Supination, Leaps, and the Elbow; Holistique Pianism (17)

The other day’s basic technique seminar was about

thumb crossing.

We’re operating 88 keys

with a total of only ten fingers,

so it’s essential.

My current “struggle” is

both hands moving from the center into the high register,

and both hands ending up extremely close together.

Thumb crossing is necessary,

but the position feels awkward and hard to play.

When the body feels uncomfortable,

the notes don’t come in clearly at all.

Every single day,

looking at the score,

Nice to meet you. And who are you again〜?

…Oh my, didn’t we meet yesterday as well?

Oh ho ho ho…

Over and over again.

So I decided the culprit

must be thumb crossing.

Because honestly,

my thumb felt really uncomfortable

during the crossing movement.

But during the class,

something completely different came up!

And yet,

once it was pointed out,

I thought, that’s true.

Because the hand suddenly has to leap down into the low register,

I have to maaaake a jump,

and if I miss it,

everything after that collapses like an avalanche.

So I was told,

please try using a supination movement as well,

and I tried it.

Actually,

I hadn’t even realized

that a supination movement was involved there at all.

So at first it was like,

“Huh? Wait… how do I do this again?”

But once I could do it,

the leap became much easier.

Then I was told to

move like a compass drawing a circle,

with the elbow as the pivot.

It was a forearm rotation movement,

beginning from the elbow.

…What?

Oh, this is so much easier!

And what happened was,

the anxiety around the leap disappeared,

and suddenly it became dramatically easier to play.

Then we looked at another spot as well,

and somehow

I could play that too.

After the seminar,

I practiced some more.

And what happened was,

by leaping with a supination movement,

the success rate of landing correctly increased dramatically.

And on top of that,

because the movement from the elbow became more conscious,

the distance of the leap itself

somehow began to feel shorter.

Even though the actual distance hadn’t changed at all,

many leaps suddenly felt much more manageable.

What on earth!

I was so shocked

I started trying it on everything.

The ease of playing

skyrocketed.

And then I realized something.

I think this is probably it.

I had actually always felt

that people who seem to glide through leaps effortlessly,

like it’s nothing at all,

have a certain quality

to the way they move.

As the leaps became larger,

and the elbow alone no longer felt sufficient

to orient the movement,

I started feeling something like a string extending

through the upper arm and shoulder connected to the elbow.

Until now,

it had felt like throwing my hands

from here over to there,

so everything felt unanchored,

like a UFO floating around,

wondering,

how am I supposed to know the distance???

It had been connected all along.

Now the elbow feels connected,

so I can measure the distance.

Amazing!

This was so astonishing that,

even though the seminar was only the day before yesterday,

it feels like it happened

a month ago.

Somehow,

even time itself

felt different.