Reevaluating the foundations of sightreading skill- how to use quickstudy to improve both sightreading AND study of repertoire

If you look online for advice on piano sight-reading skills, you will find plenty of resources. In the vast majority of methods, the primary focus is based around keeping the rhythm going at any cost, even if it involves a great deal of educated guesswork regarding some notes (or even omitting things altogether). This is for very good reason. If someone asks you to accompany them with an unfamiliar score, you're not going to be of any use if you regularly stop in response to any kind of doubt. You have to keep going ahead to stay with them. For that reason "never stop" has become a golden rule for practising sight reading.

It's truly unquestionable that any good sight-reader will have to learn to "fake" their way around some tight corners, rather than freeze in a self-defeating hope for perfection. So why am I writing a post to challenge the almost universal notion that this is the definitive mantra for all practise of sight-reading skills? Quite simply, it's because there's also a minimum level of accuracy required.

How much accuracy counts as enough?

Let's suppose that two pianists both manage to stay in time, while sight-reading a modestly difficult accompaniment for a singer. One fakes around 5 percent of the written notes- slightly rearranging the distribution of chords and skipping a few inner notes, while keeping a clear harmonic skeleton. Not a problem. It sounds fine. The other one manages around 70 percent accuracy, with failures including a missed change of key signature and a whole phrase where one hand is played in the wrong clef. Is it still fine as long as they remember not to stop?

Okay, I've plucked those theoretical percentages out of thin air. However, as a very rough working estimate I'd say that anything short of 90 percent accuracy is usually going to be enough to cause at least some awkwardness. That's open to debate, but let's say we were to fall back to as little as 70 percent accuracy. Could that sound fine? I don't want to try to define an exact boundary, so much as encourage you to ask your own serious questions about what would be feasible. However, if we get to a 50/50 success rate and you still think it might sound okay then you must be kidding. Not even Les Dawson fell to that.

https://youtu.be/DtK7Hg7PnnQ?t=407

In another field, 70 percent wouldn't actually be a notably poor success rate. In a maths exam you'd get a strong pass for that, if not necessarily the absolute top grade. However, let's say I offer 70 percent accuracy to a musician for whom I have been paid to accompany a diploma exam. After the exam, not only do I remind them that I did I not stop, but I also "boast" about how proud I was to have played roughly twice as many right notes as wrong ones. Will they book me again? I doubt it.

(Actually, as a brief aside, I'll just mention modern atonal music as the exception to this. I have actually fallen well below 50 percent accuracy while accompanying the ludicrously difficult final section of Hindemith's tuba sonata. In that case, I heard afterwards that the examiners felt it was the best they'd heard anyone manage with it before, so it's far from an ordinary case. I also recall agreeing to accompany a modern piece for a friend at very short notice, in which I probably managed to play around half the notes correctly in one hand, while playing literally anything in the other hand. While I doubt that the composer of either work would have been terribly appreciative of what I managed to muster up, you *can* sometimes get away with murder in atonal music. Apply a similarly poor level of accuracy to classical or baroque repertoire, however, and it's a very different story). 

My own sight-reading captured- warts and all

Let's link those hypothetical figures more to reality, via a couple of examples of myself sight-reading. I can assure you that the first two are genuine first attempts, which I hope will be evidenced by the handful of errors in the Bach, plus the rather more numerous ones in the Rachmaninoff. I also deliberately avoided any mental reading through (save for a very brief glimpse, solely to choose each excerpt), in order to go in as unprepared as possible. The third film illustrates the same Rachmaninoff excerpt as the second, but after around four or five minutes of quick study practise (in which all rhythmic pressure was removed, in order to feel around the notes, before a return to performance style playing).

I don't think it would be unreasonable to label myself as a pretty good sight-reader, but these neither represent elite level sight-reading nor even some of my own most focused reading. I made a couple of silly lapses in the Bach, although I think it only strengthens my arguments- if I connect them to an airing of "dirty laundry", rather than select some of my best work. Now, there are two notable lapses of accuracy- particularly at around 48 seconds, where I should have planned ahead. Instead I had to skip a couple of right hand notes, while the left carried the rhythm. In the last line I assumed an F sharp would resolve to up a G, in spite of the fact it doesn't- providing an excellent reminder of how hugely overrated prediction is. There's a really good way to avoid being fooled by the fact that composers don't always do the most obvious thing- which is to actually read the notes they wrote down, rather than assume what might be likely! I also rushed the last couple of notes. While careless, this was a smaller issue, given that they are just a slight addition after the main cadence.

