Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner A revolution in piano practice.

Hi everybody on the forum.
Let’s consider the piano playing. If you play at slow speed you can play every
things, including Liszt’s transcendental etudes. You needn’t no teachers, no method. To be able to play at high speed you must have appropriate technique.
I think every piano learner know the famous pianist Hans von Bulow. He once
said that : Technique, technique and technique. But what is piano technique? Up-today there is no clear answer to this important question. This situation leads to
many mistaken “ methods” in piano learning.
Children piano education:
First slow compositions ,then gradually higher speed ones. There are no instructions how to touch. At slow speed you cannot tell your fore-arms are stressed or not and in the most cases , the children will use only the fore-arms for the touching. With trained endurance of the fore-arms they can go further but the
speed level will be very limited. There is a torture for the children: endless time of
scale and arpeggios practice in hoping of acquiring technique. The essence of this
practice is only lateral motion one. If the goal of your children is only to achieve
B-level you don’t to spend the money on the teachers. Your children can achieve
this goal at home with comfort practice.
You can protest: the music schools still produce C-level graduates. You are wrong. The essence of theirs method is natural selection only. They are giving the demands and you must fulfill these one. If you can fulfill these demands you pass, if you cannot you quit the schools. It is the same method of swimming training in
the stone age.
Some “famous” books on piano playing:
Gyorgy Sandor: Touch action in his book is aligned finger one. It’s wrong suggestion. The essence of touching is coordination of muscles. All piano actions
are reduced to several patterns. Can you imagine that martial art could be reduced
to some patterns? His approach is mechanical one.He also mentioned mental play but there was not any word about how to do and what benefits from this doing.
Seymour Fink: His approach is exclusively mechanical one. There is no clear definition of technique regardless of the book’s name. The contents of his book looks like the program for robot playing or instructions how to walk for the centipede.. There is even exercise on lateral motion. It’s wrong way. What we need is
a principle of execution, not the exercise.
There is one common thing from the two above authors:The use of arm weight, an very old much criticized concept.They all forget that, in order to use the arm weight one must raise the arm.It's a wrong way to produce high volume of chords, especially in rapid playing. We can produce high volume of chords even in rapid playing by the coordination of muscles.
To find useful method we must go by the scientific approach. Our goal is to achieve high speed in piano playing. First of all we must agree that piano practice is the brain/nerves training process, then we must define the contents of technique or the way to go. The child- prodigy phenomenal convinces us that , piano practice is not fingers training. Let’s us take the Euclid approach in geometry.
I am absolutely certain that , the next proposition is an a priory truth: Ability to
play piano is the ability to play the right note ( or notes, it means chords) in the right place at the right time with the right power. Now we can do the analysis of this position to make the possible deductions.
. -To play any notes ( or notes ) at any place you must have solid touching technique. Let’s call it basic action.
-To play at the right place we must have solid skill of lateral motion in order to displace the hand at that place.
-To play at the right time we must have high speed of reflex.
-Besides all the above conditions we must have solid hand memory of the music
passage. It’s the domain of sub-consciousness. But it’s only semi-automatic process. The consciousness also must participate in the piano playing. Obviously we must find the way to solve the problem of relation between sub-consciousness
and consciousness in piano playing.
All the above sayings are the main content of piano technique.As you can see now, there is no more the mystery of piano virtuosity.The problem is how to acquire these skills?
After 30 months of research and experiments I have found the solutions to all these questions except the problem of how to rapidly acquire hand memory. But it's not important because we can get solid hand memory of music passage with time.After all what we need is quality of playing, not quantity of compositions.
I can bet any piano learner could achieve C-level in less than 5 years in the sure way, following my method, in stead of achieving this level after at least 10 years by chance.Any one could have benefit from my method, including concert pianists.
My young brother had send the digital copy of my book to Amadeus Press (the publisher of Seymor Fink book) and four other publishers with the result: Amadeus Press and the three others even didn't bother to answer his emails.The fifth answered that my book is too thin to print ( my book is about 27 pages of A4). As you can see what this publisher want to sell is papers , not the knowledge. The remaining publishers make me to feel that : They all think that, an Asian old man ( I am 52 years old) couldn't invented any thing in piano playing.It's an act of racism. Remember that blue laser was invented by an no-name Japan engineer of small Japan company.Maybe it's not racism reason, simply the editors of these publishers have no head or they all had only D-mark on mathematics in the school. Only this reason could explain why they cannot understand my simple logic.By the way , allow me to inform that , there are many unique and useful tips on piano practice in my book.
Now you can question : What about making music? In my opinion the making music is only expression of one's individual perception of composition. To be able to make the expression one must have sufficient technique.
The natural question is where is my book? By the time being, my book still don't go into the print. At this time (7july 2010) my brother is still doing all his best to get my book into print. Please understand me: I am an old man in Ho Chi Minh city, my piano was funded by my young brother. Because of this reason , I want earn some money from my book by the honest way. Suppose my book could go into the print. In that case you can obtain this book for maximum 20 usd. It's less than your fee for your child one session at private piano teacher.
The last word about why my book is the revolution in the history of piano playing?
As you can see:
-I am the first person to define the contents of piano technique.
-More importantly , I can find the practical solutions to technique problems.
-Due to these reasons anyone can achieve the highest possible piano technique level, according to one's born ability, by the sure way.
-Everybody can self-learn to play piano without spending any money except making music. If you are not concert pianist , do listen to several recordings of the same composition to get the feeling what the expression you want to do.
Good luck.

Fantastic. Literally!
Do post a video as soon as possible of you playing or one of your students in this method. That will give the best idea of what level a reader of your book can achieve.

