"The best pianist is the fastest and the loudest." True or false?

Yes, great piano playing is athletic, but even more importantly, it is artistic.

Where do you stand on the artistic/athletic spectrum? Piano Somatics, the art of conscious movement at the piano, helps you improve in both dimensions.

Do you want more fluency, more speed at the piano . . . a bigger, more varied sound?
Do you wish you could better execute your musical ideas... play with more feeling?
Do you suffer from stage fright? Are you injured? Do you simply feel awkward when you play?

Piano Somatics addresses all these issues, even that awkwardness, the source of which may lie hidden in your technique. Based on new discoveries in kinesiology, Piano Somatics weeds out a contradiction in the way piano has been taught down through the ages, resolving it easily, practically and intelligently – allowing you to improve every aspect of your technique and your musicianship.

Everything you do, sounds

The piano is amazingly sensitive to your internal state. It feels you, feels how you move, and how it responds in sound is a precise reflection of your inner world. When you map the movements of piano playing onto the musical structure – when your physical gesture is a direct reflection of your musical inflection – you have entered the realm of Embodied Piano Performance.

Using Piano Somatics to practice Embodied Piano Performance helps you

• Increase your agility, power, ease and sensitivity

• Play with more colour, more emotion and more character

• Eliminate performance anxiety: play with more confidence

• Eliminate injury: be free from RSI, tendonitis, carpal tunnel, dystonia

• See the approach empowering other instrumentalists and vocalists as well as pianists

Using the weight

We all possess weight – but how many of us are conscious of using it in daily actions? Nobody "feels the leg weight" to take a step – it makes no sense. At the piano, "sensing the arm weight" can similarly complicate things if we don't get it just right. Straightforward movements become ponderous and awkward.

Acting eliminates awkwardness

Moving the fingers, hands and arms at the piano is first and foremost an action. The awkwardness disappears when the finger acts, entering the key and moving it, not dropping into it. Hand, arm and body all help the finger establish relationship to the key. When there's no drop, nothing perturbs that relationship – there is no disconnect.

The anti-gravity function establishes relationship

Compare how humans stand on the ground to how the hand stands on key:

• The legs' standing action establishes the body's antigravity relationship to the ground.

• The fingers' playing action establishes the arm's antigravity relationship to the key.

By all means, sense your arm's weight, but use that sensitivity to move as we humans move in space – in relationship with gravity, not in its thrall. Avail yourself of all your wonderful capacity for movement. Use gravity to your purpose; don't become its victim.

Examines the "how" of piano playing

If these ideas make sense to you, you could benefit from a course in Piano Somatics. All pianists, no matter what their level or background, stand to gain by improving this fundamental relationship to their instrument.

The development of a new approach

For the past 40 years, Alan Fraser has been developing Piano Somatics, clarifying these and other ideas while combining them with the Feldenkrais Method and the teachings of two master pianists, Phil Cohen and Kemal Gekic. New insights into the hand's innate structure and function, new brain research into the role of movement in learning, and Fraser's extensive concert and teaching experience have helped him create an approach that is both sophisticated and eminently practical, both easy to apply and highly effective.

Improving the "how" improves the music

Attention to the physical directly improves the musical. Every refinement in physical organization leads to greater command over every aspect of one's music-making at the piano.

Take the next step towards a breakthrough in your technique by

• Purchasing one of Alan's seminal works on piano technique

• Scheduling a lesson with Alan

• Attending an institute - pick a venue from the dropdown menu.

• Browsing his sample teaching videos

• Reading more about the institute

Here's what some of Fraser's students have to say about the teaching:

“Alan Fraser is a wonderful, unique and truly dedicated teacher. His understanding of the functioning of the whole body in piano playing is exceptional and has helped me a lot. In fact I believe any pianist could benefit from working with him.”

Rafael Lipstein, Zurich

“Alan worked with me for several years in my student days.
Under his guidance I developed pianistically and artistically; without him I would not be where I am today.”