Anyway, my point is that, even with these issues, the accuracy level was far above 90%. The rule of never stopping for uncertainty/mistakes did not directly produce any of the things that were genuinely good about my read-through. They merely saved those things which were not so good, from turning into outright disaster.

For the second film I deliberately chose something where I expected to have a notably lower hit rate, for illustration purposes. At an estimate, I'd say I'm probably above 80% accuracy there, but perhaps not too much more. If you compare to the version I did after some brief practise, you'll realise that while it's not a terrible approximation, the number of splashed/guessed chords is more than enough to show up to someone who knows how they should really sound. The fact it sort of works is not a bad argument for that "golden rule" of just keeping the rhythm going at any cost. Had I not kept going onward, it would only have been far worse still. However, let's think just how much accurate processing was necessary for even this dodgy version. Had I only read the lower chords at all and played random notes above (which admittedly happened fairly literally on a couple of occasions) I'd still be having to process a large amount of information correctly. Dwelling narrowly on the need to play past errors does nothing to shed any light on the majority of notes which I was able to both read and execute correctly (not to mention how a truly elite sight-reader still could certainly do a far more accurate job again).

Why top sight-readers often give the least helpful advice to amateurs

The problem with the advice given by most good sight-readers is that an evolution-like process of natural selection has taken place. If they hadn't got the right things down you wouldn't get to hear their advice. Instead, they'd be out looking for a new job. As part of that, if you don't learn not to stop at the first sign of uncertainty, you will be weeded out fast. Worthy accompanists know that once you're in performance conditions, you must continue at any cost. Their livelihood literally depends on sticking to this rule every day. The problem is that they first had to spend years developing the background skills for a minimum threshold of accuracy. This is more of a long and complex slow grind, that couldn't even begin to be summarised via a catchy soundbite. Perhaps this is why we hear phrases like "never stop" so much, yet scarcely anything about how to cement deeper foundations? Anyway, if the "cost" of pressing on literally proved to be as severe as ignoring the key signature for a whole section, they would not get paid work. Easy as it is to talk about the importance of playing past mistakes, it's a lot harder to explain how to be in a position to keep errors down to an acceptable level.

Moving away from a professional standard, now- when an amateur does not have the same core skills, there's a point where no amount of willingness to press on via guesswork can compensate for that missing backbone. Good sight-readers might be very good at creatively coping with potential emergencies, but they are also very good at having as few emergencies as possible. We need to think far more about the origins of how they became able to process notes with sufficient accuracy.

It's based on this that I have come to feel very strongly that a lot of weaker sight-readers are being given completely the wrong advice for building the foundations they are most urgently in need of. If we say you can only train sight-reading under performance conditions (where the rhythm must go onward at all times and you are never allowed to go back over anything), it may do more harm than good- simply perpetuating the feeling of being a terrible reader who cannot cope under pressure.

The problem with using pressured testing as a basis for learning

I'd suggest that it's irrational to assume that test conditions are either the only way to learn, or even the most important part of overall learning, in just about any field. Would someone expect to learn to drive by simply taking driving tests over and over? Or to learn trigonometry by sitting maths exams over and over without any training?

Testing skills under pressure is certainly important, some of the time, but it's not where first foundations are built. I remember hearing the conductor/pianist Andre Previn speak of learning his sight-reading skills by spending a lot of time doing pressured sight-reading of duets, with a teacher (who would carry on if he was floundering and expect him to catch up). I believe this can easily mislead though. Such stories are appealing, as they present a romanticised notion of a "hero" being resilient enough to endure challenge and come out stronger for it. However, I strongly believe that he already had excellent reading skills. It's a make or break scenario, in which you don't automatically become better unless the main foundation has largely been laid. The situation would chiefly test how his existing reading skills fared under greater pressure. But it was doubtless contrasted against plenty of less pressured reading, in which accuracy was the main goal. This is where the core foundations are consolidated, before being pushed to the limit under performance conditions.

Quick-study as the gauge of true reading skill

Stepping back from that pressured type of sight-reading, I believe the most important foundations are best developed through what I call "quick-study"- the missing link between performance style sight-reading and slower long term projects. This involves working under more moderate pressure rather than under literal performance conditions. It comes with expectation that errors and uncertainties should be fully corrected at source, rather than done badly once (in strict time) and then left behind forever. In short, you look to understand exactly what the score means and then expect to translate it into practical reality- *not* by imprinting it slowly into habitual muscle memory, but by playing to a clear and precise intention. This is the same fundamental skill as that for your baseline of accuracy in sight-reading- to read well enough to get a clear mental image of what you want (and to have the physical skill to realise that intention immediately).

