Hunched shoulders- why do they really occur and how can they be fixed (with an extended digression on issues of stool height)?- Alignment and the role of the arms, part ii

In the last post I illustrated the extent to which a completely released arm can align itself into a playing position, as well as how suprisingly small the force required to balance the weight of the arm is- provided that balance is generated at the finger end. In this post I want to explain the key element of how the arm would more typically behave in practice, at the other end- ie. the shoulder. Note that weight regulation is vital for ALL pianists. Weight never goes away as if by magic. Unless the arm is in the process of falling, its weight has to be supported in some kind of distribution. Some teachers shout from the rooftops about extreme release of the arm (implying that the hand takes the bulk of the support) whereas others are intent on promoting extreme withholding of arm weight (implying that the shoulder works far harder). However, what both need is consistent control at the shoulder end- over how much of the weight is withheld and how much is released. In that sense, arguably it makes very little difference which perspective you favour. Both schools require a means to control the weight distribution in a predictable way- regardless of whether the focus would be placed more on withholding or releasing. Later on in this post, I will illustrate a singular means of regulating use of the arm's weight- that I believe can be used equally well to assist either approach (or preferably for a far more sophisticated approach in which the level of support/release at the shoulder fluctuates greatly, according to what is required at the time).

Although it is vital to be familiar with the fullest state of release, an arm will rarely (if ever) be hung from the shoulder as passively as that of a corpse while playing (conversely, to make it behave as if it were entirely weightless is quite literally impossible). However, when introducing activity at the shoulder, you have to be very careful. In particular, I'd like to bring in the frequently encountered problem of hunched shoulders. Along with stiffening around the wrist, this is one the most common problems in piano technique- that people have tried to explain with a number of bizarre and esoteric theories. Lifting up the shoulders is rarely a conscious part of the intentions in itself. It's often the case that pianists who are aware of this habit still find themselves absolutely incapable of stopping it- no matter how much they focus on the issue. However, if you look a layer beneath the immediate surface, I don't think the source of this habit is actually terribly mysterious at all. I'd like to offer a couple of very simple and (in my opinion) very likely theories for why this would occur:

Firstly (as detailed in previous posts) it's common for pianists to dwell too exclusively on the upward/downward axis of movement in piano playing rather than embrace the necessary horizontal elements. If your image of moving the key is based on having to push it in a directly downward path, it doesn't exactly take the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes to see how that might cause the instincts to keep bringing the shoulders up and over the top. Indeed, it's also common to see the pianist leaning in and pushing the elbows forward- as if they want to align their whole arm and shoulder more directly over the top of the keys, ready to push them almost perfectly downwards. Sometimes, the pianist will even start bouncing up from the stool- leaving you wondering if they're even about to get up and carry out the rest of the performance standing up.

Okay, this is a very extreme version of such a habit. However, just a trace of that style of thinking can cause the shoulders to start creeping up. Even a tiny bit of raising can cause problems. It may also accumulate- until it turns out that the shoulder has been raised up entirely, completely unnoticed. If a pianist wants to use arm pressures to produce sound, a far more efficient way would be a forward press from the upper arm- in which the fingers stay in the same spot on the key while the wrist rolls over the top. A forward action is directed into a downward movement through the key, often finishing in an upward movement. This action is possible without the shoulder having to go up at all. That's a somewhat superficially brief explanation for now, but I will come back to this action in much more detail in a later post. Anyway, there's a clear example of this action at the very start of this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmPwz6NpljY

(Although this is a great example of this particular movement, I should state that Daniel Barenboim is far from a favourite player and definitely not somebody I would use for a model of chord-playing technique in general. He often resorts to a totally different style of movement- where extremely forceful yet inefficient arm actions produces a hideously clangorous and percussive tone).

However, there's also a second likely explanation for why pianists would lift the shoulders- to support the weight of the arm more. This is extremely common among those who sit on low stools (where the forearm slopes notably downwards from the hand to the elbow). This is because the angle causes the weight of the arm to express itself more, compared to when sat on a relatively high stool (where the forearm slopes notably upwards from the hand to the elbow). For those who sit very high, hunched shoulders are generally much more likely to stem from excessive desire to get straight over the top of the keys ready to push (a mindset that may also explain why they have chosen to sit high in the first place). This can also be an issue when sitting low. However, a low stool also introduces a significant need to reduce the far greater weight that would bear upon the hand, were the arm totally released.

