A beginner / intermediate here, and I never have thought about nor did my childhood piano teacher talk about technique, arm and hand movement, etc., to allow for easier access which ultimately allows for smoother transitions. Thanks!!
This is a well-produced and thought out demonstration of the basics of solid piano technique. The clear explanations, musical examples and variety of camera angles kept the lesson interesting all the way through!
It is most definitely one of the more fundamental cores that’s just not emphasized enough. Should be like the first thing any program should do before busting the piano. This knowledge was natural for me to get but only bc of my concurrent passion for physiology and anatomy and from Martial arts. My hands and fingers are still healthy and not suffering from arthritis. I’m not a professional but I can easily see how, without mindfulness on this aspect, many pianist can direct themselves towards a career death sentence if you grind it through. The essence of proper warm up, range motion.. or general proprioception.. that should be like the first thing to instill in any students joe or pro. I’m very glad to watch a video on this and I wish there were more of this on RU-vid bc we have many potentially great pianists who otherwise could harm themselves without the understanding. Subscribed.
Fascinating! These concepts were never taught to me. I have been playing now for over 40 years and while I haven't yet experienced hand pain or tendon issues (thankfully!), this makes me want to really analyze how I'm playing to make sure I'm not wasting motion and/or not using enough motion, rotation, etc., to ensure that I DON'T get fatigued or get tendon issues. Thanks so much for your time!
I can't thank you enough for not only sharing this info with us but presenting and demonstrating it the way you did. I was able to follow you so easily and wow what a difference. I've been playing for years but this is the first time I've heard this. You're a really good teacher. Many thanks💛
I have been in love with the piano for as long as I can remember, and, though my parents repeatedly promised me lessons, they never came through and I had to teach myself. I devoured every bit of musical knowledge that came my way. Two years ago for my birthday, thanks to my marvelous husband, I finally got the piano I had waited for all my life. It is just as much a part of me as my arms and legs. I am now 70 years old, and I think this is the best video I have ever seen. Thank you.
I had a similar experience, Stephanie. We are of a similar age. My family could not afford a piano, so I began on a spinet in a kind neighbor’s house. I was passionate from the beginning. We finally got a cheap upright and I paid for a few lessons by babysitting. I even tried to major in piano at my local university, but it was hopeless with such a background. My teacher focused on more advanced students. Fast forward to the present. I decided to try again during the pandemic and finally could afford a very nice piano. I joined tonebase and am learning a lot. However, this video is by far better than anything I have ever seen. I am overjoyed. I can do each motion and they make playing so much easier and fun! Watch out Chopin Ballades, here I come!
Stephanie, congratulations that you were able to fulfill your lifelong dream to own your own piano. I am 73 and just purchased a piano as well. I am excited to start studies again and have so many music compositions that I want to learn. I am sure you feel the same, I am so happy for you. Just curious, what kind of piano did you get? Mine is an Ebony 1982 YAMAHA (YUX) upright.
Good for you. I always say you are never too old to learn an instrument. I teach piano virtually as well as in person perand I have several adults. I personally started violin lessons when I was in my sixties. I am proud of you.
@@davidwhittaker9511 My piano is a Boston GP-156 PE. Unfortunately, I can't play it right now; three weeks ago I had thumb joint reconstruction surgery. It is going to be wonderful to be able to play octaves without pain!
I am 54 and and I always played guitar and dreamed of playing piano. Now I am learning. I'd like to watch a video of you playing. Congratulations for you and your husband from Brazil.
Thank you for this. In the rotation section, you looked for a word and arrived at a good explanation of bow an arrow, or a baseball pitcher both drawing back to gather momentum. In ballet we call this a preparatory movement, and these movements not only serve that same purpose, but they add grace and plasticity to the movement. 🙂⭐🙏🏼
What a precious knowledge and and experience you give there. Thanks for your passion and generosity. Extremely clear explanation. You are a master Madame ! 👍❤️☮️
Hello Marian, thank you só much for sharing your knowlege with us. You are such a kind person and i love to learn from you. I started playing on my simple Yamaha keyboard. I started with clássical pieces during The pandemic. First time that i had contact with the piano i was 6 years old. My mum brought me to a teacher and i had only 2 lessons. We moved tô another town and then i never saw a piano again. But i always knew that i wanted tô learn playing. Now i am 39 and i already read notes and i am playing simple pieces from bach e Beethoven. My dream is tô buy one day an acústic piano. Thank you, and i am sure that you will be succesfull with your vídeos
Amazing! I’ve studied the Sandor’s technique in Italy with teacher Christine Meyr and continue to dig it till now, I was looking for a long time to some video about this technique but couldn’t find much material. I’m happy that finally I’ve found someone who is explaining this great why to use our body to play the piano
I’m just a guitar player. I wish there were videos like yours for us… Very systematic tutorial, that helps to understand the multi-dimensional interplay of muscles, senses and the brain to produce what we call music, far beyond the two-dimensionality of sheet music. Bravo!