When learning repertoire over months, it should actually be very little different. You shouldn't start by playing long sections badly over and over and assume they'll eventually become right. However, neither should learning be based on reading details one at a time and spending days before understanding how they fit together. Efficient use of practise is based on having a clear picture of a group of notes (be it one bar or a whole phrase) and then trying to turn that thought into reality as directly as possible. If you cannot command a clear result when given a little planning time, you cannot realistically expect to sight-read well under pressure either.

What can you accomplish in half an hour?

As a thought experiment, let's say that a pianist is given a fairly easy score and told to learn to play it well within a month. If they can, it tells us nothing much either way about how likely they are to be a good sight-reader. Alternatively, if they couldn't do it well by then, it's just plain obvious they'd have done even worse at first sight. But what if we gave them just half an hour? This is far more interesting, because it neither imposes the sheer pressure of performance sight-reading, nor allows the luxury of building things slowly into habit. This makes for a very good indicator of general reading skill. It's just a simple way to check you can both read something correctly and act upon it.

For those who could meet the challenge of playing well after half an hour, it doesn't necessarily mean that they will also be good at first sight. Even if they can figure things out this efficiently, it's still possible to be insufficiently used to either to processing literally immediately, or playing on through uncertainty. The classic advice would likely be appropriate for them. It might well be time to start to focus more on letting go of the need for one hundred percent accuracy and loosen up into some educated guesses.

However, what about those players who could not build a convincing performance of an easy piece, with half an hour to throw at it? Clearly the results would again be substantially worse still at first sight- no matter how willing they are to fudge details in favour of trying to keep time! If you're not a good sight-reader (and want to know how to improve), the very first thing you should look at is whether you have this crucial foundation. If half an hour isn't enough to master some easier repertoire, it shows there is simply not enough fluency with translating written instructions in general, never mind under pressure. Although quick-study skills don't fully guarantee good sight-reading skills, it would be fair to say that a lack of quick-study skills will always be complemented by even worse sight-reading skill.

The background ability to translate a score into correct execution is not something that should be developed solely under intense pressure, but neither is it something where you should need days or even weeks to figure something out. We seem to have become lost in a false dichotomy- where either you learn pieces very slowly over an extended period of time, or you have a single make or break shot at sight-reading and then have to move on. It is highly artificial to have such extremes without middle ground, and it does not serve development of the best reading skills. To say that you should never go back and make corrections (because "it's no longer sight-reading" second time around) is simply missing how learning works.

Getting things correct RIGHT NOW- the truest testament to good reading

Although I'm generally a good sight-reader, I used to struggle with composers like Bach and Mozart- where everything is highly exposed. I went through a period where I deliberately took a much more careful approach to reading their music. These can be some of the hardest to sightread well, because everything is so exposed that details really do matter. Rather than plough on ahead through errors, I'd now start to slow down a little for the most dense passages, to find a pace where I could process everything in advance rather than have to guess. I wouldn't just stop dead in the middle of ideas, but I'd happily stretch the tempo out- thus making more time, without ever destroying the rhythmic flow. If something went badly I might stop and think about that bar before correcting it and only then go on after resolving uncertainty. I wasn't exactly "practising" these pieces in the full way I would if learning them, but neither was I settling for any old rubbish- just because it's "only" sight-reading and "everyone knows" that you're not meant to stop.

In spite of breaking almost all the rules, this approach made me far more accomplished back in pressured situations. I got used to allowing fewer holes in the basic processing. I wasn't allowed to just skim over problems in my reading, but had to face them and solve them. In the end, I found myself needing fewer guesses in general. When I have to accompany another musician, I can still snap into performance style sight-reading at any time I need to. However, by having tilted the balance towards accuracy rather than always time pressure, I built a far stronger foundation in general.

