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This brilliant video clip of a cat jumping in X-ray aptly and very clearly demonstrates a technique I was discussing and practising with my teacher today: keeping the wrists springy and the forearms soft and free of tension when our fingers make contact with the piano keyboard. Watch how supple and springy the cat’s skeleton is, with that “extra bounce”, which gives it the momentum to launch effortlessly into its next movement. Try translating this movement to the keyboard: practice on the fall first, allowing the arms to drop down without any tension so that the hand naturally “bounces back” as it hits the surface. As you allow the arm to fall, picture the long tendons in the shoulder stretching like rubber bands, allowing resistance-free movement through the whole arm.

What is so interesting about a technique like this is the difference it can make to the sound we produce, as well as enabling us to play in a more fluid, tension-free manner.

This exercise is not easy to explain, so while you are enjoying this video clip, I will be filming myself doing the arm exercises. Further video clips to follow….

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How does it feel to play that passage of Liszt or that section of Schubert beautifully? Or the grandest measures of Bach? The tenderest Chopin? The most sensitive, haunting Debussy? To plumb the profoundest, most spiritual depths of Messiaen?

Talking with my piano tuner this morning, before he set to work facing and regulating my piano, we discussed the philosophy of playing, a conversation which began with a reference to the Chinese Tao (or Dao), and the premise that “the right way is not always the right way”, a tenet which, as he pointed out to me, I should know all about, as both a teacher and a practitioner.

Those occasions when you’re playing and you feel yourself standing back from the music, allowing it to speak for itself, as if you are playing remotely, or floating above the piano, watching yourself play, are the most precious, and often signal the moment when a complete synergy of mind and body has taken place. It is at times like this when the most profound insights about the music might be revealed, or when we feel truly in touch with the composer’s intentions. When you feel like that, your concentration levels are at their most intense, you are “in the zone”. And yet, you feel detached, floating, at one remove….. In his excellent book, The Inner Game of Music, author Barry Green describes this as a state of “relaxed concentration”, a state achieved through “trust, will and awareness”.

from 'The Inner Game of Music'

Try to recall what it felt like at that moment. How did your body feel? Your hands? The notes under your fingers? Try to store that feeling away for next time. Put it in your memory box and bring it out the next time you practice that piece. Gradually, the more times you repeat this exercise, the whole piece will evolve into something new, better, finer, and you reach a depth of understanding hitherto not experienced.

Try it.

'Untitled' - Richard Long, 2005 (National Galleries of Scotland)

The Inner Game of Music

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My piano teacher, Penelope Roskell, is peforming in two concerts at the delightful and intimate small venue Sutton House this month and next.

Sunday 15th May, 7pm

‘An English Summer Evening’ – Fitzwilliam String Quartet with Penelope Roskell

Artists in residence, the Fitzwilliam String Quartet, and Artistic Director of SHMS, Penelope Roskell, present a programme celebrating the work of those two quintessentially English composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar. Both the works being performed were written during war-time and are profound and intense music.

Ralph Vaughan Williams – String Quartet No. 2 (‘for Jean on her birthday’)

Sir Edward Elgar – Piano Quintet in A minor Op. 84

To reflect the English nature of the concert, there will be Pimms and Punch on sale from 6.30pm and during the interval. The bar will also be open after the concert to allow audience members to enjoy a drink with the performers.

Sunday 19th June, 7pm

‘Reason and Romance’

A solo concert by Penelope Roskell, juxtaposing the reason and intellect of J S Bach with the mercurial romance of Robert Schumann.

J S Bach – Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue

Robert Schumann – ‘Papillons’

J S Bach – French Suite No. 2 in C minor

J S Bach – Partita No. 5 in G

Robert Schumann – Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor

Sparkling wine will be on sale with complimentary strawberries and cream in the courtyard during the interval.

Sutton House, a National Trust House in Hackney, is a really lovely venue. I was very impressed the first time I visited, two year’s ago, both by the quality of the performances, and the commitment and support of the audience.

