Recently, I sprang upon a schemata that was an immediate turnoff. It amplified all the nitpicky processes that the brain performs while an individual plays the piano.
Almost without thinking, I copied the colorful map, sending it to my crop of adult students, many in their senior years. As expected, the first reply was a gut punch to the over-analysis of what should otherwise evolve as a natural, developmental process in learning the piano. (somewhat akin to the progression from being born, to rolling over, to pulling oneself up, to standing, to walking) The baby does not need a chart to awaken what nature has planned in various stages.
***
The student who had decades of piano study under her belt, responded to the emailed diagram with wrenching honesty:
“Glad I never saw that before I started playing at age 40!!”
I feted her avoidance, while regretting my autopilot mouse clicked mass message to those I mentor in a far healthier environment. (No charts of the cerebrum or cerebellum, if you please!)
My students are told to THINK less and LISTEN/FEEL more, with a free-flowing RELAXED BREATH.
In this spirit, Leon Fleisher’s mantra, “Hear it before you Play it,” makes sense as it resonates with my own philosophy of music-making.
While I can wax poetic about the imagination and how it fuels tonal expression, (without a second THOUGHT) it’s best that I share today’s relevant lesson in progress.
Though it diverges a bit by centering on the beauty of silence (the rest) as it moves seamlessly from what precedes, to what follows, the triad of LISTENING, FEELING and SPACING, replaces THINKING!
from Arioso7's Blog (Shirley Kirsten)
https://arioso7.wordpress.com/2020/06/15/dont-think-play-listen-feel-breathe/
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