In quick-study you should not keep ploughing on past uncertainty until you reach the end. You're looking to build a foundation of accuracy (both for the piece being studied and, by extension, for more general reading skill). You should imagine exactly what you intend to do for a small segment, with ample thinking time, and then check for the accuracy after execution. This could be as little as a bar or so (although it is usually best to add the first note of the bar after, in order to avoid dividing bars into separate entities) and then you try to execute the plan. If it goes wrong, you plan once again and then you try again. If it still doesn't work, you must now stop and have a big rethink. It's probably necessary to reduce it to something smaller until you have found a manageable sized unit that you can produce confidently on command. You're looking for the things you can get right with minimal fuss. You should never just "have a go" and hope for a fluke. Guessing is not part of this approach. Done well, most things should be right first time and nothing should ever take more than three attempts. If it's not working, you should find a smaller musical unit or even go back to easier repertoire, if need be. As you get better, the mental preparation becomes ever more efficient. You won't always need to start from smaller units. Actually, I often begin as normal sight-reading, but then stop shortly after anything I wasn't happy with. The idea of working with small units can then be used as something to fall back on for correcting things- in order to get to the heart of the issue. You can also practise trying to take just brief glimpses of a unit, before immediately looking away and trying to execute it perfectly from that mere glimpse. As you become sharper at this, the same processing skill feeds very directly into your pressured sight-reading.

Going back to get things right on a second execution will do far more for your core sight-reading skills than just doing it incorrectly once alone and moving on. Finishing with a correct version means we are meaningfully connecting every detail of the score to its execution, rather than to wild guesses which were fuelled by panic. There are lots of ways to go wrong (including guessing, incorrect reading, moving the hands without adequate control etc) but very few ways to get everything right. What kind of delusional optimism would lead us to imagine that the ability to work accurately is best developed with an exclusive routine of guessing things under pressure and then never looking back? This trains willingness not to stop, but nothing else at all. To further the ability to read correctly and then instantly do things correctly, we should at least expect to get things right on a second (less pressured) attempt.

When I went back to practise the Rachmaninoff, I just played the chords slowly and in free time, confirming every single note. Rhythm is essential to a lot of practise but, particularly in chords, there can be great value in simply making room to stay with each chord. No, rhythm shouldn't always come first (as is often claimed). Merely sometimes. At times you're better off stopping to clarify notes, before immediately bringing it back in. I already understood the rhythms but I didn't want to leave a single chord on a misunderstanding or on a guess. Admittedly, the 2nd execution is far from electrifying musically and could have been sped up plenty. My intent was not to show an ideal final performance however, but to show I could take command over the basic reading issues at once, rather than continue to approximate. Had I pressured myself into spirited guesses a second time over, I could have scrambled my perceptions. People sometimes say "Practise like you would wish to perform". Sometimes you should indeed, but I was much better off "practising like I would wish to practise". I just calmly built a link between reading each chord and then feeling/confirming the match between reading and result. Sometimes, I will even linger on the surface of a chord before playing, to confirm every last note before playing it. Then I linger once again after playing, to confirm a second time. This allows me to keep checking both that the reading is flawless and that the activity always matches what I see. After all, if I couldn't first take command of accuracy in freer time, how could I expect to be ready to process similar chords in future pressure situations?

Foundations before instincts

Think again about how we develop ability to work under time pressure in other fields. When a child first begins arithmetic, we don't encourage them to take wild guesses, under the assumption that this will later make them perform best at speed. No, it will fill their head with confusion. We get them to count on their fingers until they reliably know the sums on a more instinctive level.

This is not remotely unusual in human endeavour. If you want to learn to do something well under time pressure, first you must actually be able to do it well at all. We routinely apply this to learning a specific piece (eg starting slow for accuracy before speeding up) but we should also appreciate how this relates to the broader skill of reading something new and knowing exactly what it means.

The main skill behind sight-reading is not truly "different" to that involved in quick study, except in terms of having less thinking time. If I look at a small enough segment of music and imagine it in full detail, I should then be ready to execute it straight away. The core of sight-reading comes from the very same place. You understand it and then you do it. Yes, we also need an emergency plan B, to scrape through those situations where there is a more than we can fully be sure of. Willingness to keep going when uncertain is largely just something you can either do or you can't, however. Yes, you must practise it often enough to be sure you can indeed do it. The problem is that there's no  further summit to be reached here. Once you have that tool, further progress is almost chiefly about building on the deeper core.

Effective sight-reading skill is built by by training two opposite personalities side by side- one that demands absolute precision/excellence and another that is happy to occasionally scrape by on any old crap that stays in rhythm. It's only a balanced amalgam of the two that defines a truly great sight-reader. Think of the approximation aspect of sight-reading as being a bit like keeping a cupboard stocked up with ancient cans of cheap tinned spaghetti. It's always good to know the option is there, for a time when you have nowhere else to turn. But I'd far sooner take something fresh from the fridge.

