Should we be relaxed when we play?

 

Some people will say you need to be relaxed when you play. Or maybe they will say "relax your wrist." But what does that mean? Surely not relaxed like you are while lying on the couch. What is meant, or should be meant, is that you have no more tension than is necessary. My teacher, Joseph Prostakoff, used to say, "not relaxed like a cat lying in the sun, but like a cat ready to pounce." What we need when we play the piano is to be in a highly physically alert state; not tense, but not relaxed either. Your whole body, especially the arms and hands, feel animated and alert, and also supple and flexible. Like a cat.

To get a sense of this state of alertness, try the following: hold an object (it can be a pencil, a small rock, anything that is not breakable) in your hand with your fist closed, and your hand (palm and fingers) facing down towards the floor. Grip the item as hard as you can and feel the tension. Then, very slowly, loosen your grip, bit by bit, until eventually your grip will be too loose and the item will fall to the floor. The amount of tension you had in the moment before the item fell was just the amount you needed to hold it. You can do the same thing at the piano. Play a chord, and press very hard into the keys. While continuing to hold the keys down, ease up on the tension in your hand until it is so little that you cannot keep the keys depressed. Again, the amount of tension you need was just before that point. At the lesson, I do this this with my own hand, while the student grasps my palm. They can feel the easing of the tension as I do it. Then I have them feel their own palm with their other hand, to see if they can feel when it gets to the point of minimum tension.

With time, and keen awareness into your physical state at the piano, you can learn to feel this point. Sometimes, as you are playing, you may become aware you are "gripping" too hard, and you can then just ease up.

It is not enough for the teacher to say "relax." The teacher must show you how it feels to play with the minimum of tension and have you experience it yourself, as in the examples above. Unfortunately, the same teacher who says to relax may also be assigning you exercises which cause tension and strain. Most "finger exercises" encourage the antithesis of learning to play with minimal tension. They are designed to have you strain your fingers, supposedly to "strengthen" them. They will make your muscles tighter and you will have a harder time learning to play with no excess tension. As you've heard me say before, our piano training is more analogous to yoga than it is to weight-lifting.

Playing with too much tension over time will likely cause pain and strain, and will limit the types of music you can play, as well as speed, delicacy, etc.

What about playing "naturally?" What does this mean? There is nothing really natural about humans playing the piano; it's unlike anything else we would do in the course of our daily lives. The body must be trained to acquire skills, to move in such as way as it might not do "naturally." But we train it to do these things in a way that works with the body, not against it.