"Spring Off" the Keys - How to Practice: Quick Tips Ep. 4

[@karifox148]

I am soooo appreciating your channel and web site. You videos are full of ALL of the useful information without any arrogance or judgement! I am finally feeling like I can overcome my technical shortcomings so Thank you ever so much!!!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Thanks so much, Kari! And also wonderful to see you on yesterday's livestream!

[@jowr2000]

Also, to “shrink the distances”, think closest notes. In the RH, think 5 on E flat to 1 on B flat. LH, 1 on e flat to 1 on G. And since both hands are leaping and LH has the larger distance, LH “moves first”. RH and LH both land at the same time, of course 😆 this is all Taubman. It’s helped me.

[@PianistAcademy1]

100% Jose! I think each of those tips really deserves it’s own video haha. But you’re spot on!

[@aBachwardsfellow]

Very helpful! I know we've discussed the (do not) "hover" part before. In your demo, at a slow speed (0.25) the upper notes are clearly struck from an "airborne" motion (1:45 - 1:46, 6:19 - 6:25 ), whereas sometimes it appears that there is a slight, almost imperceptible pause as you finalize the shape, followed by the impluse to play the notes (2:04 - 2:08, 10:01 - 10:09).

[@PianistAcademy1]

Yes, you have a very good eye haha. This boils down to the difference between amount of time available to practice. Ie... in preparing this video and also to record this piece, I only had a handful of days to get it prepped. If I had a month or more to work daily on these passages, the goal would definitely be to eliminate that slight, millisecond, pause. It happens instinctively in my playing for the sake of not splatting when it counts, but its really something that we'd want to work out of playing during practice. Only time on the bench can achieve that!

[@aBachwardsfellow]

@@PianistAcademy1 I fully agree! The fully-refined single motion is the desirable goal - :-)

[@BarnieSnyman]

Getting a lot of flashbacks of Jarrod Radnich's Jurassic Park arrangement right now... what a beast that piece is! Anyway... Upper arms, shoulders and chest/upper back... IMO there's generally not enough thought given to their role in piano technique. They tie into everything technique-related, and especially big leaps like you describe here. I find it hard to verbalize my thoughts on technique, but I'll try: The upper arms, shoulders and chest needs to be "active" (but not tensed up) during playing... as in, your upper arms shouldn't "hang" like two dead salamis from your shoulders. Your upper arms should actively "lift" the weight off your hands and wrists (emphasis here). They should drive the big lateral movements of the leaps you describe. For this to be effective, your upper arms need to be anchored/supported/stabilized in your shoulders, which in turn are anchored/supported/stabilized by your chest- and upper back muscles. If your upper arms are "inactive", the hands and wrists have to bear weight against the keys. They tense up in order to not collapse. Keybedding galore. The "spring off" (referring to your video title here) is effected mostly by the hand, wrist and forearm "launching" the arm off the key: all things that makes everything tense up. Contrast that situation with one where the upper arm is active and keeps the arm-weight semi "suspended" above the keys. Now the hands don't have to bear weight. The wrist and knuckles instantly relaxes and loosens up now that they don't have to bear the arm's weight. The hand is now basically "hanging" from the arm and onto the keys. You get the sensation of the hand-weight gently resting on the keys. Tying this into the 5 components of your tip... 1) Since the hand+wrist isn't bearing as much arm-weight, the spring-off is much lighter and the release (and feeling thereof) more instant. 2) Because the upper arm muscles are already activated, setting the bulk of the arm's weight in motion and thus creating the momentum is also more instant and less strenuous. 3) As you feel the lateral movement while knowing where your hand is supposed to go, an active upper arm can help steer your hand+arm there "mid-flight" instead of you hoping you "aimed" the leap correctly at launch. 4) Since the hand wasn't tensed up to begin with at spring-off, getting the next hand shape is easier and quicker. 5) Because the upper arm is actively controlling much of the arm-weight/mass, when the fingers land on the keys, there isn't a load of dead arm-weight also coming crashing down onto the hand, causing the fingers to slam rigid against the keybeds. No, the leap can end lightly and comfortable, possibly with a second spring-off from the "destination" notes. I'm sure you do these or similar things intuitively, but I think there's value in being specifically aware of them. Hope I'm making sense and that the massive wall of text isn't offputting. :)

