What is the Taubman Approach?
The Taubman Approach is the science of coordinated and aligned movement at the piano that, once achieved, allows for the overcoming of technical limitations and injuries and provides the tools for artistic expression. Dorothy Taubman's ingenious discoveries have allowed students of all backgrounds, ages, and levels to develop a previously unimagined effortlessness and ease at the instrument and to fulfill their highest artistic potential. The Golandsky Institute was founded by John Bloomfield, Robert Durso, Edna Golandsky, and Mary Moran in 2003 to preserve, study, and teach this remarkable body of knowledge. A central component of the Golandsky Institute is the Professional Training Program, which trains and certifies teachers in the Taubman Approach through its unique mentoring system.
I have studied this Approach with Robert Durso since 2010. I earned my Certification as a Taubman Instructor through the Golandsky Institute Professional Training Program in 2016, and my Certification as Tubman Teacher at the Associate Level in 2023. I came to the Taubman Approach after developing debilitating playing-related injuries during my conservatory training. I am deeply grateful to have joined the countless pianists worldwide who have overcome their injuries thanks to the Taubman Approach, and am delighted to be sharing the joy of this work with my students. The Taubman Approach is beneficial to students on every level: in developing the tools of musical expression and a virtuoso technique, in overcoming physical pain and fatigue, and in injury prevention.
This Approach has healed repetitive-strain injuries of all kinds, including tendinitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and focal dystonia. In addition to benefiting pianists and musicians, the Taubman work has also healed many others who work with their hands, including those with repetitive strain injuries resulting from the use of computers and hand-held devices.
In addition to implementing this work with my students, I enjoy introducing the work to my teaching colleagues, and have presented an Introductory Lecture on the Taubman Approach to the Bucks County Association of Piano Teachers.
For more information about the Taubman Approach from the Golandsky Institute, please visit:
www.golandskyinstitute.org
I have studied this Approach with Robert Durso since 2010. I earned my Certification as a Taubman Instructor through the Golandsky Institute Professional Training Program in 2016, and my Certification as Tubman Teacher at the Associate Level in 2023. I came to the Taubman Approach after developing debilitating playing-related injuries during my conservatory training. I am deeply grateful to have joined the countless pianists worldwide who have overcome their injuries thanks to the Taubman Approach, and am delighted to be sharing the joy of this work with my students. The Taubman Approach is beneficial to students on every level: in developing the tools of musical expression and a virtuoso technique, in overcoming physical pain and fatigue, and in injury prevention.
This Approach has healed repetitive-strain injuries of all kinds, including tendinitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and focal dystonia. In addition to benefiting pianists and musicians, the Taubman work has also healed many others who work with their hands, including those with repetitive strain injuries resulting from the use of computers and hand-held devices.
In addition to implementing this work with my students, I enjoy introducing the work to my teaching colleagues, and have presented an Introductory Lecture on the Taubman Approach to the Bucks County Association of Piano Teachers.
For more information about the Taubman Approach from the Golandsky Institute, please visit:
www.golandskyinstitute.org
The Taubman Approach and Piano Injuries
The Taubman Approach has achieved global notoriety for its astonishing abilities in healing piano injuries—and for good reason. There is no other body of knowledge that has consistently and successfully allowed pianists to recover from their injuries. While medical intervention is valuable in treating symptoms of repetitive strain injuries, they do not address the problem at its cause, and therefore do nothing to prevent symptoms from returning or worsening once the pianist returns to playing. Like thousands of other pianists throughout history who have suffered from playing-related injuries, I remained trapped in a cycle of injury and re-injury for five years during my own studies as a piano major in undergraduate and graduate school. It wasn’t until I trained in the Taubman Approach that I was able to play again without pain—and, in fact, play better than I had ever done before! This work has helped many pianists around the world to heal as well. Many wonder how the Taubman Approach is able to achieve such remarkable results. To understand the power of this work, we must understand the root cause of repetitive strain injuries, and the principles of the Taubman Approach that allow pianists to avoid them while tackling the infinite and complex demands of the virtuoso piano repertoire.
What is the Cause of Repetitive Strain Injuries?
