8/6/2019 Finger Tappin
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Teaching|Richard Beauchamp
Glenn Gould and Finger Tapping
Richard Beauchamp April. 2005
Many people are aware that Glenn Gould indulged in the
arcanepractice of finger tapping and that he believed this
developed andmaintained his amazingly refined and agile finger
technique. Sadly,it tends to be placed in the same area in peoples
minds as the wellknown Gould eccentricities, such as the glove and
overcoat wearing,the pill taking, the strange and and audible chair
he would not dowithout, the compulsive vocalising etc. etc. That
Gould was a geniuswho suffered from psychiatric disorders possibly
some form of
Asperger's plus elements of OCD is now generally understood,and
it is sad to think that he was denied the knowledge
andunderstanding that would certainly have been his due had he
livedat the present time.
The idea for the finger tapping technique apparently came to
hisfirst teacher, Alberto Guerrero, while at a Chinese circus. One
of theacts featured a three year old boy who performed an
astonishinglyagile and intricate dance. Guerrero went backstage to
find out howit was done and the trainer demonstrated how he moved
the childslimbs into the correct positions for the dance while the
boyremained passive and relaxed. Later the boy had to reproduce
the
movements by himself whilst remembering the relaxed
andeffortless feel. Guerreros adaptation of this technique to
thekeyboard involved placing the hand in a relaxed way on
thekeyboard, with the arm hanging loosely, the finger pads resting
onthe keys, and the second knuckles (PIP joints) as the highest
point.The other hand then tapped the individual fingers on the
fingertipsor the end joint (DIP) down to the keybed, allowing the
keys toreturn the fingers quickly to the surface of the keys. After
this, thefingers performed the movements without the help of the
otherhand but whilst maintaining the same feeling of
effortlessness. (Thisties in well with what my own teacher, Ernest
Empson, told me ofGodowski (his teacher)s methods. Godowski told
his pupils that
the whole hand should remain relaxed in virtuoso fingerwork
asthough it had fainted and that the fingers were moved by
tinysparks of energy which allowed the fingers to return to the
relaxedstate instantly. When you listen to recordings of
Godowskislightning leggiero finger work (as in Liszts La
Leggierezza forexample) this description makes good sense.)
It takes only armchair reasoning (to borrow Richard
Dawkinssphrase) to understand that learning to perform an action
with the
