Mental Play. There are 9 pages
of suggested repertoires of compositions,
with each composition labeled from E
(easy) to T(technical), discussions of
suggested performance programs, and
explanations of ornaments.
Stannard, Neil, Piano Technique
Demystified, Insights into Problem
Solving, NoSuchThing Press, 2013, 120

249

P., no references or index, but has list of

suggested reading books.
The author tries to make this reading
lighthearted; consequently, about a quarter
of the book consists of remarks not
directly relevant to the subject matter; P.
32-33 are good examples of this, but will
not be reproduced here as it will take too
much space. The Introduction basically
says: "You need practice methods!" Also,
"You can't learn to play the piano just
from a book and you can't teach someone
to play the piano without one".
As befits a pianist/teacher familiar
with the Taubman Method, he starts with
explaining forearm rotation, but then
proceeds to define movements such as
shaping, grouping, in, out, over, under,
etc., that have specific definitions that are
initially difficult to grasp (impossible for
beginners to reproduce, and not as allimportant/effective as implied in this book
there are many other factors) which
makes slogging through the pages
mentally tiring and time consuming.
Although most subjects of interest for
solving problems (jumps, "Thumb Over"
type play [P. 9], memorizing [P. 40],
performance anxiety, relaxation, etc.,) are
discussed, they are too brief and many
essential practice methods are missing,
such as the continuity rule, parallel sets,
mental play, post practice improvement,
etc.
Most of these post-2010 publications
are finally trying to emerge from the
intuitive
methods
towards
knowledge/methods based learning (but
are not yet completely successful);
examples: P. 38, Performance memory
depends on hand memory, although other
memories are also helpful (but these other
methods are not fully explained); P. 26,
the note just before the jump determines
jump
accuracy
(but
incomplete

explanation of jumps); P. 38, memorize as

much as possible (not quite there yet!), P.
43, Horowitz did not teach because he
couldn't figure out how he learned
[validates section on (64) Why the
Greatest Pianists Could Not Teach], P. 45,
performance anxiety "take with you the
idea of the music" (i.e., mental play); P.
70-73, Hanon and Czerny are basically
useless; P. 105, 50 pointers on how to
practice mostly Bach (and a few Mozart)
pieces; etc. Clearly, he knows what the
solutions are, but can't spell them out in
sufficient detail (which may be too
difficult with such a relatively small book
that covers as much material as he does).
There are extensive examples of
difficult fingerings that are fairly standard,
mainly from Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart;
he presents numerous examples from
Bach, but does not mention the fact that
most of the Bach examples he cites are for
technique development of specific fingers
and, therefore, fingerings should not be
changed (from standard fingerings) to
make them "easier" to play.
For more details, go to Amazon and
see the Table of Contents.
Suzuki, Shinichi (et al), two
books (there are more):
(1) The Suzuki Concept: An
Introduction to a Successful Method for
Early Music Education, 1973, 216P., no
references,
has
large,
excellent
bibliography.
Mostly for violin education starting
at an early age. One small chapter (7
pages) on piano teaching methods.
(2) How to Teach Suzuki Piano,
1993, 21P., no references.
A brief, general outline of the Suzuki
Piano methods. The methods described by
Chang (FOPP) are in general agreement
with the Suzuki methods. Let baby listen;
no Beyer, Czerny, Hanon or etudes (even
250

Chopin!); must perform; teachers must

have uniform teaching methods and open
discussions (research groups); balance
memory and reading, but memorizing is
more important. Teachers are given a
small set of graded music on which to base
their lessons. Suzuki is a centrally
controlled teaching school; as such, it has
many of the advantages of the faculties of
music conservatories and colleges, but the
academic level is, in general, lower.
Suzuki teachers are one notch above the
average private teacher because they must
meet
certain
minimum
standards.
Describes many general approaches to
teaching, but few specifics on how to
practice piano for technique. Classic
example of how an authoritarian system
can eliminate bad teachers by imposing
minimum standards, but good "Suzuki
piano teachers" must find their own
materials beyond the minimal standards
that Suzuki provides.
Taylor, Harold , The Pianist's
Talent, Kahn & Averill, London, reprint
2009, 112P., no index, bibliography (20
books).
This book represents the "Alexander
School of Piano" and makes fascinating
reading for comparing it with other
schools of piano pedagogy. I will highlight
this comparison by comparing this book
designated by (T) - for Taylor - with my
book, designated (F) - for Fundamentals of
Piano Practice. Before you read (T), you
should read this review and (F); otherwise,
you will miss a lot of information
contained in (T) because unlike (F), (T)
does not always define terms because (in
my opinion) they are not totally
understood or even definable -- that is the
nature of the "artistic approach". The name
of the term (such as mind/muscle coordination) or its use in context is
supposed to serve as the definition, or, as