The label, “Repetitive Strain Injuries,” is a misnomer that has done enormous damage to those suffering from them. Piano injuries are not over-use injuries: they are mis-use injuries. It is perfectly possible to play the piano without straining any part of the playing mechanism. When this is not understood, pianists often seek to play less, or adhere to practice schedules that allow for frequent breaks, in an effort to recover from their injuries. However, such approaches are ineffective in the long-term. If a pianist is using movements that cause strain to the body, injury will result after some amount of repetition: how much varies depending on the type and amount of strain and each individual’s unique tolerance to it. Playing with such laborious movements also causes poor musical results: a lack of speed, tone, evenness, or clarity are often the first symptoms of technical problems, far sooner than a lack of comfort or the manifestation of pain and fatigue. It was, in fact, better musical results that Dorothy Taubman was seeking with her students when she made her discoveries: healing piano injuries was a happy (and, to those suffering from them, often apparently miraculous) unintended consequence.
The fact that piano playing can be a natural and effortless behavior for the body is, in my experience, not a precept commonly held among piano teachers and students. Many pianists persist in the use of technical exercises to develop technique, and view fatigue or pain at the end of them as a sign of necessary strengthening. Nothing could be further from the truth: pain and fatigue are a warning from the body. Such warnings are always a symptom of a technical error and, with the correct information, are able to be eliminated.
An Important Principle of the Taubman Approach
We have already seen an important principle of the Taubman work: playing the piano is an activity that can be accomplished with movements that do not cause strain, fatigue, pain, or discomfort of any kind. In other words, playing the piano with a healthy technique involves the exclusive use of movements that remain within the body’s mid-range of motion. For example, one of many common causes of symptoms at the piano is a motion the Taubman Approach has named “twisting.” Twisting is the sideways movement of the hand at the wrist at an extreme angle in either direction away from the forearm. The mid-range of side-to-side motion of the hand at the wrist is extremely small: such movement goes into the extreme range of motion and therefore becomes a strain to the body almost immediately. Twisting is a motion that is easily avoidable once students understand how to move properly, but is extremely common among pianists attempting to meet the complex demands of the piano repertoire without knowledge of healthy movements and how to attain them.
Once this main principle is understood, it becomes possible to identify the many ways in which it is routinely broken by piano teachers and students. Twisting, as we have seen, is one example; other examples include curling or straightening the fingers, collapsing the wrist, and many more.
The Taubman Approach and Piano Injury Recovery
Simply identifying technical errors is a small part of the battle in healing piano injuries. Many pedagogues and concert artists have correctly identified certain movements as unhealthy or injurious. The problem lies in answering a different question: how? How do we avoid these movements while playing the piano, with all of its complex demands of timing, sound, speed, and coordination? What movements of the finger, hand, and arm are unified, coordinated and aligned, and therefore efficient and healthy? Taubman’s answer was a body of knowledge that is truly ingenious. Dorothy Taubman was able to discover each of the elements of a virtuoso piano technique and how they operate as a system. Once the elements are learned in the body, they are able to be coordinated with each other to allow for the playing of any passage in the repertoire with truly effortless motion.
As such, the path to recovery for injured pianists generally follows a similar trajectory. Students of the Taubman Approach must learn the elements of a healthy coordinated technique and how they combine with each other; they must learn to apply the elements to passages from the repertoire and discover how they function in speed; and they must learn to analyze repertoire and determine how each element functions and how they function in proportion and relationship to each other. With experience, all of these movements and analyses become increasingly automatic. I continue to be astonished at the eagerness with which my hands learn and internalize the Taubman work. By contrast, in the years before I came to the Taubman Approach, I had to practice religiously to internalize concepts. Missing even one day would set me back weeks, and even then I often felt unable to achieve the results my teachers demanded. Movements of a healthy and coordinated technique are natural and easy movements and lend themselves to natural and easy learning. Such efficiency of learning is yet another happy and accidental benefit of the Taubman work.
With the help of Taubman’s incredible knowledge, a lifetime of piano playing can be a fascinating, fulfilling, and pain-free pursuit!
What is the Cause of Repetitive Strain Injuries?