The pianist and injury, part i- do common precautions do more harm than good?

(This first part will focus mostly on general pianists' attitudes to physical activity with the hands- exposing how a distorted myth regarding Robert Schumann has created completely unjustified paranoia that urgently needs to be countered. In a second part I'll also go on to explore why I believe the relaxation school may have actively contributed to making injuries increasingly common place- with proof of how the extensor muscles are generally worked considerably harder when trying to channel arm energy through a passive hand)

Introduction 

Firstly, I'll provide a couple of scenarios outside of piano playing, to set the scene.

Picture a tennis player who does no physical exercise apart from playing tennis. He aims to play to a high level and thus must often push his physical capability close to its limits, when holding a racquet in hand. However, don't fear. He won't be at risk of injuring himself. After all, he never goes to the gym, he consciously avoids all forms of stretching and flexibility based work, and he never warms up physically other than by actually playing games of tennis.


WHAT???!!! Let's rewind for a moment, for that's clearly the most deranged logic conceivable. This is not why he would be safe, rather it's why he is going to be actively prone to injury! To play top tennis, you must clearly CONDITION your body for the demands of the real life game, not exclude it from doing everything other than tennis. You don't get to have an incredible serve through avoiding all else!

If you're already complaining that music is an art and not a sport, I'm afraid I saw you coming.

In my second analogy, we have a ballet dancer. She never does any form of physical activity other than rehearsing the ballet routines that she is working at. After all, she must protect her physical apparatus from injury. She never works at flexibility prior to dancing nor does any form of non-artistic exercise to get started. Better to avoid such risks. This is exactly why it's safe for her launch into the splits at a moment's notice (as long as it has artistic context in a genuine routine), without any physical warm up.

WHAT???!!! Let's rewind again. This time you don't get to frown on a sport for being "different" to art, yet it's still abundantly clear that the whole premise is absurd to the very core. Anything that helps the body develop comfortable flexibility is clearly part of performing effectively and with safety. Alongside ballet practise itself, it's common for top dancers to do all manner of body conditioning- including flexibility and possibly even some degree of strength based work (especially for male dancers who may have to carry a partner's full weight). They don't serve their art by turning their noses up at anything that doesn't have artistic context. They work to keep their bodies limber and flexible specifically because it prepares them for the physical demands that they must meet during their art.

Finally, we have a pianist who is building up towards music college auditions. He never does any technique exercises beyond the odd scale, because he is too pure an artist to dirty himself with such matters (and he once heard a famous teacher say all drills are dangerous and should thus be avoided). He deliberately avoids all forms of "unnatural" hand exercise away from the keyboard. After all, everyone knows that Schumann damaged his hand beyond repair with some weird contraption. Other than practising his programme of difficult music, he keeps his hands fresh by resting them and avoiding activity. He has minimal risk of injury, because his hands do little other than musically artistic piano playing.

Now, this is the one where a great many pianists would nod in agreement, rather than shout "WHAT???!!!!". If so, why? If you do go on to continue thinking that's a good attitude, after having read this post, then very well. However, I have to insist that you at least stop to ask some serious questions. Now, there are also radically opposite stances- including pianists who obsess over an idea of extreme finger "strength" and genuinely overdo work on forceful exercises towards that end. I have no wish to promote that branch of extremism. However, the stance outlined above seems to have become widely accepted as if it were basic common sense, rather than the opposite pole of equally extremist madness. Did you notice how consistent it was with the previous examples? Somehow, something I'll call "pianist's logic" seems to have allowed this to be taken seriously within our field. Oh, and in the end, ironically enough that pianist does get injured by a "contraption"- an especially hazardous one, that subjects his poor hands to outlandish demands found nowhere in the natural world. It's called a "piano".

The Schumann myth

Before proceeding, yes I was indeed being facetious for the sake of a cheap gag. It was, however, also for the sake of making an incredibly serious point. This is where "pianist's logic" has come to differ from the default stance of virtually any ordinary human on this planet. Show us a little rubber band and suggest stretching it back and forth for thirty seconds (for the sake of building flexibility) and most of us will run for the hills, while screaming something incomprehensible about Robert Schumann's injury.

"Contemplate the possibility of facing such a wild risk as moving our fingers against incredibly mild resistance? No, thank you. Do you realise that I'm a pianist?".

