the use of elbow during playing?

[mundi]

hi,

this is my first post here so hello ;)

my skills are not that good on piano/keyboard (10 years of keyboard-playing, 17 years old and finished fatal tragedy 2 weeks ago and now sitting on chopin's impromptu no. 6 -fantasie and after that probably schuberts fantasie) and i always were teached by my piano-teacher (she can play dt-songs from sheet without any problems on the piano, except the bending^^) to use the elbow to pronounce nots (see the fatal tragedy partwith the maj 3rd) and it really works good and you can go a lot faster with it (with sounding better). but i clicked today trough youtube and found a video from jordans keyboard-wizzardry where he says that you shouldnt use your elbow.

i personaly play most of the time jazz because im in 4 jazz-bads/trios and for some 13rd accords i have to use my elbow.

is it treu that you shouldnt use your elbow or is this just a special techique by mr. jordan rudess because i never heard that before (but the people i spoke to were classical or jazz pianoplayers, never a prog-metal/rock keyboarder).


so, would be nice if you could gimme some help at this topic :)


seeya

dennis

ps: sorry for my crappy english, its not my mother tongue

[PinkFloydDudi]

I would find it pretty impossible to "never" use your elbow. Perhaps he or others will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he is saying to "limit" the movement of your elbow. I have noticed that a lot of Jordan's tips are used to avoid stress and stay relaxed and fluent while playing. This is very important when playing 32nd notes for 2 minutes like JR does in some of his solos. Allows for better stamina benefits piano players in the long-term.

once you start moving your entire arm (from the elbow), you are using far more muscles and movement than you normally should.

There are exceptions to every rule... I can see the benefit of limiting your arm movement as much as possible though.

[mundi]

so i asked my piano teacher about this topic and she said that this is the school of the 19th century, its a possible technique and good piano players should be able to do this kind of technique (and some others, including the use of elbow-technique, which is the "standard" technique) but its all a question of flavour, she prefers the elbow technique, but this is also because she likes more the romantique stuff then the prog stuff ;)

i also prefer the elbow style, you can play much more relaxed, the pronounceiation is much more easy, but thats just me.

but its all a question of flavour ;D


seeya

[dech2410]

Point is, your control over what you are really doing is in your fingers, not in your wrists, nor your elbows. It's a good thing to practice: just use your fingers, and nothing else...

[Bigs]

How exactly do you use your elbow to articulate notes? I don't really understand what's meant here.

[Tiko]

Yeah play with your fingers :smile:

[Mantarkus]

Well lifting your elbow means you are taking the weight of your arm off of your fingers so this way your fingers can move faster, other than that just relax your shoulders and elbows.