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I am about to get a teacher again, having being going it alone for a few years. There is someone locally who teaches the Taubman technique and I was wondering whether teachers on the forum could advise whether this would require me substantially to re-learn my technique. I would say I'm intermediate to advanced level, comfortable playing Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Scriabin.

Any advice or information about the technique or whether or not it would be a good or bad idea gratefully received.

Go for it, though I disagree with the total non-finger technique. At least you won't learn tension. Pinch of salt though!

timbo, it may very well, since you probably were not taught much about your muscle and skeletal structure and how they work together.

This book might make for interesting reading before you dive in: http://www.pianomap.com/taubman.html

It completely depends on how you were taught before. If your technique is fingery, tense, or rigid, then you will completely re-learn your technique. If your technique is already comfortable, then it won't be all that different.

This technique really fascinates me, since one of my biggest shticks as a teacher is freedom of movement, relaxation, and what I like to call "logical kinesthetics". I read the stuff on the site and it's all very vague. Can someone give me an example the difference between a normal pianist and one who has studied Taubman?

I haven't studied Taubman directly, but I have listed to many lectures by Veda Kaplinsky on the subject. You know that every muscle has an opposing muscle, and that the relaxed state is when the two sets of muscles are in equilibrium. Thus, to give you one example only, you can play a note on the piano using several different muscle groups. Say that you want to play C# using your 2nd finger. Do you raise the finger before playing? Why? Is your finger on the key or off the key before playing? Why? If you pull the finger toward you, using only the flexor (flexor pollicis longus) muscles in the forearm, you will expend the least amount of energy, and the key motion, from top to bottom, is well within the normal range of muscle contraction, so no pain or overuse is happening. This will generate a very soft to medium loud tone. But if you thrust your forearm forward, with a taut finger, you will get a much stronger tone, but an entirely different set of muscles is used. How do you decide what to use when and where? What I believe that Taubman pioneered is critical observation of what groups of muscles to use in what situation. This study is, of course, ongoing.

Most of my students when they come to me, are very haphazard in their selection of muscles to use. There has been no methodical training in this department. They raise their fingers high off the keys, they strike and stab the keys. These bad habits slow students down, their velocity suffers, and their control of piano's sound suffers accordingly.

Does this help any or just add to the confusion?

Oh, it does help. Thank you. It sounds like what I've been advocating to all my students. I'm sure they're all tired of me saying to them, "Use gravity!" or "Stop doing so much work!" But what puzzles me is why there has to be a certain "method" for healthy piano playing. Wouldn't it make sense if all pianists and teachers understood that a proper kinesthetic approach is the most beneficial to playing?

Of course, that's a rhetorical question, since we pianists have a long and sordid history of injuring ourselves for music.

I think it would be a great opportunity! I checked into it myself - no teachers in this area and I can't afford to go to a seminar on it or buy the videos. Even if you had to change your technique or re-learn, it would be well worth it and and worth the ability to pass the ideas down to your students.

I've talked to a lot of pianists who have studied with Taubman teachers, and they all said their technique had to be radically changed in order to incorporate the Taubman approach - to the point where they were extremely discouraged from practicing music they learned pre-Taubman by their teachers. That's anecdotal, so is probably not always be the case.

A funny story: my daughter's piano teacher studied for four years with a very well known Taubman teacher. She felt like she couldn't play for two years after studying with her. I studied with a Taubman teacher for about a year, and I felt like I couldn't play for about a year afterwards.

All that means is it works for some, but not for others. IMO, the best "Taubman teachers" are ones who don't necessarily use everything from that approach, but use the parts that make sense for them, and their students. In other words, it's one part of their "arsenal" along with Fink, Sandor, etc.

I hate to say it but the 'felt like she couldn't play' syndrome sounds like the Taubman school is on to something. I was lucky in eventually finding a teacher who ONLY taught how to be a concert pianist. What ever her motives were, I discovered there is no in-between. If your present technique means you can never reach that ultimate level then, as painful as it is, it needs to be discarded.

I'm not sure what you mean. My daughter's teacher is a concert pianist, so maybe she eventually found the same teacher you did.

Phlebas--

You captured my feeling exactly!

I studied Taubman for four years in college. My previous teacher taught me the "Russian School" of playing, so the relaxation and rotation of Taubman was drastically different. For about a year I was starting over (playing some really simple pieces) and felt I couldn't play anything difficult.

Now I feel like I can play with complete freedom of expression. My muscles are working together to make music rather than against each other. I used to feel a ton of forearm tension with my previous teacher. All that tension is now gone! It feels really liberating!