But what if you ask us to engage them against the larger mechanical resistance of piano keys, for the continuous 30 mins+ it takes to play a Rachmaninoff concerto (featuring incredibly rapid runs, as well as vast physical stretches that must be taken with commanding ease while the hand bears the mass of the moving arm)?

"Sure, no worries mate."

 Contrast against any "ordinary" person and they're usually of sound enough mind to stretch that elastic band without fear, while quite probably expressing far more doubt about playing the piano like the clappers.

Who is right here? Well, how many people have you heard of whose career ended due to an injury associated with using an "unnatural" device (other than the piano itself)? If this were the gameshow "Pointless" and you knew of any tale other than that of Robert Schumann, you'd certainly be on to a winner. Compare to cases of pianists who were injured merely by playing their instrument and we have undeniable reams of evidence. Leon Fleisher and Gary Graffman are two famous examples among a huge number of piano based injuries. Glenn Gould too had a period of being severely afflicted. It's time to seriously reevaluate why the piano gets the "get out of jail free" card, while we are quick to call danger on all external exercises- which no ordinary person nor qualified physiotherapist would be faintly concerned by. Of course, I'm not saying we should ban piano playing based on the possibility of injury. The point is that it's completely irrational for us to issue blanket bans on almost anything else that involves significant hand activity and then happily spend hours at the "unnatural contraption" which has definitively been at the heart of many injuries.

Anyway, here's evidence of the fact that the old Schumann tale is almost certainly nothing more than a wildly distorted myth:

http://www.pianisttopianist.com/?p=10

http://focaldystonia.co.uk/#/robert-schumann/4563923100

Schumann may not have been wise to use the machine exactly as he did, but the severity of his problems already existed. Don't misunderstand, I'm not specifically saying we should all run to get a device like Schumann's, and then pull the crap out of our fingers, with expectation of becoming virtuosi. However, we should stop to ask questions before tarring all hand exercises in general! Where is the meaningful evidence for the crippling long-term injuries that can supposedly afflict those who dare to exercise their hands away from a piano? If there is any substance, I extend an invitation to anyone to point me to it. As far as I can see, it seems that we've been duped en masse, by scaremongering. Evidence suggests that the true worry is injury from playing wrongly, not from any complementary exercises. The pianist's paranoia about everything under the sun (except for pianism itself) does not seem to have any footing in reason at all. It lives in a legend, that somehow evolved into being taken as gospel.

Back in reality, it's widely accepted in science that engagement of muscles against comfortable levels of resistance is actively conducive to flexibility and general health- far more so than abstinence from activity. The only meaningful questions should be about what is a reasonable range to work within. In cases of significant existing injury, complete rest may sometimes be wise. However, even then a physiotherapist may well prescribe gentle work against low resistance- thus encouraging blood flow to assist healing. It's a remarkable situation, really. The very same exercises which are safe enough to be given by medical professionals to the significantly injured (to help restore function via gentle rehabilitation) are being denounced by a horde of medically unqualified pianists as too "dangerous"for the healthy. The idea that hands which perform extreme gymnastic activities at a piano must be protected from such simple exercises exists in the world of "pianist's logic" and nowhere else. Look around and you'll certainly see plenty of evidence of injury through repetitive activities like piano playing, typing and the like. But the Schumann legend seem to be both the beginning and end of the "evidence" behind this overblown hysteria about any kind of alternative hand exercises.

The evil of Stretching?

For some reason, Chopin has been pretty universally portrayed as the antithesis to Schumann- a pianist who respected the hand in its natural form and would never have considered trying to alter its natural state. Well, I'm going to have to shatter this myth too. Did you know that Chopin developed flexibility between his fingers by sleeping at night with wine corks wedged in between them? So much for the poster boy for leaving physical development to piano playing and nature alone...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122670581542929769.html

Now, it may be that Chopin changed his mind on this type of thing, but it's impossible to say with certainty that it had no effect on him. I'm not going to recommend going to such extreme lengths, but I'm certainly not going to rule out more gentle stretching exercises. When it comes to small handed pianists, people regularly cite Alicia de Larrocha as proof that they can flourish like any other. While this is spot on, what seems to be forgotten is the fact that she was obsessive about stretching her hands and actually managed to develop enough flexibility to strike a tenth. Weirdly enough, I've literally heard the same people who put her forward as an example to those with small hands, going on to argue that you should never stretch at all. Sometimes they even argue against basic legato. If someone wanted to construct a conspiracy by which to prevent those with small hands from ever transcending their slight disadvantage, they could scarcely do much better. Yes, there will be things which just aren't possible and which cannot be usefully forced. A whole lot of stuff can be coaxed, however. It's incredibly unlikely that de Larrocha would have reached the level she did, had she just decided that there was nothing she could do to improve on what nature gave her. People who treat their small hands as innately incapable (and a thing to be carefully protected from all challenges) are not going to come close to what she achieved. Also, even large hands need training. A large hand is not automatically flexible or limber, in much the same way that a tall person isn't automatically a professional level basketball player. There are good ways to train and bad ways. But it's a gross oversimplification to decide that piano playing counts as good, while everything else must be assumed bad.

