After introducing the first article in my series about the Taubman approach, I received very varied responses. They were not only sent to this site, but also to a friend’s Facebook pages, and to some general websites that attract musicians, where I had posted the link to my series as well. The reactions ran the whole gamut, ranging from interested to enthusiastic to doubtful and even hostile.
At first glance, it may appear hard to comprehend some of the highly emotional reactions over something usually regarded as dry and unemotional as piano technique, but then this may very well indicate that there is more to the Taubman concept than meets the eye.
In this second article in the series I will therefore concentrate on bringing the essence of the Taubman approach to the foreground, and I will do so through quoting a range of testimonials by pianists of all calibers. They will speak out about the method and describe their personal experiences. For those who fully investigate it, there is no turning back after experiencing the benefits.
Deborah Cleaver, Golandsky Institute faculty member, has much to say about the Taubman approach. Following ten years of teaching and performing in Berlin, Germany, American pianist Cleaver was first a student and then a teaching assistant of famed pianist and pedagogue Leonard Shure at the New England Conservatory. She later moved to Portland, Oregon, and is now teaching piano at Reed College.
Deborah describes her experiences as follows: "As a pianist with small hands, I came to the Taubman studies to get help with octave and chord playing. However, I was immediately impressed and convinced by the logic and ease of the total approach, and decided to retrain. It has been a miracle to me to see my speed, accuracy, and facility improve exponentially, while, at the same time, my control of tone, phrasing, shaping, and expression was set free as never before… it even helps with memory. And all with no strain or fatigue."
My friend Howard Schreiber is a passionate amateur pianist who had studied piano at the Manhattan School of Music. He remembers Seymour Lipkin, his rather well known teacher and musician, as a very nice and musical man, who most certainly had the best intentions in helping Howard overcome his feelings of inadequacy as a pianist — yet to no avail.
Explaining his feelings at the time, he says: ”There was no sense of connection. I was tense at the piano; it was all up in the air and I was not allowing the natural free falling weight of my hands to be released into the keys. 
I recall being very natural as a child. It was later on that I imposed restrictions on my own technique. We need language to convey technique,” he states. “But in the end, it should trigger some physical response that makes it feel right. My teachers taught me to isolate fingers; my arm was frozen and not giving support behind each finger. I was pounding away, thinking that I was building muscles when really, I was just increasing tension and reinforcing bad habits, bringing me further away from a natural approach to the instrument, resulting in quitting.”
Article comments
1 - suezenne fordham
Nice article, but you have said zip about what is involved IN the method... just that it works! It would be great to see a few specific examples about this "great secret"!
2 - ilona oltuski
Please see the First Article of the featured series, Introducing the Taubman Approach. You have tuned in to the second one, which talks more about the people who recommend it. Thanks for your interest Ilona Oltuski
3 - JPCasarotti
Dear Ilona,
I did not know that you were such a writer... I read both of your articles and I would like to add something to this discussion... I liked the way you break things down on the first article and I think it is really valuable to show the results of the TAUBMAN's work on pianists testimonials... I loved that you mentioned about Dorothy!!! Yes , she is still alive and teaching in her apartment in Brooklyn... I just had a lesson on october and she was terrific !!!
I want to share my personal testimonial with you:
I am a Brazilian pianist that moved to Philadelphia 3 years ago.. I was injured, diagnosed with pronator syndrome... I had a hard time to hold a cup of water.. I would have pain for days if I would attempt to carry a suitcase.. I did a retraining program at Temple University under the instruction of the Cuban pianist Maria Del Pico Taylor.. Maria is the director of the Taubman Seminar (www.taubmanseminar.com)... It has been a life change experience.. It took me 8 months to be able to start to put the movements together... Now I am preparing my graduate recital with big and expressive pieces: Beethoven 101, Villa Lobos- Bachianas 4 and Chopin Sonata No2... This is just possible for the wonderful work that my beloved teacher has been doing with me.. I am now a more secure pianist, I have a totally different tone and I have a great control... Practice sessions became an enjoyable time...I strongly recommend the TAUBMAN work to evryone... Temple University in Philadelphia has been developing the Taubman Seminar for 2 years now... The faculty is formed by former students of Dorothy Taubman: Maria Taylor, Sondra Tammam and Maria Hubler... These are teachers that are still working with the "Einstein of the piano" DOROTHY TAUBMAN...
