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Craft of Piano Playing: A New Approach to Piano Technique | 
 enlarge | Author: Alan Fraser
Creator: Sonya Ardan
Publisher: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $35.51
You Save: $4.44 (11%)
New (17) Used (5) from $35.51
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 47732
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0810845911
Dewey Decimal Number: 786.2193
EAN: 9780810845916
ASIN: 0810845911
Publication Date: June 2003
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Presenting a new, comprehensive and highly original approach to piano technique with a fascinating series of exercises to help the reader put this approach into practice, this guide uses numerous musical examples and sketches to show how many common movement habits at the keyboard are counterproductive. Fraser provides a new way of manipulating the skeletal frame of the hand to produce astonishing sonic results from the instrument. Visit Alan Fraser's web site at http://alanfraser.faithweb.com/
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
Best on the market November 29, 2008
Having scoured the internet for piano books of all types, this is far and away the best technique book on the market. It is NOT for beginners or even lower intermediate, it is for those who know how to play well, but need to tune up their technique. Even though I have been playing for 20 years, I found within a month I was able to improve my playing by about 15% and up to 30% in some specific areas. If you get this, get both the book and video as they complement each other well, but if you need to pick just one, the book goes into much more detail.
A must for any pianist amateur November 9, 2008
This book is a complement to the DVD, or rather the DVD is a complement to this book which goes in many more details.
This work is a real reference, of which I know no equivalent.
Excellent July 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
An excellent primer on the connection between Feldenkreis and paino technique. Many exercises are included, and you have to sit at the piano while reading the book.
Piano technique perfectly and patiently explained by Alan Fraser December 25, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have read several books on piano technique written by extremely well-known authors in the field. However, compared with the book by Alan Fraser, these mentioned books are practically of no value. They tell you what you should do, but they do not explain (1) the mechanisms of these actions and (2) how you apply these mechanisms.
Our body consists of fingers, hands, arms, torso, etc., but one has to know how to apply these components of our body, in order play the piano. And that is what Alan Fraser accomplishes in his book: He gives you scientifically correct physical excercises to enable you to do what needs to be done. And these excercises work!!!
I am infinitely grateful to Mr. Fraser for taking the trouble to write this magnificent book. His incredibly keen, analytical, mind breaks down piano playing into its physical components.
However, I would love to see added to the book clear, simple, line drawings of the LUMBRICAL muscles, the INTEROSSEUS muscles, the thenar and hypothenar muscles, in order to enable the non-anatomically trained reader to understand how the fingers are moved.
Zuhair Bakdoud, M.D.
Unique and valuable November 11, 2005
25 out of 26 found this review helpful
Many people just love music, and I do, too. While I have practiced pretty diligently since childhood, I've always been a very poor pianist. Last year, it was so bad that two guests at my house asked me very strenuously to play (seeing the pianos in the room). My playing was so abominable that they had to ask me to stop only a few measures in (I warned them). So, loving music isn't enough. My hands and arms have not been habituated to movement in the sensitive and economical way that is capable of producing acceptable tone. Although I have usually lived in a remote site, I have had a couple of good teachers (for short periods of time). They helped me only a little. I have had some extremely nasty and impatient teachers (very harsh people). They didn't help. This book gives clear and accessible instructions of how to use the hands and arms appropriately to produce tones at the piano that I had not known it could produce. It gives good clues of how an actual legato can be obtained on the piano. For those of us who are totally out of the game of music, this represents real hope that we might eventually enjoy making real music, too, and not simply torturing ourselves and our listeners with endless incompetent and ugly "practice." I know of no other book anywhere that gives sufficiently clear and anatomically oriented instructions that an anti-musician like myself might benefit, too. If the author had the goal of allowing those of us in the cheapest seats to enjoy making music, too, it's the best effort I've seen. Thanks so much. Well done. I needed it, and so did the poor unfortunates who ask me to play once too often!
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