A premise and a wish: I hope that one day the term 'piano technique'—a term that to me gives the sense of a cold mechanism—will be abandoned for a term that gives more of a sense of approach to a musical activity, specifically, pianistic. The term “pianism” could, in my opinion, come closer to this concept.
What follows are my reflections on pianism, with the hope that they may develop thanks to interesting contributions from other users; they have not the slightest claim to being precepts, conscious of my limits in thought and knowledge, and conscious that pianism has yet to put a final definition to itself.
The first consideration I like to make when listening to a musical instrument being played or when I play an instrument myself, is to define, as much as possible, how that music emerging from that musical instrument is formed.
Thus, in this search for definition, I find a first specific problem: the problem of the approach to the instrument; every instrumentalist has a different one, because the instrument intended to be used is different.
The piano in particular (and generally all keyboard instruments), then, has an additional specificity: the problem of the distance between the pianist's action (reduced to its minimum terms, this is the contact between fingers and key) and the produced sound, due to a complex mechanism (the piano mechanics) that stands between the pianist's body and the strings; it is decidedly not a direct relationship.
The goal of every musician is to translate their idea of music, the thought the musician has, and how it is then realized in actual music, in the vibration of the air.
From a physical point of view, the vibration of the air is transmitted to the auditory system of the listener immersed in the environment.
Passing from the auditory system to the brain, one reaches the ultimate processing of the performer's musical message.
The pianist's musical thought is nothing other than their cerebral processing of the musical score.
The medium for the pianist's musical thought (as for any other instrumentalist), i.e., their cerebral processing, is the body of the instrument, one's own body, the environment, the listener's body, and finally the listener's cerebral processing.
In this context, for brevity, I make the listener coincide with the performer, which is certainly the case during the study phase.
The medium (or chain of steps) must not be an obstacle to the realization of musical thought, but must remain a simple medium, since the goal for an interpreter is to realize their vision of music, nothing else.
At this level of discussion, the body of the instrument, the performer's body, the environment, the listener's body, and the listener's cerebral processing are of less importance compared to musical thought and its realization—so much less that the ideal (clearly unachievable) would be for them not to exist.
The environment in which the sound spreads is of great importance for the correct realization of the artist's musical thought. This is a problem that will never be resolved solely during the study phase of the piece, but also during the dress rehearsal phase before and even during the concert itself (I only mention the fact that the acoustic rendering of the environment can change significantly as the number of people in the hall varies).
Another variable at play (specific to the pianist and of non-negligible impact) is the instrument they must use at the concert venue. Some fortunate pianists, for the purpose of solving this problem, always and only use their own instrument, thereby taking on the relative risks of transport and costs.
Now, making (for simplicity and assuming we are in the study phase) the performer's body coincide with the listener's body, and the performer's cerebral processing with the listener's cerebral processing, the variables at play for the purpose of musical realization are the performer's body, the instrument's body, and the environment.
The pianist therefore finds themselves in the position of having to solve the problem of the relationship between musical thought-performer's body-musical instrument's body-environment.
Solving this problem means realizing musical thought.
As for the relationship between musical thought and the performer's body, which is the core of piano study, I would add: will a lifetime of study be enough to say its solution is complete?
Important for the pianist, for greater self-awareness, is knowing in general the anatomy of the hands, arms, and shoulders, as well as muscular and skeletal function.
I like to emphasize how much the many theories on motor education help, and in particular, the Feldenkrais method of education through movement.
What is pianism, in its essence, if not awareness of one's own body movements in order to realize a thought—in this specific case, a musical one?
To realize a thought, concentration is needed, a lot of concentration, as auditory feedback is also required.
Here too, many techniques of Oriental origin come into play to achieve concentration.
Pianism involves movement, breathing, and relaxation. Coincidentally, the Oriental technique of Tai Chi Chuan deals with precisely these "issues."
As for the relationship between musical thought and the body of the musical instrument, a good piano technician comes to the aid—the one commonly called a tuner—who knows how to listen to the pianist's requests and knows how to fulfill them.
As for the relationship between musical thought and the environment, an adaptation by the performer in sound emission is necessary, adequate to the dimensions and resonances of the environment; it is a job that must absolutely be done, as mentioned above, also during general rehearsals and during the concert itself.