4 - Deborah
Hello Suezenne..actually it's not a big secret at all. While it takes time to learn all the principles, people actually find the ideas very natural and easy to understand. I'd like to invite you to attend the Golandsky Institute at Princeton University which takes place in July every summer. One can't actually write the whole body of work in a blog, but at the Institute, you can get an overview of this amazing knowledge through lectures and technique clinics, plus private lessons and supervised practice sessions. The work is taught as a series of skills that are gradually integrated into a facile, healthy, and expressive technique.
There are thousands who have had their lives changed by this amazing work, and not just those who are injured. I myself was not injured, but felt I had hit a brick wall and couldn't get better. That was so frustrating, and my only regret is that I wasn't brought up with this training. How different my life would have been if I had had this knowledge as a young musician!
5 - Charlotte Williams - no degree
Hey Suezenne:
I've sent students and their parents to read up on the Taubman Approach, and they've come back to me with the same request for more specific information.
The problem with showing "Taubman" to someone new to the work is that these movements and alignments are are so subtle and small, most people can't identify them until they've experienced these concepts first hand. I've even shown someone new to the work a video of myself and my students "before" and "after," and the person who was new to the work could not see the difference. He assumed that the improvement he could hear in the "after" videos was a byproduct of "more practice." In truth, the improvement he could not see but could hear was the result of my implementing the effective movements I learned from the Golandsky Institute teachers, and passing them on to my student. (By the way, once these movements are integrated into your technique, practice time can be greatly reduced.)
After my first lessons with Edna, I took the video of the lesson home and compared my hand and my movements to hers, and I literally couldn't see much difference at all. However, after 6 months of study I looked back on that first video just to monitor my progress, and at that point I could see a big difference. The video hadn't changed, but I had! It took about 6 months, but I was beginning to be able to identify what a unified rotational techique looks like at the keyboard. (If I had been doing weekly lessons, I'm convinced I would have learned much faster.)
Ilona's first article is one of the best I've read, you should definitely go back and read it. However, the Taubman approach, like any other methodology, has adopted language and assigned new meanings, so the terminology can be confusing.
I tell my new students that lessons in the Taubman Approach means we will be working on:
* finding the right height in order to balance at the piano bench, and learning to reach every area of the keyboard easily.
*learning to move all fingers together instead of lifting one at a time and pushing the key down with it, (which is one example of "isolation,")
*beginning and ending every movement from the elbow hinge (not the shoulder, wrist, or back,) while allowing the hand arm, and fingers to maintain alignment,
*beginning and ending every movement with a slight turn to the left or right (rotation) in order to go across, then down into the keys easily and quickly (though sometimes rotation is so small as to be undetectable.)
Also, a huge part of the Taubman Approach that, to my knowledge, doesn't exist in other piano techniques, is the fact that the forearm weight (from the elbow) is balanced on the fingertip every time the pianist plays a note.
These are just a few descriptions of things we all worked on in the beginning, although not necessarily in the order listed. After reading these rather tedious explanations, I'm sure you will agree that a lesson with one of the Golandsky Institute teachers is a much better way to get answers to your "show me" question; they can show how to put these ideas to work for you, and you'll grasp the ideas much better in person.
One more thing: every Taubman lesson is tailored to the individual student, so a Golandsky Institute teacher, such as Deborah, is trained to find what you need to work on first.
If piano playing feels difficult to you at all, or if you just have a nagging feeling that something could be better, I would strongly suggest "getting thee to the Golandsky Institute." I'd have a lesson every week if I could.