Abby Whiteside on Piano Playing
Abby Whiteside on Piano Playing : Indispensables of Piano Playing and Mastering the Chopin Etudes and Other Essays Abby Whiteside,
Publisher: Amadeus Press
ISBN: 1574670204
Edition: Hardcover; 2003-03-01
Summary:
Two of piano pedagogue Abby Whiteside's most influential essays,
"Indispensables of Piano Playing," from 1955, and "Mastering the
Chopin Etudes," from 1969, are reprinted in this volume, along with
several shorter pieces. Whiteside's iconoclastic but firmly held
beliefs are still provocative: "the pianist cannot control tone
quality," "the importance of a prescribed fingering is practically
nil," and "time spent on scales is not used to best advantage" are
among them. But Whiteside backs up her ideas persuasively, and even
pianists who cannot go along with her all the way will likely find
themselves altering aspects of their techniques. Whiteside bases all
pianism on motions of the upper arms (confusingly called "top arms"
in "Indispensables") and de-emphasizes anything to do with the
fingers. She sees the forearm and fingers only as extensions of the
upper arm, which is responsible for speed and accuracy. She is good
at imagery in pressing her points: skating, jazz players, and
untrained children are recurrent points of reference. Another of her
main principles, the idea of basic rhythm, is well characterized by
musical examples. Readers would do well to begin with the foreword to
"Mastering the Chopin Etudes" (written by Joseph Prostakoff and
Sophia Rosoff, whose teaching is still based on the Whiteside
principles), which helpfully clarifies some of the ideas from the
outsider's perspective. "Mastering" refines many of the points from
"Indispensables," and is best read first. Although "Indispensables"
is divided into chapters, much of the same material is covered all
the way through, and there is a great deal of overlap with
"Mastering." Undoubtedly, there are some ideas in these essays that
made complete sense only from the source herself, but there is much
here of benefit to pianists of all levels. --William R. Braun
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