Crafting the Well-Tempered Pianist: Teaching the Taubman Approach - Page 2

"The Alexander Technique teaches about developing a conscious awareness of a basic, general physiological principal of coordination. This understanding will then create good conditions and therefore the ideal fundamentals for the well-coordinated activity at the piano, as suggested by the Taubman Approach," she says.

Rene Jackson, an Alexander Technique practitioner and piano teacher, who has studied with Mary Moran and Edna Golandsky for the past 18 years, states: "Alexander’s discoveries can have a huge effect on changing any habits... Combining the small specific movements found in the Taubman Approach can often be done more readily with Alexander’s ‘concept of inhibition’ of the old movements."

Eli Wader, an expert Feldenkrais teacher who for 12 years has studied with Moshe Feldenkrais and who has lectured and taught in Israel and Switzerland for many years, is also experienced in working with professional musicians. According to him, the beauty and expressivity of a musician’s output improves dramatically after a Feldenkrais session.

The last few years saw multiple attempts for the exchange of ideas between those inherently unique yet akin disciplines. A website started by Dr.Theresa Dybvig, a former student of Dorothy Taubman and teacher at the former Taubman Institute, particularly stands out in informing about different directions within this interdisciplinary work.

Edna Golandsky is the person with whom Dorothy Taubman worked most closely. Considered the leading exponent of the Taubman Approach, she was with Dorothy Taubman for over 25 years – first as her student, then as assistant and co-founder of the Taubman Institute. In 2003 they parted ways, and Edna Golandsky established the Golandsky Institute with former Taubman Institute faculty John Bloomfield, Robert Durso, and Mary Moran.

Faculty chair and senior director John Bloomfield explains the process that led to today’s institute:
"The Golandsky Institute grew out of the original Taubman Institute. Central was the acknowledgment that the Taubman Approach was to survive and flourish only if there were qualified teachers who could pass it on. After long hours of discussion between the founders, a multi-pronged program was implemented to include extensive requirements in theoretical knowledge, supervised teaching and performance."

Edna Golandsky stresses that what remains at the heart of the process is a clear understanding of how to diagnose problems and implement solutions, and that teachers need to know how to integrate the many various components of a technique into a purposeful structure. "For that reason we have a system where each teacher can be mentored by taking his/her students to one of the teachers who has produced consistently good results."

Article Author: Ilona Oltuski

Ilona Oltuski was born in Germany, where she studied art history and published her doctorate about the Bezalel art movement. She discovered her penchant for writing again much later, through another interest of hers, the piano. …

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