Piano Playing and the Nervous System

Piano performance, beyond its aesthetic and artistic value, involves a demanding combination of mental and physical activities. The mind reads notes on two staves in two different clefs, understands and absorbs the musical image, and directs the whole body, particularly the playing apparatus from shoulders to fingertips. The feet operate the pedals as well, and all this is often done from memory, in front of other people and under stress.

This complex process has a developmental effect on certain areas of the brain, and teams consisting largely of neurologists and other scientists have investigated it. One study produced striking results: Krista Hyde and her team used neuroimaging to show changes in children's mental development after only fifteen months of instrumental tuition. Building on earlier research with newer imaging methods, they demonstrated changes in the children who received this training, with physical differences shown visually. A complex activity such as piano playing is goal-directed and relies on automatisation. The musical aim presented by a score is coordinated mentally and realised through motor skills made automatic or reflex-like by sustained practice. When conveying a musical phrase to the fingers, communication between brain and fingers must remain intact. Because commands travel from the brain through nerves to muscles, the player needs physiological self-awareness.

Instrumental education turns psychomotor behaviours arising from coordinated brain and muscle activity into skills, supported by cognitive, sensory and motor processes. These behaviours must become coordinated, appropriately paced and automatic, which depends on a sound piano technique. Technique is essential to making music.

There are two important stages in developing piano technique:
1 — Become aware of how the fingers, arms and hands move.
2 — Learn how muscles and nerves control this system.

For technical ease:
1 — Avoid using muscles that are not needed.
2 — Let the necessary muscles perform their own tasks.

Although effective use of the motor system in piano playing depends on sustained practice and repetition, it also depends crucially on how quickly musical ideas can be realised. A nervous system that cannot process musical elements quickly will not coordinate the required movements at the same pace. Technical difficulties may have many causes, but a fundamental issue is insufficient training or efficiency of the central nervous system.

Finally: “A performer's fingers cannot move faster than the thoughts directing them across the keyboard. Performance speed is therefore proportional to how fully the written music is understood mentally and how effectively the fingers are coordinated by the mind.”

Zeynep Fuçucuoğlu
Rekor Sanat – Piano Teacher