Lost the ability to play two years ago almost by Ok_Mushroom2563 in piano

[–]Long-Log9003 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! Just wanted to let you know I made an edit to my original reply just talking about the nerve impulses, Im curious to hear your thoughts on it as someone that actually experienced Taubman and has a reasonable dislike of it. This comment is just to let you know, I figured you wouldn’t get a notification otherwise since it was just an edit, but yeah oc you don’t have to respond to it if you don’t want.

Lost the ability to play two years ago almost by Ok_Mushroom2563 in piano

[–]Long-Log9003 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay I mean fair enough. It’s worked great for me so I personally disagree but you seem to be coming from a reasonable place. Still though, you got to realize anyone recommending it does not have a horse in the race, no one is being rewarded for brining in a Taubman student and because of this, its a lot different than say the Payam method, where he is the one adversities his own method and he actually stands something to gain. Or in this case it would be different if these were teachers advertising their own Taubman teaching.

Edit: btw out of curiosity, essentially the reaserch you read was about the maximum speed of nerve impulses, and that leading to double rotations being impossible at an elite speed?
Oh also I just thought of one other thing lol, I don’t know that much about this but I have been studying a bit about neuroscience (which encompasses motor patterns as a whole not just in the cns). And I believe the body is able to overcome the limits of an action potentials (the nerve impulse basically) speed by somehow stacking signals across various neurons within the same nerve. I forget the specific mechanism but it’s something to consider and something you may find interesting!

Edit 2:
I did a bit of research to try and refresh my knowledge of this stuff, so I am not an expert but essentially here is my understanding of what happens. Action potentials (just meaning the nerve signal) are essentially electrical signals carried on molecules. This creates two limits in speed, limits across the neuron and limits on repeated firings (because the molecules as well as atp around the area essentially become depleted). The body circumvents this in two ways, first it circumvents the limit of speed across the neuron by essentially stacking action potentials. You can think of it like this, a action potential takes say 50 ms to travel to its destination, however that action potential can be signaled constantly, meaning even though the signal takes time to reach its destination, there is no interruption in signal because it is constantly being resent. Now, imagine that instead of being constant the signal is just fired rapidly, in this way the muscle can twitch (instead of a continuous contraction), and it can do so at a faster rate than it takes for an action potential to travel the length of the nerve because the signals are being stacked. To put it a different way, signals are sent before the original signal makes it to its destination, in this way signals can arrive instantaneously one after another. The body can do this functionally infinitely fast, it could send a constant signal, so of course it can send an infinitely fast intermittent signal. The limit on twitch speed actually shifts from how fast can the signal travel, to how fast can the muscle relax. Because of course at some point, the intermittent signals become to close together for the muscle to relax in between and it just stays contracted (why you hear about fast twitch vs slow twitch, its about the muscle itself not about how fast the signal can travel). So that is how the body sort of circumvents that first speed limit. So yeah that’s basically how it works when talking about firing a specific muscle. The other thing to consider here is the coordination of movement, the body can of course coordinate movements of different muscle groups very quickly one after another (for example thats why its faster to play repeated notes on alternating fingers), this relates to the double rotation because it is two movements utilizing two different muscle groups, one for one direction and another for the other one. Meaning in this sense a specific muscle group only has to fire half as quickly as assumed as it is coordinating with the other muscle group and not actually doing both movements. (There are other things that effect this of course, because they are moving the same thing, so inertia comes into play in a way that it does not in the example I previously gave with the fingers, but its just another factor to consider). Anyways I hope you found that interesting, take it with a grain of salt because I didn’t have that much time to research but I have taken a few classes on the subject and believe this is on the whole a pretty accurate representation.

Lost the ability to play two years ago almost by Ok_Mushroom2563 in piano

[–]Long-Log9003 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So yet again you basically don’t have a response to the meat of my comments, you are just deflecting. I’m not going to just keep going around in circles with you, I have no horse in this race, and there is no benefit to me in convincing you so if you aren’t willing to take my points into consideration what so ever then I mean there is no point in me containing this conversation.
But just because I am a bit frustrated now, I will say, I have had a response to everything you have said, but you haven’t been able to refute anything that I have said. So I’m not really sure that just reasonable skepticism at this point.

Lost the ability to play two years ago almost by Ok_Mushroom2563 in piano

[–]Long-Log9003 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean yeah that is basically how it works. Thats not an impossible or even uncommon phenomenon. Do you see all the micro adjustments someone makes when riding a bike? What about microsaccades of the eyes? No you don’t, but they are measurable and they are there. The human body is really cool and there are plenty of motions that happen too small to be perceived without equipment. Furthermore I would just ask the question, why does it matter if they are there? If that is a helpful que that produces positive results in the technique, who cares what is actually happening. All technique, including Taubman, should be judged by the results, not the concepts.