[@PianistAcademy1]

Everything here is absolutely true! I've talked with a few other pianists as well and... the general consensus I've come to is that a whole lot of technique needs to be "assumed" in each video that teaches one aspect. To actually teach all of what you mention would take at least a few hours on video, and probably years of study for anyone watching. At a certain point, I have to assume some correct technique is present in the viewer's approach. My hope is that this channel, in it's entirety, will eventually reflect all of what you've mentioned here as well as more! I dive into the first layer of upper body involvement in my "posture" series here, but not quite as deeply as you go in your comment. My only two comments about your extension of the 5 components are this: 3) I'd encourage as little "steering" as possible. While we definitely can have some, I'd argue that the majority of the "steering" should happen as a part of the spring-off release motion. Anything we introduce after that point has a great chance of adding unwanted tension as we might pull and push the mechanism in different directions. 5) The negative connotation of "key bedding" is something that, I think, creates a lot of undesirable technique in many. If we become afraid to sink in and actually, yes, hit the key bottom, we are playing with far too much upper body tension. But if the "hitting bottom" is so forceful and uncontained that we lack kinetic flexibility after it, then we need to introduce more "good tension" in the upper body. So we need balance, as you say, to especially allow a follow up motion that very likely will need to be as quick or nearly as quick as the leap itself!

[@BarnieSnyman]

@@PianistAcademy1 You're right. Videos would be hours long if one has to explain an aspect of technique and then also explain everything else related to it. I hope my opinion that upper arms/shoulders/chest aren't talked about enough didn't come across as criticizing your video. :) It wasn't meant that way. Its just my opinion on technique-discourse in general. You also highlight something important that's missing from my first comment: Balance - as in finding the sweet spot between the extremes. I noted bad stuff that happen with too little upper-arm involvement, but failed to note bad stuff that happen with too much upper arm involvement. I note that excessive key bedding is bad, but fail to mention that excessively trying to avoid hitting the keybed is also bad.

[@PianistAcademy1]

@@BarnieSnyman No criticism taken! I appreciate the discussion 🙂

[@connorr.126]

How would you approach practicing specifically for accuracy? I'm learning the 2nd movement of the Schumann fantasy Op. 17, and as expected the coda is a real pain. What I've been doing is shadowing, where you do the leap as fast as possible but hover your hand over the next note instead of actually playing it. However, if I'm understanding correctly you've advised against doing exactly that, so now I'm stuck on how to practice. Thanks!

[@PianistAcademy1]

Hi Connor! I'd still recommend this same type of practice, even for accuracy. It makes accuracy more difficult at the beginning, BUT it allows to us achieve the fast leaps when we need to. As I explained in the video for just a few seconds, if we practice the leap + hover + play, we end up practicing stopping our motion before needing to generate energy again. It's a nice "failsafe" idea that could potentially be used in a very stressful performance if we feel that extra need for accuracy, but it will always slow down our tempo. If we truly have the motions learned and memorized (which is necessary for leaps this level of difficulty), then we should be always working toward one fluid approach. The overall tempo will have to come down as we get started, but given time and enough practice, we will achieve faster tempi than we would have been capable of before. The results will come in over long periods of time, not within a day or two or even a week. Look at my comment to "aBachwardsfellow" who noticed and brought up my own slight "pause" when executing faster in this video. Thanks for watching, and let me know if you have any other questions! I'm happy to help!

[@aBachwardsfellow]

​@@PianistAcademy1 Perhaps practicing a slow-motion "airborne" execution will help -- i.e. practicing the last two steps but making sure to simultaneously shape the hand and land on & play the notes from off the keys (without "slapping" them, of course) -- it's a very refined combination that will definitely take time.

[@eyesandearseditions]

There are two things, not “there is”

[@PianistAcademy1]

But of course! Not every phrase that comes out live on camera is grammatically correct, especially when the presenter is trying to talk at light speed to keep the viewer's attention. And I'd rather not spend hours re-filming an error like this that I hear in editing, when it really doesn't affect the underlying content 🙂But kudos, good ears!