Posture at the piano

Some top pianists sit at the piano and contort their bodies in a way that destroys their health, and it is 100% unnecessary as well as incredibly dangerous. Your shoulders should be relaxed, with no tension in the neck, and everything should look easy, natural and effortless. The greatest pianists I’ve seen make piano playing look like the easiest thing in the world.

Argerich is the best current model:

She is now 0ver 80 but plays with the mastery of others half her age. At 80 you have to do things right, the fact that she is a women shows that big muscles and a big, powerful young body has NOTHING to do with playing the piano. If only I had seen the video below at age 13:

Now “the rest of the story” is how NOT to play the piano, and you have to look at these pianists to understand why the physical approach is so good or terrible. There are quite a few top pianists who ended their careers with focal dystonia, and although it’s not fair or accurate to say it’s caused by playing the piano wrong, it’s certainly a huge factor. Remember, you can sound great moving wrong, but it’s very dangerous.

The right way to move:

Rubinstein:

At this point he was half blind and no longer could read books. There is no unnecessary movement, no tension, and the hands just do what they are supposed to do. No acting, no grimaces, just pure playing. To get an idea what he could do at his peak, just check out videos made earlier.

Argerich:

You already saw here above. Her body is absolutely relaxed.

Now, some causes of focal dystonia:

• Playing for long periods without a break.
• An excessive focus on finger exercises, especially exercises involving lifting fingers forcefully while others are held down.
• Playing with very stiff fingers, with a high action, or overly curved fingers.
• Playing with a predominantly ‘finger technique’ with very little engagement of the rest of the arm.

This is serious, and it’s caused by misguided teachers or self-teaching:

Here are just a few totally insane ideas that are still currently taught be some teachers that you want to avoid at all cost:

• The worst: Play with a coin on your hand, and don’t let it fall off. (If a teacher tells you this, RUN to the nearest exit, because this is wrong in every way.
• Dangerous: Use the fingers like little hammers, lifting up curved fingers – this will cause nothing but damage.
• Something that kills speed and ease: Don’t move your wrists – that idea went out the window with Chopin and Liszt, almost two centuries ago.

Watch the videos below to see what you never want to do. Don’t be fooled by the playing, which is great.

Glenn Gould, the worst posture I’ve ever seen:

There is no better player of Bach, but he had pain in his whole body and died at age 50. He was also addicted to pain killers. I blame at least half of this on his piano teacher, because these horrible habits are learned by young players and then are ingrained for a lifetime. Just watching him play makes my whole body hurt,

Sokolov, the man who plays great but who has terrible posture, which will shorten his career:

His playing is great, but he looks like a hunchback, and it’s from decades of playing wrong. Watching him makes me feel pain in my whole body

Leon Fleisher:

Note that his playing is only a depressing idea of what he did at his peak, because he ruined his right hand.

Gary Graffman:

Note that he is playing only with his left hand. His career was destroyed.