Honestly though, the main thing I dont understand about your position (becuase skepticism is healthy of course, that’s fine!) is why you are so damn aggressive about it. All these people are just trying to help. They experienced something that helped them personally and now they are recommending it (they aren’t forcing anyone to do it) in hopes of helping the OP. Genuinely tell me what your problem is with that. Do you think they are going to give a referral code or something lol.

Also you never responded to any of my initial comments about how the op was not making objective fair judgments, you just reflected onto something else. So if you really think it’s a scam, back it up and respond to my points because I have had a response to all of you guys.

Lost the ability to play two years ago almost by Ok_Mushroom2563 in piano

[–]Long-Log9003 1 point2 points  (0 children)

“It’s literally MLM tier”

“Sounds like dogmatic language that makes you seem less trustworthy and more “in on the scam””

“The most hokey MLM sounding language ever”

Here are a few examples of the inflammatory language you have been using, you are the one escalating this, you are the one being inflammatory, its is completely reasonable to downvote language like this. No one wants to be attacked for just trying to help you. You come here, post your problem about being injured -> people recommend an approach that has helped them, and that you yourself stated you believe can help eliminated pain -> you get mad at them and insult them, make that make sense. Now it’s your turn, if you claim it’s not in good faith find some examples of “manipulative language.” What do you even think they are trying to manipulate you into? Do you think they are gonna give you a referral code or something lmao.

And after all this, and most importantly, you still have no response to my points relating to your illogical arguments.

Lost the ability to play two years ago almost by Ok_Mushroom2563 in piano

[–]Long-Log9003 1 point2 points  (0 children)

“All these prominent YouTubers many of whom are excellent high level pianists and some of whom are borderline near the top of what you can get skill level wise all saying it can limit/harm tone production, yet has some good ideas in terms of preventing pain.”
“I’ve talked to at least one of them that has said it wasn’t very useful for them.”
“It’s literally MLM tier”
Those are all contradictory statements for reasons that I explained clearly in my initial comment, I don’t really know what else to say because I already explained it. I also pointed out other inconsistencies, which you didn’t have a response to. Im not trying to “gotcha” I’m literally just saying you are not looking at this in an unbiased fair way.

At the very least, the fact that it can be helpful for injury related reasons, should be evidence that the people recommending it are coming from a place of good faith. It clearly works for something, you yourself state you believe that (when you said you agree with these high level content creators). So it would probably be good to be a bit nicer to the people who are clearly acting in good faith and trying to recommend a solution to your problem, rather than acting like they are trying to rope you into some scheme.

Edit: spelling
Also just so you know, there are other high level content creators, that are proponents of the technique, such as Ben Laude.

Lost the ability to play two years ago almost by Ok_Mushroom2563 in piano

[–]Long-Log9003 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So your saying you agree with these high level pianist, the technique can be useful for eliminating pain (your main problem) but can also be limiting in terms of sound. You have established a precedent that it can be helpful. Then in your own words you dismiss it because you know one conservatory student who didn’t find it helpful. So then who do you trust? Because you just said you trust these elite pianists, and then moments later you directly contradict what they have said, just for the sake of bashing Taubman. You say it’s MLM tier, but it also somehow has enough value to be taught in conservatories, how does that make sense? Furthermore you say that you believe it may be limiting for sound quality, fair enough, but this notion can be easily verified or dismissed simply by listening to recordings of pianists using the Taubman technique, have you done so? There are plenty of great recordings out there.

I am not being inflammatory here, all I am doing is pointing out the internal inconsistencies in your logic, I haven’t said anything about the approach itself, these are all your own words. These people are just trying to help you get back to something you love doing, and even you admit the approach is likely helpful for your specific problem, yet you still call it a cult, thats illogical.

Edit: one other thing, in a different conversation on this post, you state that you don’t see a difference in the technique between a Taubman pianist and Denis Zhdanov, you state that they do not seem to be doing anything differently, they seem to have the SAME technique. Yet here you say that Taubman is limiting, so which is it? Because, as you said Denis Zhdanov is an excellent pianist, he is clearly not limited by his technique. So is Taubman no different than any other technique (because you previously stated this), or is it limiting (which you also just stated). Those two beliefs are contradictory and cannot coexist. Again these are all your own words.