PIANO PLAYING WITH REFERENCE TO THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE

In search of clarity – a personal account.

This isn’t about me.  It’s about how far one can travel given the right guide.  But I have to tell you a little about my own piano playing to put my experience in context.  I started learning the piano at 8 years old and loved it.  I taught myself before being sent to a teacher and with his guidance quickly moved through the grades.  But, and it’s a big but, there was a limit to his guidance and I later realised that there was much material I would never master.  My technique was ok but limited, as was my approach to the text, and I resigned myself to continuing my playing around the same level.  Even when I returned to the piano as an adult and had lessons with a long standing local teacher, I couldn’t see any way to advance my technique and she wasn’t providing me with any answers.

I achieved a degree in Performing Arts, with music and recital as my major, and later built up a large successful teaching practice, but still felt there were areas that needed attention.  I attended courses to develop both my teaching skills and my own playing and it was with great interest that I came across a course that combined the piano with the principles of the Alexander Technique.  I had already come across the Alexander Technique, and was interested in it, but had no idea how it related to the piano, so it was with great curiosity that I booked and I haven’t looked back since.

The course was run by Nelly Ben-Or and it was 20 years ago.  Within moments I knew that she was something special and I could see that with her perspective a new world of possibilities at the piano opened up.  I remember knowing with certainty that I’d found something that would change the way I approached my piano.  But, and this was what was so exciting, it was all so obvious.  And logical.  Not weird or new age, just logical. 

Nelly has been a concert pianist from the age of 13 and a teacher of the Alexander Technique for over 40 years.  When she found the Technique she knew that it had something to offer far beyond the usual perception of ‘how to sit down', stand or have a 'correct' posture. After a few years of training to be an Alexander teacher she realised that she could start to use the principles of the Alexander Technique to help her assess her own preconceptions in piano playing.

The Alexander Technique goes way beyond our physical reactions, back to our  deeply ingrained mental and physical responses, so it is to those that we need to look.  Not in a soul searching and analytical way, but simply in a quiet and attentive way that most of us have gone beyond finding in our frantic day to day lives.  Mostly we are too goal orientated, and don’t stay present in the process of reaching the goal.  So, existing tensions and awkward habits prevent achieving that goal.  Finding a physical, mental and emotional stillness and clarity engenders the circumstances that enable us to have a free tactile contact with the instrument for a directness and depth of musical expression.

With reference to the piano then, it is about developing a new understanding of ourselves and our approach to the music and the instrument.  What is less simple is undoing and letting go of our preconceptions, both physical and mental, that we have ingrained in us and that we feel keep us ‘in control’.

Ah yes.  Control.  As in life, we think we have it when in fact we are at the mercy of all our automatic habits and reactions and the resulting tensions.  To really learn the freedom that gives velocity and expression a voice at the piano we need to be a clear channel for our musical intention to become expressed in sound through an alert, free and sensitive contact with the keys. No complicated finger movement, arm weight, or some preconceived wrist action is necessary.  But, and it is a big but, we have to be prepared to be constantly vigilant and interrogate our habits; to question, and then undo, the things that we have done without thinking for years.  This needs a total attention to our ways of playing for it to happen, but if one is prepared to really engage with oneself and ones problems at the instrument, the answers come and the rewards are huge.

It took me years, and is and will continue to take many more, to let go of the tensions and physical and mental habits that I had acquired over the previous 20 or so years of piano playing. My automatic habitual ‘will’ still wants me to make short cuts, or tries to tell me that more is more, rather than to let go of being so busy and, literally go with the flow.  (I don’t need to tell you that I find it as hard to do this in life!).  But I’ve reaped the benefits.  With a more sensitive and available touch I can mould the music as I wish, rather than as the limits of my muscle capacity would allow.  I learn much music away from the piano, which means I have the text, literally, at my fingertips, and therefore avoid the artificial technical obstacles that arise from some old ways of mechanical practicing and mental vagueness.  Technical issues become a series of mentally worked out and clear components - ‘beads’- that are strung together smoothly.  Suddenly ‘effortless’ playing produces beautiful sounds, singing and flowing melodies, and fluid runs.  The less I do, the more I can achieve.

