Season 3 Episode 8: Rae de Lisle -- Piano Pedagogue & Author of Fit 4 Piano

In these lessons, I'll be enlarging on some of the ideas from my book Fit for Piano, which I wrote in order to help people to play with a technique which is coordinated, kind to the body, and helps to prevent injury. So if I practice these chords with a double bounce So using a controlled movement involving the whole arm, lift the arm, land like a parachute on one note, and then roll off onto the next note, leaving the keyboard like a hot air balloon. Now try the 3-note slurs in a chromatic pattern, starting on the G above middle C with your second finger. Don't feel apprehensive about the black notes, but fall freely, taking your weight across those 3 notes. So in a slow tempo, it looks like this. I'm moving in and in again.

Welcome to another episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song.

I'm Clara Zhang.

For anyone listening or watching our show for the first time, welcome! Clara and I are both classical pianists and piano teachers from New York City. This podcast is for anyone who plays the piano for fun, loves listening to piano music, or for someone who is currently pursuing a career in piano or works in the industry professionally.

In each episode, we interview a guest speaker who has been breaking exciting new ground in the music industry. Before getting started, we want to thank our amazing fans and listeners for tuning in. Please rate our show and review it on Apple Podcasts because every rating and review will help people find our show.

Today we have Dr. Ray De Lisle from New Zealand, who is a renowned piano pedagogue and author. So Clara, you discovered this amazing teacher, right?

Right, exactly, Yukimi. I was introduced to Dr. De Lisle's work a few months ago, actually, when an old friend, an old childhood friend, um, Freya from New Zealand reached out and she said she's been following our show. And she and I actually lived in the same dorm when we were like 11 years old, and she was a fantastic pianist back then. I remember her Vividly. And then she was like, please, you know, you should reach out to Dr. DeLeo. And then she just had these books published and then it's just amazing. So yeah, I was very glad she agreed to come to our show.

Yeah, can't wait to interview her and hear her story. So let's get the show started. Yeah. You are listening to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century. We are honored to welcome Dr. Rae de Lisle, one of New Zealand's foremost piano pedagogues. Throughout her outstanding teaching career, she has produced many exceptional piano students who have won numerous major competitions in New Zealand and internationally. Dr. de Lisle's groundbreaking PhD research into focal dystonia has gained international recognition and led to presentations and keynote speeches worldwide. One of her publications, Focal Dystonia in Pianists: A Way to Recovery Through Retraining, includes more than 600 videos and is intended for both injured musicians and their therapists. Her experience in teaching students from very beginning to international competition winners, as well as her studies with renowned pedagogues such as Bridget Wild, who was the student of Claudia Arau and Cyril Smith, who was the student of Rachmaninoff, and Maria Curcio, student of Arthur Schnabel, gives her a unique perspective on the development of injury-preventative piano technique at every level from the beginner to the advanced piano student. For more than 20 years, Dr. de Lille taught at University of Auckland, where she later also served as the head of the piano department. So Dr. DeLeo, welcome. Thank you for being here today. Yay.

Thank you so much for joining our show, Dr. DeLeo. Oh my goodness. It is so exciting to finally meet you in person. Not in person, in person, but it feels like that way.

That's great. Thank you for having me.

I was talking to an old friend from a long time ago, Freya, in New Zealand, and she One day she was mentioning to me about your books, and I think she also published some books recently, I believe. And then she was like, you have to— and she was like, I've been following your podcast, and you have to please interview Dr. DeLeo. And I was like, okay. So she sent me some information, and then we reached out. So, oh my goodness, I would— we would really love to know. And we— I really enjoyed reading the PDF and the video that you sent to us. And, but we want to first discover how, how did you discover the love of music in the very beginning?

Well, I guess as a small child, my mother, who didn't have the opportunity to learn when she was small, she was practicing and she practiced until she got to what we have in the Associated Board system, Grade 8. She got as far as that, but she didn't start as a child. So she was practicing a lot when I was growing up. So I heard the piano in the house and my father was an amateur flute player and he just loved to play anything that he could lay his hands on. So he played a bit of violin, a bit of oboe, a bit of clarinet and a bit of flute. So there was music in the house and I think everybody loved music. We all loved music.

Wow.

Sounds like a real musical family. That's so cool.

I think I was lucky because they just wanted me to have the opportunity that they didn't have as young people. I mean, it was sort of after the war and there was not money around for music lessons much. And so they were very keen that I was able to have that opportunity and they were incredibly encouraging, actually. And I suppose, you know, growing up, it was just something that I did that I loved to do. I didn't really think that I would be a professional pianist. I guess I was the sort of kid that I had lots of options going through school and I didn't really think it was possible. To be a musician. But then it really, things snowballed, I guess, when I was sort of in my late teens and I'd gone to university and I had studied all sorts of other subjects like maths and psychology and, you know, a little bit of music, but it was just because I enjoyed it. And then I was introduced, I met a conductor and he heard me play and he said, I want you to meet Claudio Arau because he's coming to New Zealand and I'd want you to play to him. And I thought, 'Why would I be asked to play to Claudio Rao?' Somebody said. And so I did. And Claudio Rao wrote me a reference, which was, you know, just wonderful to have. And through that reference and then the way things snowballed, the conductor asked me to play a concerto and those— suddenly things snowballed and I found myself in the UK studying music at the Guildhall School of Music. That was a big thrill, really. And the reason I met Bridget Wild was through Claudio Rao's recommendation. She was his representative in London. And so I spent the next 7 and a half years in London, you know, studying, playing concerts, just generally exploring music, really.

