Hi and welcome to The Fundamental Action. This web site is aimed primarily at one specific group of piano students or pianists - those who are having trouble with their technique. This may be either because they have never achieved a level of technique that would enable them to play the majority of the piano repertoire with comfort and ease, or because they once had a satisfactory level of technique - perhaps in childhood - and somewhere along the way they lost it. These are people who genuinely and in all humility believe that they deserve to play better than they can. They don't think they are asking too much to expect, after all the time and effort and committment they have put into piano practice, that they should be able to play a few pieces that are not impossibly difficult. The frustrating thing is that these pieces are only barely beyond their capacity; they can probably play short sections of them, or even the whole piece at a slower speed, but to play them with ease and comfort at full speed remains tantalisingly just out of reach. These are the people I feel I can help.
Everyone has I believe a realistic vision of what piano music they feel they should be able to play, or how well they should be able to pay what they can only struggle through at present. I firmly believe that if they are being realistic and honest with themselves and they have a genuine pianistic goal, then that goal should with sufficient correct practice be achievable.
If on the other hand you are able to play the Chopin Etudes from start to finish without the slightest difficulty then congratulations - you are one of the lucky ones and you don't need me to tell you how to play the piano. However, having said that, even the professional pianist can I believe benefit from what I have to say by either coming to a better understanding of the physiological basis of piano technique, or by finding a more efficient way of practising.
One way in which I believe my work differs from that of other writers on the subject is that every other writer on piano technique was already a pianist; they could all play to a high standard. What they were doing then was to theorise on their subjective experiences as pianists; they were formulating theories that would explain what playing the piano felt like to them. This is why there is so little agreement between any of them. I on the other hand have not been able to play the piano properly until very recently. I have learned through trial and error by taking every method proposed by previous teachers and writers and seeing if they worked, discarding them as each one failed; and then formulating my own theories one after another and seeing if they worked, and likewise discarding them - which explains why it has taken over thirty years - until I finally discovered something that does work. In other words with the other writers and teachers their piano technique came first and they devised a theory to fit it. With me the theory had to come first because I simply couldn't play, and when I had found the right theory I used it to acquire technique. I believe I am the only person who has ever done it this way.
Before we continue I think we need a definition of the Fundamental Action and what it means. The Fundamental Action is the application to piano playing of two laws of physics - Action and Reaction and the Law of the Lever - by means of the use of a Whole-Arm Action. There is a more detailed explanation of these two laws in the section entitled "The Physical Laws", and there is a whole section on "The Whole-Arm Action". Briefly, however, the law of Action and Reaction refers to Newton's Third Law of Motion which states that, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"; while the Law of the Lever as it applies to piano playing is the type generally referred to as the Third Class of Lever where the force exerted is between the resistance to be overcome and the fulcrum. However, these two scientific principles are inextricably linked and are really two aspects of the same physical phenomenon. The lever will not act as a lever unless it has a solid basis to act against - the fixed fulcrum. That is just another way of saying that the action of the lever in overcoming the resistance brings about an equal and opposite reaction which must itself be counteracted or negated by the immobility of the fulcrum. In piano playing, if the hands and fingers are acting as levers they will have immensely more speed and power than if they are not. It is that difference which lies between the ease and speed of the professional pianist and the cramped forearms of the amateur. For the professional the piano keys are literally a fraction of the weight that the amateur experiences because the professional is applying the Law of the Lever. Let this no longer be a mystery or a secret. In the following pages I will endeavour to prove that these scientific laws are an indispensible requirement for playing the piano to professional level, and also explain how to make them part of one's everyday practice and performing.