Skepticism vs cynicism/"Hmm"vs "NO!"

The origins of this article were triggered by a post in a Facebook group for piano teachers- regarding *brace yourself* finger weights. Given the extreme nature of the responses that post received (displaying "pianist's logic" in full force), I will clarify at the outset that the only thing I wish to promote is the value of an open mind- that neither fully excludes nor fully accepts anything without reasonable cause. Skepticism is healthy. That's where we ask questions and seek further information, rather than accept any claim at face value. Uncertainty is healthy- where we recognise that we have inadequate information to give a final judgement. Cynicism, however, is not healthy. That's where we make a snap dismissal of anything that differs from the limits of our experience/assumptions- thus shutting ourselves in a cage and removing all possibility of someday being pleasantly surprised by a new discovery.

Anyhow, these finger weights were met with a torrent of casual dismissals (some arguably libellous in nature). I won't name or quote anyone, but I will summarise the prevailing nature of the responses. Other than myself, nobody had even cared to enquire about the size of the weight involved, before being ready to pass judgement. Needless to say, the Schumann references came thick and fast- only a couple of which tried to debunk the myth rather than spread it. Yes, one man got injured almost two centuries ago (in a tale of very dubious details) so from there onwards every conceivable mechanical device (except the piano) is to be assumed cripplingly unsafe for a human hand. Among a very large number of responses, I saw very few people who were raising questions or seeking to understand more deeply. Anyway, in the end one of few curious posters looked up the actual weight. It starts at...

10 GRAMS!!!!

As a skeptic rather than a cynic, I find it astonishing that the default assumption would be that putting 10g (!) on a finger will probably cause injury. Pop a pound coin (you'll have to Google your own closest equivalent if you're not in the UK) on the back of a finger and that's the corresponding level of mass and indeed danger that would be involved. I won't even tell you to do so "at your own risk". If you want to take me to court under the grounds that you injured yourself with that coin, all I can say is that you're welcome to try (although you'll need a bloody good lawyer). Remarkable claims demand remarkable evidence. The idea that a finger cannot handle 10g (one hundredth of a kilogramme!!!!) without probable injury is a truly remarkable belief indeed. Particularly given that the very same people who call danger are typically happy to preach the joys of setting the whole arm's weight upon the hand!

Most remarkable of all, the discovery that that merely 10g of mass are involved changed nothing in the tide of opinions! I was assured that the difference is that the arm's more substantial weight is "natural" and thus can't cause injury- in spite of applying radically greater forces. Conversely, I'm led to believe that as 10g is "unnatural", it will therefore become injurious. If you're happy with that as an explanation, then we certainly do live in a world in which facts no longer matter. In my second part of this post I'll go into detail as to how arm weight schools really can cause significant strain, when excess weight bears down on an underperforming hand. I can assure that 10g won't, however.

Anyway, it's not that I even recommend these weights. Rather, I was struck by what the response says about attitudes in general. As one poster mentioned, Liberace's rings were probably heavier than 10g.  You don't become an accomplished pianist by having the biggest and most rock solid finger muscles, but neither do you become one by wrapping yourself in cotton wool and 
living in fear of anything untried. Here's Tzimon Barto:

As a devoted bodybuilder, it's said that after a concert he could easily bench-press the piano for an encore. I think that's only a joke but, regardless, do you imagine that if you asked him to bear the weight of a coin on his finger, he'd back off in case his hands were crippled beyond repair? Or that he'd accept, only to be forced to cancel all concerts for the rest of the season (as a payback for such naïvely reckless bravado)? Other concert level pianists who are also into olympic style weight lifting include Leon Bates and Gen Hirano. I must stress, my point is not that you should lift colossal weights. But this gives some perspective on how utterly pathetic it is for a grown pianist to fear either a rubber band or the mass of a coin upon a finger.