Right. Wow.

That's such a, such a story, right? Meeting someone like that at such a young age.

One of those snowball things that sometimes happens in life that channel you in a certain way.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And how did that change you, especially later on as a piano teacher, right? And you are— I know we have, you know, read a lot about you and you actually help students to enter competitions. And do you feel like at such a young age you study with— Overall, right? And then how did that change maybe your perspective in life, especially in the beginning?

I was incredibly lucky with the teachers that I had. I mean, you know, I had Bridget Wilde, then I had Cyril Smith, who was a student of Rachmaninoff. He had a totally different way of teaching. And then there was Maria Cotio, who was a golden person, really. I mean, all sorts of famous people like Martha Argerich and so on would go and consult with her. So, you know, she was on a different level in some ways. So, but they were all incredibly different. And so in my own playing, I think that was really helpful. And as I began teaching, I explored the ideas from all three. And then as I went on further, just, I don't know, I guess you never stop learning when you're teaching. Sure. And, you know, you learn from every student. And one of the things I was fortunate enough to do later on was to really travel around the world and interview world-famous pianists and pedagogues and ask them specifically their ideas about technique. So yeah.

Oh, you actually did that. That's amazing.

Wow.

That is so cool. Sometimes, you know, it's— I remember when I went to school in Kansas, I haven't been to New Zealand. I would, we would love to go. And, but I know that it's in New Zealand right now. The classical education is still a music education is still very strong, right? In the in the community, in the whole school system. And, but I remember I had a teacher who had this tree and then put on the, you know, on the wall that, you know, somehow we're all student of the student of Beethoven, Mozart, and all of those. And it's just so inspiring to actually see. And then you actually had a direct sort of like a tree, you know, from all these amazing—

that is actually to see that genealogy of development right through Liszt and, you know, as you say, Beethoven, we can all trace ourselves back to there, which is wonderful.

So I want to— I'm also curious, sometimes, you know, we all sort of start with our performing career. And I believe for you it was quite long and you really traveled around the world and for 20-some years and you were such a beautiful performer and you played hundreds of concerts a year, and both nationally and internationally, as a soloist, accompanist, and chamber musician. And then I also read that eventually there was an overuse of— there's injury that occurred which abruptly ended your performance career, and that you start to— or maybe had more time to concentrate on teaching. How did that Well, I'm curious, how did it all happen?

Sure. Well, actually, I was at the time, I had two small children and I thought I was super mum. So I was doing all these millions of, you know, hundreds of concerts, you know, a year. And yet I was trying to be a mother and, you know, all of that as well. And so I also thought I could do things really quickly. And at the time, just before my injury, I was actually writing a course for the New Zealand Correspondence School. So I wasn't practicing very much. And then suddenly I heard somebody became ill and was unable to play the Shostakovich Second Piano Concerto. So they said, would I play it? Well, I was due to play it later on in the year, but I hadn't learnt it at that point. I can do it really quickly. And so I learnt the concerto in, I think, about 9 days. I memorized it and I had it learnt. But it's full of octaves. And at the time, my octave technique wasn't that great. And I've got quite a small hand. And I was practicing these octaves in the Shostakovich. They go on for about 4 minutes without much break. And so I was going at it like an absolute maniac, you know, 6 hours a day, getting this piece learned. And suddenly I felt something go snap in my wrist. And I thought, my goodness, what is that?— and virtually overnight my whole arms and my whole body just was riddled with pain, right from the waist up. It was like a massive occurrence of collapse. It was like a physical collapse. And so I never did the concert. And I really didn't play after that, hardly at all. I had enormous pain problems. And the— I think the trouble was that I didn't leave any stone unturned in my search for recovery. I went to every kind of therapist there was, you know, I traveled the length and breadth. I went to Australia. I just, you know, I was like a maniac trying to get better because it was my life, you know.

Mm-hmm.

But I think not all the treatments that I had were productive. And there was one particular doctor who stretched the nerve so violently that from that day my condition became chronic and it turned into chronic pain. So what happened then over those— I tried for 7 years to fix it, but it didn't work. And of course, life takes over and I became more and more involved in teaching, which I realized I really loved. So it wasn't the end of the world by that stage, but I just couldn't ever get my playing back more than about 40 minutes before I would set off this pain reaction which would go throughout my body and would disable me for a week, you know. And so it was not something I could just work through because the problem that they now know about chronic pain is that it's neurological. And that what you do is you— what I had done is I'd practiced that every 40 minutes or so I would set off this pain system and that's what my body knew and it would do it absolutely without without exception. And so the strange thing about it is that even a couple of years ago, I've got a— my daughter is a professional viola player. My son-in-law is a professional cellist. Beautiful. Both beautiful musicians. My son-in-law said to me, why don't we make a CD? And I looked at him and I thought, well, can I really do that? And then he said, well, look, we could do some songs. And that wouldn't be very strenuous. And let's see if we can, you know, it's 20 years since my injury, you know, I thought, well, okay, maybe we give it a try. And so I went into chronic pain and learnt about how to reprogram your pain system from an internet course that I subscribed to. And a couple of other things where you actually train yourself to, um, divert those reactions in a different way. And so I was able to get through the CD, and since then I've been able to play a concert, which has been a terrific, um, I don't know, it's like coming home really. It just very special for me.