in the case of "talent", it is discussed in an

entire section without pinning it down to
anything specific. Without reading (F), (T)
can seem quite impressive because of its
(unsubstantiated) promises and claims;
however,
armed
with
sufficient
knowledge, (T) is at times a comedy of
errors that can be easily exposed.
Nonetheless, (T) is a time-tested, highly
developed discipline and, where it is
correct, it should agree with (F) if (F) is
also correct, as we shall see.
(F) tries to be knowledge based [i.e.,
nothing can be absolutely knowledge
based because we never know everything,
which ultimately limits (F)]; (T) has no
such limitation because it depends on the
ability of the human brain to accidentally
discover whatever is needed at the
moment, and (T) is all about how to do
this, see below, so that we need both (T)
and (F). However, the limitation of (T) is
that unless you have the right parents,
teachers, circumstances, etc., such
discoveries might never happen. Thus we
might summarize this comparison by
postulating that in the absence of
knowledge, (T) is superior, but with
sufficient knowledge, (F) should be better.
(T) starts by trying to define
"Talent": "Talent may be briefly defined
as the ability to perform without training .
. ." P. 14, an opinion that is now
discredited by those who have studied this
phenomenon under controlled conditions.
This is confirmed by (T)'s own later
assertion "The super-talent of today may
well become the accepted norm of
tomorrow" - which is exactly the thesis of
(F) because knowledge can only increase
under scientific processes. Another
confirmation: "A student once asked me,
'What has Horowitz got that I haven't?'
The short answer is 'Nothing!'" (T) finally
comes close to a working definition of

251

talent: "the highly talented pianist is

neither a biological 'sport' nor the
possessor of extra-human capacities, but
merely an optimum example of the way in
which these capacities operate when
applied to piano playing." In (F), this is
succinctly stated as "Talent can be taught",
whereas (T) uses 6 pages without reaching
a definitive definition.
The first half of (T) is mainly an
exposition of the theory of piano learning
or technique acquisition based on the
concepts of "expansion" (good) vs
"contraction" (bad) co-ordination, etc. I
could not understand the physical bases of
these theories even after trying his
examples of standing at a wall (P. 27) or
trying to lift a match box (P. 31). I found
practically no useful information up to P.
63;
in
fact
there
are
many
incorrect/outdated statements throughout
the book. However, reading between the
lines, I concluded that the entire
methodology is based on relaxation. Such
a basis can confer significant validity to
the method.
The second half consists of reviews
of the teachings of Raymond Thiberge;
these methods eventually blossomed into
the Alexander and related techniques and
share many basic principles, especially
relaxation. Another basic tenet is that you
either make music or you don't play at all.
Those who memorize and practice bar-bybar are derisively called "end-gainers"
who end up with "black-smith music" P.
17. There are too many excellent
suggestions to list here, so this book is
worth reading, although the correct
explanations and details of execution are
too often lacking.
Chapter 7 is an excellent description
of how you typically start to learn this type
of (Alexander, etc.) method (the first
lessons): how to play octaves, the "finger

splits" discussed in (F) which is described

as a hand rotation in (T), uses of the thumb
[TO type motion in (F) described as an
arm rotation in (T)], how to avoid playing
between black keys by using the thumb,
importance of imaginative fingerings, etc.
Technique practice is P or even
pianissimo, in agreement with (F). Chopin
was the most progressive teacher. Chopin's
Pleyel had a very light touch and there are
some doubts as to whether his teachings
could be applied to today's concert grands.
My reaction to this was the question of
whether today's digital pianos, with their
lighter touch, might have resembled the
Pleyel more than today's concert grands in
touch weight. (T) recommends "sight
reading" which is a process similar to
Mental Play in (F).
So when it comes to valid specifics,
(T) and (F) come to the same conclusions;
that is, (T) is also knowledge based when
it comes to specific practice/technique
methods. The one glaring difference
between (T) and (F) is that in (T), you
should never practice anything beyond
your skill level. I don't know if this is
correct. I certainly hope not because (F) is
essentially a compendium of methods for
breaking the technical barriers that
previous methods could not overcome. (F)
is faster because you quickly acquire
technique so you can play relaxed, but risk
losing music, erecting speed walls, or
injury if you do not carefully observe the
precautions. (T) plays it safe by learning
relaxation first because it does not have
enough knowledge to overcome all
technical difficulties or avoid injuries and
is therefore much slower. Clearly, the
chapters/comments on relaxation in (F) are
critically important, and (T) and (F) are
gradually merging into one school,
although (T) still contains many
misconceptions.