Franz Liszt went on teaching and composing up until his death at the age of 74
A long time ago I had a conversation with a lawyer friend of mine in which I tried to explain my ambitions with regard to the piano, and the problems I was having in attaining an adequate level of technique. Her response was both startling and, I felt at the time, insulting. She said, “It’s probably just a knack.” My pursuit of the truth about piano technique was even then nothing less important and heroic in my own eyes than the quest for the Holy Grail, and for someone to reduce the object of my then ten-year search to nothing more than “a knack” was, I thought, typical of a lawyer. But this lawyer was one of the most intelligent people I knew, and her words stuck with me. I began to wonder, after all, is there much difference between the word “knack” and the word “technique”? What my lawyer friend was getting at, I came to realise, was that the ability to play the piano is probably not something esoteric, unfathomable, arcane, but rather something quite simple, based on physical laws and attainable if one approaches it in the right way. At that time I was still harbouring a secret desire to believe in Abby Whiteside’s “magic”. From then on I took a more scientific approach. Although I didn't know it at the time, I was less than a third of the way through my now 33-year study of the problem and still really hadn’t a clue what the solution was. But even by then I had made a few observations which appeared to me to have some merit:
1. Of all those who - usually in childhood - begin to learn to play the piano, only a tiny minority ever achieve what could be called concert level - whether they take to the stage or not. This tiny minority almost always shows enormous natural talent from the earliest age - they are almost without exception "child prodigies". They are recognised as having a "gift" which many observers - including their teachers - find amazing, wonderful and inexplicable. These are the ones who get their Diploma at the age of twelve and some of whom go on to play with the world's great orchestras while still in ther teens. YouTube is now full of the most remarkable children and Enzo is one of the best. Have a look at his first appearance at the age of seven playing the Fantasie-Impromptu. Already he plays like a professional and gives us no clue as to how he does it. He just makes it look so simple.
For the rest of us it is not as simple as Enzo makes it look. The vast majority of students struggle along with more or less success until they finally admit defeat and give it up. There seems to be very little that most teachers can do - or even attempt to do - in terms of teaching pure technique. They can ensure that their students assiduously practise their scales and arpeggios, they can help them with their pieces, but if a student of mediocre ability should be bold enough to say one day: "I want to play the Revolutionary Etude; please teach me how to play it" - when the teacher knows for certain that the pupil can no more play this piece than fly to the moon, all the teacher can reply is that perhaps the pupil isn’t quite ready for that yet (but don't tell him he never will be). The sad truth is that the teacher has no more idea than the poor student why Chopin’s masterpiece will remain forever unplayable. And then a half an hour later the next student comes in and rattles it off without the slightest difficulty. And all the teacher can do is watch in amazement, still none the wiser. And so it goes on, the "good" ones progressing, the others struggling. Is this inevitable? Is there nothing that can be done to help the "mediocre" student play this Etude? Is this merely the unalterable order of things? I happen to think not. Why? Because that mediocre student who asked to be taught the Revolutionary Etude was myself. And when my teacher couldn’t help me I asked another; and when he couldn't help I asked another - and another. And then I asked all the dead teachers and writers and pianists to explain to me why I couldn’t play it: Abby Whiteside first, then Matthay, then James Ching, and all the others along the way - Leschetitsky, Breithaupt, Gat, Neuhaus, Otto Ortmann, Harold Taylor, Arnold Schultz, and others I don't even remember. And they couldn’t tell me either. So I asked myself. One simple question: Why can’t I play this piece? And I went on asking myself the same question every day for over 30 years. Why can’t I play this piece? And if it had been necessary I would have gone on asking myself that same question every day for another 30 years. But that wasn’t necessary. Because gradually I began to see and to understand. Gradually a little light and a little ray of hope began to appear. And that little light and hope grew into understanding and belief and finally conviction. So that now, after the darkness and confusion of those 30 years I no longer have to ask that question. Now I understand why for so long I couldn’t play it and now I understand why I now can (albeit not as fast or as brilliantly as I would like - but after all I am not a concert pianist nor do I have any pretense to be; I am a teacher.) That understanding is what I hope to share with you in the following pages. Every student who assiduously practises the Fundamental Action for long enough will become the best pianist they are capable of becoming; they will not become concert pianists but what they will have for the first time in their lives is an understanding of what they are doing at the piano and a knowledge that they are playing to the best of their ability.