You are an excellent teacher. Very easy to understand and comprehend your concepts and techniques! Wish you would create more helpful videos for those wishing to learn and develop sound piano skills and techniques. Thank you in advance!
Well as a person suddenly intrigued by the piano - and having covered many Guitar styles I have recognized the importance of techniques supporting phrasing and execution - much of the nuances is driven by physiologically naturally supporting movement. - applied a few ideas surrounding some absurdly non-beginning pieces - revisited Daniel Barenboim's Clair de Lune and fortunately now there is more fluency and expressiveness in the recorded results - thanks for the additional focus.
I'm not sure how I found this, but I'm grateful. At 69, I've never practiced these techniques. This looks like a way to extend my playing life on these hands, maybe even improve, as I've been holding back in response to pain. Even at my desk, this all makes sense. Bravo and thank you!
Oh wow!! Thanks so much. Definitely gonna go through this in detail. I especially loved the advice, to look for patterns in the sheet music, that correlate with certain motions. Also love the smile of this gorgeous piano teacher. Piano playing is hard and it's fun and most of all it is so rewarding. I like to go to RU-vid, during a break, to get motivation and education. This video gave me both. Back to work!
Thank you for being so articulate and explaining this very essential detailed instruction on the very mystical and mostly unknown piano technique. Finally someone who has taken the time to pass this data of the specifics on to us. Much appreciated.
Thanks a million! This is truly invaluable. I’ll be re-watching this 1001 times so that all the lessons sink in. Nothing helps me more than knowing the anatomical reason why it is so.
I don't have time to watch this in it's entirety for the moment. I'm a Chiropractor forced to change my techniques due to a Major shoulder injury. I started playing the piano 7 months ago after my retirement, but I've already talked of piano technique for decades with a dear friend who is a Professor at our local conservatory. I hope to have my video on my series of exercises and self-help techniques for the low back, but also the shoulders and arms. Very good point about breathing, since I treated people for back, neck and shoulder problems and it was amazing how many people didn't know how to breathe. I'll comment more after I finish the video.
I loved seeing the sheet music notation used for phrasing, rapid down and up positions per type of key, the groupings etc. Your use of the ball to explain the motion was great.
This is one of the most well explained and rewarding lessons I have seen online. Thank you for inspiring and sharing. I hope you will make more videos in the future! 👏
This video was instrumental in my progression in learning how to play piano. I heard and saw things that my, at that time, teacher was not teaching me. Then, last summer, I attended an 8-hour intensive course in the scope of a Piano Festival near Lisbon, Portugal, where I live. The professional pianist that gave the course showed me some of the techniques mentioned in the video. I realised that I needed to follow her teaching, and now I am her regular student. Dr. Marian Lee, thanks a lot, you did lots for me. #marianleepiano
I'm so lucky to find your video! Thank you, Dr. Lee. As an adult beginner, I'm trying to find my way on the piano, and the fingering doesn't always make sense to me. The more I play, the more my wrist hurts. I know there must be something wrong. And now I know. Your presentation is wonderfully simple and understandable. It would be lovely to see more videos from you. May be give us some tips on how to stay relaxed in front of the piano (I find myself using so much force to press on the keys all the time)?
Thank you for the work you did in putting this video together. I appreciate the way you describe Sandor’s take on the movements - and how you demonstrated each one.
This is why you want the best teacher you can find. There are so many crucial habits that need to be installed correctly. Bad habits are hard to get rid of.
Thankyou for your kindness, first time hearing these techniques. Been playing for 8 years, You are very talented and knowledgeable. Thankyou for the valuable information that i can now file and use for the future. ❤️
Thank you so much, ma'am. I really appreciate your beautiful lesson. Love the way you've discarded your watch and jewelry to emphasize your hand movements without distraction to the pupils
Good evening Marian, thank you for sharing, hopefully you can share other wonderful piano's techniques all pianists should know. Looking forward to your next teaching videos. Thank again for sharing your knowledge. 👍👍👍👏👏👏
i am 69 years old -male - Chinese origin living in Austria. I'll soo get a Keyboard from my son. this video appears timely on my screen. thank you Dr Lee.
Thank you for this video. It really made me look the scores in a different way; now I see the pieces are indeed a combination of multiple techniques (dah, I see this now..lol), and how to approach for solving a problem, rather than spending hours by repeating phrases over and over without knowing what is causing my problem (or what technique I should acquire to be able to play well). I look forward to more videos coming! Again, thank you so much for taking the time to share your wealth of knowledge!
