Do I have that right or are there players and instructors on the non-classical side who are obsessed with "tone"?

Well well well. Look who's back. Howdy BJones!

And yes, agreeing with V1 here that in reality, we are talking primarily about attack (minimize), sustain (maximize), release (hide). Plus of course its relative contrast against other notes. I'm not sure anybody in Classical would disagree with this.

But there is a relationship, no? I don't know if you are aware but the account in the name of BJones was banned a couple months ago. The fact that your post above is quite similar in style to BJone's posts certainly arouses curiosity.

... " only careful years long study with a master teacher on a fine acoustic instrument can insure that the pianist will not injure himself and produce an ugly banging tone ".

Possibly. I strongly suggest you refrain from any sort of put down of classical pianists, because that kind of behavior is what ultimately got BJones banned.

It's just plain rude and disrespectful to disgrace a fellow pianist , becuase of the genre they play.

Possibly. I strongly suggest you refrain from any sort of put down of classical pianists, because that kind of behavior is what ultimately got BJones banned.

Whom did I disgrace? And where?

I don't recall putting down classical pianists. Are you referring to my assertion that it's a delusion to think that the inherent characteristic tone of any one particular piano can be altered from pianist to pianist? You did show up immediately after I posted that the tone will remain the same whether played by a classical pianist, jazz pianist, a first time pianist, or a machine.

[...]

Because classical pianists are dealing with music that is pre-conceived, that is, no mater how many times you approach the piece, everything remains the same, all notation unchaged, the ONLY parameters that they have to impart any of their own creativity whatsoever, aside from tempo, is their erroneous delusion that they can somehow alter the "tone" of the piano.
[...]

"Because classical pianists are dealing with music that is pre-conceived, ........ the ONLY parameters that they have to impart any of their own creativity whatsoever, aside from tempo, is their erroneous delusion that they can somehow alter the "tone" of the piano.
The tone of the piano is inherent in the piano itself, not the player........... depressed by Lang Lang, Theolonius Monk, a 4 year old child touching the piano for the first time, or a machine designed to depress keys."



I find that a little disgraceful.

The part about "erroneus delusions" is quite insulting.

Try replacing 'classical' with 'jazz' and see how you like it.

You, BJones, Virtuosic1, and Disciple are all one and the same person. It's too much of a coincidence to have four people with exactly the same writing style, and exactly the same bias against other genres.

You're far too sensitive. It would be a delusion for someone to believe that A-440 is A-439, or A-441, dependent upon whether a classical pianist or a jazz pianists was playing.
It would also be delusional to believe that the inherent tone of a piano, it's physical acoustical properties can be controlled, and is different whether played by a classical, jazz, mariachi, samba, or polka pianist.
You don't agree with that? Do you actually think that a pianist can control the timbral spectrum of the piano?

Yes. Think about it: When a key is depressed and the hammer hits a string, the shank reflexes slightly from the impact, altering the sound. That's only one example. Controlling that flex results in a different tone.

How does one ignore users?

How does one ignore users?

Sometimes I wonder if people like you exist only to taunt others unnecessarily.

I am as obsessed with tone, particularly duplicating somebody's tone like Keith Jarrett. My teacher is obsessed with tone as well.

if people like you exist only to taunt others unnecessarily.

How does one ignore users?

View any user's profile, and choose "Ignore this user" on the top bar above the profile.

It's not the words but the way in which one person thinks themselves better than another without reason................

All better!!

You'd make a terrible juror.

I realize the Title of this thread is already negative and perhaps Troll-ish in composition, but the question is a valid one and need not result in off-topic accusations.

He examined the evidence and reached a conclusion based on it, which is what a juror does.


It's certainly a loaded question, as it takes for granted that classical pianists are obsessed with tone. I don't think that can be assumed; if anything, there may be evidence that those most obsessed with tone aren't necessarily serious players of any genre. One only has to look at the regularity of threads in the Piano Forum about countless quests for the "perfect" piano, in which tone may be described with the kind of specificity more commonly reserved for fine wine.

Steven

[
It's certainly a loaded question, as it takes for granted that classical pianists are obsessed with tone. I don't think that can be assumed; if anything, there may be evidence that those most obsessed with tone aren't necessarily serious players of any genre. One only has to look at the regularity of threads in the Piano Forum about countless quests for the "perfect" piano, in which tone may be described with the kind of specificity more commonly reserved for fine wine.

