Articles
RELAXATION
Relaxation is a state, a phenomenon. Why is relaxationa special topic? It is because in every teaching experience, there is the problem of the students’ juxtaposition between relaxation and tension. They are confused and lack the effective ability to adjust. Relaxation has often become an important issue in their learning process. Yet to many teachers, relaxation is often not an important topic in training their students. They do not place relaxationin its necessary place. Although relaxation is not the most important item in training technique, it accompanies its entire process. We all know that playing the piano involves quite some tension of our mind and muscles. As the technique gradually improves, the degree of necessary tension gradually increases. Therefore, tension needs to be developed rationally in order to play a healthy, smooth and active role in playing, giving it vitality and explosive force. Relaxation becomes relatively important. Tension and relaxation are a unification of opposites. Attain the balance between the two, so tension will not become rigid and go to the dead end.
We introduce a movement which helps to attain relaxation in playing. It is simple and easy, because it is the hands’ natural ability. But it can only be achieved when the hands are relaxed.
Place the hands casually and naturally on the surface of the keys, each finger grips key lightly one at a time, and the arm will be naturally lifted up; the piano will put forth a light and focused sound and the whole process is completed. Everyone knows how to grip the keys and how to lift their arms; these are their natural abilities. But the crucial point is that pianists with rigid hands cannot do this movement. Since everyone can do it, those with rigid hands must first relax the muscles of their hands before learning to do this exercise. Practice continuously for one to two weeks, the result will be very obvious. Each finger uses this method separately, grips the key (arm lifts up simultaneously as a result), put it back and start the process with the next finger.
Some Explanations:
Due to many reasons, there are pianists who have been playing for many years and yet their hands have always been very tense and rigid. With such an incorrect habit existing for a long period of time, it is not easy to relax.
To fight against the power of habit is very difficult. The arm-weight cannot reach the bottom of the key bed through rigid muscles. For these pianists, we use the opposite method of training from the unblocked state, from the bottom to the top, starting from the fingertips. Place the hands casually and naturally on the keys as if on a table. This will eliminate the worries and tenseness psychologically. The student is not playing the piano, so his hand muscles are not rigid; his wrists and palms are relaxed; in this state his fingers will be able to grip the keys. Since his arms and elbows are also relaxed, when his fingers grip the keys, his arms will instantly be lifted up. How easy this is! Anyone can do this effortlessly. Once this is achieved, the palms, wrists, elbows and arms can immediately relax; the hands will miraculously recover and return to their original naturally relaxed state. When this occurs, it is now time to practice the arm-weight method from top to bottom.
We suggest that every student and pianist use this as a daily exercise in technical training. Even whose hands are not rigid, this exercise can prevent rigidity of the hand muscles. Not just for single notes, it is even more necessary in practicing octaves and chords, because the hands need to stretch out when playing octaves and chords. The hand muscles have a certain amount of tension when stretching. Therefore it is necessary to release this tension to its maximum possibility, in order to guarantee the smoothness and effectiveness of the practice. This simple movement is very useful for the training of advanced technique of great difficulty.
This exercise can also correct the wrong concept that to play the piano one needs to forcefully press or push the keys. This exercise lets the student experience and comprehend that the keys are very light. Lightly grip them with one’s fingertips will be able to produce sound. One must fully believe in and trust the capability of one’s fingertips. The fingertips are the main points of focus. This exercise does not need the participation of the arms and wrists, therefore the arms and wrists have no reason to be tense.
This exercise is the movement of the fingertips gripping keys upwards and also to have the piano produce rich, round and focused sound. Therefore the fingertips must go down to the bottom of the key bed in a split second, grip and bounce up with the arm. As a result, the sensitivity and explosive force of the fingertips are also being trained simultaneously.