For more information and online booking go to www.shms.org.uk

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A conversation with one of my adults students this week prompted this post. Sarah is a very confident woman in her mid-40s, who runs her own business, and who started having lessons with me, as a complete beginner, three years ago. She took Grade 1 last Spring and passed with a Merit. Spurred on by her success, she decided to study for Grade 2 and will take the exam in July. She’s worked really hard, and is playing far, far better than she was a year ago. Focussed and articulate about what she wants from her lessons, it surprised me when, at her lesson yesterday, she admitted she was having serious problems with the Bach/Petzold Minuet in G minor (ABRSM Grade 2/List A). She played it perfectly well, a little hesitant in places, but she made a good attempt at the mordents and other ornamentation, and was clearly thinking about how to shape the music.

“So, what’s the problem?” I asked when she had finished. “I thought that sounded really good.”

“It’s because it’s Bach!” she replied. “I can’t believe I’m actually learning music by Bach!”

So, somewhat in awe of the music, she was finding it hard to focus on her practising. I knew exactly what she meant: I had a similar experience when I started learning Chopin’s First Ballade last summer. Now, would all professional pianists, and those amateurs who have mastered such big, virtuoso works, please stand aside for a moment, and allow me to explain. When I first started taking lessons again as an adult, nearly three years ago, my confidence and self-esteem were pretty low. A brief, but unsettling experience with a less than savoury piano teacher in 2007 had not helped, plus I was getting no support from anyone, least of all my family, about my music. I was working entirely alone, with no one to critique my playing or reassure me I was “doing it right”. My current teacher is the most patient, skilled and supportive teacher I have ever had, and with her encouragement, I have overcome both my shyness about playing for others, and my inability to trust my musical self and tackle advanced repertoire. When she suggested I learn one of the Ballades or Scherzi, I knew she had not suggested it just to please me: she knew I could cope with it. I started learning the G minor Ballade that same afternoon…..

Playing it for my teacher at my next lesson (I’d learnt about a third of it by then), I was doing fine until I reached the beautiful, lyrical section before the restatement of the opening theme. I was really enjoying playing my teacher’s beautiful antique Bluthner, but then I remembered I was playing a Chopin Ballade, one of the big warhorses of the concert repertoire, and I found myself completely in awe of the music, and its composer. Tense and unable to focus, it all went to pieces…. Amazed at the sheer beauty and inventiveness of Chopin’s writing, I couldn’t quite believe I was actually playing the piece, to my teacher, on a Wednesday morning in north London: in my mind, I was playing to a full house at the Wigmore Hall, with the ghost of the composer at my elbow, nodding benignly as if to say “Yes! That is what I meant.” Such wide-eyed fantasising does no harm, now and then, but it can prevent one from getting to the heart of the music so that one can begin a serious study of it.

This, I think, was my student’s difficulty as well. In the early grades, the pieces are simple and often aimed at children, and many are written especially for the syllabus, I suspect. While some of the pieces are really imaginative (John Rowcroft’s ‘African Dance’ from the previous syllabus, for example), it is always refreshing to come across “real piano music”, and I think an early student can feel daunted, perhaps by the responsibility that is placed on one to interpret and play it well.

I pointed out to Sarah that the Minuet in G minor comes from the ‘Notebook for Anna Magdalena’, a collection of pieces, in two volumes, which Bach presented to his second wife. It is quite possible that these were pieces Mrs Bach, and other members of the family, played at home. This was domestic music, to be enjoyed by the family. These were not concert pieces, nor music for the church, though there are suites and partitas, and chorale settings amongst the works. With this in mind, I urged Sarah to stop being so much in awe of the piece and to simply enjoy playing it (while practising it carefully too, of course!). It is rather plaintive and elegant, and benefits from careful articulation and shaping. The ornaments are not too demanding, and offer a good introduction to Bach’s ornamentation in general.

Crass as this might sound, it’s important not to get too overwhelmed by the music. Allow yourself to stand back from it, give yourself some perspective. Marvel at the genius of the composer, but don’t be afraid of it! Study it, play it, and, most importantly, enjoy it.

Minuet in G minor – attr. Petzold