Steven

VirtuosicOne is simply stating the obvious. Each piano has an inherant tone. The pianist can only control the many possible levels of attack, sustain and release. Also resonance and sympathetic vibrations through pedaling. Also voicing harmonies by empahisizing different notes in a chord.

VirtuosicOne is simply stating the obvious. Each piano has an inherant tone. The pianist can only control the many possible levels of attack, sustain and release. Also resonance and sympathetic vibrations through pedaling. Also voicing harmonies by empahisizing different notes in a chord.

My experience is that there are pianists of all genres who are obsessed with tone, but the classical pianists are less likely to have their obsession under control.

I realize the Title of this thread is already negative and perhaps Troll-ish in composition, but the question is a valid one and need not result in off-topic accusations.

So far we've all agreed that we're all the same, haven't we?

VirtuosicOne is simply stating the obvious. Each piano has an inherant tone. The pianist can only control the many possible levels of attack, sustain and release. Also resonance and sympathetic vibrations through pedaling. Also voicing harmonies by emphasizing different notes in a chord.

But I think it is safe to say that good pianists of any genre seek to control the percussive attack, sustain, and legato (with the exception of Gyro). At least when jazz pianists discuss tone, that's what we are talking about. Perhaps I would refer to more often as the "Touch".

I'm sure their confusion is over terminology. While it's true that one word can in of itself be a sentence, typically, phrased musical sentences need more than one component to be able to inflect spin, or phrasing, more properly, internote dynamics and ASR. Phrasing is created by at least two notes, one of which is either greater or less in some musical parameter than the one that precedes it, or in phrases of more than two notes, that follows it.
The more notes, the more ways there are to successively inflect individually upon each component, whether dynamically, durationally, etc., etc., even spatially (as Miles often does very effectively with sometimes only ONE note!), and the greater the possible diversity of phrasing becomes.
Classical pianists are dealing within finite boundaries. That boundary is the mind of the composer.
Jazz musicians are not bound by the minds of others and seek to become totally self sufficient when it comes to musical material, relying only on their own imaginations. Not the imagination of others.
Aside from the dialect that's the basic difference.

LOL.

Wow. I come back the next morning and there are almost 50 replies, some of them even about the subject.

Thanks in particular to those who chose to make a relevant contribution to the the actual question as opposed to stirring the pot and issuing personal attacks at other posters!

I resemble that remark. It is a fact that there have been many posts on the Piano forum about the tone of pianos and on the Pianist Corner about producing tone, the possibilities of affecting tone, the definition of tone, the praise of tone, the denial of tone, the proof from Physics that tone does not exist, the Proof from neuroscience that it is all in our head, snide, gratuitous remarks about Lang Lang, etc. etc.

I do appreciate the comments about how Jazz is different and the first explanation given by V1, although pithy in its rhetoric, does make sense. Of course we are talking in generalities, but in general, those starting to learn jazz often seem to be focusing on something much different than the elusive and anal retentive goal of perfect "tone" production that is oft discussed on the (Classical) Pianist Corner.



Is that all????? It sounds like an awful lot to be in control of to me and would go a long way to explaining why we all can tell good "tone" when we hear it -- whether from a Classical musician or a Jazz musician--, even if most of us can't put our finger on what we mean when we say it -- or line up our fingers to actually be able to (re)product it.


Great posts!

I find myself more and more drawn to Jazz.
Playing Classical Music is my first love, but it could be compared sometimes to choral reading or to reading an Abraham Lincoln speech word for word in historically accurate clothing.

Jazz on the other hand is more like extemporaneous speaking, or having a spontaneous conversation -- if you have internalized the language to be able to string two sentences together.

Since starting my Jazz study this year I have notice how much better my ear is becoming --- and the positive effect this has on my tone...

Some elements of 'tone' the pianist can control - phrasing, accents, timing, articulation, dynamics, evenness. But clearly a pianist can't control the actual timbre of the sound like a singer or a clarinetist can.

There have been lots of posts in the past on the Pianist Corner forum about tone and the physical side of playing the piano which can be summarized as " only careful years long study with a master teacher on a fine acoustic instrument can insure that the pianist will not injure himself and produce an ugly banging tone ".

