• Phil Cohen
• Kemal Gekić
• Moshe Feldenkrais
• Sam Slutsky
• The Craft of Piano Playing (also in DVD)
• Honing the Pianistic Self-Image
• All Thumbs: Well-Coordinated Piano Technique
• Play the Piano with Your Whole Self (in preparation)
• Transforming the Pianistic Self-Image (in preparation)
Embracing a wide range of approaches:
• Dorothy Taubman: Coordinate Motion
• Barbara Lister-Sink: Injury-Preventive Technique
• Seymour Bernstein: Musi-Physicality
• Seymour Fink: Mastering Piano Technique
• Doug Johnson: Kinematic Integration
• Paul Wirth: Gravi-Technique
• Charles Aschbrenner: Pulse Patterning
... and others
• addresses performance anxiety
• resolves injuries
• improves virtuosity and musical expressivity
Some technically brilliant pianists seem unemotional while a sensitive pianist may lack dexterity – but might mechanics and musicianship be two sides of the same coin? Might "technique vs. musicianship" be a false dichotomy?
Moshe Feldenkrais, source of many of the institute’s key ideas, said that “life is movement. Life without movement is unthinkable.” Similarly, musical life without movement is unthinkable. Studying the physical aspect of musical inflection and the musical aspect of physical gesture, one sees that at the piano, everything you do, sounds. A block to movement anywhere in the body, from the fingertip to the hip joints and beyond, has a negative effect on the sound.
Relaxing to unlock the block is ineffective, because relaxation is not an act – it is inert; there is no movement. Instead, we choreograph every musical idea, bring every musical gesture to physical life to unlock the body naturally. Physical tension dissolves when movement reflects a clear musical intention.
The institute analyzes and resolves movement anomalies that often crop up in the developing pianist.
• The hand seen as a mini-body learns lying down, standing up, walking, running, hopping and leaping on key just as an infant would – easily, developmentally.
• The weighted touch is mitigated by the anti-gravity function – the hand’s natural capacity (inherent in the grasping action) to carry the full weight of the arm effortlessly, elegantly on key.
• The thumb, the pianist’s “ugly duckling,” opposes itself to the fingers to empower the hand, increase strength and sensitivity, and create a multi-coloured musical expression.
• Phrases are shaped with lateral arm movements, neutralizing the negative ramifications of a vertical, overly weighted approach.
Many insist that the ear must reign supreme, that physical concerns distract one from the music - but this approach uses the phyiscal to reconnect the pianist to his or her musical self. Increased physical awareness makes one more capable, more in command, more able to fulfill ones musical goals, and more able to hear.
Acquaint yourself further with Piano Somatics by reading our brochure.
• Print copies of the brochure will be sent upon request.
• View the brochure here.
• Download the brochure to share with your colleagues.
• Best viewed in Adobe 2-page format
Designed to bring a new dimension to your piano playing and teaching, the institute combines daily Feldenkrais® Awareness Through Movement lessons with lectures and individual work at the piano. All participants can have a lesson with Alan Fraser every day, or every other day, by request.
This environment stimulates both body and mind to achieve the breakthrough that Fraser commits to at the beginning of the week. The group's camaraderie enhances the learning process as well – much is gained through comparing notes between sessions.
• expanded range of tonal colour
• deeper musical expression
• increased speed & suppleness
• other technical challenges resolved
• complete injury recovery
Participants speak about their Institute experience
Fraser’s approach benefits pianists of all levels - we all share similar skeletal structure, similar muscles, similar nerves, and similar brains. Students, teachers, professionals and amateurs both young and old are welcome as well as singers and instrumentalists.
A Workshop, Not a Master Class
The master class teacher imparts an interpretation, leaving questions of technique to the regular teacher. By contrast, Fraser empowers you to express your own musical ideas at the piano by focusing on technique - always of course linking it to musical structure.
Pieces brought for study need not be totally polished. Working in the beginning stages of preparation can lead to better learning: old habits are not yet ingrained, new habits more easily acquired. Remember, it's not a master class.
Performance Anxiety and Injury
Honing the physical relationship to the instrument makes playing easier and more masterful. Increased skill improves musical expression and reduces strain - addressing both performance anxiety and injury issues as well as basic ability.
When a full week is not possible, Fraser runs shorter institutes. Full institutes last four days or more; mini-institutes three days or less.
All activities are led by Alan Fraser.
"My teaching is very much 'hands-on.' Your sound improves when your connection to the piano is more organic - in Feldenkrais terms, free from parasitic contraction. Both stiffness and relaxation are superceded by vitality, where you are actively engaged in producing a sculpted, resonant, expressive sonority. You will learn the functional components of this movement style through the lectures, through listening, and through explanation - how to link musical conception to physical organization. At times I explain with a touch that senses and guides without intruding, fluidly joining your hand to the key for a tone both rich and immediate.
'My experience in both piano and Feldenkrais helps my ear and eye ferret out hidden points of tension or weakness that prevent you from creating this sound. Seeing the hand as a mini-body - the fingers as legs, the metacarpal-phalangeal joint as a hip joint, the hand as a pelvis, and the arm as a torso that breathes - helps me pinpoint where your hand fails to stand, walk, run and jump effectively on the keys. Seeing the shoulder as a hip joint helps connect the hand through to the whole body, whose dynamic sitting supports the hand in its empowered relation to the key.
