Technique doesn’t exist

As one of the finest pianists of her generation, Maria Joao Pires’ statement that ‘technique doesnt exist’ seemed to contradict years and years of refinement of what appeared to be ‘technique’, so what was she saying…

Pires went on to say that technique is an art, a way of using the body to create what it is we want, and because it is always changing it cant be considered ‘a technique’. In other words, as musicians, we are constantly in a state of flux, renewing, altering, transforming our approach to the music. There is no such technique, school, or method that is ‘the one’, or that will guarantee an ideal or perfect outcome no matter how much we enslave ourselves to it. All that we bring to the music is transient; as the music itself is transient.