Speed

Students often ask me to elaborate the concept/principle of single-weightedness, and the more I talk about it, think about it, and more importantly practice it, the more I am inclined to feel that it is a lot more complex than simply having the weight solely or dominantly in only one foot at a time, although it all comes from that starting point. The single-weightedness we are after is the single-weightedness of the pianist. When a person starts to play the piano they practice one hand at a time. Once they achieve some technique – fluency and facility – they start to use both hands at the same time, in unison to start with and then in concert. With practice there comes a point, apparently, when the hands become independent of each other and are able to behave like two separate entities on the keyboard – each doing their own thing. There also comes a point when the fingers become independent of each other, and the good piano player effectively has ten different performers and personalities at his disposal, each physically tied to its neighbours but well able to sing its own tune. Counterpoint. By cultivating such independence Glen Gould revolutionised the playing of Bach with his spikey clarity and dexterity. Chopin composed differently for each finger. David Tudor, stimulated by the technical demands of contemporary composers, taught himself to play block chords with a different loudness in each finger, and Cecil Taylor did the same in his high intensity and richly textured improvisations. The ability of a performer to transport the audience lies not in the interpretive will, but in the ability to become free of technical and interpretive constraints and let body, energy and spirit fly. For this to happen an edge – a tension – has to be created, and this edge is the one between constraint and freedom, control and abandon. This is what single- weightedness is all about – creating this edge and riding it. The only way to really start dipping into it is to work with speed. To start with when you do the Form quickly it will appear to glide and details will become glossed over – it loses texture. But with practice, and in particular as the body and root strengthen, the opposite will happen – the speed will develop a more dynamic engagement with both the ground and the heavens, and with your own body and energy, and detail that you never realised was there will begin to shake loose and scatter into your Form. You can then bring that detail into your slow Form in order to gain real familiarity with it. Spirit keeps it all together – stops it falling apart – and since the practice of spirit is probably the most important function of the solo Form, working with speed is vitally important.