'The physical focus never loses touch with the music. Each physical strategy has an affect on the sound and phrase shape, the musical and emotional expression. Mapping the movement of your physical structure onto the musical structure, you move better while mastering musical content more effectively."
More on the Institute philosophy here: TRANSCENDENCE IN PIANO PLAYING
"Alan showed me how to develop more power, more colour, more expression than I thought possible. Now I can simply do things at the piano I previously only dreamed of." John Tittmann, M.Mus SUNY Potsdam
"Alan showed me how to develop more power, more colour, more expression than I thought possible. Now I can simply do things at the piano I previously only dreamed of."
"This teaching is truly revolutionary; this one week changed my sound and changed my life! I am now playing consistently pain-free for the first time in years." Aurelien Boccard, doctoral student in piano, University of Kansas
"This teaching is truly revolutionary; this one week changed my sound and changed my life! I am now playing consistently pain-free for the first time in years."
"These lessons will sustain you for a lifetime. We worked, laughed, bonded and came away with a whole new world of physicality and sound." Sue Hammond, pianist, author and creator of "Beethoven Lives Upstairs"
"These lessons will sustain you for a lifetime. We worked, laughed, bonded and came away with a whole new world of physicality and sound."
"Alan took the strengths of the Russian school and used them to give me real strength. His work with the whole body made my fingers spring into new life, as if by magic." Irina Saygina, pianist and teacher, Portland, Oregon
"Alan took the strengths of the Russian school and used them to give me real strength. His work with the whole body made my fingers spring into new life, as if by magic."
"My teaching has been totally transformed. As I try out ideas from the Institute with my young pupils, their hands are waking up and starting to run and dance on the keyboard in a totally new way." Christine Olson, pianist and teacher, Northampton, MA
"My teaching has been totally transformed. As I try out ideas from the Institute with my young pupils, their hands are waking up and starting to run and dance on the keyboard in a totally new way."
"I've never seen a more nurturing teacher. He offers all the knowledge, caring, encouragement, support and dedication a student needs to reach a new high in his or her playing." Christina Biron, Smith Institute Graduate
"I've never seen a more nurturing teacher. He offers all the knowledge, caring, encouragement, support and dedication a student needs to reach a new high in his or her playing."
The Alan Fraser Piano Institute takes place in several European countries through the winter, and in North America over the summer months.
The rationale underpinning somatic piano technique.
A schematic diagram outlining the scope of Piano Somatics.
Enhancing weight technique with the anti-gravity function.
Become a Certified Piano Somatics Practitioner.
of the Institute
Forging a new approach to piano technique since the 1970's, Alan Fraser is still researching these questions in depth, bringing new material and insights to the Institute each successive year.
students as well
It was Christine's influence that first brought the Alan Fraser Piano Institute into being. She came down to New York City for a lesson with Alan in 2009, they got to talking, and the first institute at Smith College in 2011 was the result. Christine does a stellar job of coordinating every detail of the U Mass Institute, and maintains a thriving teaching practice at her home studio on Forbes Avenue in Northampton through the year. She is an Alexander Technique teacher who gets excited at the multiple possibilities for "cross-fertilization" between Alexander, Feldenkrais Method and Alan's Craft of Piano Method. She finds her teaching has not so much improved as transformed her students' playing since she began working with Alan.
du son perdu
Yveline first discovered Alan Fraser in 2010, and quickly came to believe that his teaching represents an "epistemological rupture" with previous schools. She has translated three of his books (Honing the Pianist Self-Image, All Thumbs, and Play Piano with the Whole Self) into French (Editions Delatour), and her indefatigable efforts to spread Alan Fraser's teaching in France have led to editions of his institute springing up in Paris and numerous other local centers throughout the country.
rocks
Nila first attended an Alan Fraser Institute in 2011, and has been using the approach to transform her Suzuki teaching. She finds the two systems dovetail well, and she is happy to offer her students this further refinement of the Suzuki wisdom. Nila is onsite coordinator for the Salt Lake City Institute which is actually held at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, a half an hour north of Salt Lake.
reign supreme
Kathy is Dean of Students and Faculty at the Concord Community Music School, and has an active career accompanying, teaching, and playing the organ in church on Sunday mornings. She has been attending the Alan Fraser Institute since 2012, and immediately noticed the impact Alan Fraser's teaching had on her own playing. She was quick to arrange for him to open a branch of the Institute in Concord, New Hampshire.
Music
Like Alan, Mirka is a concert pianist, pedagogue and Feldenkrais practitioner as well. She has collaborated with Alan for almost twenty years, inviting him to teach in her studio in Hamm and also conducting a long-standing exchange in Functional Integration. She performs in a duo with Takako Oishi.
klingt besser
Michael is a Feldenkrais practitioner and pianist who teaches at the Eitorf Music School, a half hour east of Cologne in Germany. He has translated Honing the Pianistic Self-Image into German (Stacccato Verlag), and has begun translating All Thumbs.
Our flagship institute established in 2011
Institutes in Hamm, Eitorf, Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Vussem and more...
Alan Fraser has held an Institute here every year since 2011.
The Institute in Overveen, annually since 2013.
Annually since 2013 at the Concord Community Music School
Vive la France, et vive l'Institut de piano Alan Fraser en France!
Find an Institute near you.
The Institute's mission statement.
Become a Certified Embodied Piano Practitioner.
Extensive data base of Alan Fraser teaching videos