That's beautiful.

Concerts like I did, but that's— it was just lovely to be able to play again. And I, I guess, um, it taught me that actually chronic pain is— it's a little bit like focal dystonia that I know you want to touch on. It's neurological and it needs reprogramming in the same way that focal dystonia does.

Wow, really? You know, I actually was listening to the CD. I mean, just the— I think one song out of that CD album was on YouTube and it was listening and then realized that, wow, that's your son-in-law playing cello and then your daughter is playing Violin. So yeah, wonderful. What a musical family. So anyway, yeah. So speaking of that, I really would like to know more about this issue with focal dystonia, which is the neurological issue. And we usually associate injury with pain only, muscular pain and also joint pain, which is like, you know, of course fatal to pianists as well. So And you have such extensive research on focal dystonia, so could you tell us?

It was way back in about 2004 or so. One of the students at the university was diagnosed with focal dystonia. Now, I knew a little bit about it because at the time I was having treatment from a doctor that was also interested in it. So he shared information about it while he was treating me. Anyway, I was kind of fascinated. And also our— New Zealand's most prominent concert pianist, Michael Houston, had suffered focal dystonia, and at that time he wasn't playing at all. Now, he's a terrific pianist. He was third in the Van Cliburn, sixth in the Tchaikovsky. I mean, that level of playing. And he was afflicted with focal dystonia. And because I had helped this girl at the university, she wrote to him and she said, you should talk to Ray. She's got 'Have some ideas about this.' And so, you know, why would he talk to another pianist? I mean, he was sort of like God in New Zealand, you know, for pianists. And he'd been to lots of doctors, but it wasn't progressing. So anyway, he— because I was looking for a research subject at the university, we have to do research, and I thought, 'I know, I'm going to research focal dystonia. That sounds like a really interesting subject. And so I rang Michael up and I said, listen, would you come and talk to me about your dystonia? And he said, sure, I'll talk to you with a tape recorder if you like. And he showed me some of the things that the doctors were doing with him. And I knew he came to Auckland once a month and he had a team and they would have dinner together and they'd get around and they would watch him play and they would come up with ideas about what to do. And so he showed me what they were doing and I looked at him and I said, Michael, there's another way. I just instinctively knew that what he had to do was to completely strip his piano playing back to the most basic and build it up again, like every building block. And so he— I showed him a few things and he looked at me and he said, 'I need to go on with this.' And I said, 'Well, look, it's no use if you only come to Auckland once in a while. We need to actually work every day.' So I said, 'Why don't you come for 2 weeks?' 'Well, work every day and let's see if we can make any difference for that.' And so he did. And we worked. And by about the 5th day— his trouble was that his fingers would go down together like that. He didn't know how to separate these 2 fingers. So 5 fingers would sound like that. He couldn't play 5 notes. And so I knew I had to separate these 2 fingers. And I understood that it had to be a neurological thing, but we had to find a new way. And I found— I also wanted to get his whole body so that it was more involved in what he did. And so as we worked, we suddenly found by about the 4th or 5th day, maybe the 4th day, suddenly we were getting a little bit of separation. And he said, I need you to talk to my doctors. So one of the doctors came along and he was very excited. He said, 'You must video this.' And so I've started videoing and I've videoed our progress and what happened over those 2 weeks. And then in a little while after that, we got quite a long way in those 2 weeks. And then he would come maybe once a month or something. And by the end of that year, he played a Bach and a Mozart piano concerto, which was— Tremendous, tremendous trouble. And he's gone on since then, which is about 2005 or so, to having an enormous career. I mean, you know, he's recorded the Beethoven sonatas twice and he has recorded the Bach Preludium fugues and he's playing all the time and he's still playing all the time. So whereas he would say his dystonia is still there, but it's 96 or 98%, you know, that he's It doesn't really affect him anymore. And I know that that's, you know, not that common. And I know when I've spoken at conferences and so on, sometimes the world experts like Hans-Christian Jarbusch and Altenmüller, they say, 'Is that boy still playing?' You know, they want to know if it hasn't had a relapse or something.

Imagine if you were able to meet Robert Schumann back in the day.

Indeed. But it was wonderful to— it was an enormous privilege to be able to work to work with Michael. And because of that, I thought, well, if there's some other pianists like this, I will, you know, do the same protocol with them, with each one, and then we'll make a scientific thesis on all of this. And one of the doctors that was Michael's doctor, doctor called Dr. Benjamin Speedy, he was terribly excited about this. And he also wanted piano lessons. He had a Steinway. And he wanted piano lessons. And I said, I'll tell you what, you help me with my research and I'll give you piano lessons. So it was a wonderful connection. And right, we went on and he helped me to make my thesis scientific because I'm not a scientist. I wouldn't have had a clue how to make it so it was scientifically very verifiable. And so that's what we did.

