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The Power of Coordinate Movement
by Barbara Banacos
Five years ago, in December of 1996, my hands closed into fists
as result of an injury called dystonia. Dystonia is considered by
the medical profession to have no cure, but I have been free from
its symptoms for about four years. I am a piano student of Bob Durso
of the Dorothy Taubman Institute of Piano. The Taubman technique
healed my dystonia, giving me back my hands and my life.
At the time of the injury I was in my second year of college and
practicing five to eight hours a day despite a lot of pain. Being
under the assumption that pain was a part of becoming a musician,
I never thought I was headed for any real trouble. As the symptoms
of dystonia began to show, I felt that the more I practiced the
worse my playing seemed to get. I felt as though my hands were moving
in slow motion. It was like being in a dream and trying to run.
My fingers felt sluggish and the harder I tried to make them move
the more heavy and slow they felt. Eventually it got to a point
where I would play a descending scale passage and my fingers would
curl up under my hand after playing.
After a particularly frustrating day of practice, I was on my way
home when I felt the third and fourth fingers of my right hand pull
together in a sort of cramp or spasm. I tried to massage it away,
but I couldn’t. I stuck my hand deep into my pocket and continued
walking when I felt a sensation that seemed to be creeping through
my right hand. All of my fingers were curling into a fist. There
was no pain, only a light squeezing of muscles. Three hours after
my right hand closed up I felt my left hand third and fourth fingers
pull together, just as my right hand had done. I felt like I was
living my own private horror movie, knowing what was going to happen
to my hand, being unable to stop it, and only being able to watch
and feel this odd sensation take over.
I started to take lessons with an expert Taubman teacher and began
to learn how to replace my old movements with healthy new ones.
My body responded favorably and my dystonia was gone within a year’s
time. The Taubman technique unifies fingers, hand, and forearm,
so that they all move together in a coordinate way. Many other piano
techniques are based on, among other things, developing strong fingers
by isolating them, stretching them and making them play down hard
into the keys.
The amazing thing to me is that Dorothy Taubman never set out to
develop a method to cure injured pianists. Her main intention was
to teach people to play as virtuosos, but, in doing so, she realized
that the motions that were involved in virtuoso playing also cured
injuries.
The Taubman Institute meets for two weeks every July at Williams
College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. About two hundred attend
each year, including professional concert pianists, teachers, college
students, and amateurs. Other instrumentalists have attended as
well, including string, woodwind, and brass players. Many attend
who are not injured but want to gain more control at the keyboard
and overcome their technical and artistic limitations. The Taubman
Institute occurs in conjunction with the International Piano Festival.
A different artist performs each night, artists such as Piotr Anderszewski,
Ilya Itin, Arnaldo Cohen, Klara Wurtz, Konstantin Lifschitz, Kemal
Gekic and others. I have attended the Institute for six years in
a row and it is a tremendously enriching experience each time.
Every so often I run across an article or website about dystonia
stating that there is no cure. It brings me much sadness to think
of the negative impact this information has on people. After eight
months the worst of my dystonia was over. After two years of retraining
my technique I returned to school and finished my Bachelor’s. I
am currently working on my Master’s degree in piano performance.
Not only am I free from dystonia, but I am playing difficult pieces
with more precision and artistic statement than I ever did before
my injury. I cannot imagine what it is like for people who struggle
with the injury for years, and are told they will never be healed.
I hope my story will offer insight and inspiration.
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