The only "drawback" of Taubman is that you can't go back to play old pieces, unless you are willing to re-learn the entire piece the Taubman way, and no matter what I do with those old pieces, bad habits always come back (along with the pain and tension) when I play my pre-college pieces. It makes me wish I had learned Taubman sooner.

This is the problem with muscle memory. It not only remembers how to play the piece but also all the wrong tension that you used. It doesn't know the difference between good and bad tension.

The problem with Taubman is that it's not how Bach or Mozart played. For Beethoven and upwards it's ideal.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I'm going to speak to the teacher and then probably have a few lessons to see how I like the Taubman approach. Incidentally, does anyone know whether many concert pianists are trained in this technique? Is it an all or nothing thing? Or can you adopt certain principles from the technique and adapt it to your playing? It sounds from people's comments that this isn't an option.

Just a few thoughts:

Taubman's "approach" is really nothing more than an approach to technique informed by physiological principles. Her ideas are very much in line with the mainstream pedagogical principles of people like Ortmann, Matthay, and Sandor.

People often think of Taubman as being some kind of special or novel approach, but that's mostly due to the way she and Golandsky marketed it.

It's also often thought of as the "opposite" of Russian school playing. This assumes that Russian School = Independent Fingers of Steel, and while many Russian teachers and players emphasize finger clarity, it should be noted that Leschetizky and Neuhaus were very much aware of the importance of one's technique being physiologically sound. In other words, people who think the Russian school focuses exclusively on independent finger clarity have a very shallow understanding of it.

If you ever get a chance to hear Sean Duggan play Bach, you may change your mind about how applicable Taubman can or can't be to Bach.

The problem is Bach and Mozart et al, are about finger figurations. A certain tightness of rhythm is missing if you play from your arm.

keyboardklutz wrote: "The problem is Bach and Mozart et al, are about finger figurations. A certain tightness of rhythm is missing if you play from your arm."

Hmm...I don't know...I think I finally learned to play Mozart correctly after I learned Taubman. Forearm rotation enables that special tone associated with playing Mozart's music.

It's harder to apply Taubman's ideas to polyphonic stuff, but it can be done. You'd just have to think about coordinating the movements like a choreographer.

Well, I spent years with a teacher dropping my weight here there and where-ever in Mozart (and Bach) until the light dawned. I can't remember when, but I just began using my fingers instead and it all began to come together. You just cannot get the right shape-into-sound that the music demands with a lumbering appendage. Mozart himself is clear about how quiet the hand must be.

I have to agree with keyboardklutz on this one. I can't see how the exaggerated wrist flopping Dorothy demonstrates on her DVDs would improve most Bach, Clementi or Mozart. But, then I have never studied with a Taubman teacher. I have studied Alexander technique and from a Peter Feuchtwanger teacher. Both taught only using the minimal effort necessary and that you don't need to sway your torso, drop your weight or flap your wrist just to use a finger to depress a key -- especially if the music doesn't call for those kinds of movements.

After having spent a lot of time exploring Taubman and other alternatives to the finger school of playing (including lessons with a superb Taubman teacher), I have recently come around full circle. I now feel that these playing "methods," while well-intended and helpful and perhaps even essential to one's technical arsenal, are essentially lopsided. Ideally I think it best to include BOTH aspects into one's playing. So, my suggestion? Go ahead and study with this Taubman teacher, but independently I would practice diligently to develop and maintain strong independent finger movement. To this end, I have recently come to appreciate the value of holding exercises, such as Dohnanyi and Pischna. Don't let people (including your Taubman teacher) scare you away from finger strength development by warning you about inevitable harm you will do to yourself - in my opinion that is throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and I believe you simply cannot attain the highest levels of technical proficiency without highly developed finger movement. Take their words rather as a warning that independent finger strength must be developed slowly and carefully, ie. in small doses and with as much relaxation of uninvolved muscles as possible, both during each finger activation and between.

Jerry, best put advice yet. Too many babies were thrown out by Matthay,Townsend, Taubman etc.

Well put, keyboardklutz.

I'm skeptical about all approaches that
are obsessed with "relaxation." In my
view, this is fundamentally faulty in
concept. Apparently, people have watched
top concert pianists in action, and, of
course, they are the picture of "relaxed"
and "effortless" technique (the result
of countless hrs. of finger-breaking
toil to get to the point where they
can sail through the most difficult
pieces with seemingly no effort). Thus,
employing the most slipshod kind of
reasoning, people conclude
the the way to become like that is to
relax from the start--a totally
faulty conclusion.

