You don’t know me, but since I bought the complete video series of The Taubman Techniques a few years ago and watched them hundreds of time, I “know you” very well.

You and Dorothy Taubman are very important figures in my life, even if I’ve never met you. Without any doubt you are the best teachers I’ve ever had.

Don’t worry: I’m not going to tell everybody that “I studied” with you (I wish I had). I’m not a piano teacher or a conservatory student. What I do is simply to suggest, in a very kind way, to everyone who plays the piano badly (99% of the pianists I know) that they should consider the idea of studying with you (unfortunately Italian conservatory students – and teachers – usually think that they don’t need a better technique, even if the pieces that they are trying to play would surely have a different opinion about their needs).

When I received your videos I was badly injured. Playing the piano has always been very painful for me. Years of traditional training destroyed completely my coordination, but it took me only few weeks of “rotational” training to completely eliminate the pain from my forearm and from my hands.

Of course, without a teacher, the retraining process is very slow, difficult and uncertain: you have to be the doctor and the patient at the same time. And what makes the thing worse is that you aren’t an experienced doctor.

So, as you could imagine, I still don’t play the piano well. And even if I’m old for being a piano student (I’m 27), I’m not going to give up. I simply can’t, because playing the piano is the most important thing in my life. I started to study the piano quite old (14), because in my family there was no musical tradition. And for a long time I’ve only learned how things don’t work. Maybe it’s for this reason that I suffer so much when I listen to pianists that play without coordination and without technique, complaining of their lack of talent. I know too well what it means. And what makes me feel worse is that I can’t help them. Maybe one day I’ll find the way to attend a complete Taubman training, and I’ll become a Taubman teacher!

Diego Taccuso
Verona, Italy