keystring They just said "louder" or "softer." They did not talk about arm weight, wrist movement, etc. The second teacher, if I asked if I was supposed to be moving at the wrist, elbow or shoulder, just yelled at me to look at what was happening at the key. So I think it's like a case of unconscious competence in their playing. They learned as children and are good pianists, so that must mean they can teach. But the third, when I asked how one reduces pain in playing said the only way was to limit time, and if I wanted to work on gestures I could go do that on my own with my books and Internet, but their face said I was making a big deal out of nothing. Each one of them said "technique" is just playing Hanon, with zero focus on what the parts of the body are actually doing and why. That's why I keep saying gesture, gesture, gesture. What is the wrist doing, where is the arm weight, when and how is the hand opening and closing, and why?
I've also heard, oh that'll happen naturally over time. It has not happened naturally with me over time. Wrists like blocks of wood stay blocks of wood unless I'm doing the exercises to mindfully relax, flex, turn, rotate, etc.
Every teacher I've spoken to either thinks I'm asking for something that's not necessary at all or that I'm too big for my britches wanting to learn "virtuoso" technique while still in Alfred Level 1. But the performance benefits are actually less important to me than being able to play without pain, so if I need extra work on technique, then I just do, without bs judgements about it, yanno?
The impression I've gotten overall is that it's a contentious subject, and many people teaching either never got the kind of teaching that's now lumped under "Taubman" or they got it when they were very young by having a teacher physically grab them and make their body do things without describing the actions with words. So they don't know what they deeply know in their bodies, and can't articulate it with words.
But caveat, I have only spoken to four teachers and listened to people argue on the Internet, so this is all just me guessing, and possibly guessing wrongly what the problem is and why I can't seem to find a teacher who is trained in using words to tell me how to adjust my physical gestures.
