Twenty Lessons In Keyboard Choreography [Paperback]

Seymour Bernstein (Composer)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1991

This unique book presents 'choreography' to pianists as a means of making a physical connection to musical feeling. The author has invented symbols designating finger, wrist and arm movements that will result in physical comfort and a sense of predictability and ease when performing for others.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Seymour Bernstein Music; First edition (June 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0793503728
• ISBN-13: 978-0793503728
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 9.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,244,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best introduction to piano technique around, May 4, 2001

By 

Claus Hetting (Gentofte, Copenhagen Denmark) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Twenty Lessons In Keyboard Choreography (Paperback)

Mr. Bernstein has again authored an invaluable volume. This book contains a methodical and straight-forward instruction in the key principles of expressive piano playing, and the fundamentals are the best that can be found in modern piano literature. The salient point is that Mr. Bernstein uses simple and effective means to demonstrate how to achieve control. In addition, it is noticable that a section on the piano mechanism itself is included. This is something that most pianists and teachers have very little knowledge about - but they certainly should! We can thank Seymour Berstein for his efforts, may he continue to produce excellent piano instructional literature.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seymour Bernstein is A Mench!, July 6, 2009

By 

Jose R. Pardinas (San Diego, California United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Twenty Lessons In Keyboard Choreography (Paperback)

I love this volume and Bernstein's equally useful "With Your Own Two Hands." His choreographic approach to piano study is very much needed given that a remarkably large number of piano methods (and instructors) simply fail to teach the basic movements upon which to build secure technical foundations.

The neglect of these principles has, without doubt, resulted in incalculable frustration, wasted time and bad habits. The latter in particular take an incredible amount of time, effort and patience to eradicate.

Bernstein's writing style is warmly personal and humanistic. He's the sort of piano teacher one wishes everyone could have.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best technique books!, August 21, 2006

By 

Sarah Cole "Prometheus Lass" (Asifiknew, Scatterbrain State) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Twenty Lessons In Keyboard Choreography (Paperback)

This book is invaluable for any pianist who wants to teach. Bernstein provides very clear directions, pictures, and exercise to illustrate each motion. So often teachers focus mainly on the abstracts of music such as the notes, the rhythms, the sound, the dynamics, the expression, without much discussion of how we produce the sound, and how different motions, and engagement of different muscles affects the sound produced. I highly recommend this book for piano teachers of all skill levels and educational backgrounds.

As a book for students, I would only recommend it for older students who enjoy reading, problem solving, and have decent attention spans--because of the lengthy blocks of text. He does use some rather silly looking and sounding exercises (such as playing with a pencil) to illustrate the basics of sound production.

The only real problem I had with the book is that his assessment of proper hand position. It seemed to me that either his idea of perfect hand position involved wrists raised above the natural line of arm and wrist, or he had unusually structured hands. He speaks at one point of playing with "straight fingers" and I myself cannot play that way without raising my wrists to an almost painful level. However, that is a small thing, and the wealth of information in this book, and the physical understanding of the act of playing piano makes this book worth every penny!