252

Taylor, Ronald, Franz Liszt, the

Man and the Musician, Universe Books,
NY, 1986, 285P., bibliography, index.
Liszt's biography another endless
accounts of Liszt's numerous liaisons,
none of whom he married (that produced
at least 3 offspring). The list of famous
musicians he met is astounding: Wagner,
both Schumanns, Paganini, Chopin,
Beethoven, Schubert (Walker claims Liszt
never met him), Berlioz, Brahms, Salieri,
etc., not to mention the equally famous
writers, artists, etc., as also covered by
Walker (no need to read both books read
Walker or this one). Distressingly little
information on how Liszt learned to play.
He disliked the curled finger position as
producing dry sounds (P. 32) and used a
flexible system in which the fingers
changed to meet each requirement. Other
teaching methods mentioned are the well
known litany of pedagogical tools such as
encouragement versus criticism, too much
body or arm motion, etc., that do not
address the specifics of technical play.
Walker, Alan, Franz Liszt, The
Virtuoso Years, 1811-1847, 1983, 481P.,
references.
This is the first of 3 books; it covers
the period from Liszt's birth until the time
he decided to stop performing at age 36.
The second book covers the years 18481861, when he mainly devoted himself to
composing. The third book covers the
years 1861-1886, his final years. I review
only the first book here because that is
where we should find the details of how he
learned to play the piano.
Liszt is known as the greatest pianist
of all time. Therefore, we would expect to
learn the most about how to acquire
technique from him, as practically
everybody did. Unfortunately, every book
or article written about Liszt is an utter
disappointment. Perhaps technique was

like a "trade secret" in Liszt's time and his

lessons were never documented. Paganini
practiced in complete secrecy, and even
covertly tuned his violin differently in
order attain results no one else could. (An
obvious guess would be that he tempered
his open strings to reduce the number of
fingered notes.) Chopin, on the other hand,
was a composer and professional teacher those were his sources of income, and
there are more accounts of his lessons.
Liszt's claim to fame was his
performances. His success in this regard is
reflected in the fact that practically every
book on Liszt is an endless and repetitive
chronicle of his incredible performances.
This secrecy might explain why so many
pianists of the time claim to have been
students of Liszt yet they seldom describe
Liszt's teaching methods in any useful
detail. However, when these details are
probed among today's teachers of the
"Liszt school", they are found to use
similar methods (hands separate, shorten
difficult passages, chord attack, etc.).
Another possibility is that Liszt's
concepts of technique were too deep and
complex to be reduced into simple
analytical explanations, an idea that
conveniently played into the adulation of
"prodigies" and "talent" that was the basis
of their commercial success. In reality,
Chang (FOPP) shows that the fundamental
elements are almost trivially simple (once
someone explains them to you), almost
common sense to someone like Liszt, and
too obvious to be bothered with. My guess
is that he was simply unable to translate
what was in his fingers to a teachable
system. Whatever the real reasons, Liszt's
teaching methods were never adequately
documented. One legacy that Liszt left us
is the well-chronicled fact that the kinds of
feats he performed are humanly possible.
This is important, because it means that

253

we can all do similar things if we can

rediscover how he did it.
Walker's book is typical of other
books on Liszt that I have read, and is
basically a chronicle of Liszt's life, not a
textbook on how to learn piano. As such,
this is one of the best Liszt biographies
and contains numerous discussions on
particular compositions with specific
pianistic demands and difficulties.
Unfortunately, a description of an
impossible passage "that was executed
with the greatest of ease" does not teach us
how to do it. This lack of technical
teaching information is surprising in view
of the fact that publications about Liszt
number well over ten thousand! In fact,
any useful technical information we might
glean from this book must be deduced
from the contents using our own
knowledge of the piano (see the
"relaxation" example below). The section
entitled "Liszt and the Keyboard" (P. 285318) contains a few pointers on how to
play. As in all three books, Liszt is revered
as a demi-god who can do no wrong, even
endowed with super hands somehow
configured ideally for the piano -- he could
reach a tenth easily. This bias reduces
credibility and the incessant, repetitive
accounts of superhuman performances
create a boredom that detracts from the
vast amount of revealing and fascinating
historical details in these books.
From the point of view of "incredible
performances" resulting in broken strings,
perhaps an interesting observation is that
Liszt was a thin, sickly man in early youth.
At age three, he was given up for dead
after an illness and they even ordered a
coffin. He started piano sometime before
age six and didn't even have a decent
practice piano until seven, because his
family was so poor. He was taught by his
father, a talented musician, passable