I should acknowledge here that this seems to run contrary to what many respected pianists have claimed about arm weight, regarding stool height. However, I can assure you that the lower you sit, the greater the force required to balance out gravity's action upon the arm. This is absolutely beyond question. Dig out that corpse once again and try experimenting with different heights in the exercise from my previous post, to see if you can perceive the difference in the balancing force.While I'd personally advise something pretty close to the standard horizontally aligned forearm, it's perfectly possible to play well when departing a little from there. In fact, Arcadi Volodos seems pretty much ambivalent about sitting a bit higher or lower. He actually favours whatever chair the hall has provided for the orchestra over a piano stool- seemingly caring relatively little about the exact height.

However, it's important to be aware of the potential problems from adopting great extremes. While Glenn Gould was a marvellous pianist, he sat so spectacularly low that he frequently resorted to hunching his shoulders up very heavily- presumably because it was the only way to lighten the sound, as well as to stop his fingers having to bear so much of the arm's weight. At other times, we also see him to trying to lift his arms into a position from which to push down into the piano for volume, as in the first example. Sure, he played supremely well despite these issues, but it is said that he often suffered severe pain in his upper body and it is widely known that he was addicted to various painkillers. His diaries also document an extended period when his technique fell apart and he struggled to play so much as a Bach Chorale evenly. I believe Peter Feuchtwanger once speculated that his low stool may even have been the cause of his early death. That's certainly a rather extreme theory! However, had he not sat quite so low, he would easily have been able to support a more relaxed arm via the hand- which would drastically  have reduced the stress on his shoulders.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbJc6IPooDE

It's interesting that's he is in so much constant movement with his whole body. I suspect that rather than being exclusively about "feeling the music" he would have been so burdened with effort had he wanted to keep still, that it would have been far too strenuous. I don't think he had any choice but to keep shifting the balance- in a way that few other pianists could have done while retaining control of the sound. Compare the stillness of Horowitz:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPTe1xMB9Uk

Horowitz had a much more natural and healthy looking balance- where he was low enough to exploit plenty of the weight of his arms, without that weight becoming a burden to either his hands or his upper body. His hand does not generally support the full dead weight of his whole arm. His shoulders are certainly not slumped like those of a corpse- but neither is the arm being held up by major efforts. There's a much more natural interaction than with Gould- where both hand and shoulder achieve tremendous stability. Between them, they can support the weight of the arm without either side working very hard.

So, how do you succeed in lightening up the arm, without compromising the stable connection between the hand and the keys- and without hunching the shoulders up? Well, it's actually quite simple. Once more, we need to add an additional dimension to the thinking. I've previously mentioned how finger actions need to be conceived in the axis that extends forwards/backwards from your body, as well in terms of the more obvious up/down axis. In order to lighten up at the shoulder without hunching, you simply need to think more in terms of the sideways left/right axis. When you think of lightening the arm as a pure upward action, even a fraction of movement in the shoulder can instantly compromise the sense of the suspended chain. Just a couple of millimetres of movement can leave the whole arm feeling entirely "held"- totally removing any sense that the arm "hangs" between shoulder and finger. When conceived this way it's virtually a sense of the shoulder being simply "on" or "off" (ie. held or released)- rather than the smoothly sliding scale of infinite possibility that it should be. If you redirect the attention to include sideways motions, a wider range of possibility should become available pretty much instantly.

EXERCISE

(nb, while not absolutely essential, this post contains exercises and explanations that relate strongly to the general principles behind in the exercise)

Stand up straight (ideally facing a mirror) and start by shaking your arms around- until they feel released and free to hang down from the shoulder. Now feel the elbows drifting out and away from the body. Basically, I'm asking you to do an impression of a chicken clucking- but VERY SLOWLY. This movement comes from the shoulder, but judge it in the elbow for now. Although the elbows will naturally come up a little as part of this, don't pay attention to that for now. Just notice the feeling of going out to the side. If you concentrate on that, the elbow will also go up slightly of its own accord. Neither resist that nor make it part of the active intention. When you go away from the body, try to notice how gravity is trying to pull you back inwards. The slower you go and the more you perceive this, the better. You should feel as if the effort of the muscles is so small that, while it's enough to balance gravity and stop your arm being pulled back into your torso, it's only just enough to cause movement at all. The muscular effort should seem absolutely miniscule. If you get tired, have a rest and come back to it later.

