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…
L’Approche Taubman la technique du piano
Huge thank you to Marina Alcolea for translating my article into French! http://pianoacoeur.com/lapproche-taubman-la-technique-du-piano/
Interview with John Bloomfield and Tim Topham on the Taubman Approach, Jan 2017
Giving pain a name?
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…
FAQ: I’ve just found out about the Taubman Approach. Where do I go for information?
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,…
FAQ: How can I stop my student playing with a low wrist?
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…
FAQ: How do you help a student with legato versus staccato?
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…
FAQ: How can I play this passage faster?
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…
On separate hands versus hand together playing
One of the many misunderstandings around Dorothy Taubman and the Taubman work is the issue of separate hands versus hands together practice. In contrast to the common practice of learning (and memorising) the right hand, then the left hand, and…
FAQ: My student won’t curl their fingers, what should I do?
There is often confusion over language in describing technique. One example is the action of pulling in the nail joint, called “curling” in the Taubman Approach,but described by others as curving. In Taubman language, “curving” relates to the natural contour of the…