On Creative Technique to Play Glissandos 🎹

12 Feb 2026 · 2 min

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This content was created by The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. This content was uploaded by The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. This is a YouTube episode titled "On Creative Technique to Play Glissandos 🎹" from The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song (posted 2026-02-12). The excerpt is a conversational segment featuring pianist-composer Asia Korypanova explaining how she invented a "fist glissando" technique to produce very loud glissandos (notably on black keys/harps) without injury. The host (The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song) adds a promo directing listeners to watch or listen to the full episode.

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portraying the thickness of the orchestral material. And sometimes you have to invent techniques and things to portray certain things. There is a phenomenal climax in Einhalden-Leben's Hero's Love section, which is number 3. And there is like, da da da ba ba, and there's two harps are playing glissandos down, and they're doing them in octaves together, so they're very prominent. There's so many things going on at the same time, but these cascades of glissandos are very, very, very loud. And like, what do you do? They are glissandos on harmonically black keys. Good luck doing glissando on fortissimo on black keys. You're gonna lose some of your knuckles and some of your skin and like maybe some of your bones in there. So I was just experimenting and just, it took me maybe a good week. It's one of those moments that give me a reason to talk about taming a wild animal. The animal goes like, "No, I'm not gonna give you myself." So I invented a fist glissando where you go there and do the glissando by this part of your clenched fist, meat of your— because when you clench it, if you just do this, it's flat. But if you do this, the muscle rounds up and becomes thick and rounded, and you can glide through that and you don't break skin at all. And you can be very, very loud at the same time. It really works. Wow. So once I figured that out, I was like, yeah.
In case you missed our latest episode featuring pianist composer Asia Korypanova, watch the full conversation on YouTube or listen on your favorite podcast platform. Follow and subscribe to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Tradition Meets Innovation.