Journal of Piano Research
© The Author(s) 2026
https://doi.org/10.70760/GBOH9915
journalofpianoresearch.org
Cobi Ashkenazi
Royal College of Music, London, UK
Aaron Williamon
Royal College of Music, London, UK
George Waddell
Royal College of Music, London, UK
Abstract
This systematic and critical content analysis assessed and consolidated piano pedagogy on the topic of antagonistic muscular co-contraction (AMCC). A central contributor to skilled movement, AMCC nevertheless remains an enigmatic and controversial topic among pianists. We identified 81 English-language pedagogical works written between 1597-2020 discussing AMCC, from which we excerpted 1,027 potentially relevant passages. We assessed each passage for clarity of terminological usage, relevance, and (dis)agreement with Ashkenazi et al.’s (2025) prior empirically-based model of AMCC. Pedagogues’ discussions of AMCC were frequently inaccurate, inconsistent, and at times dangerous. We observed no significant improvement, and some significant decreases, in quality of pedagogical discussion over time. Still, pedagogues arrived at key pianistic insights about AMCC that to now have been largely absent in published science. Despite clear weaknesses in the genre, pedagogical inquiry about AMCC is therefore indispensable because of its unique contributions to understanding AMCC’s nature and effects on the exceptional challenges of piano playing. This study establishes a comprehensive, critical perspective of piano pedagogy on AMCC, bridging Ashkenazi et al.’s (2025) prior model with practitioner-led discovery.
Keywords
antagonistic muscular co-contraction (AMCC), biomechanics, muscle tension, pedagogy, piano
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