Most pianists focus on what happens from the knuckle forward — and miss the real source of the problem. In this clip, Norman Krieger shows how wrist agility and the full arm chain unlock cleaner, freer passagework.
What is it in a great pianist's technique that allows for such pristine control and refined artistry? Having witnessed performances by many of the legendary pianists of the 20th and 21st centuries up close and personal, Indiana University professor Norman Krieger has identified a secret weapon common to their technical arsenal: wrist movement. Krieger shows how through subtle, "electrical" wrist impulses, pianists the likes of Hofmann, Rubinstein, and Arrau have achieved exceptional facility and artistic control in diverse concert repertoire. While it is easy to characterize such artists as divinely gifted geniuses whose musicianship transcends technique, they nonetheless employ objective movements that we mere mortals can observe and attempt to reconstruct in our own playing. Drawing on famous repertoire passages from Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Gershwin, Krieger demonstrates how to develop an agile wrist to use a secret weapon in voicing, sonority, style, and virtuosity.
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