Nelly has passed on her profound wisdom to the many pianists who have attended her courses over the years, and continues to do so.  She receives grateful letters from professionals, students, teachers and gifted amateurs who have found this approach - based on her long experience in applying principles of the Alexander Technique to so many aspects of piano playing – opening up unexpected new horizons in their music making.  I now too have the privilege of passing on to my own students what I have learnt.  Usually what is in the way is only ourselves.  Once we get out of the way, then there is only the music. Isn’t that what any musician wants?

PIANO LESSONS AS LIFE LESSONS

During my long career teaching the piano I have come to realise that you cannot isolate yourself at the piano from yourself in life. Piano lessons are like mini life lessons, each one informing the other, and to try to change things at the piano without understanding yourself as a whole is a journey to nowhere! Just as our thoughts about ourself and life will affect the work at the piano, so the work and focus at the piano can inform our lives, if we let it.

This applies to our physical self as well as our mental and psychological self, which is obvious when you think about it but sadly not many teachers think about it. How can we try and nurture a relaxed finger action at the piano if we are undoing all the work we do at the piano keyboard with frenzied and tense typing at the computer? How can we find a supportive and helpful posture at the piano if we are slumped all day over the desk, or tense at the computer? How can we find a balanced support in our backs if we strain with our necks over our phones for hours? How can we find drive and positivity at the piano if we are of a worried disposition or how can we find support for our musical challenges if we have an overly harsh or strict and chiding inner parent?

The piano is the most wonderful place to discover ourselves, in the same way that knowing ourselves can inform our work at the keyboard. During lockdown I had students online and we continued working together, but at that time I was more interested that they had a distraction from the virus, and a comfortable place to spend time, than I was with ‘right’ notes. We did lots of improvising, memorising and aural, using the pieces as inspiration or jumping off points. This period emphasised even more just how much we are affected by our day to day lives. We had to let go of expectations in both arenas, enjoying the process and going with the flow rather than focus on ‘end gaining’ (to use an Alexander Technique phrase). No one back then knew when or how or what the ‘end’ of the virus would be so we all started to take each day at a time. As with our journey at the piano, end gaining can be highly detrimental to technical work, not to say enjoyment of our playing.

Just as we might question ourselves at times in our lives about what and why we do things, we need to question ourselves constantly at the piano. Whether mentally (why do I keep getting myself in this situation? ), or physically (why am I stiff in my back when I am at the computer?). At the piano there might be times when we mentally struggle with it (whether having the drive to play or being too self critical), or physically  (why am I tensing that finger if I’m not using it…? Why am I making this odd arm gesture…? Why am I always getting stiff wrists…?). If we want to change habits and develop new ones we need to find how we ARE in ourselves. If we want a different technique, we need to know first what and why we are doing what we do and then we will know what changes are needed; you can’t just focus on changing the end result without knowing how and why you got there. For instance, I know one of my habits was to tense finger 5 when I used finger 4, which lead to uneven runs and discomfort, so I focussed my practice on this until I stopped doing it.  If I’d focussed on the runs without knowing what it was that created the unevenness then any amount of practice and playing wouldn’t have fixed it.

Mentally too our inner thoughts will affect our work at the piano. If we are the sort of person who is nervous and tense and feels like they are always battling to improve, then this is what we will take to our approach to the instrument, which is not going to make for an easy or flowing technique. Likewise, a laidback person who takes things easily might not have the focus needed to make corrections, or the drive and discipline needed to spend the time it takes to learn a piece.   Understanding how we tick will make life much easier as we then have a choice about whether we want to do something different, whether in our day to day lives or at the instrument.

I now teach, and study, with these things in mind, and go about my daily pursuits with the same ideas. It is incredible when something thing will suddenly enlighten an area of difficulty that I am experiencing elsewhere. Once acknowledged I work on it, both at the piano and away, and it eases.

Music is an expressive art and we not only need the technical skills to express it but the uncensored experience of ourselves. And life is art in progress which needs a freedom to blossom. Playing the piano is where the two can come together.