Cracked Notes and Aussies

In crude terms, playing a piece of music on the piano requires the fingers to play the right notes in the right rhythm with the right dynamics. Sometimes the music goes very fast, so getting the fingers into position is tricky. Hitting two keys at once, called “cracked notes,” is a perpetual challenge for pianists. The fear of having cracked notes can make a performer so careful that all spontaneity and joy evaporate.

As a young student in England, I moaned to my teacher about the challenging leaps in a Bach Partita. His response was a scornful snort. Much as I would have liked a useful strategy from him, it wasn't forthcoming. Years later, I developed my own strategy as the result of meeting an Australian tennis champion.

On a trip to Australia in 1978, I took tennis lessons with a Davis Cup champion, Geoff Pollard. He said ten words that improved my tennis game and my piano performance: "Wait until you can read the writing on the ball."

Most people, explained the pro, have poor judgement about the distance of the tennis ball as it speeds towards them. They swing too early and miss. Instructed not to swing my racket until I could read the writing on the ball, I was confident. The writing is pretty big. The pro then lobbed a ball at me. Suddenly I realized that it was spinning around very fast and would be almost on my nose before being legible. In the last instant, I read the words and swung. To my complete astonishment, I hit the ball squarely with my racket and lobbed it back to the pro.

I've adapted this successful strategy for hitting a tennis ball accurately into one for hitting a key accurately: "Wait until you are over the centre of the key." The pianist is now really looking at, and focusing on, the position of the fingers.

How do you learn to find the centre of the key quickly enough to produce excellent accuracy, rhythm and dynamics in a dizzyingly fast piece? The practice solution is to separate the speed of getting the hand into position from the speed of depressing the key. I call this technique "practicing fast very slow." There are five steps.

Step 1. Play the key that occurs before you need to change hand position, using the appropriate amount of strength required for the dynamic you want, then STOP.
Step 2. Look for the key (or chord) that will be played next.
Step 3. Move the entire hand AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE to the new key but DO NOT PLAY IT.
Step 4. Look to see that the correct finger is over the center of the key to be played.
Step 5. Play the key with the appropriate dynamic level.

When you're comfortable and can play the notes correctly because you've practiced moving your hand quickly, speed up the tempo of the piece until it's at performance level. This strategy is very effective for reducing cracked notes to a minimum in any performance.

It also improves your tennis game.