Alan Fraser - The Craft of Piano Playing

Alan Fraser - The Craft of Piano Playing Based on his book of the same name, Canadian pianist Alan Fraser’s film uses recent advances in biomechanics to replace both tension and over-relaxation with effective hand activation based on optimal skeletal alignment. The film promises pianists from beginners to professionals an astonishing enhancement of the colours and sonority one can draw from the instrument, and offers teachers new, effective solutions for their students’ most common technical problems.

Fraser links musical expression to the hand’s innate structure and function to create an “absolutely natural way of moving at the piano, both powerful and flexible” (PianoNews, Germany). The Craft of Piano Playing DVD version, in English with subtitles in German, French and Serbian, features classic exercises from the original book plus several new ones. The detailed menus with links to all chapters and sub-chapters allow exceptionally easy navigation to any point in the film, making it a highly effective pedagogical tool. Whereas the book analyses the problems at hand in greater detail, the DVD gives the viewer an immediate, tangible experience of Alan Fraser's teaching - one picture is worth a thousand words. They are designed to be used together, but if a choice must be made it is recommended to get the DVD first: this will bring you most quickly into the potent world of Alan Fraser's approach to piano technique. Later on, the book will help deepen and expand your initial learning - the changes to your technique take place over time and involve changes in your neuromotor system. The insights into the hand's innate capacities of movement and organization found on The Craft of Piano Playing offer a breakthrough in the technique of pianists of literally any level of ability. And teachers can use these ideas to develop a whole new dimension in their relationship to the piano and piano teaching.

Language: English
Year: 2008
Country: USA
Running time: 01:30:19
Quality: DVD5
Video: MPEG2 720x576 (4:3), 25 fps, 6457 kbps
Audio: 48 KHz, stereo, 192 kbps
Booklet: No
Size: 4.7 Gb