Yeah. What's— I'm just curious, what's this pathology? What's the cause of this, uh, focal dystonia? Do you know?

Well, they really don't know. I think the cause is misuse. I think that what happens is, you see, if I look back at Michael's history, before his injury, he was playing the Chopin Etude, Op. 10, No. 2, which is very threatening for, you know, 5-4-5.

Extremely uncomfortable.

Very uncomfortable. And he was using that as a warm-up. Now, these fingers got muddled up. Now, to me, that A-tube was probably— it might have only been the last straw. But that crossover, neurologically, if you think of— one of the examples I've used for focal dystonia is it's a bit like telephone cables. If you imagine two cables like that, that have individual messages. And over the years they start to rub together, and they rub and rub and rub and rub until the casing wears out. And then you get a cross-circuit happening, so that the information from one cable gets confused with the other cable. And that's what happened in Estonia. The cable— so the only way through is to— I don't know that you can break the cables apart, but you can find new cables. Replace the old cables with new ones. And that's, in a layman's way of explaining it, I think that's the clearest way I know. You know, look, there are a lot of other things that the researchers will tell you about inhibition, and I could go into lots of scientific things, but I think from a musician's point of view, that to me makes it pretty clear that we have to actually retrain the path, the neural pathways, so we get a fresh message. And then we can build that message up until it takes over the old one that's dysfunctional.

Now, with all these experiences, you know, with not only just teaching students, but also helping, you know, world-class pianists to prevent injury, or even with injury you're helping. So then came to your latest publication of Fit for Piano, I believe. So we want to know more about it. But so creating this set of exercises for pianists and piano students by researching basically, you know, principle of piano technique and injury prevention. So what's your principle of piano technique? What— because, you know, all Piano's history is over 300 years, and then the piano technique has evolved because the piano instrument itself has evolved, right? So, and then the philosophy has changed. Obviously we have more access and knowledge of science. So what is the principle of it, according to you, Dr. Adelio, of piano technique?

That's a very big question. I think what happened, if we look back to the history of piano, is that it came out of harpsichord playing, which the action was very light and very shallow, and people would play just with using their fingers. And then the piano was invented, and so what they thought was that, oh, well, we need to make a bigger sound, so we have to lift our fingers really high and we have to fire them down onto the keys. Now, the thinking was that in order to play we had to use our fingers and we— that was what the focus was. And I mean, although with Liszt you can see that he obviously did use his arms a lot, I think that what's come out of the history of piano has been a preoccupation with the fingers. And I think that we now know that to play an instrument you need to involve all of you. So you need to be supported from your feet, your torso, your core of your body, and you need to be free in the shoulders. You need to know how all of that works, how your posture works at the piano, how your neck is. So it's actually a really whole body thing. And so with Fit 4 Piano, I've tried to come at it from the point of view of big gestures, because I find that most of the students that I get have been playing for years. You know, they've mostly— I'm not teaching beginners anymore. So they've had so many years where they've developed all sorts of tensions and, you know, bad habits. And so what I decided to do after I came out of the focal dystonia thing, I thought, I just don't want to only work with injured pianists. I want to be preventative. And so that's why I got the set of exercises which deals with the big movements first, because most of them know about this. But what they don't all know about is how to use the arm and how to support the body and how to move on the sitting bones and, you know, how to actually facilitate the playing by using the whole body. And so that's where FOCU— that's where Fit 4 Piano starts, starts with the most basic movement.

Wonderful. Yeah, later we would like to— for you to show us, but before that, so This is not really the method book, right? It just, it's the compilation of technical ideas and exercises that you have found most useful and then also developed over time.

Correct?

Yeah.

Yeah. That's absolutely right. It's not intended to be something you start at the beginning and you work through. It's something to dip into. And what I'm finding is if I have a new student that, you know, has got lots of bad habits, the book is full of video. So I'll show you that in a moment, but it's full of video so that if I give the student the the book, it enables me to give them a lot more exercises than I would be able to do if I just was teaching them for an hour. So I can say, look, this is the exercise, watch the video, that's what you need for this week. And then maybe we'll go to rotation. You need this rotation, you can't play the Pathétique without your arm working better. So do this exercise or do this exercise because your cantabile, your singing sound, it's not working for you because you're not connecting the weight of the arm with the key. And so then we go into the page about cantabile and we do those exercises. So that's sort of how it works. It's meant to be a help, not a sort of a book of ideas to help teachers and students to play.

You know what I'd say, because I look through all the pages, and it's huge. Like, the information is so much, and it's gonna take some time for me to— although, you know, I'm a piano teacher, I've played piano for a long time, and I, I've learned technique and everything, but this is going to take a long time. So to me, this is like a Bible, Bible of piano technique. So if you kindly show us what's like— yes. This episode is presented in collaboration with our good friends at Forte, a free alternative to Zoom purpose-built for music teachers.

