Learning and Teaching Healthy Piano Technique: Training as an Instructor in the Taubman Approach

This book offers a personal, insider perspective of the author’s Taubman Instructor training with the Golandsky Institute in New York City, 2009, uncovered through a reflective examination of the author's learning process. This research examines the process of embodying the Taubman Approach, applying these principles to compelling music making and teaching across a range of pedagogical settings, including retraining injured pianists, teaching children, and transferring principles to computer use and the violin. Additions to the literature include discussing the relationship of piano technique to healthy virtuosity, detailing Taubman principles and Dorothy Taubman’s contributions to our understanding of piano technique, and the musical contexts of learning, retraining and teaching this technique. Given the unacceptably high rates of playing-related injury among musicians, this work illustrates the need for a deeper understanding of healthy pianism among students, performers and pedagogues. It is hoped this research will benefit a wide range of pianists, teachers, and health practitioners, and encourage wider investigation and dissemination of the Taubman Approach.