How Should We Play the Piano?

        

Someone on a public forum asked "how should we play the
piano?" An avid practicer responded with a helpful list in which he wrote the word practice one hundred times. At one-hundred-one he suggested repeating the above. A responder asked, insightfully, "but what if I'm doing it wrong?" The response was: "If you're doing it wrong, you're not trying hard enough...just put in a better effort."

    This reminded me of something my late friend Bob once told me in a fit of pique. It seems I had pushed a button when I criticized his driving—not signaling until after he started a lane change.  I pointed out that the object of signaling was to let others know in advance what he intended to do. "I've been driving for sixty years," was his indignant reply, and that was not the end of it. I bit my tongue, but I thought to myself that he'd been doing it wrong for sixty years.

     Well, of course we should play the piano correctly. But the word practice is itself loaded. In a way, it's like the word opera, which encompasses many disciplines. At the very least, though, practice implies repetition. But I would venture to ask, "repeat what?" One obvious answer might be "the notes" in order to beat them into our memory. Or the phrasing. Maybe the quality of sound and the relationship of dynamic contrasts. But no, for me practice, the repetition, begins after the intellect has decided what the objectives are and what are the appropriate mechanisms required in order to achieve the desired result. (Maybe we should call that  pre-practice?) How do I move from one note to the next? What is the most effective fingering? What is the technical shaping or grouping? (Shaping and grouping as techniques are discussed elsewhere in these pages.) Of course, I refer here primarily to passages that require specialized attention. Still, all practicing is something we do on purpose. It is not a mindless rote activity.

    I should add that for me, a correct approach is one in which the playing apparatus (fingers, hand, forearm) are used in a coordinate manner and according to their design.