pianist and close acquaintance of Haydn,

and was steeped in music since birth.
Nonetheless, by seven, he was "amazing
his parents with piano playing and was
already composing". Such reports do not
do justice to his father who was probably
most influential in Liszt's rapid
development. Czerny was his first "real"
teacher, at age 11 (when Czerny notes that
Franz didn't even know proper fingerings),
and Czerny claims to have taught Franz all
of his fundamental skills. However, he
acknowledges that Franz was already an
obvious prodigy when they were first
introduced (he could sight read practically
anything) -- which seems suspiciously
inconsistent. Liszt actually rebelled at
Czerny's drills, but nevertheless used
exercises extensively for his technical
developments and expressed the greatest
respect for his teacher as well as
Beethoven. The things he practiced were
the fundamentals: runs, jumps, repeat
notes. My interpretation is that these were
not mindless repetitions for building
muscle but skill exercises with specific
objectives in mind, and once the objectives
were achieved, he would move on to new
ones.
But how does a frail person perform
"impossible" exercises to exhaustion? By
relaxing! Liszt may have been the world's
greatest expert on relaxing, out of
necessity. Concerning relaxation, it may
not be a coincidence that Paganini was
also a sickly man. By the time he became
famous, in his thirties, Paganini had
syphilis, and his health further deteriorated
because of an addiction to gambling and
contraction of tuberculosis. Yet, these two
men of poor health were the two greatest
masters over their instruments (as an adult,
Liszt was comparatively healthy for his
time). The fact that both were not
physically robust indicates that the energy

254

for superhuman performances does not

come from athletic muscle power but,
rather, from complete mastery over
relaxation. Chopin was also on the frail
side, and contracted tuberculosis. A sad
historical note, in addition to Paganini's
poor
health
and
the
grotesque
consequences of the primitive oral surgical
attempts of that time, are the
circumstances of his ghastly death, as
there was a delay in his burial and he was
left to rot in a concrete cistern.
Another notable teacher of Liszt was
Saliery who taught him composition and
theory. Saliery also taught Schubert, but
Liszt never met him. By then Saliery was
over 70 years old and, for years, had been
suffering under the suspicion of having
poisoned Mozart out of jealousy. Liszt was
still improving at age 19. His feats are
credited with popularizing the piano. He is
credited with inventing the piano recital
(by bring it out of the salon and into the
concert hall). One of his devices was the
use of many pianos, as well as many
pianists. He even played multi-piano
concerts with Chopin and other luminaries
of his time. This climaxed in
extravaganzas with up to 6 pianos,
advertised as a "concert of 60 fingers". In
one stretch of 10 weeks, he played 21
concerts and 80 works, 50 from memory.
That he could so enthrall his audiences
was the more surprising because adequate
pianos (Steinway, Bechstein) were not
available until the 1860s, almost 20 years
after he stopped concertizing.
The lack of piano technique methods
in this review is typical of everything
written about Liszt, even articles about
technique. This illustrates how piano
teaching was led astray by wrong
concepts, such as "students must be taught
to practice", that sound so intuitively
correct, but is useless for students. How

piano pedagogy taught everything except

what students needed (practice methods)
for 200 years is the greatest mystery in the
history of piano.
Weinreich, G., The Coupled
Motions of Piano Strings, Scientific
American, Jan., 1979, P. 118- 127.
This is a good article on motions of
piano strings if you need to learn the
basics (that can be found in textbooks).
However, the article is poorly written and
the experiments were not well conducted;
but we should be cognizant of the limited
resources that the author had. Even more
advanced research had surely been
conducted long before 1979 by piano
manufacturers and acoustics scientists. I
will discuss below some of the
deficiencies in this article in the hope that
the awareness of these deficiencies will
enable the reader to glean more helpful
information from this publication and
avoid being misled.
There is no information on the
frequencies of the notes that were
investigated. Since the behavior of piano
strings is so frequency dependent, this is a
vital piece of missing information. Keep
this in mind as you read the article, as
many of the results will be difficult to
interpret without knowing the frequency at
which the experiments were conducted.
For example, different experiments might
have been performed at different
frequencies, in which case we would not
know how to compare them.
The center graph in the lower row of
figures on P. 121 (there are no figure
numbers anywhere in this article!) has no
explanation. The article, later on, proposes
that the vertical modes produce the prompt
sound. The figure therefore might be
showing the sustain of a single string. I
know of no note on a grand piano having a
single string sustain of less than 5 seconds
255