This "summary" isn't vaguely close to being a correct summary.

Kenny Werner, in his book talks about the search for that Bill Evans sound. He related a story when at a party of pianists, some of the pianists played on the piano which was criticized as having poor tone. And then Bill Evans played on it, and it sounded like, well, Bill Evans. And they were astounded.

Easy to criticize, isn't it?
Much more difficult to contribute.

Why not share with us your correct "summary" of the past years of posting on tone? Perhaps such an approach would tend to help stimulate discussion rather than attempt to stifle it.

As long as it makes you and sotto voce and Horitzian feel good, then who are we, those who would like to have serious discussion, to argue with you?

Cheers.

Excuse me? I don't have a dog in this fight, so go pick a fight with somebody who gives a damn.

Steven

concencus

So by the nature of the beast the Jazz player is very concerned with the Release portion of Attack/Sustain/Release (ASR), in other words very legato oriented, which is a key part of swing.

So in the long run, what's the general concencus on tone over in the pianist's corner? That highly trained classical pianists can control which direction the hammer shafts twist and bend in, and to what degree, ergo they can fully control and contort the piano's tone?

The general consensus is that you ought to get a dictionary.

So much hate =( Why can't you just get along.

Because classical pianists are dealing with music that is pre-conceived, that is, no mater how many times you approach the piece, everything remains the same, all notation unchaged, the ONLY parameters that they have to impart any of their own creativity whatsoever, aside from tempo, is their erroneous delusion that they can somehow alter the "tone" of the piano.

The tone of the piano is inherent in the piano itself, not the player. The tone of any one note, any key depressed with enough force to sound a note at any volume will be the same as if depressed by Lang Lang, Theolonius Monk, a 4 year old child touching the piano for the first time, or a machine designed to depress keys.

As long as a note is depressed at the same velocity, and with the same force, there will be no difference in the physical acoustics of that note with regard to it's acoustical, timbral profile.

What the classical pianists erroneously refer to as "controlling tone" is the control of ASR, the note envelope. The attack, sustain, and release of each note WITHIN the contect of the line (phrasing).

Funny you should say that. I don't hate anyone nearly enough to run spell checks on everyone's posts and then troll them if I find a typo, suggesting they buy a dictionary.
Ironically, when it comes to matters concerning jazz piano, an occassional text typo is the only thing Horowitzian is qualified to correct me on, truth be told.
That's not angst or not getting along. That's just plain facts.

Now, add to that pedaling effects, balancing/voicing of more than one note, timing, etc etc and the tonal variety available to a pianist within the context of music, becomes limited only by their imagination, purpose and control. This is why a good, purposeful pianist has a sound of their own, regardless of the piano they play on, although certainly at the same time affected by the piano they play on.

It would be a figment of the IMAGINATION that even the most gifted pianist can make an early 20th century Mason and Hamlin sound mimic the "tone" of a late 21st century Yamaha by exercising complete PURPOSE and CONTROL.

The identifying marker that you're referring to that distinguishes one pianist from the next is their PHRASING, the way music that finite music, though unchanged in notation, is subject to variation and interpretation by manipulating performance parameters, not some supernatural ability to uniquely change the acoustic profile of the instrument from player to player.

Though there is an infinite way to rephrase the same music, the acoustic profile of an instrument can only be changed by altering the instrument itself.

Hmmm, those that claim they can make a certain distinction, criticize others for not meeting their standards, yet cannot or will not articulate the difference when push comes to shove: there is a lot of that kind of empty monkey business going around these days.

Thanks for your "contribution". It was yet again better for your post count than for progressing a meaningful discussion.

"...Seems to me there was one poster who claimed that hammer flex was a component to tone above and beyond the velocity of the strike..."

If I recall, the poster was Kawai Don and the information about the flexure of hammer shanks came from ultra high-speed photography. It wasn't just a blue sky pronouncement. But the speed of the strike is a factor in how, and how much, the shank will flex.

I think it is a figmant of your imagination that anyone at any point was saying anything related to this totally random and unrelated point. I will counter it and support my arguement with an equally relevant point. Flying monkeys are dissimalar from toast!