2. The second thing that had occurred to me is this: Whatever it is that allows one student to play a piece and prevents another from doing so must be something physical. It must be something real, something identifiable and explicable in terms of physical activity, the activity of muscles, the movement of sections of the playing mechanism, the condition of joints and all those bio-mechanical elements which should be the object of study of everyone involved in making and teaching music - but which sadly hardly ever is. To put it in reverse, the reason why one student succeeds and another fails cannot be explained by reference to such vague indefinable notions as Talent or Gift - whether bestowed by God or Nature or Luck. Nor should an explanation be accepted that relies on the psychological or emotional state of the student. Being told that you cannot play because you are not taking a holistic approach or you are too negative or you are not sufficiently in tune with yourself or the cosmos, or you don’t have the right coloured aura is not much help. Such explanations cannot be acceptable to any scientifically minded investigator.
3. Thirdly, and very importantly, whatever the “good” student is doing right must be very, very close to what the “poor” student is doing wrong. Their actions must look the same, feel the same to them and be explicable in terms of the same teaching. They must be capable of being easily confused one with the other because that is what has happened for hundreds of years. And yet the two must be doing entirely different things. Why? Because what the good student does right works in a way that to the mediocre student and to the average teacher looks impossible. They can only sit and stare in amazement at how the most insurmountable technical problems they encounter are overcome with complete simplicity and ease by the talented student. And yet the talented one has been taught to do exactly the same thing as the others. That is what is most frustrating - there is no difference in the way each has been taught to play. For example they are both taught to play octaves by moving the hand up and down at the wrist. The talented one does this and plays Liszt's Funerailles as easily as waving goodbye. The rest of us do exactly the same thing and the result is clumsiness, strain, missed notes and debilitating cramp. It looks as if we are doing the same thing but actually what the "talented" one and the "untalented" are doing couldn't be more different. Not only that, but it is a physiological impossibility for the latter to play fast octaves with ease with the coordination that he is applying. Although it looks like he is doing exactly the same thing as the talented pianist, what he is doing is completely different and he is trying to do something that is actually impossible.
4. Fourthly, there must be a scientifically demonstrable and provable basis to correct piano technique. It must be grounded in correct scientific principles both in terms of general laws of physics and also in terms of the specific bio-mechanics of the arm, hand and fingers.
5. Piano technique must be something that is explicable in terms of the different theories, many of them mutually exclusive, that the great writers and theorists and teachers of the past have developed. There must be something in it that satisfies Matthay's theory of weight and relaxation as much as his one time assistant and then rival James Ching's contradictory theory of fixation. There must be something in it to explain the audacious and original if somewhat idiosyncratic beliefs of Abby Whiteside. These teachers spent years developing their theories based on their experience of playing the piano. Each one must have been close to the truth in their own way. Except of course Matthay, whose theory of Weight and Relaxation is as much scientific nonsense as pianistic impossibility. Unfortunately it has gained some popularity among those who have not examined the matter in any logical manner, and one still hears teachers talking of "using the weight of the arm" to play.
6. The correct technique must be capable of being taught. It must be an explicable and understandable reality at the keyboard. It must be capable of being communicated in quite simple terms. It should not be a pianistic Theory of Relativity. It should be attainable by a person of reasonable musical ability and average physical coordination if they spend a reasonable amount of time practising in the right way and not waste their time in unproductive activites that develop a completely erroneous coordination. The vast bulk of the piano repertoire should be playable by a student who has dedicated ten years to playing the piano. They will not necessarily play as fast or as loud or as brilliantly or with the same musical and emotional content as the great virtuosos, and some pieces will remain forever out of reach - that is only natural and proper. But they should be able to play a lot of Liszt, most of Chopin (even Artur Rubinstein didn't feel confident enough in his technique to perform and record all of Chopin's Etudes), most of Beethoven, all of Mozart and enough piano music generally to make it a meaningful and successful part of their lives and not just a source of frustration and failure.
7. The correct technique must be something that is capable of being acquired naturally and automatically in a very short period of time by a child genius. It must be something that the prodigy acquires in the normal course of daily practice. It must therefore arise out of normal piano-related activity but yet be something that the great majority of students fail to achieve even though they appear, to themselves and their teachers, to be doing the same thing as the prodigy.