I've heard so much about rotation recently, but this video really put it into context. I'm sure I will be rewatching this a few times as i digest it all into my playing. Thank you for your time and effort. I had a ball!
Dear Dr. M.Lee, Your lesson was very useful. I've never heard about those five motions in my music school in Lithuania. Now I'm looking at scores from technical perspective. It's so interesting :) Thank you, a lot. ❤
Thanks. Very helpful. Especially how you tied these techniques into advanced repertoire. Also interesting how you use your thumb on ascending RH scales and arpeggios (lateral movement rather than thumb under).
Me and my daughter watched this today. Im 43 my daughhter is 11 it was very insightful to us both. Technique is something i struggle with, my little finger is like a hammer but im working very hard to improve my touch at the moment, we are both playing in a piano concert next month. One of my pieces is Bach prelude in c major, i need to get my little finger in check ready for my performance. My daughther is comimg up for 1 year of lessons, just about to start grade 1 this was just what we both needed. I found the ball analogy very good it made a lot of sense. Thank you very much.
Thank you so very much! His book was life-changing for me during my university years as I developed my own technique. Thrilled to hear this presentation, which I will share with my students.
This presentation was the best and most informative I've ever seen. I try to guide my students in this way as I have used these techniques for the last 50+ years. It makes playing so much easier and effective. Thank you so much for sharing and making it so easy to understand. I shall benefit and share extensively.
Wow, thank you for sharing such helpful technique! So glad you popped into my feed. That was a pleasure to watch, and so generous and thoughtful of you to put together this lesson. I will definitely be sharing this and following you!
Many thanks Marian for all these precious contents! I knew that book, but being able to see those correct motions in video and in detail from a Sandor's former student is so helpful and valuable! Greetings from Italy!
My piano teacher was also a Juilliard graduate when I was in high school and this is totally how it was taught to me. You use your entire body and important of breathing. all of the movement were also how she had me do , although without the detail explanation and reasoning behind them, she move my body and arm and hand to show me how and I learned that way in addition to imitating her movements when she demo but, now they make so much sense! thank you for the explanation!!
Thank you, great! I think this also corresponds to Breithaupt's (Natürliche Klaviertechniek) natural keyboard technique. What I still miss here is the explanation of the transition from the large to the small movement(s) as you draw a large circle and a small one. Especially in fast pieces with different techniques. Of course do not comment on your explanation, but this just stood out to me in my experience. Great correct explanations and examples from you, my compliments, thank you !!
That's awesome... very important and useful lessons which in a very simple words and at the same time were teached in a very useful and friendly manner. Thank you 👍💐
I know this is my second comment, but your video made me want to go buy the book, so I did. It is expensive, and I wish it could be reprinted so that it could possibly be cheaper and more accessible. However, it was totally worth it, and I was blessed to receive a little bonus with my copy - stuck in the book were two handwritten notes by Sandor himself to a student of his!! I watched your video again, following along with the examples given. I can't wait now to try all the OTHER examples he gives in his book. Again, it was truly worth every penny (I paid a little over $100 for it). I'm also excited to try these out on the little Bach piece I'm working on right now, the Prelude in F Major BWV 928. Thank you again, so much, for this video!
Thanks a lot for sharing all your knowledge with us! You teach very well! You truly helped clear many things on my mind with regards to piano technique since I am for the most part self-taught since I started playing when I was about 6 or 7! I have enrolled myself in formal piano lessons recently to be able to fix my technique with a good teacher and you have been my second teacher as of now! 🙂
I was made to stop moving my elbows for years of lessons, even though I often felt I needed them to reinforce the sound I wanted to make. I have some physical problems with my back and legs because of childhood polio so they are an essential part of MY instrument, which is my upper body. I don’t want to poke my elbows in someone’s eye, but thank you So Much for saying I can officially use them without mentally berating myself for not playing ‘properly’. I’m 76 now but it’s not too late and I’m going for it!! 😊❤
Thank you very much for this straight-forward and well presented explanation of these essential motions of piano technique. Very helpful. I also respect the way you spoke about your former teacher György Sándor. I will share your video.
Thank you so much for this video!!It was such a great pleasure watching useful and necessary techniques for the piano!!I would like to add another important issue and that is the wide range of hands. I mean the physiology of a hand or the physiology of the fingers.I would like to hear your important opinion.Thank you!!
Thank you. I really learnt a lot from this video. Thanks for sharing. Really appreciate it and I feel enlightened on how I should approached my playing. Thank you so much.
very good explained and sure with a good lessons. I´m proud to see and take this. I think the most important is realy EMOTION and then Expressivity. Thanks very much for this GREAT MASTERCLASS
Thank you so much for a great teaching video. I'm going to apply these techniques in my practicing. I managed to find and order a used (since it's out of print) copy of Mr Sandor's book. Very excited - thank you again!
