Glenn Gould piano technique

"Guerrero was an advocate of a technical discipline known as finger tapping. Apparently, the idea came to him while watching a young boy dancing in a Chinese circus. Guerrero spoke to the boy’s trainer, who demonstrated his teaching routine: he moved the child’s passive limbs into the desired positions, which the boy would then replicate, trying to maintain the feeling of relaxation. Adapting the technique to the piano, Guerrero taught his students to hold one hand in a relaxed position on the keyboard, lightly touching the keys. With the other hand, the student would tap a fingertip enough to depress the desired key. The mechanical action of the key springing up would lift the finger back into place. The idea was to teach the fingers to play with a minimum of effort and no excess lift."  For Glenn Gould, Form Followed Fingers

I LOVE Glenn Gould! - A true artist, he stand up for his beliefs, regardless if ANYONE EVER AGREES or not with him and mind you, I certainly respect his interpretations and cannot wait to listen to one of them - and no, I do not always agree, but we discuss his interpretations in length.

The amazing thing is, I teach a similarly relaxed hand. I do not suggest to sit so low as Glenn Gould demonstrates, I also do not suggest a "dry Baroque sound" at all times - besides Baroque sound should not always be "dry" - often very rich and singing with a Clavichord brightly singing sound. On rare occasions - in order to show / demonstrate a relaxed physical motion - I let my students drape their hand over mine and they get a "feeling" of how the motion "feels" that I am trying to convey - and it usually works very nicely. We always work scales / chords - cadences and arpeggios, shaping a relaxed and beautiful meaningful sound. And we (my students) can play beautifully and accurately very early on, growing into advanced repertoire quickly. I have two students perform in the Bach Complete Works Competition next week and wish them well, preparing conscientiously in the next 8 days. It is not easy to keep youngsters focused, but that is all part of developing maturity and follow through.

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