The label, “Repetitive Strain Injuries,” is a misnomer that has done enormous damage to those suffering from them. Piano injuries are not over-use injuries: they are mis-use injuries. It is perfectly possible to play the piano without straining any part of the playing mechanism. When this is not understood, pianists often seek to play less, or adhere to practice schedules that allow for frequent breaks, in an effort to recover from their injuries. However, such approaches are ineffective in the long-term. If a pianist is using movements that cause strain to the body, injury will result after some amount of repetition: how much varies depending on the type and amount of strain and each individual’s unique tolerance to it. Playing with such laborious movements also causes poor musical results: a lack of speed, tone, evenness, or clarity are often the first symptoms of technical problems, far sooner than a lack of comfort or the manifestation of pain and fatigue. It was, in fact, better musical results that Dorothy Taubman was seeking with her students when she made her discoveries: healing piano injuries was a happy (and, to those suffering from them, often apparently miraculous) unintended consequence.
The fact that piano playing can be a natural and effortless behavior for the body is, in my experience, not a precept commonly held among piano teachers and students. Many pianists persist in the use of technical exercises to develop technique, and view fatigue or pain at the end of them as a sign of necessary strengthening. Nothing could be further from the truth: pain and fatigue are a warning from the body. Such warnings are always a symptom of a technical error and, with the correct information, are able to be eliminated.
An Important Principle of the Taubman Approach
We have already seen an important principle of the Taubman work: playing the piano is an activity that can be accomplished with movements that do not cause strain, fatigue, pain, or discomfort of any kind. In other words, playing the piano with a healthy technique involves the exclusive use of movements that remain within the body’s mid-range of motion. For example, one of many common causes of symptoms at the piano is a motion the Taubman Approach has named “twisting.” Twisting is the sideways movement of the hand at the wrist at an extreme angle in either direction away from the forearm. The mid-range of side-to-side motion of the hand at the wrist is extremely small: such movement goes into the extreme range of motion and therefore becomes a strain to the body almost immediately. Twisting is a motion that is easily avoidable once students understand how to move properly, but is extremely common among pianists attempting to meet the complex demands of the piano repertoire without knowledge of healthy movements and how to attain them.
Once this main principle is understood, it becomes possible to identify the many ways in which it is routinely broken by piano teachers and students. Twisting, as we have seen, is one example; other examples include curling or straightening the fingers, collapsing the wrist, and many more.
The Taubman Approach and Piano Injury Recovery
Simply identifying technical errors is a small part of the battle in healing piano injuries. Many pedagogues and concert artists have correctly identified certain movements as unhealthy or injurious. The problem lies in answering a different question: how? How do we avoid these movements while playing the piano, with all of its complex demands of timing, sound, speed, and coordination? What movements of the finger, hand, and arm are unified, coordinated and aligned, and therefore efficient and healthy? Taubman’s answer was a body of knowledge that is truly ingenious. Dorothy Taubman was able to discover each of the elements of a virtuoso piano technique and how they operate as a system. Once the elements are learned in the body, they are able to be coordinated with each other to allow for the playing of any passage in the repertoire with truly effortless motion.
As such, the path to recovery for injured pianists generally follows a similar trajectory. Students of the Taubman Approach must learn the elements of a healthy coordinated technique and how they combine with each other; they must learn to apply the elements to passages from the repertoire and discover how they function in speed; and they must learn to analyze repertoire and determine how each element functions and how they function in proportion and relationship to each other. With experience, all of these movements and analyses become increasingly automatic. I continue to be astonished at the eagerness with which my hands learn and internalize the Taubman work. By contrast, in the years before I came to the Taubman Approach, I had to practice religiously to internalize concepts. Missing even one day would set me back weeks, and even then I often felt unable to achieve the results my teachers demanded. Movements of a healthy and coordinated technique are natural and easy movements and lend themselves to natural and easy learning. Such efficiency of learning is yet another happy and accidental benefit of the Taubman work.
With the help of Taubman’s incredible knowledge, a lifetime of piano playing can be a fascinating, fulfilling, and pain-free pursuit!
To hear more stories of pianists who recovered from injuries through studying the Taubman Approach, check out this wonderful video about the work of Dorothy Taubman: