Customer Reviews

Abby Whiteside on Piano Playing : Indispensables of Piano Playing - Mastering the Chopin Etudes and Other Essays

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The first book by Abbey uses unreadable English and convoluted sentences. Tho contents excellent, poor English makes learning unproductive.

Example: Q: Can Weight-an inert pressure-help develop facility? A:It is exactly the inert pressure of weight which cannot be used for speed. Words are important in teaching. Words of action are needed to suggest the coordination for speed. Weight does not suggest the muscular activity which moves the weight of the arm. It does suggest an inert pressure.

I don't think I completely agree with this; but with such biblical phraseology, how do I know exactly what she is saying? This example is average; some parts are even worse; she is also verbose.

Second book covers similar material and is written in plain English, so you might read this first, but is not as complete and organized. It is a real pity that such good advice is jumbled and not communicated to us all. One of top 5 books on content for piano practice.

I'm a concert pianist. I've played all over the world. I had already won several important competitions when I came in contact with Indispensibles. It revolutionized my approach to practice, learning, teaching and the effects were evident in my playing immediately. (A month after reading it and applying it, I went to London and won my most important competition. I'd never had such confidence that my music making was right and natural).
As other reviewers have mentioned, she's verbose (too excited about her subject) and her ideas are radical. Like all evangelists for a new cause, she had to overstate her case in many respects. (There certainly is a place for slow practice, deciding fingering is not always evil, etc.)But, her most important, basic contribution (ongoing rhythm, how that is felt in the body first, smaller levels become extensions of the rhythmic impulse, and how this can be tied in to practice and learning music)is truly genius. The movement of the music through time is the basis. Always practice that movement and internalize it. What good is playing all the notes of that vision and movement is killed in the process of learning? Whiteside helps you keep your eye on the goal and strengthen your concept of that goal in each practice session.
(One word of caution; students I've heard who only use doctrinaire Whiteside approach generally have wonderful sweep in their playing, but often lack definition technically. With that in mind, don't bar yourself from the huge benefits of Whiteside's thinking!)

...not practising the piano! I've had this book about a year. When I first read it, I thought it was gibberish and found it difficult to understand exactly what Abby was talking about. However, re-reading it recently has been nothing short of a revelation. So much so that I read it three times, each time getting more out of it.

I'll admit that Abby wasn't the greatest writer. But I don't share the opinion that she uses unreadable English. When you 'get it', everything becomes clear and makes perfect sense. Imagine trying to explain how to run to a child who can barely walk. It may be confusing that she used the expression 'top arm' to mean 'upper arm', for example, at least so it seems. But on a careful reading I don't think she meant merely 'upper arm' at all. I think she meant the upper arm AND the shoulder joint. Big difference.

Having read almost all the books on technique I can only judge Abby's ideas by the results they produce, and in the space of only a couple of weeks of carefully applying her ideas, my playing has become freer, with much less effort and tension and consequently very much improved. In other words, more musical, which, after all, is what it's all about. In the context of her teaching the supposed heresy of dumping meaningless scales and technical dross such as Hanon make complete sense - which is a major liberation in itself!

In my experience, great pianists can be appallingly bad at attempting to describe how they do what they do (re the note on Godowsky below). Their playing is so far above anything to do with 'technique' that attempts at descriptions in layman's terms become reduced to the glaringly obvious, and even contradictory (The Dover books alluded to in another review are a case in point). Arthur Rubinstein once remarked that he hadn't a clue how he did what he did, and I can well believe him. As I said above, this is a book about actually playing, not practising, and as such is priceless. I'm left with the impression that Abby Whiteside may well have been a genius teacher, and I'm sure it would have been an amazing experience to have had some lessons with her. In any event, a huge debt of gratitude is owed to her for putting down these ideas by those of us who are searching to make the best of our talent and to do justice to the other geniuses whose works we try to bring to life - or in my case, since I'm a jazz pianist, to try to improvise as well as Bud Powell!

Some reviewers have entirely missed the point of this book, but it's their loss. Ultimately, this is a unique approach, deeply concerned with the beauty of music, self-expression, and communicating through the piano in the most efficient way. It's an awesome book and the only one on playing, as opposed to practising, that I'll keep. It would be an injustice not to read it carefully and then re-read it again and again.

I am getting a master's degree in piano performance right now and this book was one of the first of many that I read when I started to analyze my own technique after realizing that I was doing nearly everything in a stiff, inefficient manner. Since working with a teacher that was able to turn my technique around, I've gone back to this book several times and each time I find something new. Especially important was the realization that the "fundemental" or "basic" rhythm of which Abby Whiteside speaks really is the ONLY way to achieving an effortless technique, and that gestures with the torso and the arms, once perfected, give one the feeling that all of the small muscular contractions needed for finger and hand articulation are virtually involuntary reflexes. It is not so simple, however, since fingertips give us the tactile sensation which we base these very arm/torso gestures on (when I point to something, the finger points and the arm follows, I don't "point with my arm"). Thus, a reader who doesn't know about the interosseous muscles of the hand (which provide support the same way as the arch of the foot provides support) might find himself flopping about the keyboard trying to do everything with the larger muscles instead of working to integrate all of the muscles. This book should be read in conjunction with other books and should be re-read as one's technique improves. All of the "classic" books on technique really describe the same sensation, the only difference being which particular points are most important in the experience of the author. Still, though, the book is incredible and every pianist who lusts after speed AND ease should read it...I also recommend "The Pianists Talent" by Harold Taylor, which provides insight into posture and "touch," which are two things that this book does not really address.

I would like to urge all pianists with a serious interest in piano technique to read this book CAREFULLY and SLOWLY. It is not "light reading" but it will, with patience, reveal amazing things about playing the piano. Try following Ms. Whiteside's recipes as literally as possible and you will find that they work. I agree with some of the other reviews that her style is less felicitous than it might be, but give the lady a break! She is attempting to describe in words some very complex physical sensations. I first read this book in the summer of 1998 and have returned to it again and again for the details and the inspiration it consistantly provides.

The late Abby Whiteside was seen (and probably still is seen) as a heretic in the piano world. Yet, she was a truly dedicated teacher and a teacher devoted to developing tools and techniques so that all her students could advance. Her techniques are nothing short of revolutionary. I'm an organist, and I've been able to put many of her techniques at work with the organ.

Abby Whiteside did not possess the gift of writing. Her books are difficult reading. You must read and re-read whole sections. So much of what she deals with centres around physical sensations. These things are difficult, in and of themselves, to put into words.

I must take issue with a previous reviewer. A previous reviewer had stated that Abby Whiteside had not produced any major pianists. This is simply not true. The late pianist and composer Robert Helps was a student of hers. He specialised in 20th century music and he was particularly renowned for his skill at interpreting the thorny piano works of Roger Sessions. His technical were indeed formidable. The late Morton Gould studied with her. He posessed a fantastic technique, too. The composer David del Tredici is another Whiteside student.

You must understand that I descovered Abby Whiteside's books when I was only 15 (I am now 37). Back then the Abby Whiteside foundation distributed "Indespensibles of Piano Playing" to libraries across the U.S.

Abby wasn't a great writer but she was an outstanding visionary. At the time I held the belief that piano teachers were inherently micro-manager archetypes and that most pedagogical notions in fact suffered from a trecherous lack of overview. What I found in Abby Whiteside's writings was nothing short of a revelation. She discovered through careful observation that action is intrinsically linked to perception. That to learn an action (piano playing for instance) one might best focus on our perceptual link to that action. In the case of music the perceptual link she rightly found to be all encompassing was rhythm. In any attempt to learn something we inevitably become bogged down in a plethora of disociated details and our minds, and especially our bodies become confused. Abby found that we could learn more effectively by embracing the visceral, organizing force behind those details - rhythm. Get the feel first, then fill in the details. This was quite backwards from the way most people teach a skill.

Read Abby Whiteside. Roll with her images of the momentum felt when one ice skates. Remember that her ideas have much larger implications that her books imply. And please e-mail me if you know anything of the existence of remnants of the Abby Whiteside foundation or any other Whiteside diciple groups. After doing several research projects based on Whiteside's work I think I can adequately say that Abby Whiteside changed my life. - Andy Rinehart- Contamine@aol.com

This book is densely written, somewhat repetitive, and could use some editing, but is a must-read for the piano student. Whiteside has some unconventional advice, such as throwing away the Hanon and Czerny exercises and de-emphasizing fingering, an idea that deserves further discussion. She had very advanced students who may have gone through years of training in finger exercises, and thus, she may de-emphasize them too much. However, in my experience, it is absolutely important to understand how the pianist's entire body works together to produce music at the keyboard, and it is nearly impossible to play quickly and fluidly if the hand is clenched and taut. Whiteside emphasizes the importance of deriving power from the torso (as translated to the keys through the arms and fingers), and keeping the hand relaxed and supple (after all, you don't want to injure yourself the way Robert Schumann did in trying to build finger strength). The first chapter of the book discusses rhythm, which she considers all-important to beautiful performance: "Rhythm is the core of the blended activity of the entire playing mechanism." In this respect, she praises jazz artists who experience their music more directly (having "tune in their ears and a rhythm in their bodies") than do classical artists who learn music from the written score. There are many more worthwhile ideas in this book, covering everything from basic technique to memorization to playing arpeggios and trills.

The most important aspect of this book is the author's opinion, that everything in pianoplaying involves the complete body and the complete mind. She starts with putting what she calls 'the basic rhythm'as a starting point for all improvement of piano technique. Her writing is not allways clear, and readers are advised to read some of the passages over and over again, to grasp the true meaning of what she writes. She has been searching to find the right approach to teaching, just as every teacher. That means that some of her earlier writngs seem to contradict the later ones. The extra information provided by her pupils is therefor "indispensable".

This book has many good ideas and a very simple philosophy: "From center to periphery". I like it. It is a good book, but poor presentation. You have to read and re-read it to catch the meaning. I wish someone in Abby White Foundation could rewrite the book with better writing.