The Piano Somatics Institute

Alan Fraser Speaks About the Institute

"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 Both stiffness and relaxation are superceded by vitality, where you are actively engaged in producing a sculpted, resonant, expressive sonority.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."

The Piano Somatics Institute

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.

Institute Graduates Report:

Participants speak about their Institute experience

Open To All Interested Pianists

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.

Permission to Play Imperfectly

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.

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Institute Daily Regimen

• Group Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lesson
• Seminar-lecture on specific aspects of piano technique
• Piano lesson for each active participant, with all active and passive participants welcome to observe.
  Some lessons may be given "behind closed doors" if the participant so desires.

All activities are led by Alan Fraser.

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More on the Institute philosophy here: TRANSCENDENCE IN PIANO PLAYING

Participants said

"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

Aurelien Boccard, doctoral student in piano, University of Kansas

"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"

"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

Christine Olson, pianist and teacher, Northampton, MA

Christina Biron, Smith Institute Graduate

Institute Info

The Alan Fraser Piano Institute takes place in several European countries through the winter,
and in North America over the summer months.

Piano Somatics

The rationale underpinning
somatic piano technique.

Piano Kinematics

A schematic diagram outlining the scope of Piano Somatics.

Arm Weight

Enhancing weight technique with the anti-gravity function.

Certification

Become a Certified
Piano Somatics Practitioner.

Piano Somatics Institute Administrative Team

Creator

of the Institute

Alan Fraser Institute General Director

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.

For my

students as well

Christine Olson Onsite Coordinator, U Mass

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.

À la recherche

du son perdu

Yveline Ciazynski Director of Operations, France

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.

Suzuki

rocks

Nila Ledesma Onsite Coordinator, Salt Lake City

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.

Arches

reign supreme

Kathryn Southworth-Lundahl Onsite Coordinator, Concord New Hampshire

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.

Skeletal

Music

Mirka Mauck Onsite Coordinator, Hamm, Ruhr Valley, Germany

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.

die ganze Selbst

klingt besser

Michael Klatte Onsite Coordinator, Eitorf, Germany

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.

Institute Photo Galleries

Smith College

Our flagship institute established in 2011

Germany

Institutes in Hamm, Eitorf, Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Vussem and more...

Salt Lake City

Alan Fraser has held an Institute here every year since 2011.

Netherlands

The Institute in Overveen, annually since 2013.

Concord, New Hampshire

Annually since 2013 at the Concord Community Music School

France

Vive la France, et vive l'Institut de piano Alan Fraser en France!

Institute Information