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Let's continue with the episode.

I've had the book beautifully illustrated with some watercolors that an artist did for me. The only problem with that is it looks like a children's book, and it's never really been intended to be a children's book. It's just really that I think We can understand illustrations really well from little images. So, you know, we cover everything in the book from the basis of legato, joint support, staccato, the wrist, and cantabile scales and so on. So I've used images such as, for example, parachute landings in order to fall with a free arm. So on every page you've got these little videos that pop up and then Melody, who was a former student of mine, she will show you the kind of things that need to happen. So you can see here she's dropping on her lap because I feel what people can't do at the most basic level is fall with a free arm, but they can usually fall on their lap. And so if we take that to the piano, then that will work. And then also on the page there's pictures of me, little videos of me, where I show how these movements actually are involved in all playing, whatever. And as well as that, we've got little teacher's notes at the side here, and that's really to give more information for the teachers. So that will pop up and people can, you know, just get a bit more information. So this book is meant to be simple. It's not meant to take hours You know, most technique books I have on my shelf, they're very, very long and they've got lots and lots of musical examples and I have to confess that I really haven't read all the way through all of them. But if I go on with my book, I do a chapter about posture, just showing this beautiful little girl who's got a lovely straight back and never had a piano lesson and yet we look at some of the university students with all the things that go wrong with them with the back, sitting behind the sit bones or the raised shoulder or the raised, you know, the shoulders coming forward. All of these are catalysts for injury and need to be fixed. So that's kind of important. Then I showed you about falling. So at the most basic level, we need to be able to fall on a note and we need to be able to leave a note without tension. So that's a basic, a down and an up movement, which is really a 2-note slur. So we fall like a parachute and we leave like a hot air balloon. So, you know, it's just a basic exercise like this. But— so that's, you know, the most basic thing we have to do. Then we have to take that over more notes. So we have like 3-note slurs, like this sort of thing. So we're just joining notes together in bigger gestures or 4 notes, and then we can involve— most of my exercises start without the thumb, just simply because the thumb tends to pull us into that position we call ulnar deviation, which, you know, it's this kind of— it's uncomfortable and it's not really helpful. So here we're just adding the thumb, but we're adding it in a strange way by coming underneath it, that the gesture, sort of this sort of— So it's not your usual way of learning scales. Now, people often talk to me about finger exercises, and yes, they're important, but I think like everything else, it depends how they're done. So I usually start with just the long fingers 2 and 3 or 3 and 4 and use, you know, forget the thumb until those are working well. So I know, you know, in my search to find this information, I went around the world and I interviewed people from Juilliard and Eastman and Royal College and so on. And the Taubman people are really hot on moving in and out of the black keys. So— That's right. —this is the kind of thing where— So, you know, whoops. Yeah, that's sort of moving in and out of the back key so that it sort of— you're used to using the whole length of the key. I've got a chapter about joint support where we use silly little exercises like a monkey pulling himself up into a tree. Spy glasses and bunny hops, which uses— it's to help the thumb to be nice and flexible with a bit of rotation. And another one for the 5th finger. I won't go into all of those. Keeping the C-shape in the hand so that when we get to a chromatic scale, we've got that sort of sense of support. And all of these videos are within the book. And then we talk about staccato, using the whole arm first, like a bounce on a trampoline, like this sort of thing. Wonderful. And then we have using the end of the fingers by using repeated notes. And then things about the wrist, I guess, stiffness in the wrist is the most common thing that I see, and I've found this particular exercise fantastic for that. And also being able to shape a phrase. I talked a little bit about Cantabile. And then scales. I guess that what I've heard with people playing scales is they play 4-octave fast scales and they say they've done their scales. But if you look at them, they're often really dysfunctional from a biomechanical point of view. So I break the scales up into tetrachords and I've called it the Wiggly Snake Exercise. So it looks a little bit like this. So what we're doing is just literally practicing the turnaround, which is where A lot of people get into trouble with the scale. So I only practice the first 3 or 4 notes and then we get it going into a gesture, which I won't go into. Then we talk about rotation. There's a lot of talk in piano technique about rotation and most of it talks about forearm rotation. In my experience, I think the upper arm needs to be free as well. Although it doesn't rotate as fast as this, I think it needs to be part of the movement. So that's my dog shaking itself to get dry with this. And then I use little gestures just like I've used in pretty much everything in order to learn that movement. So we're just— whoops, come back again. We're just literally— we're floating off the note so that there's no tension. I don't need the wrist to be involved. It's just that's to release after the rotation. So, and of course that belongs to broken octaves and trills and Alberti basses and broken chords. I'm just whizzing through because, you know, I'm getting a bit long. And then different kinds of jumps, arpeggios, and ways to play chords so that there's no harshness in the tone. And all of those sorts of things. Is voicing and octaves and pedaling and releasing, which I guess is to me the most important thing in the whole of piano technique.