Taubman never advocated "exaggerated wrist flopping."

She emphasized wrist and arm movement because many of the pianists she was trying to help developed tendonitis through fingery playing.

Put another way - the exaggerated wrist flopping was just an exercise to re-educate underused muscles. No Taubman disciple would actually recommend playing that way. Quite the opposite - one of Taubman's main tenets is that the muscles, including those of the fingers, should be used efficiently.

The idea that "Taubman Technique" consists of a great deal of wrist and arm motion has misunderstood the whole point.

Unfortunately, many students miss the point as well, believing that Taubman's style deemphasizes the fingers. It does not, it simply seeks to use the entire playing mechanism - finger, wrist, and arm - to achieve the desired musical result in the most efficient and physiologically healthy way possible.

For those interested in this trend, an excellent book is:

A Symposium for Pianists and Teachers: Strategies to Develop the Mind and Body for Optimal Performance by Gail Berenson, Jacqueline Csurgai-Schmitt, William DeVan, and Mitchell Elkiss

The info in that back best reflects current thinking on the topic of wellness for musicians.

Thomas Mark's book "What Every Pianist Needs to Know About the Body" is also very good.

Well that's a shame because I do that regularly. I hold a very high wrist and do the longest drop the tempo will allow. As the tempo increases the drop/flop is hardly seen (but it is there).

I'm sorry but I have to say, there is a big difference between developing finger independence and strength a la Dohnanyi/Pischna/Hannon/Schmidt/Phillip et. al. and the type of finger movement taught a la Taubman. In fact I would characterize the Taubman approach almost as a clever series of arm and hand movements - forearm rotation, in and out movements, for example - designed specifically for the purpose of de-emphasizing individual finger articulation. I believe the Taubman school is to some extent a reaction to the terrible consequences of attempting to develop finger articulation in incorrect, excessive, and/or abusive ways, but, again, I personally feel it is something of an overreaction - it would be more helpful to put forth *safe* ways to develop individual finger independence and strength. Having said this, there are many valuable aspects of the Taubman approach, and much to be gained from coordinating the entire playing mechanism.

Well put, Gyro!

'Steel fingers in a velvet glove' has been attributed to various pianists (paraphrasing Stalin (unless he nicked it!)).

I agree with Kreisler's post.

So, do you think, as a student, I should investigate into the Taubman method? I don't mean get a teacher, but read into it. My teacher usually doesn't focus on motions unless I tell her something feels wrong, and then she'll draw attention to it. I wouldn't even say she teaches the Russian method although she is Russian. She does talk about leaning into the piano for powerful chords and trying to emulate the emotion of the piece with my whole body, but mostly we focus on interpretaion musically and obviously technique development. Of course, I'm not the type of student to blindly take what my teacher says, I like to look at the whole playing field. From what you're saying about Taubman, it sounds good. I'll say I've ready Sandor's book, although I didn't get the opportunity to really work applying it to a piece. Oh, and if I do try Taubman, should I pick out a new piece separate from my lessons to use to learn it? And if so, any recommendations? (I'd say I'm at an upper intermediate level, Sinding Rustles of Spring, Chopin Waltz Op. 34 No. 2, Grieg March of the Dwarfs, with these being my 'fun' pieces, not my serious ones.)

You'll need a teacher. Every pianist I've ever encountered swears they are relaxed. I can't remember any that were. The body has a mechanism that subsumes tension into the 'body consciousness'. You need an outsider to point out where your tense.

Well, I can assure you I am not relaxed. Otherwise, why would I get tired when I finished? Anyways, do you know anyone in the Albany, New York area who would be willing to meet with me at least once to talk and play concerning the Taubman method?

Maybe start a new topic.

I think th epoint needs to be made that no matter what technique, there needs to be some tension somewhere. Tension in the right places at the right time is good, and tension in the wrong places at the wrong time is bad. The wrist flopping method, or dropping the arm from high above, is only a way for someone to release tension in places where it is not needed. However, tension is needed, or one will sound just like a dead fish on the keyboard. It's about coordinating the tension and release so that they both work together efficiently.

thepianist2008, here is the website for the Taubman Institute. Perhaps there is some info there that can lead you to a teacher of this method:

http://www.taubman-institute.com/html/home.html

Morodienne, that's a little unclear and far too generalized. Tension is released at the moment of sound production (end of drop). Then flop (relax).

es@taubman-institute.com
Enid Stettner can refer you to a Taubman teacher in your area. My lessons start in late September