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My son has a new piece that requires a melody with octaves, and his teacher has pointed out that he is very stiff when he plays them. She showed him how to relax more, but I was wondering if there are specific exercises for playing octaves in a more relaxed way. He's 13 and can reach an octave, though he hasn't really hit a growth spurt so it's not as comfortable as it would be for a grown man.

Thanks,

Nancy

Actually, I would say exercises for octaves can be generally useful - I'm working on the Alla Turka movement of the K331 Mozart Sonata at the moment and the broken octaves near the end are really doing a number on me!

Nancy, why not ask your son's teacher? Since she can see him play and see what is challenging to him about the octaves, she can best assess what exercises would help the most and how to implement them. Octaves can be treacherous ground, for smaller hands especially.

Morodienne's right. You need to be careful seeking advice elsewhere. Octaves are played from the wrist. The first element of this technique is to have your hand hanging from your wrist 100% relaxed. For a millisecond you stiffen as you drop your arm weight into the keys then immediately flop your wrist level with the keys (relaxing your fingers as much as possible). Lift your wrist and start again. At no point do your fingers lose contact with the keys. The skill is to only be tense for the moment of sound production - not before and not after. But if his teacher disagrees?

Of course, Kullack is yer main man.

I wish more people understood this. Four times out of five, I'd say that when people say "your octaves look stiff," they really mean "you're not using your wrists effectively." (And the other 1 time out of 5 is usually a thumb issue.)

Octaves are not played 'from' the wrist in any sense at all. The muscles are not equipped for the task. The impetus comes from the upper body. Try holding your forearm still and playing a few loud octaves from the wrist alone. It's remarkably tiring and utterly futile. Octaves need to be played with a certain amount of freedom in the wrist, but they should never be played 'from' the wrist. That's merely how it appears on the immediate exterior. It doesn't even begin to represent where the motion is actually initiated. Octaves come more from the elbow and even to an extent from the shoulder. As for the idea of collapsing from the wrist, that is pure bullshit. Can anyone name a single professional who produces tone by lifting and then collapsing their wrist? For a start, it results in virtually no transfer of energy. The majority of the energy is directed down through the wrist, not into the keyboard. Frankly, this is one the single silliest ideas I have ever heard. The exercise can train a pianist with permanentyl locked wrists to release them. That is its only purpose. It has absolutely nothing to do with the movements for actually playing octaves. Letting the wrist collapse in that way actually takes away from the energy that can be channelled through the fingers. It's really very simple physics. While practising such movements might permit some very tense people to free themselves up enough to figure out how octaves are really played, I really pity anyone who takes such advice literally and thinks that they will get anywhere (from such a staggeringly inefficient and effortful manner of playing an octave).

Also, there's no better recipe for arm tensions than allowing the fingers to "relax as much as possible". Please ignore this patent nonsense (from a self-appointed expert on technique who doesn't even play to basic college level). If the fingers relax as much as possible, the only thing stopping the palm from collapsing into the keys is the employment of crippling tensions in the arm. The fingers need to support, if the arm is to be free. That has zero to do with relaxing them as much as possible. Such nonsense can cause major problems. The wrist and forearm need to be freed up, but relaxing the fingers as much as possible on an octave is about the last thing that would help anyone (other those who are sadly incapable of actually relaxing). Judging from KBKs youtube films, it doesn't even work for him, never mind anyone else. The real secret is to learn how to relax the forearm, without letting the fingers go slack.

Nyiregyhazi -
I think I may agree with you - to the extent that I'm aware of how I do this, I play octaves with a somewhat stiff, but still supple (if that makes sense hand with the motion coming primarily from the forearm. A particular challenge for me is playing the broken octaves in the alla turka as I mentioned above. I just can't seem to do it accurately.

BUT NEVER MIND THAT Nyiregyhazi - WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY?

Sorry, it just annoys me the way KBK seems to think he knows so much about technique, but gives such truly appalling, ill-thought out advice.