as suggested by the figure. The left hand

figure of the upper row of graphs from a
single string shows a sustain of over 15
seconds, in agreement with my cursory
measurements on an actual grand. Thus
the two plots from single strings appear to
be contradictory. The upper plot measured
sound pressure whereas the lower one
measured string displacement, so that they
may not be strictly comparable, but we
would have liked the author to at least
provide some explanation of this apparent
discrepancy. Strings with very different
frequencies may have been used for the
two plots.
In reference to these figures, there is
this sentence: "I used a sensitive electronic
probe to separately measure the vertical
and horizontal motions of a single string,"
with no further information. Now any
investigator in this field would be very
interested in how the author did it. In
proper scientific reporting, it is normal
practice (generally required) to identify the
equipment (including the manufacturer
and model numbers) and even how it was
operated. The resultant data are some of
the few new information presented in this
paper and are therefore important. Future
investigators will probably have to follow
up along this line of study by measuring
string displacements and will need this
information.
The four figures on page 122 are not
referenced anywhere in the article. Thus it
is left to us to guess about which parts of
the article pertain to them. Also, my guess
is that the lower two plots showing
oscillations are just schematics and are not
actual data. Otherwise, the prompt sound
would be over in about 1/40th of a second,
according to these plots. The curves
plotted in these two lower figures are
purely imaginary in addition to being
schematic. There are no data to back them

up. In fact the article presents no other

new data and the discussions on the
ensuing 5 pages (out of an 8 page article)
are basically a review of known acoustical
principles. As such, the descriptions of the
springy,
massive,
and
resistive
terminations, as well as the sympathetic
vibrations, are all known and should be
qualitatively valid.
The major thesis of this article is that
the piano is unique because it has an aftersound and that the proper tuning of the
after-sound is the essence of good tuning
and creates the unique piano music. My
difficulty with this thesis is that the prompt
sound typically lasts over 5 seconds
according to this article. Very few piano
notes are played for that long. Therefore,
essentially all of piano music is played
using only the prompt sound. In fact, piano
tuners use mainly the prompt sound (as
defined here) to tune. In addition, the
after-sound is at least 30 db less in power;
that is only a few percent of the initial
sound. It will be completely drowned out
by all the other (prompt sound) notes in
any piece of music. What is happening in
reality is that whatever is controlling the
quality of the piano sound controls both
the prompt and after-sounds, and what we
need is a treatise that sheds light on this
mechanism.
Finally, all publications require
references so that we can know what has
or has not been previously investigated. In
defense of the author, Scientific American
does not allow any references except
references to previously published articles
in Scientific American. This makes it
necessary to write articles that are "selfcontained", which this article is not.
According to Reblitz [P. 14], there is a
1965 Scientific American article on "The
Physics of the Piano", which is not
referenced in this report.

256

Over-all, a poor piece of work.

Werner,
Kenney,
Effortless
Mastery, 191P., 1996, with meditation
CD, references as footnotes and lots of
suggested listening material.
Mental/spiritual approach to making
music; almost no descriptions of the
mechanics of playing or how to practice.
Detailed instructions on meditation. In the
same category as Green and Gallwey, but
a different approach. Written for jazz
players, but applies to all pianists and
other instrumentalists. The first half of
book consists of discussions of
dysfunctional
practice,
teaching,
performances, etc.; the second half
provides solutions, but they are the classic
exhortations of "practice until you can
play without thinking", and controlling
playing through mental attitudes if you
want to see a caricature of the "intuitive
method", this is it! This book is for those
who believe meditation can solve
problems without technical knowledge.
However, there is little question that
controlling the mind/body system is an
important
factor
in
successful
musicianship.
Whiteside, Abby, On Piano
Playing, two books in one, 1997, no
references.
This is a re-publication of
Indispensables of Piano Playing (1955),
and Mastering Chopin Etudes and Other
Essays (1969).
Teaching lineage: Ganz-Whiteside.
First book: Indispensables of Piano
Playing, 155P.
Uses
non-standard
English,
convoluted logic, biblical phraseology,
long winded and repetitive.
Contents are excellent, but the
terrible
write-up
makes
learning
unproductive. Many of the ideas she
describes appear in other books but she

claims to have originated (or rediscovered)

