Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Taubman technique opinion?

Has anyone watched these videos and if so, what was your opinion? I found them so far, to be excellent and helpful, although too long and on VHS, it takes forever to roll back and ahead. There also is no captioning on them. I wish I'd had this training when I started piano lessons light years ago!

Do you incorporate these ideas into your lessons, and if so, at what age?

I have only seen "Freeing the Caged Bird", by Barbara Lister-Sink and some of the exercises she uses I have found to be helpful. I believe her technique is similar to Taubman's from what I've heard. I work on proper technique with my beginners very early on in lessons and continue as each concept is learned or a new technical issue arises in their repertoire.

There are quite a few on youtube. They mostly practice good sense but talk drivel.

kbk, what do you think of Lister-Sink?

I was at a workshop of hers about 10 years ago. My teacher shot her down for crashing down into the keys from a height. I asked my teacher about her couple of years ago, she said she's relented and plays from the surface now. If it's true, her method is quite sound.

I do the free falling from above the keys just at the very beginning to demonstrate that arm weight is better than finger weight. However, I do not have students practice this after doing it a couple of times. We go right into the feeling of using the arm weight through a flexible wrist while the fingers begin from contact with the keys.

The videos are actually available in DVD format (do a search for Edna Golandsky - she is the person who delivers the lectures). Because they are so detailed, they contain a wealth of information!