As you say, it's important to find that apparently contradictory balance between stifness and suppleness. The word 'stiffness' is going a little too far for my taste, but a truly relaxed wrist is no use either. Too many people lock the forearm, certainly. However, if you don't do a certain amount of 'holding' at the wrist, you have too much slack to apply any energy efficiently. You need to keep the wrist stable, without locking it. The key is both to learn to relax first but THEN to learn which muscles need to be used. Too many 'relaxation' solutions are concerned solely with mere preparatory requirement that is the former, but ignore the importance of figuring out the most efficient ways to reintroduce the muscular activity that is required to do a proper job. The idea that the secret to octaves lies in relaxing the fingers and flopping the wrist about is simply absurd. I find this stuff annoying because I was held back for years by such utterly worthless advice. It was only when I discovered which muscles need to be used (instead of trying in vain to relax everything) that I discovered how to make progress. Finally, I am starting to play difficult music with comfort instead of effort. My octaves recently became substantially quicker and easier when a friend showed me how to introduce more finger activity within the balance. The idea of relaxing the fingers as much as possible (based on some hippy mantra that anything other relaxation is always bad) is exactly the sort of tosh that had been slowing everything down, and causing substantial effort in the upper body.

I think kbk ought to spend more time concentrating on finding a way of developing his own technical skills, before he continues to attempt to give advice to others.

I agree with kbk. The wrist has to have flexibility, or tension builds up. It is not that they last firmness to depress the keys, it is simply the once the key is fully depressed, you must use the wrist as a shock absorber to release the excess weight while holding the key down for sustained sound. To continue to press in the keys after the key is completely down leads to ruin.

Explaining such things on a forum is very difficult, which is why I directed the OP to their son's teacher. It must be demonstrated, tried by the student, and then the teacher responds to their attempt until it's done correctly. Words alone do not suffice.

But where does kbk's ridiculous idea of lifting the wrist and collapsing it come into this? Or the idea that you supposedly relax your wrist "100%" before striking the keys (which would presumably have the hand hanging down vertically). I agree entirely with what you say there. However, while the wrist needs to be loosened after reaching the key, to relax the fingers is a totally different issue. If the fingers do not support, the upper body is forced to support the whole arm. And the wrist is no longer capable of being loose at all- otherwise it would collapse completely. This is where dangerous tensions can come in. The fingers need the right amount of grip. Either too little or too much is bad. That is why to aim to relax the fingers as much as possible after the strike is an extremely poor piece of advice. It sends the most crippling tensions into the other muscles.

The only person who could actually benefit from such silly hyperbole about relaxing the fingers is someone who is so locked up that they aren't actually able to fully relax the grip. Even if that's the case, they need to learn how to relax completely and then learn to sense the difference between a relaxed finger and the functional one that permits the hand and weight of the arm to remain supported between octaves. The worst tensions are the result of poorly balanced hands. Only when you learn how to use the muscles that will balance everything, can you find true comfort.

If you read the whole context of what he is saying, he is referring to the fingers here: "At no point do your fingers lose contact with the keys. The skill is to only be tense for the moment of sound production - not before and not after." He is speaking of the fingers in contact with the keys remaining tense only during the sound of production. The relaxing of the fingers is relaxing the *non-playing* fingers. Problems arise if the pinky sticks straight out when other fingers are playing, for example.

Having talked with KBK and seen his posts for quite a while now, I understand that he does not advocate total relaxation: there must be tension somewhere to make sound! So it is only relaxing unnecessary tension that he speaks of. Of course, he certainly can defend himself, I just thought I'd point that out.

Thank you Morodienne. Yes I can certainly defend myself but, as I think you're aware I'm ignoring that user - he's not very pleasant to have discussion with and another one of those that type and type and type with nothing to say.

But claiming that a wrist that is "100% relaxed" (which would lead to a hand hanging vertcially downwards) can play an octave is supposed to be insightful? The point is that unless somebody is incapable of relaxing 100%, to say "relax as much as possible" is staggeringly poor advice. It's a one-size-fits-all that does not fit all but those who are incapable of sensing what relaxation entails. For anyone who can relax, such absurd advice will lead to a lack of support at the keyboard- and compensatory tensions elsewhere. Anyone who is capable of genuinely relaxing their fingers after an octave will do themself great harm if they actually do so.