When your elbows are a few inches away from your torso then stop. But don't think of stopping! Let gravity stop you. You don't have to slam any brakes on- because gravity is already providing a braking force! If you keep feeling how gravity is trying to pull you back in, you should get to the point where the feeling of the muscles trying to take you outwards is matched exactly by the inward pull via gravity. Your arm stops but the muscles didn't stop acting. They can't have done- or you'd have fallen back in! They are doing exactly what is required and no more. Try feeling as if the muscles are almost still moving your elbow out at this point, rather than fixing you in place. Literally speaking you "stop" in a position in space, but you should not feel any stop in the activity. Try thinking of deliberately stopping the movement sometimes and compare the difference. See if you can perceive the extra efforts and the greater sense of "holding" that results. Then try to notice where you can release these unnecessary efforts and look to return to the perfect equilibrium between the outward action of the muscles and the force that tries to pull you back in. The more you feel the force that have to balance out in order to remain still, the more likely you are to match it efficiently, with the lowest possible effort- rather than by generically stiffening. 

Now come back in again, reversing the process. This time, you are only just letting go of the muscles enough for gravity to draw you back in a fraction at a time. Concentrate on the outward action of the muscles still, as you drift back in. Remember- the muscular effort should already be exceptionally low to start with- but try to feel that you are letting go of this slight effort ever so slowly. Little by little you allow gravity to bring the elbow back in towards the torso. Your muscles are still having to act against gravity- otherwise you would collapse straight back in. It's a very slow process of releasing the activity a fraction at a time.

If you've done this slowly and sensitively enough, there should already be a tremendously improved feeling of lightness in your shoulders. However, one thing to watch out for is whether the shoulders are still being raised up as you do this. Look at yourself in the mirror and try to notice whether you see any signs of the shoulders being lifted. A few times, slowly raise your shoulders straight up and allow them to descend, using a similar process to before (ie. as they go up, feel the muscles only just do enough to overcome gravity. As they come down, slowly release this very light effort enough for gravity to lower them). Now go back to the slow clucking movement, but continue to notice the shoulder. Take the attention away from the elbow now and this time perceive it as a sense of opening out the space in the armpit. Keep feeling how gravity is pulling the shoulder down for you and be very careful not to accidentally activate the muscles that lift it straight up. Sometimes even imagine that somebody is pressing down on your shoulders, for a time (or get someone to actually do this for you). You can also try this while holding a small weight (say a kilogramme in each hand) to increase the force that pulls the shoulder down towards a neutral position.

As you get used to this, you're going to start refining the movement to a level where it becomes so small that it's basically invisible. Try practising it to the point where the elbow moves just a few millimetres. Can you still feel the vivid sensations in the shoulder? Try resting your hand on a chord and experimenting with these tiny outward sensations. Can you feel just how much control you have over the regulation of pressure through the hand? Try all different levels- from a fully released arm to one where the fingers barely contact the keys enough for them to stay depressed. Note that this has nothing to do with the highly pronounced "elbow out" that some pianists do to the point of absurdity. In the end, the actual movement may literally be so small as to be entirely invisible to an observer. However, the pianist ought to perceive a very smooth transition through a massive range of sensations involving the whole arm- from fingertip to shoulder. You should feel as if you can make your arm as heavy or as light as you wish.

Virtually all playing needs at least some slight feel of this outward lightening action. This learning exercise is especially valuable if you sit low. I find it rather odd that this vital element of the arm's role does not seem to have been addressed in any specific way (at least not by any conventional teaching I am aware of). Logically, it is obvious that you cannot just collapse the elbow of a sagging arm into the torso. The means of balance is clearly vital. This action can take you from a corpse like arm through whole spectrum of functional states- without the risk of turning into a "held" or stiff arm. Not only does this action serve as an extremely sensitive way of regulating how much of the arm's weight is released/withheld at a particular moment, it is also a fundamental action of basic alignment- particularly when reaching towards extremes of the keyboard.

Alignment and the role of the arms, part i

In this post I'm going to cover the nature of one-ended support systems compared to two-ended support systems- illustrating what is possible from each with some awareness exercises for the arms. Both states are required for piano playing (sometimes in rapid alternation). However, I'd like to show how much less effort is required when maintaining two-ended support- if you take the opportunity to make the arm hang in a "suspended chain" state. I'll be showing how you can enter a state where the wrist and elbow can be aligned within a suitable playing position despite literally no muscular efforts or tension being required around these joints- and giving a practical exercise to prove that this is indeed possible. I'm also going to try to break through the mysteries of what "alignment" really is- and show how easily it is actually found, when you know what to look for.