8. Piano technique is not a state of mind. Let us be very clear on this. It is not a manifestation of musical genius that is incomprehensible to and unachievable by ordinary mortals. It is not like the genius required for composition. The genius that creates the Beethoven Sonatas or the Chopin Etudes is not the same thing as the ability required to play them. No ordinary mortal can ever learn or be taught to compose the Hammerklavier Sonata. But we can learn, we can be taught to play it. We do not need to have been born with this talent, it can be acquired. Nobody knows what a human being needs to have to compose a great piece of piano music. But we do know what a human being needs to play it - the correct physical coordination; that is all.
What this site does is to investigate and try to identify the fundamental physiological, bio-mechanical interaction between piano and pianist in an attempt to answer the question “What is technique?”, and in so doing to develop a series of activities that the student can put into practice in order to improve their playing ability. It is a theory based on scientific laws accompanied by a series of exercises which will help the student to put the theory into practice and in so doing to acquire the coordination which I believe to be the foundation for all piano technique. When this coordination is acquired and perfected through repetition it will allow the student to realise his or her full potential at the keyboard. Nothing more or less.
Can we remember with what hopes we ourselves started out on that great adventure - to learn the piano? We knew it was going to be difficult but we never believed impossible. Why would it be impossible? Listen to the music - it sounds easy, it sounds beautiful, it must be possible to play like that. But we never made it to the concert platorm, we never even made it to the Chopin Studies. But we didn’t give up - we just learned to compromise with the easier Chopin and Beethoven and some nice little melodies by Schubert, Schumann and the rest. And maybe we teach, in the hope that we might produce some great genius and all the mistakes and misunderstanding and misinformation we pass on will be vindicated. But how many of us really understand why we don’t play as well as we once believed we could, and how many of are happy with the simple explanation of ‘insufficient talent’? Why have we as teachers failed our pupils in accepting such poor standards from the great majority of them without asking why? - simply accepting the pseudo-explanation of ‘lack of talent’? Why have we as pupils failed ourselves and not demanded a better explanation of why we couldn’t play as well as we believed we should be able to, as well as we believed we deserved? Why have professional pianists - especially those who are also teachers - failed us all by not taking the time and making the effort to analyse more precisely exactly what it is they do at the piano, exactly what muscles they are using or not using, exactly what condition their joints are in, etc., so that they could actually understand and explain what is happening? At least they can play so they are in a better position to explain it than the average piano teacher.
If the child prodigy can acquire the ability to play the piano brilliantly at such an early age naturally and unconsciously, then it can be aquired deliberately and systematically by a less "gifted" student if they can replicate in their practice what the prodigy is doing. The question is,what has the prodigy done to acquire such phenomenal technique in such short time. Well one thing he or she hasn't done is spend ten or fifteen years practising scales and arpeggios and finger exercises. So immediately we should know that these are not necessary. After all why on earth should less talented students do something that the talented ones have proved to be absolutely unnecessary? It's idiotic. What we need to do is find out how the child genius does it and copy that.
Paganini hinted at a secret he had discovered which would transform the teaching and learning of the violin, something which would halve the time required to learn the instrument. He applied it to one pupil of his who had rescued him and brought him home after Paganini was thrown out of a public house. This pupil made miraculous progress in a very short time but this was the only time Paganini ever used the method and he took the secret with him to the grave. I am no expert on the violin but I believe there probably is a secret of violin playing and if anyone could discover it, it was Paganini. As regards our instrument, if anything could be called “the secret of piano playing” it would have to be a single, attainable, workable, and logically explicable coordination which works in theory as well as in practice. One coordination demonstrable in terms of the laws of physics, attainable by a child, capable of being rationalised in a way that enables it to be taught and learned, which if applied conscientiously over a period of time will produce in the student what we recognise as piano technique. There can be only one correct coordination - not a different one for each great pianist and not a different one for each theorist; there can be and there is only one coordination that will produce success in playing the piano; that coordination, I humbly propose, is the Fundamental Action.
Niccolo Paganini
TheFundamentalAction.com
The Truth About Piano Technique and How to Acquire it
