Since tuning is the task of the tuner, the piano is freed from one of the greatest difficulties encountered in studying an instrument. There remains, therefore, only to study a certain hand position in relation to the keys, to easily obtain the best possible quality of sound, to know how to play long notes and short notes, and to achieve limitless dexterity.
I submit to those who are learning the art of playing the piano some very simple practical ideas that experience has shown me to be of real utility. Since the art, with its limited means, is infinite, its teaching must be limited by those same means, in order to be practiced while realizing this infinite quality...
Many useless and troublesome practices have been experimented with to learn how to play the piano, which have nothing to do with the study of this instrument. It is as if someone, in order to go for a walk, learned to walk upside down. The consequence is that no one knows how to walk well with their feet anymore, but not even very well upside down either. One is not capable of truly making music: and the type of difficulty one practices on are not the difficulties posed by good music, the music of the great masters. They are abstract difficulties, a new kind of acrobatics. This is not, therefore, about more or less ingenious theories, but about what goes straight to the point and smooths out the technical aspect of the art.
Of course, it is not a question of musical expression nor style, but purely of the technical aspect of execution, which I call mécanisme.
I divide the study of technique into three parts:
1- teaching both hands to play notes at a distance of one key (those at a distance of a semitone and a tone), namely scales (chromatic, diatonic) and trills. Since there is no fourth abstract form to study within this category, everything that can be invented to play by playing at the distance of a semitone and a tone will necessarily be a combination or a fragment of scales or trills.
2- Notes at a distance greater than a semitone and a tone, i.e., from a tone and a half onwards: the octave divided into minor thirds, where each finger necessarily occupies a key, and the perfect chord in its inversions. (Leap notes).
3- Double notes (in two parts): thirds, sixths, octaves. (When one knows thirds, sixths, and octaves, one also knows how to play in three parts—consequently, one knows chords, which one will know how to break, knowing their notes).
The two hands together will play in four, five, or six parts, and there is nothing else to invent regarding piano technique.
At the piano, one sits in such a way as to be able to reach both ends of the keyboard without having to lean to one side. The right foot on the forte pedal but without lifting the dampers. The elbow at the level of the white keys, the hand facing neither left nor right.
The correct hand position is found by placing the fingers on the keys E, F#, G#, D#, B. The long fingers will occupy the high black keys and the short fingers the low white ones. To make the lever system relatively uniform, one must position in line with each other the fingers occupying the high keys, and likewise those on the white keys; this will give the hand a curvature and fluidity that is not possible to obtain with extended fingers. The hand is soft, relaxed; wrist, forearm, arm, in order, will all follow the hand.
( F. Chopin )