Thank you so much for sharing. And it's just, of course, you know, I incorporate piano technique into weekly piano lessons for my students. And however, the challenge is to be consistent and, you know, you can't keep track of their progress because there's so much information that you have to give, but having to have a, like, a book like this to refer to is, I think it's very helpful. And as a teacher, it's very organized, categorized, but doesn't seem like sequential, as in if your student is having a problem with octaves, okay, just go to the octave section and then do this exercise, that sort of thing. Hey guys, we're now officially on Patreon.

Yeah, I'm so excited about our next step on this podcast journey.

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How can we as piano teachers be so consistent with teaching piano technique to our students? What's, what's the biggest tip that you can give?

Well, see, that's really why I've got the book, because to me, the problems they bring can always— they always have— they come out of one of those categories. They come out of maybe their arm's not free when they're dropping on a note, or, you know, they're locked here or they're locked there. I think what the consistency is— let me go back again. One of the things that I've found really successful is to take a little group of exercises. You know, not all students will do them. You know, some people think, "Oh no, I don't need those. I'm beyond that," or something. So I had a little boy yesterday and he's one that actually, he didn't think he needed them and he really does, right? He's really, you know, he's somebody who plays the fantasy impromptu really fast. He's 11 and, you know, he wants to play Neumann-Reigen. He wants to play all these and there's all sorts of stuff I want to sort it out. So I said to him, I said, "Listen," We'll do 3 exercises. I want you to do these every day. And with him, he is really locked here and at the elbow. So with him, I'm doing the gesture exercises, but over— I'm jumping across the keyboard, so it's like this. Because I want to get this going. And then I'm doing things like trampoline bounces over the keyboard, just because I've got to somehow help him to unlock this. And there's another wonderful exercise, and it might distort on the video, but, you know, when we play a loud sound, rather than going straight down, which is a really horrible sound, we can either go forward like this, or we can come backwards. And so I've got an exercise an exercise called Angel Swings, and this has been so helpful with these kids that are locked. So we actually go like this and we go to the end of the piano. So we go towards the body and then we go away and then we do it the other way round. And this Angel Swings idea, it's kind of lovely because it opens up the whole of this idea. And so for me, if I can get even 4 or 5 of these exercises done, to kind of help all of this whole body stuff. And if they will do them, then I find their sound and everything else improves. And then I find them within the repertoire. Because, you know, when I first started teaching, I wanted to strip people down and do nothing but exercises. Well, no, people won't do that. And so I don't do that anymore. So what I try and do is to work with where they are at. But actually include some of these exercises. You know, use the specific ones that they need. I mean, you know, sometimes they'll come and they say, "Oh, you know, I can't play the left hand of the Pathétique because my hand, my arm falls off," right? And so you say, "Okay, well, your rotation's not working, so we've got to do this rotation exercise, we've got to do this rotation exercise, we've got to do this one and float off." And, you know, if they will do that every day, then I find that goes into the piece. Then they've got a tool to practice that bit of the piece with. And I've found it really works well.

So do you recommend students to repeat the same exercises over a certain extended period of time, or should we do it maybe for a few days and then do something else and then come back to it?

I usually will give them at least 3 to go on with. So it might be, you know, something like a 2-note slur one. I think, you know, the kids that can't play a tone with a beautiful sound, they need that. And so I get them to fall on their lap and fall on the piano, and then I get them to do a 2-note slur. Now, you know, that's kind of like where we start, because if we think about it, at the piano you've got down and upward movements, you've got side to side, You've got round and round. And those are, you know, I think it was Veda Kaplinsky that said that to me, that, you know, we can have down and up, we can have side to side, we can have round and round. And I thought, yeah, that's really great. And we can rotate. That's the other one. So it's like 4 basic movements. So if I'm trying to help a student, I'll maybe pick one of each of those kind of actions. You know, maybe we get the down and up going to start with. So maybe if they really have a lot of tension problems, I'd do a down and up, I'd include it in a 2-note slur, I'd include a chord, falling on the chord and floating off, and I'd maybe include a trampoline bounce because that's all the same related sort of activity. And then, you know, if they're having trouble with— maybe they're having trouble with a sort of a broken chord like that, that's really rotation. So therefore we need this exercise. We also need something I've called sirens, which is just rocking from side to side and maybe doing each one of those twice, you know, so that we get used to rotating without the wrist going up and down at the same time, which slows down the movement. So yeah, that's how I use it, just to take a little snippet from here and say maybe— and when it's sorted, you can then make the exercise more complicated. So you can make it chromatics, or you can jump around. You know, so, but I found that as a warm-up before playing, if you do something that's a gesture, something that's a jump, and something that rotates, you know, and probably the wrist circles one, because that oils the wrist to move around. You know, a warm-up that can take less than 10 minutes, much better than 4 octaves of fast scales.