Of course we always welcome any ideas, but I think your post is a bit scattered and that some of your claims are just mistaken. IMO that's not a good start.

For example:


I don't see that. Firstly, others have done it (or tried to do it) -- for example, Ortmann and Gat -- and secondly, I don't see that you do. You indicate concepts about it -- none of which sound new, frankly -- and there are other possible concepts.


Perhaps you can for some people, and perhaps not -- but no book can do it for everybody. And sometimes a person has discovered something that works for himself but not particularly for others.

But the most bothersome thing about it is that you seem to imply that you uniquely can help people find practical solutions to technical problems, and that nobody before you had a good approach.


If you mean everyone can achieve the highest level that they're capable of, well of course. If you mean they can achieve the highest level, period, that's misleading and, for most people, false. And either way, what I know for sure is that there's no "sure way."

Also, I think many people would disagree that "to achieve high speed in piano playing" is a good statement of the "goal."


I like that part.

And good luck to you as well. Perhaps your book will be a welcome addition to the literature on piano technique. But IMO you haven't presented it greatly, and the post seems like a misleading come-on. I think you'd have a better chance to make a good impression if you expressed it all more briefly and clearly, and without exaggerated claims. Sorry if I'm being a bit hard on you, but I'm pretty bothered by misleading and exaggerated come-ons.

I understand your need to make money by selling your book. However I doubt that anyone is going to fork over $20 to buy a book on piano practice by an unknown old man in Ho Chi Minh City.

May I suggest an alternative? Why not put your book online for free? Then you'll reach a very wide audience. As people try out your methods and become piano virtuosos you will become famous. Then you can start selling the print version of your book. This is what C. C. Chang did:
Fundamentals of Piano Practice

http://www.pianofundamentals.com/book

It's (all too) easy to blame personal rejection on your race. It's much harder, though, to write a good book that truly interests publishers.
I think it is absurd to truly capture the essence of professional piano playing on 27 pages. Even Chopin needed the printing space it took for his 24 etudes to express what his pianistic program was about.

Hey OP. Please learn how to write properly, with paragraph spaces and correct grammar. I just can't read your post because it's so jumbled and confusing.

The publishers' refusal to acknowledge your contribution is not necessarily an act of racism. A book on piano methodology, no matter how thin or how thick, has to be written in a authoritative but readable style using correct grammar and correct mechanics of writing. If you have written the book in English and if the book's writing style is anything like the style of your post, it is understandable that a publisher would not even respond to your manuscript, given that it is poorly written. There is no disrespect intended in my comment that your writing style in English is inadequate to the message you wish to convey, and would not be accepted by any publisher publishing in English.

If English is not your native language and you hope to have the book published in English, you must have a writer with a good knowledge of English "translate" the book for you before submitting it to any publisher. Granted, an editor can suggest corrections to make a text more marketable, but I don't think any editor would have the time to re-write a poorly written text into correct, readable English.

Regards,

Yes indeed -- but in view of the issues about the substance of what he has written (and apparently his basic way of approaching the subject), the language and style issues seem to be moot. I don't think good translation would help -- but revision might.

He can self publish his book through Amazon very easily. I seriously doubt there is any book, however. This has a certain "scam" ring to it.

My appologies to the OP if I am incorrect.

Very possible, but I don't doubt it that much. And anyway if it's not a scam, it seems that the writer is a bit naive and has been somewhat isolated about the subject. I don't think that anybody who's been "in the loop" or who has spoken much with others in the field would have come out with something quite like this.

So why post? Does he give links to anything? Addresses?
I'm sorry - i couldn't make it through the entire post.

This is not the way beginners are taught. Beginners are taught touch from the first lesson. You lost me at 'hello'.


Who could disagree with this statement, however? And are there any teachers who engage in this torture technique? My teacher didn't use it on me, and I haven't used it on my students.



I am interested to know more about your research methodology and the subjects of your experiments.



There are actually any number of reasons beside racism and idiocy that explain a publisher refusing a manuscript - sometimes it's about the fit being wrong, or about not having an interest in publishing a new title when the publisher already has a range of books on that topic. Many an excellent author has had their manuscripts turned down by wonderful publishers. You would do well to not take it overly personally.


Please don't let my husband know that your definition of an old man is someone aged 52. He believes himself to be middle-aged. Also my father who is 71 might be discouraged to discover how long a time it has been since he became old. He thinks he might be getting old just this year.


How would you describe the other organisms who have defined the contents of piano technique prior to this, if not through the use of the word 'person'?

welcome to Piano World

Yes.
There are many apparent problems with this guy's basic approach, one of which is that he equates technique with speed. Others include how he seems to feel that everybody else who has ever written on this sucks.
That's always (I think literally always) a red flag.


I hope you're being sarcastic. In view of a whole lot of things that we can see about his approach and thought processes, I'm more like "Please spare us."

What the heck was this post. Show us videos or audio of your playing and then we can decide if we want to learn from you.

Secondly, do you even play the piano?

Guys we may have a winner for the next "Gyro"...

Dunno......Gyro's sheer volume is a tough mountain to climb.

But good idea.

Or maybe it can compete in this category:

Ya' just can't buy medicine like ya' used to be able to. Tylenol - what the heck is tylenol? It only does one thing, unlike those wonderful tonics which promised 30 different uses and more! I want a medicine which will restore my hair, cure my bad breath and immunize me from rickets, all in one spoonful, taken twice every hour, for 4 weeks.

This is an expectorant and a worm remedy? Do you cough up the worms? YECCCH!