Misha Dacic, Madrid

“I learned much from Alan Fraser, an artist, musician and pianist of the first rank.”

Kemal Gekić, Miami

“Alan Fraser transformed my sound, my technique, and my musicianship. He raised my playing to competition level.”

Élodie Chech, Paris

“Alan made my hand more capable, allowing me to shape musical structures more individually and expressively.
He gave me a fully orchestral palette of sounds, and brought depth of character and emotion to my playing.”

Lili Bogdanova, Berlin

“I am just an amateur, but Alan still gave me the full scope of his attention, and brought my playing to a level I hadn't thought possible. I feel confident and for the first time can play in front of other people.”

Bill Hutchison, Pennsylvania

Latest news

Competition Preparations

Yveline Ciazynski, January 21, 2022

Alan had several of his students compete successfully last year - Lili Bogdanova in the Mendelssohn competition, Jan Hugo in the Utrecth Liszt competition, and Yukiko Ono, violin in the Paganini competition, Italy. More competition appearances to come.

Two new translations

Milos Yankovitch, May 28, 2022

Several of Alan Fraser's works have already been translated: The Craft of Piano Playing in German and Serbian and All Thumbs in French. We are excited to offer several new translations to our European fans. Honing the Pianistic Self-Image has been published in both French and German, in French by Editions Delatour, and the German version by Staccato Verlag, publishers of PianoNews magazine. Meanwhile, All Thumbs is close to completion in German, and The Craft of Piano Playing in French and Italian! Stay tuned for publication dates...

Alan's fourth book: Play the Piano with Your Whole Self

Alan Fraser, May 28, 2022

Like all my earlier books, this one has taken longer to edit than to write. It's my most ambitious project to date, with whole sections on harpsichord technique, biotensegrity, and infant development of movement skills - all related back to the hand on the keyboard. But now we have good news: the book has been typeset, and we are in the very last stages of proof corrections. It should be released sometime this autumn 2022.

Alan Fraser 2020 Recitals

Sophia Cholich, April 28, 2019

Due to a car accident, Alan is suffering from a pinched nerve in the neck and right arm and has curtailed his concert activities while it heals.

Pianimals

Sophia Cholich, January 27, 2021

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. The coronavirus pandemic provided Alan with the opportunity to edit Pianimals, the first piano method based on the Feldenkrais Method, with far more scrutiny than might have been mustered otherwise. The books are now published and many teachers are already using them to transform their studio work - and their own playing as well!

Alan's interview with Thera Klassen in the July/August 2019 issue of the EPTA Netherlands introduces Pianimals, and also discusses Feldenkrais and piano, and offers new explanations of the pleasures and pitfalls of arm weight technique. For the whole article, contact Thera Klaassen.

New version of pianotechnique.org

Alan Fraser, December 28, 2020

Meet Jovan Haji-Djuric, creator of pianotechnique.org and wizard designer of this site. Jovan has just completely re-coded pianotechnique.org, a mammoth job that has reaped rich rewards. The site is much more user-friendly, more easily navigable, and more easily curatable.

INSTITUTE INFORMATION

Find an Institute

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Institute Philosophy

The Institute's mission statement.
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Embodied Piano Practitioner.
Video Lessons

Extensive data base of Alan Fraser teaching videos

The Piano Somatics Institute

Piano technique for the 21st century

Yes, great piano playing is athletic, but even more importantly, it is artistic.

Everything you do, sounds

Using Piano Somatics to practice Embodied Piano Performance helps you

Using the weight

Acting eliminates awkwardness

The anti-gravity function establishes relationship

Compare how humans stand on the ground to how the hand stands on key:

Examines the "how" of piano playing

The development of a new approach

Improving the "how" improves the music

Take the next step towards a breakthrough in your technique by

Latest news

Competition Preparations

Two new translations

Alan's fourth book: Play the Piano with Your Whole Self

Alan Fraser 2020 Recitals

Pianimals

New version of pianotechnique.org

INSTITUTE INFORMATION

Find an Institute

Institute Philosophy

Certification

Video Lessons