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I'm reading Dubal's book "Reflections from the Keyboard", and there are a couple places where he or the interviewee mentions double-note technique. What is it?

The "double notes" in question are two notes played simultaneously in the same hand, often in intervals of thirds or sixths. Double-note technique, then, is employed in figurations of successive double notes (whether of the same or changing intervals).

A few examples that come to mind are Chopin's Etudes 10/7, 25/6 and 25/8, Nocturne 37/2 and Barcarolle, and Schumann's Toccata.

Steven

Ah, thanks! It is that technique that I currently find very annoying because my notes don't play at the same time (lots of this in Mendelssohn's Variations Serieuses).

I've recently started practicing this technique. It's a pretty refreshing alternative to single note scales. Do you try to use fingerings/substitutions that allows legato playing? I'm just curious. I found a post by another member on this forum who recommended fingering that seems to encourage non-legato playing. I try to do both.

I'm still lost.. Elaborate?

I just use the standard fingerings such as those in Tausig and Hanon, supplemented by various double-note etudes.

If by "finger substitution" you mean changing fingers on one key, I can't really imagine trying to do that at anything other than very slow speeds, and I've never come across it in any double note fingerings I've seen.

Somewhere I came across a remark by Brahms about the "correct" way to play double-note thirds, which to him was with legato top notes while ascending, and legato lower notes while descending - that's an interesting way to approach it.