many of them. Although I had difficulty
reading this book, others have claimed that
it is easier to understand if you can read it
rapidly. This is because she often takes a
paragraph or even a page to describe
something that can be written in one
sentence.
Almost the entire book is like this
(P54): "Q: Can Weight - an inert pressure help develop facility? A: It is exactly the
inert pressure of weight which cannot be
used for speed. Words are important in
teaching. Words of action are needed to
suggest the coordination for speed. Weight
does not suggest the muscular activity
which moves the weight of the arm. It
does suggest an inert pressure." I did not
pick this section because it was
particularly convoluted -- it was picked at
random by opening the book with my eyes
closed, because the entire book is like this.
Contents: Must follow her methods
religiously; why rhythm is important, the
body-arms-hand-finger combination has
infinite possibilities of which we are
mostly unaware; thumb under scale is
reviled; functions of each part of anatomy
for playing piano (horizontal, in-out,
vertical motions); discussions on creating
emotion, memorizing, pedaling, phrasing,
trills, scales, octaves, teaching methods.
Points out importance of rhythm to music
and how to attain this using outlining (P.
141). Czerny and Hanon are useless or
worse.
The following is her attack on
passing thumb-under for playing scales,
excerpted from over two pages; the ( ) are
my clarifications:
"Passing. Here we are faced with a
welter of stress in traditional teaching
concerning the exact movements that
should take place with finger and thumbs. .
. . .If I could blast these concepts right out

257

of existence I would not hesitate to do so.

That is how faulty and pernicious I think
they are. They can literally cripple a
pianist . . . . . If it (playing perfect scales)
seems quite hopelessly impossible and you
have no glimmer of an idea as to how it
can be accomplished, then you are trying
with a coordination which actually makes
a scale an impossible feat. It means thumb
snapping under the palm and reaching for
position; and fingers trying to reach over
the thumb and seeking a legato key
connection. It doesn't matter if the
performer achieving the swift and
beautiful scales and arpeggios tells you he
does just that (thumb under) -- it isn't true.
No suggestion is meant that he is lying,
but simply that he was successful in
discarding the coordination that he was
taught when the occasion arose which
made it inadequate . . . . They (thumb
under players) have to be re-educated
physically to a new pattern of
coordination; and that re-education can
mean a period of wretched misery to them.
. . . . . Action (for thumb over passing) can
be taken through the shoulder joint in any
direction. The top arm can move so that
the elbow end of the humerus can describe
a segment of a circle, up or down, in and
out, back and forth, or around and about . .
(etc., an entire page of this type of
instruction on how to play thumb over,
then). . . . .With control from center the
entire coordination operates to make it
easy to have a finger available at the
moment it is needed . . . . The best proof of
this statement is a beautiful scale or
arpeggio played with complete disregard
for any conventional fingering. This often
happens with a gifted, untaught pianist . . .
. For passing (thumb over), the top arm
acts as fulcrum for all the "other
techniques" involving the forearm and
hand; flexion and extension at elbow,

rotary action, and lateral hand action at

wrist, and last and least, lateral action of
fingers and thumb. . . . . Between rotary
action and alternating action, passing is
made as easy as it looks when the expert
does it."
Second book: Mastering the Chopin
Etudes and Other Essays, 206P., no
references. Compendium of edited
Whiteside manuscripts; much more
readable because they were edited by her
students, and contains most of the ideas of
the first book, based on playing the
Chopin etudes which were chosen for their
unequaled musical content as much as for
their technical challenge. This is like a
catechism to the above bible; may be a
good idea to read this book before reading
the first book. Describes outlining in some
detail: P. 54-61 basic description, and P.
191-193 basic definition, with more
examples on P. 105-107 and P. 193-196.
Although outlining can be used to
overcome technical difficulties, it is more
valuable for learning, or learning to play,
the musical concept of the composition.
These two books are a diamond mine
of practical ideas; but like a diamond
mine, you must dig deep and you never
know where it's buried. The use of the
Chopin Etudes here turns out not to be a
random pick; most of Whiteside's basic
tenets were already taught by Chopin (see
Eigeldinger); however, Eigeldinger's book
was written long after Whiteside's book
and she was probably unaware of many of
Chopin's methods. It's not a mystery that
two teachers found the same methods if
they are correct, they should be the same.
There is no middle ground -- you
will either love Whiteside for the treasure
trove of information or hate it because it is
unreadable, repetitive, and unorganized.

258

(84) Beyer #47, 48, 49, 58, 59

Useful for practicing Absolute Pitch
[(17) Absolute & Relative Pitch] and
Mental Play [(15) Mental Play (MP)]; use
right hand melodies.