Firstly, hold both arms outstretched in front of you. Relax as much as possible and stay like that for a minute or so. So how "relaxed" do you feel now? Even the most efficient use of the body cannot change the fact that you are having to generate a number of large forces to resist the pull of gravity. If you want to keep everything straight, you can only relax the muscles up to a point- a point where they still have a substantial amount to do. The intention of staying there prevents full relaxation of countless muscles- because this intention is stronger than any conflicting intentions to relax. If you are not willing to have your arms fall down, obviously you cannot release the specific muscles that are stopping them from doing so- without achieving the impossible.

Now shake your hands and arms into release and let them flop to your sides. Although still in a one-ended support system (via the attachment in the shoulder) they have now been brought into a natural balance with gravity, so when you "relax" you can relax into the truest and most literal release of effort. You can hang your arms as freely as you like. Once they are in balance with gravity, relaxation cannot cause any unwanted movement. We all tend to retain at least some muscular activity even in this state. For a healthy person they should be pretty miniscule efforts compared to those that are required to maintain an outstretched arm- although there is much value in learning to perceive and remove these habitual traces of tension too. 

When in a one-ended support system, any outstretched position can only be stabilised against gravity by constant muscular contraction around EVERY successive joint (note that this is not a case of "spreading out" the work- ie. in one-sided support no amount of effort in any particular joint can contribute a thing towards stabilising any other joint). When extended, the arms could be held with the least effort physically possible, but every successive joint must still be balanced by successive efforts in localised muscles- so it is tiring. It's like trying to hold a long sword out horizontally, without any help at the other end. Note that this is not a poetic metaphor but a very close comparison. It takes vastly more of an effort to support a horizontally extended structure from just one end (even without the internal joints to balance). Now imagine resting the sword upon something at the other end. The force required from you to keep it balanced will be drastically reduced.  This is the key difference between a one-ended support system and a two ended support system.

Now let's think of the playing position and how to achieve a state of two sided balance. We already established that a released arm can slip off the keys. But how much force do the fingers need to provide to create a point of support and at which angle? Well, head down to your cellar and grab the freshest and most intact corpse that is lying about. Tie it to a chair, seated upright. Grab a couple of the fingers and pull them towards you. Can you align the corpse's arm into what would be a suitable playing position ? It really ought to be very easy to do so.

The above diagram shows an approximate angle that you might have to pull, in order to stabilise everything into balance (simplified to 2 dimensions here, although I shall also talk about the role of the 3rd dimension later). I have also marked the paths in which motion would occur around the shoulder and elbow (although this is prevented by your pull on the fingers). Note that the upper segment of the arm forms a slight angle. If it hangs straight down, the force that tugs backwards is necessarily reduced and the wrist might even slump down slightly rather than become suspended in the long line of the whole arm. This is where it is different from the sword. A sword is a single structure that contains no hinges. However, the arm has one in the wrist. If you tried to simply rest directly "on top" of the keys (like when resting one end of a sword on something), the wrist would collapse downwards, unless fixed into position. Imagine what would happen if the sword contained a hinge! You could no longer rest one end without something to stabilise that hinge. This is why excessively up/down based thinking automatically leads to uncontrolled muscular efforts, no matter how much you might hope to release them. Unlike the (regular) sword, the area that extends from elbow to the fingertip must be kept together with HORIZONTAL forces- or there is no hope whatsoever of balancing a released wrist!  

You need to consider this when lining up your own stool- to be sure there is enough angle to ensure that release of the upper arm is providing a big enough component of force that will pull backwards at the elbow. Seeing as your subject is lifeless in the experiment, in this case it is abundantly clear that there is no requirement of any internal muscular activity in sustaining this balanced alignment. The only actively generated force is being provided by your pull. With a living subject, the equivalent balancing force will be provided by a small ongoing grip that occurs internally, within the finger. Also, remember that, unlike the corpse, a living person has the option to employ some more active muscular support at the shoulder- meaning that the size of this balancing force can be made even smaller still!

