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Hi Pogorelich,

Thanks for your feedback on this issue.

Hi Louis Podesta,

Thank you for your perspectives.

The following youtube video is an example of the first school of teaching that I mentioned in my earlier post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9CekPZP2Tk

I hope that I now made my dilemma clearer.

Thank you for sharing the John Browning Master Class video. I have his recording of the Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto.

However, once again, here is an example of a concert pianist who does not have a clue as to what should constitute a proper octave/chord technique.

My coach, Thomas Mark, teaches a separate seminar in octave technique that is entirely based on a natural arm weight principle. That means that if you want to ruin your hands and wrists, do it the way John Browning does.

However (and I do not hustle students for Thomas Mark), if you can make it to the beautiful city of Portlandia this summer, then you can take a lesson on this very subject. www.pianomap.com

With all do respect to my fellow posters, it will solve your "dilemma" in short order. As I said before, with my spindly fingers and small hand, there is no way I could play this piece with out a normal body weight use of the hand and wrist.

What is with you and the unnecessarily harsh replies? I'm pretty sure his family and friends will still know and care if he is alive. Fame isn't everything.

Thank you for sharing the John Browning Master Class video. I have his recording of the Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto.

However, once again, here is an example of a concert pianist who does not have a clue as to what should constitute a proper octave/chord technique.

Secondly, the master himself, is performing. Neither one of these men who had some the greatest concerto techniques ever known, in regards music of the Romantic Period, ever played with a John Browning technique, never!

Since Rachmaninoff died when Browning was 10 years old (assuming I have the right Browning), I suppose this would be akin to saying neither of them played with a Thomas Mark technique, either.

I can't help but wonder how on earth can people believe that there is only one truth, one correct 'technique'.

Thank you so much for broaching the subject, in that I have been soundly ridiculed for stating that I am a classical pianist/philosopher. The Royal Institute of Philosophy at Cambridge considers me to be one, but then again, they are not as sharp as my fellow contributors on Piano World - but I digress.

Dr. Thomas Mark used to be a philosophy professor at Columbia University, of which you may have heard. He is considered to be an authority on the writings of Spinoza.

He adheres to the piano pedagogical philosophy that one size does not always fit all. He has actually published a journal article on that very subject, which can be accessed through his website www.pianomap.com.

The first thing that he tells you in a coaching session is exactly that. There are some Taubman priniciples that apply overall, and then there are few things Ms. Golandsky left/leaves out in regards the relationship of the whole body to the playing of the piano. ("What Every Pianist Needs To Know About The Body," by Thomas Mark)

He stresses that your goal is to position your finger/fingers over the right note/notes by first positioning your whole body to be in balance. Then you move your entire arm (articulating from the sternovanicular joint) so you can rotate, shape, or do anything else required of a particular passage.

With the octaves and chords it is the same, very well thought out, logic.

However, sticking your finger in a meat slicer is not a different point of view. It is a potentially fatal very bad idea. Accordingly, playing octaves and chords like John Browning will screw up your hands forever.

You have no idea what physical therapy he had to undergo to play like this, which is a subject that never gets talked about regarding the world's great pianists. E.G. does Lang Lang mash his left hand when he plays a chord, and what is the subsequent result to his ulnar nerve?

The bio-mechanics of playing the piano has been around since Tobias Matthay. I suggest that you have your library send you his voluminous writings on this matter.

Nowhere does he even remotely suggest that anyone play an octave or chord like John Browning.

Thanks once again for your input.

Thank you so much for broaching the subject, in that I have been soundly ridiculed for stating that I am a classical pianist/philosopher. The Royal Institute of Philosophy at Cambridge considers me to be one, but then again, they are not as sharp as my fellow contributors on Piano World - but I digress.

We've been through this before, but what on earth are you doing here?

We certainly do NOT need your kind of education (at least I don't), and apparently you seem to be throwing gems to the swine, so...

Don't bother.

Doesn't bloody Cambridge have a forum to go to, instead PW?

In order to play with full arm weight and upper body weight, you need to sit higher in order to maximize the natural gravity of your body. As it is now, you are poking at chords and octaves, and if you keep it up you will have carpel tunnel syndrome by your early 20's.

Thank you for sharing the John Browning Master Class video. I have his recording of the Prokofiev 3rd Piano Concerto.

However, once again, here is an example of a concert pianist who does not have a clue as to what should constitute a proper octave/chord technique.

My coach, Thomas Mark, teaches a separate seminar in octave technique that is entirely based on a natural arm weight principle. That means that if you want to ruin your hands and wrists, do it the way John Browning does.

It's not the matter of sharing ideas. I hope everyone here knows how open minded I am.

Hi Louis, I agree with the part about not poking at the keys except for some detache type effects and in other miscellaneous instances, not for health reasons though but for piano tone and range of tonal palette reasons. The advice that he sit higher though is not necessarily correct. A simple perusal of photos of great pianists - including Josef Hofmann who delivered a mighty yet beautiful fff in those live recordings from Casimir Hall - shows that maybe sitting a little lower and further back is what is needed. There is a photo somewhere of Josef with his son Anton (presumably named after Josef's teacher Anton Rubinstein) at the keys, and one might be inclined to think he has Anton in an optimal configuration relative to the keyboard. The tone is in its majority from weight and the back muscles, not weight and the triceps which in my belief tends to produce a rather strident result especially in the ff+ range.

I hope that no one here feels I am being dogmatic. I've seen a video of Joaquin Achucarro sitting so high and close to the keys that it looks almost like he is standing, and his tone isn't impaired. But he has decades and decades of concertizing behind him, and he didn't start off sitting that way. For a teenager whose tone might seem a bit hard maybe it is best to experiment first with sitting lower down and further back which in and of itself may reduce any tendency to poke at the keys.

Some of the hardness might be due to how the Steinway's hammers are voiced - it is a bit difficult to get a beautiful tone if the hammers are voiced for more attack than tone in the sound.

p.s. - I don't think a pianist can realistically be expected to consciously follow a ten step process in playing octaves as you seem to suggest in another post with this thread. Somehow, with some basic musical and other guidance with supervision, it all has to come together naturally.

If you have read some of my other posts on this thread, you would know that I do not, nor does Thomas Mark, ascribe to any "ten steps" or one size fits all logic.

Accordingly, Thomas sits very high, and as my video illustrates, I do not. Additionally, since that recording, I sit even lower.

I have always sat very far back because of my long legs. And, I also lean forward.

In terms of John Browning playing a hundred performances a season, you need to know the big secret. That secret is that most, if not all, concert pianists have three hours of recital up and also two piano concertos (maybe three, if there are two Mozart selections).

So,it is no problem for someone like John Browning to program pieces around his particular technique. The point being, including Lang Lang (who mashes his left hand), it is a very bad idea to follow in the footsteps of "big name teachers" or concert pianists, who have been less than genuous regarding the actual facts of their own particular technique.