In 2009 Alan Fraser was asked to help inaugurate the Music Teachers’ National Association new e-zine journal format with a series of three articles that would link back to his day-long seminar given at Musicians & Wellness: Mind, Body & Spirit (An MTNA-CFMTA Joint Conference, NYC June 2008). This first article explores sensory-motor learning, the process by which we learn and fine-tune all our movements, and how we can apply it to piano technique.
In this second article, Alan Fraser zeroes in on practical ways of activating and enriching the natural process of sensory motor learning in the hand itself, leading us to a whole new perception and experience of our hands’ innate potency and capacity for sensitive, evolved, powerful action at the keyboard.
The third and final article of this series zeroes in on the thumb, an extraordinary digit whose capacity for differentiated movement pianists often sadly underutilize. Take your thumb through this “sensory-motor enrichment bath” to give it the sense of almost being another independent hand…