Welcome to
Piano Technique.org
Your best online piano technique resource base

This site (still under construction) aims to offer a comprehensive survey of approaches to piano technique from its inception to the present day. For the moment we offer background articles on the history and various aspects of piano technique. We will soon be adding
• lesson videos featuring both Alan Fraser and other teachers, and
• performance videos highlighting specific aspects of virtuoso piano technique.

The site is still in a process of development, with the large majority of articles still to be written. Each article must be fully researched, written and edited before it is put online. We welcome submissions and see this as a site that will always be in development, adding new insights to piano technique as they surface.

Alan Fraser writes:

Our allegiances

I created this site in the hopes that it would provide an alternative to the factions/camps approach to investigating piano technique. Of course it is normal to feel a special allegiance to the teachers and methods that nurtured one personally, but why must this process be exclusive? Why, if I was brought up in the Leschititsky tradition, must I vilify Tobias Matthay or Seymour Fink? Why must studying with Dorothy Taubmann set me, like a knight in shining armour defending his lady, against all the other approaches?

Inclusion vs. exclusion

This site aims to be inclusive, and is based on the idea that we are all aiming towards the same high goal, to play the piano really well, to make it speak, sigh, sing and recreate the plethora of colours that an orchestra produces. There are many roads to Rome, and although two truths may appear to be totally contradictory, this does not make either of them untrue. Each is true in a specific context, for a specific person who has a specific set of neuromotor patterns that guides him or her in playing. I think so many different schools developed because there are so many marked differences between the many people who play piano – any one single way is going to fall far short of defining this amazingly complex process!

Investigating the various approaches to piano technique partly necessitates evaluating the language used – trying to grasp what each is really saying, and perhaps in the end to approach some sort of standardization or equivalency between various schools so we can all communicate more effectively and amicably. Maybe we could finally understand and acknowledge the value of what each of us is saying! If we can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each school dispassionately, soberly, and clearly, we might come closer to a really comprehensive approach to piano technique.

Recent additions

Our most recent addition is my article on Glenn Gould's unique and perplexing solutions in the realm of piano technique, and a discussion of the hidden source of his physical problems. Also relatively new are Michael Kurstner’s fine explanation of the Lumbricals and Interosseous Muscles, whose right work is so crucial to a well-developed piano technique, the special listening experience of Wanda Landowska Playing Mozart Sonatas, and the detailed review of Thomas Mark’s book, What Every Pianist Needs to Know about the Body. We think you will also find of special interest the article on Antecedents of Piano Technique in the Harpsichord and Clavichord. Other articles already up and running are the Alfred Cortot (Magda Tagliaferro Interview) article, the Annotated Bibliography and the short article on myself and Craft of Piano.

Email notification

If you would like email notification when a new article comes online, please register/create account (make sure you check the subscription box) to be added to our mailing list. This list will remain in-house and we promise that absolutely no outside party will be privy to your contact information.

The planned site will eventually include the following sections:

- Piano Technique Teaching Videos
- Piano Technique Performance Videos
- A Historical Survey of Schools of Piano Technique
- A Comparative Look at Current Trends in Piano Technique
- Mp3 Downloads
- Piano Technique Forum
- Piano Technique Chat Room

Submissions

The Webmaster welcomes suggestions and especially contributions from those interested in helping make this site more comprehensive: we aim for it to be eventually a sort of mini-Wikipedia for piano technique. Each historical category will be the subject of a full-length article, and there will be a comparative table cataloguing and comparing the characteristics of each approach. If you would like to make a contribution, please email us at webmaster@pianotechnique.org .