Come back to our ballerina, or gymnast now. Sure, they might not be looking to benchpress double their body weight. However, why would they be scared to lift even small dumbells, when they have to execute chains of backflips? Likewise, why should a hand that is getting around virtuoso octaves be troubled by supporting 10g? I might not expect miracles, but injury via 10g is the very last thing that would be on my mind. No hand is going to shatter into a thousand pieces. The fact that fear of 10g reads like more like comedic parody, than observed reality, speaks volumes of how warped our culture has become. Pianists are being encouraged to cower in response to nothing- despite constantly facing serious gymnastic demands at a piano. And then they wonder why those precious little hands end up injured? You don't necessarily need to have remarkably strong hands, but if you want to tackle serious repertoire then you sure as hell need to have them agile and conditioned for activity!

Weights and Hanon exercises

One of the most useful exercises I've done is to practise occasionally with a 1kg wrist weight. I came upon the idea in a book by the pianist Seymour Bernstein. I'm not going to specifically recommend to anyone else, on an unsupervised basis. However, I will describe some of the details.When I play with a small weight on my wrist, it makes any flawed alignments extremely obvious. Holding the wrist either notably high or low would get tiring very quickly, if sustained. Without the wrist weight it can be like boiling a frog. If you don't know the expression, it refers to the fact that frogs can only detect abrupt changes of temperature- which means that you could theoretically boil one alive without them knowing they are in trouble. In much the same fashion, if I were to play a Chopin study with a slightly crooked wrist position, I'd probably both get away with it for a while and not realise that anything is amiss. Lots of slight imprecision of movement (none of which stands out on its own) slowly adds up though. All of a sudden, I'd eventually realise that I'm starting to miss plenty of notes and feeling everything seizing up.

I just about got away with much that kind of thing, in this rather old video of the black key Etude by Chopin.

The dressing gown slightly hides my long-term habit of holding the right wrist upwards, although you will visibly see a few rather jerky "hopping" movements of the arm, where the legato is poor and the arm is not properly supported by clear connection of the fingers. As I remember, although the accuracy didn't go horribly wrong, my forearm was rather tight by the end.
If I had tried the same with the wrist weights on, I'd know about the slight problems almost immediately, through a somewhat amplified sense of instability. I don't actually do it to make my hand work harder during a whole run-through though. Rather than struggle on while tiredness builds, I use the feedback to stop and adjust into easier coordination- where my wrist is properly suspended at length between a stable finger and the shoulder. The idea is to suspend that extra kilogramme without bearing the whole force down directly on the finger. I literally do it to AVOID weighing down hard on the hand, not to encourage it! When you get things wrong, there is indeed a significant sense of the hand being burdened by extra mass- which is why I don't try to plough through whole performances at speed. Instead, I explore sections (both at very slow tempos and fast burst of small units), looking for comfort and stability at all times. As soon as I detect any moment of awkwardness, I stop and fix it. Nowadays I play the same Etude with far less downward arm pressure and far greater ease of movement.

Also, this brings me back to technical exercises. I've heard many of people say that playing Hanon causes injury. If it can possibly do so, it's because your technique is wrong. Anyone with truly good technique should have no problem playing any of them safely. Avoiding Hanon because its dangerous is simply fleeing from your problems without actually solving them. It's far better to intentionally expose the problems (via only brief bursts) and then make corrections. There are few better places to both uncover and fix fundamental movement problems quickly. When I do the occasional Hanon exercise (with weights on or off) what I again almost never do is is run from start to finish. I'm not looking to build strength with endless repetition, but looking from immediate refinements of coordination. Instead I tend to do small bursts quickly (usually a bar plus one note) and then stop to assess how precise and easy the movement was. If I wasn't happy I'll then do it very slowly, checking for smooth sideways arm movement, while the fingers keep a clear legato connection (to stop the weight collapsing downward). If that works I'll probably do a little bit fast again. Eventually I may play through the whole exercise fast, but never to "feel the burn". If it's not effortless and precise I stop and build precision and clarity again. With this kind of focused approach (based on finding and solving slight problems in the movement, rather than drilling mindlessly) you can find the issues which get in the way of free and easy movement and then change things at once. If I find and correct any points of heaviness, with the wrist weights on, I know that I'll still be significantly clearer and lighter in my movements when I take them off again.

I'd have been far worse off had I simply shouted "Schumann!" (like some mindless parrot) when I first read about wrist weights.