Technique of playing an instrument; ugh, how ugly words!

When it comes to art, I don't like to hear this word: technique.
It makes me remember all those poor piano students who are versed in all kinds of finger exercises; being promissed (by their uninspired professors) that this is the shortest and best way to achieve top-pianism, they are diligently lifting and descending their fingers every day, day by day, year by year... Well, nowadays the things are not so cruel anymore, why anybody can read in almost every good methodic book how isolated "gymnastic finger exercices" represent reverse process from that which grants true musical results.

So what was the first? The soul or the body? I don't need to answer that, do I? Similarly we can think of technique and (poetic) musical content. Was technique the first? "Of course not," you say. And of course you are right. It was Chopin with his great soul and music (which came to the world through his invaluable internal hearing), it was him who set new technical requirements infront of pianists of 19th century. Not vice versa - it was not technique who dictated Chopin to write the genial two opuses of studies (how absurd this sentence sounds, no?).

Thus music with its written record (and what lies "behind the notes") dictates technique. In other words, technique represents means to achieve the objective - the embodiment of music content. How do this means of achievement work? Mind (brain) creates a special movement or operation of the arm, fingers, other parts of the body, what ultimately produces the sound (of the instrument) for which musical content is calling for. Piano technique could simply reflect in the "reciprocal relation between the weight of hands and activity of the fingers"; simply put: production of sound in specific moment depends on the fact - how much weight do we give to the hands and how active are the fingers. But let's not forget the most important: this mutual realation of weight and activity of the fingers varies depending on the requirements dictated by the musical content. The technique is therefore not something separated from music, it's not a pill that you need to eat, to speed-up your fingers. Finger-speed, by the way, doesn't depend on unstopable playing of "soul-killing" finger exercises, but mainly on the speed of our thoughts - produced by the great will of the creative artist. Technique is the consequence of our will, the will of our spirit, to create the true beauty.

Concluding from this, isn't it better to solve a technical problem when it occurs - because of the music content, and not when we don't see the reason for it's genesis (eg, in finger exercises)? So when a problem of thirds occurs in Bethoveen's Sonata, we will solve the problem there - trying to understand a musical value of the mentioned problem, when a problem of cantilene occurs in Chopin's Nocturne, again, it will be solved there - in order to achieve natural music flow, we will solve problem of octaves in a study of Moszkowski, problem of Alberti's bass in Mozart's sonatas, etc.. Music has made all that we call technique, so why not to start our work by understanding the music and its content - seing what constitutes a musical idea, what does this idea mean, which technical requirement does it create, and why.

I hate when one says: "Oh no, I can't play Chopin's study Op. 10 No. 4, because it is so technically difficult." Not really. You can not play it, because you are diligently lifting your fingers - not taking into consideration that the "beloved presto" has its melody as well, melody which has its stable and unstable tones, which has it's way, its peaks, that this melodic line (although in presto) calls for the idea of the sound-beauty (which means that you have to - in order to achieve uniformity of sound and derivation of fast musical thught - economize all movements to the extreme point, that you have to set your hand completely free in order to facilitate the speed of the fingers, etc.), that besides that, it is extremely important to keep an eye on the left hand (which we love to neglect, while being obsessed with the complexity of the right hand), because the latter is the one, which dictates the pulse, music breathing, since the latter is responsible for the harmonic flow, etc.. So, you can't play the study, because you do not have clear sound picture - internal hearing of what lies "behind the music notes". If you are completely sure of why each tone lies where it lies, you will soon unclear also how to transform the internal hearing into representative sound. Even if you do not know yet what kind of gestures you will have to create in order to achieve certain sound, at least you are sure of what you want to hear. And because you are full of creative power, because your will is strong as a mountain, you will be looking for that sound as long as it needs to be found. Of course, musical vision is constantly changing during a long-time practising process, but this does not invalidate the fact that we have to create a "crystal clear sound picture of the piece" already in the beginning of practising.

Much more important, then an isolated practising of technique, is therefore practising how to understand the music score and music content, because it is only the latter, which talks about what does specific tone mean, why is it necessary to create certain sound and suggests how (technical solution and installation of the sounds in time).

Finger-speed and relaxed hands by itself don't meen anything. Their symbiosis dictated by emotional-lyrical content of music is what we might call a technique (for example of piano playing). Nevertheless, for insight into the emotional-lyrical content it is not enough to move your fingers ten hours per day. It is necessary to go out of the room, it's necessary to hug the whole world with your large extensible fingers of love, because the world is the one who gave you and me the invaluable opportunity to be able to hear beauty.

Memorizing of music

That damn memorizing.
It is true that each artist has its own specificity and that we are all distinguished already by our predispositions (which, even if they are not the best, can be developed to unimaginable extent), but there is something what glorifies memorizing in its undeserved throne. Perhaps teachers, the time constraints, learning plans, etc.
In any case, memorizing is the last (and least important) thing to be worried about. It represents a logical result of a long, productive work on music and not a separate process of learning notes by hearth. Clearly there are musical works harder for the head (polyphony, dodecaphony etc..) and it is good that there are ways, which help to learn them (e.g., registration of numbers, fingerings, learning of harmonic structure, learning the piece from the end toward the beginning, recognizing motivic structure...). Nevertheles, we must not forget what is the most important thing for a musician: to (re)create music. That means to see what lies behind the notes, that means to detect emotional-poetic content, that means to create our own vision of musical piece and finally design all musical thoughts in slightest detail, dressing them in the sound that they require. Next step is: to call into exsistence our musical ideas, i.e. how to use our body to produce certain sounds (being placed in musical context). In all of this work there are three tipes of criteria for evaluating our own work and performance: how does our body look like while we play (body gestures have to be natural and consistent with the musical content), how do we feel (our body has to be relaxed or better not more tensed then it's necessary), and finally what we hear (the sound and musical flow that we produce is the same as our musical vision, internal hearing). These are the things we must be careful about when playing an instrument (when we practise, as well when we play in the concert). And now let's thing. Concentrating on all this, can we have other things on our mind? For example, which note is the following and if we are lucky to reach the end of the piece ... Not! We can not have. Considering that at the same time we are thinking in advance about the musical content, in the same time creating a proper thought, which will create respondent movements (for a desired sound), that in the same time we have to be careful on how we feel, how do we look like and how everything sounds, we reach to the conclusion that there isn't any space left for other (unimportant) thoughts. Why then so many disturbing thoughts sneak into practising of a musician? Why isn't he, even after so much time, able to play the piece from the start to the end without undue stopping? Is it the bad memory, which is guilty for that? No! Practising. Practising, which is not concentrated. Why is practising not sober-minded? Because a musician is not achieving desired results. That is why he is not enthusiastic, that's why the other thoughts come on his mind. It could be that he doens't have clear vision of music, that he doesn't know what to do with the music text, perhaps he doesn't know how to materialize music ideas (i.e. he is not aware of how to create a movement of the hand that will produce the desired sound result). If the musician, by contrast, practices productively - reaching the music, he can't get sleepy, and his thoughts can't go elsewhere, why he is too excited about the outcome, which he has created, about the sound and the ideas that are now hearable and have achieved their purpose.
The main problem therefore lies not in the memory capacity of the individual, but in his understanding of music and way of practising - that should always inspire good feelings (finally, don't we make music because it makes us incredibly happy?).
To sum up, memory isn't of a great importance for a musical reproduction (anyone can play with the score if he wants). Beeing sure in the musical content (in what's behind the music notes) and in the way of embodying the musical content in sound, brings true self-confidence in musician. And then he forgets that memorizing exsists at all...