259

Beyer

260

Beyer

261

(85) About the Author

I was born in Tainan, Taiwan (1938),
grew up in Japan (1945-1958), was
granted a BS degree in Physics from RPI
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Troy,
NY, USA (1962) and PhD in Physics from
Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (1967). Worked
in materials science (using electron
spectroscopy), mostly at Bell Laboratories
at Murray Hill, NJ (1967-1998). I lived in
the suburbs of Tokyo when the carpet
bombing started near the end of WWII and
watched the search lights seeking B29s
and gunners trying to shoot them down.
The suburbs were bombed with
incendiaries, not the blockbusters that
leveled Tokyo from horizon to horizon.
My involvement with piano started
before birth because my parents, both
Taiwanese, briefly majored in piano at a
college in Japan and my father was
constantly listening to classical music and
taught my aunts to play the piano. One
aunt eventually became a respected piano
teacher in Tainan, Taiwan. The piano was
always a major influence in our family,
and I took lessons (1949-1957) and
practiced almost every day, up to eight
hours on weekends. I was fascinated with
the piano and became the accompanist for
our school choir and organist at local
churches (three consecutive masses on
Christmas eve!). I loved the piano, but it
was my second priority; education came
first because "my talent was obviously
insufficient" to earn a living as a musician.
As a young child, I was a dishonest
crybaby and earned the nickname
"monkey" from a mean aunt. At age 10, I
realized that dishonesty made life difficult,
miserable and scary; therefore, I tried
honesty. Suddenly, a huge weight was
lifted from my shoulders, life became

simpler, and I have been happy with the

successes that followed. An honest person
asks questions and learns, instead of
cooking up stories to cover up ignorance
and staying ignorant. I attribute my life's
successes to honesty, curiosity, and a
insatiable desire to learn, because I have
no special talents to rely upon. I learned
that education is the basis for honesty.
My lack of progress with piano was a
mystery because I was successful in
practically every endeavor that I
attempted. I always persevered and
developed an intense interest in any
project that I tackled. I had completed the
twelve years of primary education in ten
years, was first in class and elected class
president most of those years. The sense of
fairness in that Catholic primary school
(St. Joseph's College in Yokohama) was
amazing, as I was only one of several nonCatholics in my class but never
experienced discrimination. For example, I
graduated first in class, class president,
valedictorian, and was elected School Man
of the Year because I garnered six of the
twelve prizes awarded to the graduates.
I studied Physics at RPI on a full
scholarship, and graduated with only 51
classmates from a freshman class of 200
science majors. I kept up my piano
practice in college because, in those days,
the practice rooms and pianos in the music
department were not locked. I even
befriended a classmate whose hobby was
keys, and he made me a key to unlock the
Steinway concert grand in the auditorium.
I was amazed that practically all of my
science classmates and faculty played
some type of musical instrument and we
would assemble at our department head's
house to play chamber music. So I never
stopped practicing piano, yet I was not
making the progress that I expected.

262

Just like my parents, who first met at

their piano college, the piano was
instrumental in our marriage. My wife's
brothers and sister played either the piano
or violin and, while I was at RPI, she was
living with her brother nearby. He had
bought an inexpensive (about $45), but
playable, old upright. So I visited their
apartment to practice, which presented
opportunities to meet her and start dating.
I was granted a research assistantship
at Cornell University towards a PhD in
Physics. My professor was Germer, the
discoverer of the wave nature of electrons.
Initially, I thought things were easy
because I came in #10 out of 200 taking
the screening exams for entering graduate
degree students. I quickly realized that I
should have applied to the Applied
Physics Department, not the Physics
Department, and barely graduated at the
bottom of most of the classes I took. I had
to study so hard just to avoid flunking out
that I ended up in the infirmary a few
months
before
graduation,
from
exhaustion. The doctor wasn't worried,
smiled at me, and said "hold on for three
months, and you will be fine".
I bought a $400 used upright, towed
it home in a U-Haul, and taught myself to
tune the piano by reading books because,
as a married student living on a research
stipend and my wife's baby-sitting income,
I did not have the money to pay a piano
tuner. Since neither my wife, I, nor anyone
in our families had absolute pitch, I must
attribute our two daughters' accurate
absolute pitch to the fact that I had kept
our piano in tune since before their birth.
One daughter could identify, in a few
seconds, up to ten notes played
simultaneously. Although my wife had
taught rudiments of piano to our girls
before they could read the alphabet, we
knew nothing about absolute pitch and

never even thought of teaching it to them.

We had been taught that absolute pitch
was a rare inborn talent, and were
flabbergasted when their piano teacher,
Mlle. Yvonne Combe, discovered their
absolute pitch (at ages 4 and 8) during
their solfege lessons. They had acquired
absolute pitch without being taught,
without even trying, and didn't even know
they had it, because the piano was always
in tune!
Combe had confided in me that her
desire was to tape record her teaching
methods (cassette tapes in those days)
because she knew that few teachers taught
them. I absorbed and started using some of
Combe's methods because our girls were
using them every day and upon Combe's
death, realized that if I didn't document
them, they would be lost. The first draft of
this book was written in 1994 when I had
six months of free time between jobs. In
writing the book I naturally confronted
questions such as "why is this method
valid and why is that one not?" etc.,
because that is what scientists do. I also
had to look for obvious missing parts, etc.,
so that everything in the book was there
because it was needed and demonstrably
valid. In science, you can't just write down
something because someone taught that
way, as has traditionally been done with
piano books; it has to have some validity;
also, anyone must be able to reproduce the
results. Even Combe had some incorrect
ideas. One day, she squeezed my hand and
said, "See, my hands are strong because I
am a pianist." I have a handshake well
over twice her grip strength but she plays
the piano much better.
After finishing that first edition, I
could finally try out the methods of the
book for the first time. Their effectiveness
amazed me and naturally led to the
question, "why didn't anyone write such a

