Technique & phrasing

There is a shared core memory in the careers of most piano players.  It’s those moments of agonizing frustration when your teacher insisted for the 19th time that you sit up straight, curve your fingers, relax your elbows, breath through your nose, loosen your wrists, scoot back on the bench, and root your heels to the floor. And, for many of us, this was also accompanied by the subsequent unspoken question “Why does all that rot matter?” Well, I’m here to hazard an answer in our discussion of technique. 

Now, of course, technique is a concept discussed during the learning of any instrument, not just piano. But, as a pianist, I will mostly use it as our reference. 

Let’s answer the initial question up front: Proper technique matters because it will define what musical tools you can master, as well as how well you can execute them. Let’s examine some examples…

• Pianist: Sitting up straight. This allows for several advantages. One, the pianist can breath better, essentially fueling their performance sufficiently. Two, increased mobility from weight and tension resting on the entire back and spine instead of the neck and shoulders. 
• Pianist: Curved fingers: Allows for greater mobility, as well as greater range of power that allows for playing louder and quieter
• Drummer: Loose, pinched stick grip: Allows for much faster tempos/styles, as the stick is permitted to move up and down by the rebounding force of each hit, rather than purely from the drummer’s up and down movements

This short list begs a question: is every point of technical excellence necessary for every musician? I would argue no. For so many of us, music is a hobby, a de-stressor, a meditative activity. Decidedly not an academic pursuit, career ambition, or professional endeavor. So, if the seemingly endless list of points of technique do nothing but bog a hobbyist down, maybe don’t attend to all of them on the daily. 

However, quite frequently proper, developing technique is all that keeps a musician from progressing to their next desire level, so it is vitally important for anyone not quite where they want to be with their musical abilities. 

Closely related to technique, and directly fueled by it, is the concept of phrasing. Let’s define it this way: 

Musical Phrase: A complete, coherent musical idea contained in a composition that has a clear, beginning, middle and end

This is somewhat vague and abstract, so let’s get a bit more concrete by examining the tools necessary to express these complete musical phrases. Note their relation to the points of technique mentioned previously. Also note the parallels between the elements of phrasing and the elements of human speech and conversation; it is often a helpful way to hear and understand musical phrasing. 

• Volume: Rarely do musical phrases maintain the same volume throughout. They rise, fall, and rise, or rise and fall, or fall, rise, and fall. It gives the phrase distinct flow, and helps communicate its beginning and end
• Tempo: Less commonly, but importantly, a phrase can rise in fall in tempo (speed). 
• Emphasis: In an especially subtle way, some notes or moments in a musical phrase will be emphasized to make clear the climax, buildup, or conclusion of the phrase

As already hinted, the extent of your grasp of these tools to build musical phrases are very closely tied with the quality of your technique. If your wrists are locked, a pianist can only play so fast in a phrase that demands increasing speed. If your fingers are flat, you can only play so loudly when the phrase contains a dramatic climax.

I will again share my opening disclaimer: technique can be endlessly improved upon for just about any musician, so you should make clear to yourself just how far you want to go in developing technique before it begins to be an unnecessary weight. Simultaneously, you can only go so far with poor technique.