When first coming into contact with the Taubman work, people often struggle with the idea that it is okay to let go of long notes. I know I did. Of course we connect when possible (that is, when the hand…

There’s a special reason why I haven’t posted anything for a long while. His name is Zander, my beautiful first born, who joined the world on July 13 of this year. Before his arrival, a colleague asked me to write…

A nagging question I hear often as a Taubman teacher is around the length of the retraining process. The usual scenario is that a pianist brings to the process decades of habit, months if not years of pain, a good…

Huge thank you to Marina Alcolea for translating my article into French! http://pianoacoeur.com/lapproche-taubman-la-technique-du-piano/

Often, a pianist walks into my studio with a complicated diagnosis, and proceeds to give me a thorough rundown as to exactly which muscles and / or tendons are irritated. Meanwhile, I am observing how they use their hands and…

Increasingly, the internet or “Dr Google” is becoming the default go-to when we seek information. A colleague surmised recently that when we were children, we went to school to access the knowledge, which usually meant teachers or the library. Nowadays,…

As many of you know, the fundamental principle of the Taubman Approach is that the fingers, hand and forearm operate together in synchronicity. One tenet that emerges from this underlying foundation is that if the wrist is low, this critical…

A question teachers often ask is regarding helping students learn the skill of one hand playing legato while the other plays staccato. Basically, the  student needs to feel that at the moment of playing, both hands go down. The staccato hand…

It’s surprising how often I am asked over email or in a Facebook thread to give advice on how to play a passage faster. This is almost impossible to diagnose over text, without seeing the person interact with that particular…