263

book when there were thousands of

accomplished pianists since Bach and
hundreds of piano books, some of them
written by the most famous pianists?" If I
had this book when I started piano, I
would have been way ahead in just a few
years, like our daughters. After 50 years of
dedication to piano, I finally found out
why I never succeeded I was never
taught!
It took me over ten years after
writing the first edition to understand that,
in order to undertake such a ginormous
task of writing a piano learning manual,
you needed a pianist, researcher, teacher,
analyst and writer, who could devote a
significant chunk of a lifetime to the
effort, and who was lucky enough to learn
from one of the best piano teachers the
world has ever known a forbidding
seven requirements! The probability of
such an event is statistically almost zero
and explains why it never happened. Most
pianists do not have the training to
research or teach, see the section (64) Why
the Greatest Pianists Could Not Teach.
My career was in analytical research
for 31 years. I worked in fundamental
research (surface science on the atomic
scale), materials science (physics,
chemistry,
biology,
mechanical
engineering, electronics, optics, acoustics,
metals, semiconductors, insulators), and
industrial problem solving (failure
mechanisms, reliability, manufacturing),
using mainly electron spectroscopy.
All scientists must learn practically
every day just to stay current. So, who
teaches them? Other scientists! That is,
scientists must teach each other all the
time and, by necessity, become good
teachers by publishing reports, attending
conferences, and interacting daily with
other scientists in the company, in frequent
meetings and during lunch in the company

cafeteria opportunities piano teachers

seldom experience, even at conservatories.
I have published over 100 peer-reviewed
articles in most of the major scientific
journals and written about 1,000 internal
company reports. This qualifies me for
four of the seven requirements above; in
addition, I never stopped practicing piano
all my life, was fortunate enough to meet
Combe, and I retired in 1998 partly to
work on this book, so it is not surprising
that I succeeded in writing this book. I
must thank all the volunteer translators
who have translated it into over ten
languages. I estimate from the book sales
and internet activity, that over 100,000
pianists had used this book worldwide by
2013.

264

(86) Back Cover

All the efficient piano practice
methods I could find have been assembled
in this one book, starting with the
teachings of Mlle. Yvonne Combe.
Included are the material from over fifty of
the most popular books on learning piano,
and hundreds of articles and internet sites,
that are relevant to practice methods.
Combe's grandmother was a famous
soprano in France and Combe's mother
was a voice teacher and they gave Yvonne
a good start in piano. Yvonne won the first
prize for piano at the Paris Conservatory in
1910 and graduated at age 13. Franz Liszt
had attracted high level pianists to Paris
and the "French School of Piano/Music"
developed some of the most advanced
teaching methods. Combe's mentors were
Long, Cortot, Debussy, and Saint Sans.
She helped Debussy transcribe his new
compositions for publication as he played
them out on the piano. Debussy even
added some of Combe's suggestions into
his compositions. She was one of the most
promising
pianists
of
her
time,
concertizing and performing under famous
conductors such as Saint Sans, until she
injured her hand in a bicycle accident (she
was quite an athlete, a good skier), ending
her performing career at age 15. She
subsequently dedicated her entire life to
teaching, organizing schools with up to 30
teachers in England, Switzerland, and
Plainfield, NJ, USA, where she briefly
coached Van Cliburn because her teaching
methods were similar to his mother's.
Piano pedagogy had incorrectly
attributed success in piano to "talent" for
over a hundred years, thus relieving
teachers of the responsibility for the
failure of their students. This mistake
stagnated teaching until about year 2000,

when
information
became
readily
available over the internet. Today, talent is
being replaced by knowledge, empowering
students to quickly learn piano skills that
were previously considered the exclusive
"talents" of "geniuses" that, we now know,
can be easily taught. Piano pedagogy can
finally catch up to established fields of
study that have proper textbooks that
provide teachers with all necessary
material that should be taught, enabling
every student to learn at rates that were
impossible during the age of exercises
(Hanon) and "lesson pieces" (Czerny)
devoid of music. Piano lessons are all
about learning the "genius skills", project
management,
empowerment
through
education and, above all, making music.

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