Leaving Moscow for the United States was not a change of address. It was a second education, and in some ways it was harder than the first. I arrived as a trained pianist, and I had to learn how to explain what I knew in a language that was new to the work of teaching.
A doctorate, and then a second doctorate
In the United States I earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree. Later I also earned a Ph.D. in Linguistics. People often ask why a pianist would study linguistics, and the answer is simpler than it sounds. Both fields are about how meaning travels from one mind to another. A phrase of music has to be understood; so does a sentence of instruction. I became fascinated by how often the second fails even when the first succeeds.
What teaching in English taught me
When you teach in your first language, you can lean on idioms and the shared shorthand of your profession. Pianists have a great deal of it. We say “support the tone,” “play from the back,” “sing the line,” and we nod as if everyone understands. Often they do not. They nod back.
Teaching in English, for American students who came from every kind of background, forced me to slow down and ask a plain question: what exactly do I mean? If I could not say it in simple words, I discovered, I had not understood it as clearly as I thought.
That discipline changed my teaching permanently. I now try to describe technique in terms that an intelligent adult, with no conservatory background, can try at the keyboard the same day.
Why plain language beats jargon
Jargon feels efficient. A single word can stand for a whole idea. But it only works if the listener already owns the idea. For a self-taught adult, jargon often becomes a wall, and the learner quietly concludes: this is not for me.
Plain language does the opposite. Compare two ways of saying the same thing:
- “Use proper arm weight and avoid finger articulation.”
- “Let your arm be heavy, as if you were gently dropping it into the key, and let the finger be the last thing that touches the key.”
The second takes more words, but you can act on it. It tells you what to feel. A good explanation is not the shortest one; it is the one that leads to a different sound at the piano.
How to read explanations of technique
You will meet a great many explanations of piano technique in books, videos and forums. Here is how I suggest you read them.
- Look for something you can do. If an explanation gives you only a label, such as “relaxed wrist” or “good posture,” ask what you are supposed to feel and hear.
- Test it with your ear. Try the idea, play a single note or a short phrase, and listen. Does the sound change? If it does not, the explanation is not yet useful to you.
- Be suspicious of certainty without sound. Anyone who tells you there is only one correct way, and cannot show you how it sounds, is describing a rule, not a result.
- Translate it into your own words. If you can explain an idea to yourself plainly, you have probably understood it. If you cannot, keep asking.
- Do not blame yourself for jargon. If a term confuses you, the fault is usually in the explanation.
What both educations gave me
My Moscow education gave me depth: a tradition, a sense of sound, and a lineage of teachers who thought seriously about music. My American education gave me clarity: the habit of saying things plainly, checking whether they were understood, and treating the learner’s confusion as information rather than failure.
I need both. Depth without clarity leaves a student admiring the teacher. Clarity without depth leaves a student with tidy instructions and nothing worth playing. When the two meet, an adult at the keyboard can understand what they are doing and why, and that understanding is a large part of what makes practice satisfying.
So if an explanation of technique has ever left you feeling slow or inadequate, I hope you now see it differently. The most skilled teachers are the ones who can make a difficult idea simple without making it false.
If you would like to start with me, the free course is the place to begin. And when you have something you can play, even a few uneven bars, send a recording through the submission page and I will write you free, honest feedback.