You know, I feel like I'm really excited to really dive into this book. You know, in preparation of this interview, I obviously, you know, I read a little bit here and there of the book, but then this morning when I was teaching, it was funny. So I have some students, they are, one of them, I mean, they're a couple and they're in their 80s. And the gentleman, I mean, he's amazing. How, if you're listening, he's been like, he found his Journey book from 1947 and he was like, I thought I wasn't even start training but now I am. And so now what we're doing is that we're trying to learn some new repertoire because he has read so much repertoire over the years. But I realized the one thing is that we do have a little trouble with technique sometimes. You know, maybe he studied in different stages, but he was never a professional, but he always played beautifully. So this morning we were trying— I had him try the Beethoven No. 27, the sonata. And then normally we have this habit like sometimes we get a little tense and I really try not to because, you know, they're in great health, but I still feel like I don't want him to have any pain, right? And then I felt like— now I'm realizing as I'm sitting here, I think it was because I was reading the book last night and something from the book jumped up in my brain this morning when I was teaching him. And then he was able to do this little exercise and then he was like, oh no, I don't feel anything then, you know? Like it was just a small, small things like you're saying. And I did really thought that this book was for children, but now I'm realizing it's for adults. So I'm really even more excited about that.

It's for everybody, you know, I mean, in my examples inside the book, I've used really simple examples, but also, you know, Chopin etudes. So it's like, it doesn't matter. The basics that we need are the same, but there's no way you can play 4 pages of a Chopin etude if you can't actually incorporate some kind of of freedom in the arm, you know, or you're just going to get stiff. And I think if you, you know, if you use an unhealthy movement over 4 bars and then you play for 4 pages, you're going to be tired. Right. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. So with this amazing book, so you have this collaborator, your student, Melody Deng, and she is the exercise model. And what an appropriate name for her role. And also I love that illustration, which is done by Yuria Ogura. It's a very inviting— but so, you told me that you're making a course out of this book. So can you tell us a little bit?

Sure. I think, as I said earlier, you know, one of the problems with those lovely illustrations, it looks a little bit like a book for kids. And I just wanted wanted to, with the course, go into more advanced repertoire, you know, the more— yeah, I guess, for people that have been playing, you know, 4 or 5 years or 10 years or however many years, and also for teachers. So although in the course we've used all the same kind of categories of staccato, legato, cantabile, arm weight, releasing, all of those things are within the course, but with a lot more information. So the course is made up of 20 lessons and they're roughly half an hour each. And so in each of the lessons I will talk and I play quite a bit to show examples. I talk about the concept and the exercise that I would use to establish it and how it relates to that repertoire. And then at the end of each chapter, I have these workouts with Melody. Now, this is where she takes the exercises from the book or from the course, actually something, you know, I've actually refined some of them and added others, but she takes them and she does them so that you can put your viewing device up on the piano desk and you can play along with her. So she will be doing 2-note slurs or whatever she's doing. And I would talk and I say, 'Be careful of your elbow, be careful your arm does this, watch that you don't fall too far, if your wrist moves when you're doing rotation, take a pair of scissors and stop it moving like this.' And so Melody's doing— so each of her little excerpts, maybe they're 6 or 7 minutes long, the student can play along with her and I think that's going to be a really important keystone. For the course because what I find, and you probably find as teachers, if you do something with the student and they watch your hand, they learn it really well. So with this, if they do something by looking at Melody and working along— so we've got printed printouts of all the exercises to go with it, they'll be downloadable, and so the student can have the download of knowing what's coming what's coming next. Melody will do the exercises, I give instruction, and I think that that will kind of cement each chapter. So I'm sort of excited about that. I think people will find that really helpful. Yeah, I am too.

I'm going to send my students to your course. Yes, definitely. And you said it will be available soon?

Yes, we're planning to launch it in the middle of January. So we're hopeful that that's That's all going ahead. So we're about to start to launch some videos and also some expressions of interest so people can be notified about when the course is coming out because there will be an early bird discount and, you know, special prices for this and so on. So yeah, that will come out in the middle of January. And then the website is thefit4piano.co.nz.

And you can find more information. Great, wonderful.

I'm curious of the album you were mentioning earlier that you played. You had this CD, right, recently released with your daughter and the son-in-law, and you discussed— I mean, it's so cool that first of all to play with family members. I always find that, you know, I wish I had more siblings or, you know, I'm not from a musical family. And also, as you mentioned to us earlier, that it was kind of a first project that you felt comfortable with your hand after the injury. Could you briefly tell us?

Well, I think really it was because— maybe I go back a little. I had a little brush with cancer about 6 years ago. And during my rehabilitation, I started to try to experiment if I could play, if I could get my time a little bit more than 40 minutes, you know. And I found that was possible, but I couldn't do more than an hour. Anyway, it was then that, you know, Andrew said, well, if you're playing, why don't we try and work towards something? And so the CD, which is full of beautiful songs,— it's really the song repertoire of Schubert and Brahms and absolutely lovely lyrical songs. So nothing sort of wildly technically demanding for me, but just enabled me to play and express myself again. So it was a really beautiful experience. And I think also the interesting thing about it was that when we started to prepare here again as a duo, suddenly my pain— I had a relapse and I thought, oh no, what is happening? I can't do this. I thought, well, I'm just going to do it anyway. It doesn't matter how much it hurts. But I found because of doing this course and working away at— this is the course on chronic pain— working away at reprogramming the neural pathways, then I was able to actually complete the recording, which was over 2 days, and come out of it pain-free. Which was a tremendous thrill. And then to just, you know, a couple of years later, we've done a concert, a full concert. That's amazing. A real beautiful experience for me. So I was just, as I said earlier, it was like coming home. So the whole thing has come full circle and that's lovely.

