The Importance of Technique
Why we think a solid technical foundation is essential for the success of our students at the Conservatory.
What is technique?
Technique is how you get around the piano effectively and efficiently. It requires the solidifying of movement and gesture so that you can play what you want to play when you want to play it. Technique is not only for concert pianists but is a necessity for every student to reach their full potential in wherever their lessons and dreams take them.
“But I just want to play repertoire…”
Musicians are, in many respects, highly trained athletes, and the nitty gritty of playing involves using the muscles to negotiate highly complex movements with success. While you can make progress just playing pieces, it is a slow and laborious process trying to read notes and rhythms and play with the correct motion all at the same time. Like in sports, fundamental skills, such as how to kick a soccer ball, dribble a basketball, or make an efficient tennis swing, need to be developed apart from the playing of the game itself.
When people think of working on scales and chords apart from pieces, they think it sounds boring. Playing a bunch of notes up and down the keyboard does not seem like what students sign up for, and having to learn specific fingerings for those patterns feels like a further waste of time. To be honest, if the only goal in learning these patterns is getting the notes and fingering right, then they are correct. It is boring. There are plenty of “learn to play the piano in 4 easy lessons” videos on YouTube and you don’t need a teacher to simply tell you the fingering of a scale.
The real world of technique is exciting, however. Honing the foundational skills and techniques under the guidance of an experienced teacher has wonderful benefits. As students spend time programing their muscles through technical practice, the resultant facility shows up in an ease of playing and speed of learning repertoire, and produces exponential success in relation to the time spent on technique.
What are the benefits of technique study?
Music pieces are made up of common “building blocks,” such as scales, chords, and arpeggios. It makes sense that securing all these patterns will make the learning of repertoire easier.
Patterning: The human brain is an amazing thing. The strip in the left side of the brain which is responsible for motor skills can be programmed with patterns, which will then be output as automatic movements in pieces. What a gift! The trick, however, is that patterns need to be inputted slowly and accurately to be successful. If you learn the patterns (and fingering) wrong, that’s what you’ll be given back in the pieces. Also, many repetitions are needed to forge secure patterning. Playing a scale up and down one time a day will afford you little.
Movement: There is more to be gained than learning the correct notes of patterns. It is the how you play the notes (with what motion) that is the technical element to be developed. This is why it is so important to have a good guide, and why at the Conservatory we value that all our teachers are advanced players. They are extremely skilled technically, so they know where their students are heading.
Fine-Tuning: Honing technical skills is a long-term process. Rarely does a student show up who can negotiate the patterns perfectly the first time. The teaching process is fun as each week the student presents the technique set and the teacher tweaks a different aspect for improvement. There are so many different ways to play the same notes, according to the desired sound, context, and style of a piece. Though there is give and take in weekly lessons, we try to help students develop a basic “default” way of playing.
Development: Since musicians are athletes, there are muscles to be developed, and, again, no muscles are developed by playing just one triad on the piano and learning its name (although this is an important theoretical concept to be learned). Much repetition is needed to build up finger strength through scales, and certainly strength in the arch of the hand through chord practice. Further, working to coordinate all of the various components needed in piano playing such as fingers, hand, forearm, and upper arm into an efficient technique at the piano requires skilled guidance.
Aural: Finally, as students play all the technical skills at home in practice each day, they are training their ears. They don’t just have the head knowledge of the difference between a major and minor scale— they can hear it. This is a great aid in learning pieces because they, in essence, already know the sound language of music.
How do we develop technique at the Conservatory?
Culture: We have worked hard to create a culture of technical success at the Conservatory. It is very helpful that, since we are a school, the students hear all the other students playing their technique set as they walk by their lessons and know they are not alone! Everyone here learns the building blocks. We also pick one student to start each group class by playing their full technique set. In our advanced masterclasses, it has set up quite a competition as the students all sit up and listen intently to how fast another student’s double octaves are coming along! Healthy competition and peer pressure can be a good thing!
Engagement: Variety in the way the technical building blocks are played is important to deepen security, and students come to love it! I am indebted to my first teacher, Tirzah, who introduced me to this system which all our piano teachers use.
Routine: Each lesson starts with the technique set which serves as a time for the student to get in touch with how their body feels on a given day (tension, alignment, etc.). It is a lovely sort of discipline, and a way to ease into the actual music making of their pieces. Students lead very hectic lives these days and the technique set serves to bring their focus to the piano.
Technique is an important part of a solid foundation at the piano. You cannot build higher stories on top of a house with a faulty foundation. Having judged many festivals and competitions, I can’t tell you how many times I have sat sadly listening to a musically talented student play who simply did not have the technique to support their repertoire. Students without solid technique will inevitably reach a ceiling— whether it’s because of excessive tension, weak muscles, or incorrect movements—which will curtail their progress into more advanced repertoire.
At the Conservatory, we are committed to ensuring that all our students are equipped to reach their full potential and goals. We want them to thrive in their music making, with creativity, beauty of sounds, and enjoyment of expression being the highest goals. To that end, we are convinced that guiding them to a secure technical foundation is a big piece of the puzzle. Let the technique begin!