If you want to teach anyone about technique (despite the fact that your own technique is not even up to college standard) please stop using such idiotic generalisations and start thinking about what ACTUALLY happens. If you could see beyond the mantra that all relaxation is good, you might find that your own technique could progress beyond the sorry mess that can be witnessed from your films about the 'correct' way to use the wrist on youtube. I have rarely seen anything so laboured and evidently uncomfortable before.

I'm sorry that you know so little about simple physics, but if you stopped to consider my post (instead of deciding that anything beyond a single sentence is too complex for your comprehension), you might realise that dropping the arm at the wrist puts force through the palm- not through the fingers! That is possibly the single least direct means of applying energy to the keyboard that a pianist could ever employ- hence the fact that no pianist of competence utilises such comicallly inept movement when playing octaves. There is no less direct way of applying energy than lifting and flopping the wrist. It is ludicrously wasteful of effort. If you had ever experienced what it's like to play octaves at so much as a modest tempo (highly unlikely, judging from your youtube 'lessons') you might realise what nonsense you are suggesting.

If he doesn't advocate it, he should not say it. Tell someone who is already too slack in their hand to relax their fingers "as much as possible" after landing on an octave and you screw things up even more.

Of course the fingers stay in contact with the keys. That is not in question. However, if the fingers do not adequately support the weight of the arm between strikes a large workload is placed on the upper body. The kind of workload that means that the typically limp-handed pianist who you see struggling their way through octaves can barely move, for upper body tension. A relaxed finger cannot support the arm's weight, without the wrist either locking or collapsing. Until a hand grips enough to allow the upper body to find rest, the upper body will have to lock up, to balance the forces. Relaxing the hand as much as possible means MORE workload upon the upper body, not less. Gravity must be supported somwhere. Anyone who has the goal of relazing their fingers as much as possible will most certainly be forced to hold their arm still from above. Otherwise their wrist would collapse. Or they have some kind of anti-gravity module.

See what I mean? Empty barrels.

Yes "empty" talk about the fact that genuinely relaxed fingers cannot support gravity, or provide a spring board for the following octave. What a load of waffle that is.

Speaking of firing blanks, when are you going to upload a film of yourself putting your magical advice into practise on youtube? When you've found a method that actually works, perhaps?

Kreisler, are you referring to the "wrist drop", where, as the octave strike is approached, the wrist is somewhat high, then the fingers depress the keys, and the wrist pivots downward?

Here is the late great Carola Grindea illustrating 'drop' and 'flop'. The sound doesn't sync so well but the note sounds with the 'drop' before the 'flop':

How about a film of a respected concert artist using this counterprodutice means of directing energy down through the palm (and away from the fingertips) when playing octaves in concert now? Competent pianists use an aligned wrist to transmit energy efficiently and directly. They channel energy through the fingers by pivoting from the elbow in an aligned whole. They rarely channel energy away from the keys with such a hopelessly indirect path.

The only thing this exercise can achieve is to teach the person using it how to release their wrist more. That will help to ensure that they don't tighten up more than necessary when returning to normal playing. However, the idea that a movement that carries the energy AWAY from the point of contact should be incorporated into actual playing is complete junk. This really is very simple physics. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would portray this is as a useful preparatory exercise for gaining freedom in the forearm. Not a way of actually playing.

I mean simply that the wrist is important in the playing of octaves. What it actually does depends on the articulation, tempo, sound, and context. Dropping the wrist is counterproductive when you're trying to play staccato or quickly. It's helpful when you want a warm, rich sound or have to connect a series of legato octaves.

I see two mistakes from time to time. Someone will either not put much thought into the wrist, attempting to play octaves relying solely on the fingers or arms; or they will put all their thought into a certain "correct" way of using the wrist, which may or may not advanced their musical goals.

The wrist is a wonderful thing, capable of a wide variety and range of motions. It seems a shame to only let it work in one or two limited ways.