• "Technique is the ability to produce what you want. The
  presupposition is that you want something. So before
  going to the piano and practicing, training your muscles
  which is a waste of time [...] because it's not in the
  muscles, it's in the brain, it's in the inner ear. Artur
  Schnabel used to say it - 'Hear before you play. If you
  play before you hear what you’re going for, it’s an
  accident, and everything is built then on an accident'.
  So, want something, hear it, go for it"

Not all technical challenges stem from a lack of
efficient hand motion, finger strength, or practice time.

There's an element missing from centuries of teaching:
our imagination.

This imaginative force carves new pathways in our
brain, influencing our muscle performance.

While general advice advocates practicing in your mind
or visualizing your playing, there is a lack of clear,
concise instructions on what to imagine and its
connection to piano technique.

So, what precisely is mental practice?

Mental practice involves vividly imagining the musical
score in your mind. It goes beyond a general feeling or
hearing the tune—it's about crafting an accurate image
of each note, even in dense polyphonic texture. This
image includes qualities like sound, motion, harmony
color, dynamics, and voicing.

• Additionally, mental practice entails merging sound
  imagination with precise hand motion. The hands
  become a ‘bridge’ between your intentions and the
  keyboard, ensuring that correct tone production
  mirrors your envisioned sound.

• "If you have in your ear the sound of the oboes, or the sound of the violin, or the sound of the chorus, or
  the sound of the flute [...] it doesn't have to be that hard Beethoven's orchestra [...] the mere fact that you
  have that in your ear, and you have that sensitivity and the understanding of how that flute sounds in
  that register, will allow you - if you have the necessary manual control - to produce a sound that is
  much more interesting and more imaginative than the sound that is produced by simply bringing the
  keys down".

"When you control things you play then you can create the illusion of playing a glissando on the piano
[...] then you dream every note between the notes. That is kind of a hypnotic thing, because people are
going to hear those glissandos, if you do hear it.

• They will say themselves that it doesn't exist, you can not play glissando on the piano. But somehow I
  hear it, from where I sit it sounds like a glissando. It will be like a rainbow: the rainbow doesn't exist, the
  rainbow exists only where you are".

Mental practice is the ability to feel and create music between the notes.

Creating music in the space between notes by training inner singing is the gateway to expressing arm weight, articulations,
dynamics, phrasing, character and the form of the music, as well as confident energy when performing on stage.

"I tell the young people 'Sing! Sing inside'.

• You have no voice - that doesn't matter. The best voice
  - if you feel singing in you".

Arthur Rubinstein

• at 90' interview

• "You must sing if you wish to play”

Frédéric Chopin

• Chopin: Pianist and Teacher as Seen by his Pupils' 1986

• “The next step would be not to phrase in a childish
  way. Child phrases are short. Like children recite
  poetry. Instead of separating the phrases, now connect
  them".

• “All this should be better structured. I think the more a
  piece of music has many different characters, colours and
  attributes, the more it's important to think of it
  strategically. In other words, to know that because of this
  and that I am going here. So you never find yourself in
  the situation where suddenly you are manipulated by the
  music. When you have a clear, new beginning of a
  sequence, like when you write and you start a new
  paragraph, it has to be very clearly enunciated".

Mental practice is also about mastering the ability to identify structure within a piece.

• That's to say, the length and contour of motifs, phrases, sentences and elements of form.

György Sebők

• masterclass 1987

• Nurturing this ability to create, feel and express different
  colours and intensity of energy is generally something that
  has been missing in piano training.

Mental practice is also about feeling

the different levels of energy in each section

• when you approach a new piece of music.

• Instead, it has often been replaced with confusing advice to
  play with more emotional intensity which in turn creates
  compulsive tension in body and mind.

• "Sometimes I am missing a pulse. You have the
  beginning element, which even though it is
  pianissimo and it's only an arpeggio, it must
  have already a substance. There is a basic pulse
  which you can alter as the music requires, but
  I think if you find it in a strict sense than all
  the expressivity will be even stronger".

• Mental practice is also the simple ability to choose and
  feel the correct pulse throughout a piece, and being able
  to 'pull and push' timing without losing the heartbeat of
  the music.