That is so beautiful. And how long ago was that?

It was actually only a few months ago. So the CD came out, I think, a couple of years ago. Yeah.

Wow. So that's quite recent. It took that long. And well, congratulations. I'm so happy you can play again. That's so good.

Congratulations. Yes.

Now, well, as a tradition, we also would like to ask you, and I know you have worked with a lot of college students and conservatory and professionals, but we, Yukimi and I, actually, we do still focus a lot on younger musicians. And so we would like to know what is the advice or some advices you could give to these younger generation musicians?

Yeah, I think the main thing that I'm— I've always wanted with my teaching is that I give the students the joy of music. You know, that it's something that they can have for their lives. I don't want to only train for specific competitions or deadlines or exams or something. I want them to have the experience of being able to play with— for pleasure, and to be able to play as effortlessly as they are able. So, yeah, I guess that's my passion and the way I want with my course and with my book, I want people to have the freedom to create the music they have in their hearts. And to be able to share that with others or just to be able to play for their own pleasure. And so to me, it doesn't really matter if they go out and win the competitions. That's a bonus. And it's lovely to hear your students play really beautifully. I mean, one of my students has done two concertos this year. She's done the Ravel and she's done Chopin E minor, and wonderful to hear her play with orchestra with those pieces. But that's not my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal is that the person is developed into somebody who's a beautiful individual and that they can love music, that they can really have something in their soul that they can, you know, they can play, they can enjoy for their life.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much. That's so, so wonderful. You know, and we are— we still have a long way to go. And but just seeing you as a great example, as a teacher, as an educator, But as a musician, you know, a performer, and now you're able to play again, I'm looking forward to see what else is coming. So thank you so much. We just want to remind our audience of Dr. Deleo's piano technique publication, Fit for Piano, is available on fit4piano.co.nz, and her piano technique courses will be available in January 2023. So are we ready for the fun part of our podcast? And so Dr. DeLeo and we ask our audience to go very quick. You know, you don't have to think so hard, so much, and it's just whatever comes to mind. So Yukimi, would you like to start?

Sure. So it's the rapid fire. So my question number 1, what is your comfort food?

My comfort food is definitely chocolate. I love chocolate. Chocolate and wine are my two, you know, vices.

Well, they say that's good for pianists, right? When I was little, that's the only time before performing I was always given chocolate. So cats or dogs?

Cat or probably dogs, but probably neither. I, I We have had cats, but I've never really been a cat person. I quite like dogs, but again, you know, I guess when I was traveling and doing concerts, we were away and, you know, you can't really have animals and be away touring. So yeah, I never really got into that. Okay.

What is your word or words to live by?

Words to live by? Mm-hmm. Oh, my goodness. I guess, I mean, Words to live by. I think one needs to be considerate of others. I think that's a really important thing to try and relate to other people. I guess I'm a people person. I'm also, I'm a Christian and that side of my life is important to me. So I try and live by those principles. Principles. Wonderful.

What is the most important quality you look for in other people?

I think, um, gentleness, fun, um, those sorts of things, and, um, the ability to be open and share. I think that's important. And the ability to listen. I think all of those things are important.

Please name 3 people who inspire you, living or dead.

I mean, my teachers have inspired me, the teachers that I had. I think each of the 3 teachers that I had in the UK were incredibly inspiring. Bridget Wilde for her methodical approach to learning the piano. I think Cyril Smith for his— the way that he helped you to listen to your own playing, I think was the most important thing I got from him. And Maria Curcio, well, she was just an extraordinary person and like nobody else that I've ever met. So those are 3 inspiring people. You asked for 3, didn't you?

You're very lucky to have all 3 as your teachers. That's amazing. And now we want to know what is one piece in your current playlist?

One of the pieces that I absolutely love is the Schubert Quintet. The Schubert Quintet with— yeah, I absolutely love that piece. And I guess, yeah, if I'm looking for something to comfort my soul, as it were, I'd go for that. I'd go for Schubert. Yeah.

So the last question, fill in the blank, please. Music is blank.

Music is incredibly enriching. Music adds— oh, you only want me to give one word? That's too hard. That's too hard. Music can elevate our souls to beyond ourselves, I think. And so I would hate to be without music.

Music is important to the core of my being. Beautiful. You're very lucky. Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you so much to be on our show.

Thank you very much. It's been a terrific interview.

Thank you. So that concludes this episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Dr. Deleo for joining us today and sharing your stories, insights, and expertise. You can find more information about Dr. Deleo at ridileo.com. We want to encourage our audience to check out her piano technique publication, Fit for Piano, through its website at fort4piano.co.nz. All links are listed in the description below.

Thank you to wonderful audience and fans for tuning in today. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review it on whatever podcasting platform you use. If you are watching us on YouTube, remember to hit the thumbs up button and subscribe to our channel. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The links are in the description below.

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We will see you for the next episode of The Piano Pod. Bye everyone, and thank you so much, Dr. DeLeo.

Thank you so much for being on our show. Thank you, thank you.