For those of you who are fresh out of cadavers, simply get hold of a bottle of chloroform. An unconscious subject will do just as well. However, if you're fearful of acquiring a criminal record, just get a friend to shake their arms as loose as possible and then pull their hand towards you (starting from a position where the whole arm hangs straight down). The problem is that most people will be inclined to use their muscles to start lifting.  However, if you shake their arm around, to encourage release (whenever you feel them helping) hopefully you will be able to get a good feel for just how small the balancing force really is- compared to what the traditional arm-weight school might have you believe about how "heavy" the released arm is supposed to be.

From this experiment, it should become evident that the downward forces that stem from universal release are not large.While an arm may be a good few kilogrammes in mass, the idea that even a wholly released arm automatically creates some gigantic force against a piano is a pure myth- as this should illustrate to you. The force that results from full release is fairly small (except when momentum is accumulated by dropping from a great height) and largely acts horizontally upon the hand. Even if you were pulling on the end of a big heavy steel chain (tied to a fixed point at  the other end) so as to keep it taut, the force applied would still be primarily horizontal. When supporting your friend's arm, you should easily feel that your action is almost entirely towards yourself- and is not based on holding the arm up. A released arm will primarily be pulling away from you, not downwards.

Try getting your friend to pull your own hand out in the same way, and see if you can get a feel for releasing absolutely everything. The average arm should not feel particularly "heavy" at all, but simply enormously free and released. However don't go out of your way to force it to be "light" either! Remember it's very important to avoid any preconceptions about what is supposed to result- as they translate into active yet unnoticed muscular efforts all too easily. Bacon's old truism about how experiments tend to "prove" what they are supposed to is all too true here- so remember simply to strive for release and OBSERVE. Keep shaking the arm loose and then let it truly "hang" between the shoulder and the point of support at the finger. If you can get the whole arm to go as limp as that of a corpse (even in your hand for now), you are getting a feel for the most truly neutral yet balanced starting point- the purest "suspended chain" state that the arm is capable of. Alignment can be difficult to attain when viewed from the exterior, but finding alignment really is spectacularly simple when you view it this way. When the arm hangs between shoulder and hand the alignment can literally create itself. In this experiment you cannot do a thing to make this state occur You simply have to let it occur in response to an external force. When I get onto the finger side I'll show how, in regular legato playing, alignment can still be made to create itself to a very large extent- even when the hand and shoulder are becoming active rather than behaving this passively.

Note that when you pull a loose rope or chain from both ends, it straightens itself- without any remotely precise activity. However, if you push on a loose rope or chain, it can go all over the place with very little predictability. This same principle applies here- remember that the arm is literally a chain of joints. This is no vague metaphor. Actions that are based on pulling a chain of joints create order and lead to predictable and easily repeated results, whereas actions that are based on pushing create greater complexity and make the results vastly less predictable (unless links in the chain are fixed into position). Of course, sometimes great pianists will break with standard alignment and use variants for good reason. However, the baseline for regular alignment is spectacularly simple when based upon allowing a released arm to hang itself into place between shoulder and finger. This is what I mean when I say that great pianists don't just make it look easy. A pianist who tries to create alignment from the outside alone is simply attempting something that is far harder and far more complex than what an experienced virtuoso really does (especially if they are trying to push with the arm, throughout passages of regular finger work!). A true virtuoso feels a few very simple balancing actions on the inside and the majority of alignment can ensue as if by magic- because that is the state in which gravity balances the middle of the chain. I should stress that I am not ruling out some fine tuning with the muscles beyond this- but it's far easier to release into the starting point of a neutrally suspended arm than to try to start by trying to manually crank every individual area into a very specific place.

In part two I will go into some exercises that are based around starting to employ some slight balancing forces at the shoulder, without resort to stiffening. In practice, the shoulder needs to be able to release/support as much or as little of the arm's weight as you desire, in order for the fingers to perform a variety of different actions, while maintaining balance. However, if you go about supporting the weight in the wrong way, the fingers end up with nothing to pull against and the whole arm starts having to stiffen to stabilise their actions (and likely having to push through them to compensate). This is also where the third axis of sideways motions comes into it. It is certainly not desirable to let the shoulders slump inwards against the body, so it's also important to learn how to take support at the shoulder- provided that you are still releasing enough to keep the chain of the arm hanging taut, rather than being notably held up around the elbow and wrist! Anyway, more exercises (to start on the active efforts that need to be added to this initial state of total release) will come shortly.