Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Beginner Chopin?

I have no problem with scales and arpeggios in all keys. My understanding of what was written by Frycek is that they had you do a single measure in all keys, and I wondered if this was a common practice technique for a difficult measure within repertoire, and if so, if it helped.

How it Works

A distinguished colleague once told me a story of how in the middle of his career as an international concert pianist he suddenly became aware of a fact about the piano that he was unaware of before. I was intrigued as to what this might be. In a flash of insight, he told me he realised that the black keys were higher up and further away! When we play, we are constantly making micro adjustments within the hand and arm to accommodate the topography of the keyboard, the black-white terrain. Using our kinesthetic sense, we adapt our hand position by curving the long fingers (2, 3 and 4) very slightly more when playing white keys, slightly less so when playing black keys. When the short fingers (thumb and 5) play black keys, our position is shifted to the back of the keys, with a tiny wrist and forearm adjustment to accommodate this. So when we transpose, we actually learn versions of the same passage that are essentially the same and yet subtly different. We end up by knowing twelve versions of the passage. This is like looking at a statue from many different angles rather than just viewing it from one vantage point. We build up a more complete picture.