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 Abby
Whiteside on Piano Playing : Indispensables of Piano Playing -
Mastering the Chopin Etudes and Other Essays by Abby
Whiteside
Two
of piano pedagogue Abby Whiteside's most influential essays, "Indispensables
of Piano Playing," from 1955, and "Mastering the Chopin
Etudes," from 1969, are reprinted in this volume, along with
several shorter pieces. Whiteside's iconoclastic but firmly held
beliefs are still provocative: "the pianist cannot control
tone quality," "the importance of a prescribed fingering
is practically nil," and "time spent on scales is not
used to best advantage" are among them. But Whiteside backs
up her ideas persuasively, and even pianists who cannot go along
with her all the way will likely find themselves altering aspects
of their techniques.
Whiteside
bases all pianism on motions of the upper arms (confusingly called
"top arms" in "Indispensables") and de-emphasizes
anything to do with the fingers. She sees the forearm and fingers
only as extensions of the upper arm, which is responsible for
speed and accuracy. She is good at imagery in pressing her points:
skating, jazz players, and untrained children are recurrent points
of reference. Another of her main principles, the idea of basic
rhythm, is well characterized by musical examples.
Readers would
do well to begin with the foreword to "Mastering the Chopin
Etudes" (written by Joseph Prostakoff and Sophia Rosoff,
whose teaching is still based on the Whiteside principles), which
helpfully clarifies some of the ideas from the outsider's perspective.
"Mastering" refines many of the points from "Indispensables,"
and is best read first. Although "Indispensables" is
divided into chapters, much of the same material is covered all
the way through, and there is a great deal of overlap with "Mastering."
Undoubtedly, there are some ideas in these essays that made complete
sense only from the source herself, but there is much here of
benefit to pianists of all levels. -- William R. Braun (Amazon.com)
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