The original poster was writing about a classical pianists obsession with tone. If you are using tone and an instrument's acoustic profile as interchangeable, then you are not addressing what the original poster was writing about.
It seemed like you were saying that one can't change the tone on a piano. You can change the tone on a piano by striking a key twice in exactly the same way, but once with the damper pedal engaged and once with the damper pedal not engaged. You can change the tone on a piano by striking a key twice in exactly the same way, but once with the una corda engaged and once with the una corda not engaged. You can change the tone of a piano by striking the key with more force or with less force. It is not only the dynamic that changes, but also the tone. It will still sound within "the acoustic profile" of the instrument, but "the acoustic profile" includes many many different types of tone.
Now, I am pretty sure that you understand this, but your definition of tone and changing tone is something else. You seem to be saying that the only way that a tone on a piano could be legitamately changed would be if a pianist made one piano sound like another. And then you ignore the change in tone that occurs on a piano that occurs from basic techniques of playing such as engaging the pedal or changing the speed of attack.
You are aware that the definition of tone is not limited to "the acoustic profile of the instrument", right?

Hopefully though, anybody intelligent who is reading this and interested in learning about piano tone wont be confused by your trolling.

But I don't think you're suggesting that you buy the idea of flexing shafts and that some aftertouch on the keys affects the sound after the hammer is released. Or do you?

I took this post, quoted verbatem, from a guitar forum thread that discusses "tone" from guitarist to guitarist:

**************************************

It's understandable that someone would want to get into the ballpark of a specific musician's tone, but I thought it would be helpful to note some of the factors, major and minor, that effect things. I'm open to contributions.

Factors that effect tone: [...]

Do those factors effect tone or affect tone? I imagine that some do both, but the distinction is central to the topic.

Steven

They're not interchangeable, unless there's no difference between creating tone and merely having impact on it.

Steven

I have ideas about Journey's original question - and if everybody is nice to me I will share them.

Classically trained, jazz trained, pop trained or whatever, the question of beautiful tone is either important to a pianist or not. Conceivably a jazz pianist might opt for a harsh tone at times for expressive purposes. But that said, someone who has heard a good pianist at a good piano produce a singing melody, or a perfectly even scale, or a bell-like tone - the famous broken pearl necklace - might be moved to try to produce the same thing in his or her playing. Classical music demands very fine attention to all sorts of expressive resources, and so does certain types of jazz performances. It is not as simple as 'classical pianists obsess over tone'.

When Bach said that playing the keyboard is easy 'you just press the right note at the right time' he was partly being facetious, but was also contrasting the keyboards of his time with the study of the violin and the voice, for which years have to go in to producing a beautiful tone. If you play on a modern 'acoustic' piano, regardless of the type of music you play, the issue of tone production can become something you 'obsess' over, if only because the results of perfecting this aspect of playing are so beautiful and compelling.

Certainly the piano itself contributes the most to differences in tone. But a well trained pianist will bring out the expressive qualities more dramatically than an ill trained one. The string of a grand are under thousands of pounds of pressure and they respond with great sensitivity to the input from the hands. The hands deliver an impulse to the mechanism - a signal with a high frequency content. The transients from the initial impulse quickly die out and the boundary conditions imposed by the fixation of the strings themselves support a set of vibrations related harmonically. Because of the random nature of the initial transients, and the high pressure of the strings, it is very easy to overdrive the mechanism and create a harsh tone - a tone with a loud transient and unavoidable non-linearities. The limits of useful tone - tones which are both full and not harsh - are narrower than a novice player might suspect at first. The piano can be tricky this way.

The challenge of the situation is to be able to produce a full tone without overdriving the mechanism, on the one hand, and the production of an exquisitely soft tone without the notes 'dropping out' or sounding weak. The first task, limiting the transfer of power from the arms to the strings, is overcome by keeping a flexible wrist - a shock absorber - and using fluid motions with the hands. THe second task, producing a full tone at low dynamic levels, is a matter of practice at that keyboard and finding the point at which who have given it just enough.

And then all the other techniques mentioned above- timing, balance, etc - are used to support the illusion of a singing tone. If you listen carefully to recording of Richter or Kempff or Rubenstein you can hear that they create the illusion of a singing tone - or an orchestral brilliance, or clarity of tone, or separation of voices - by an almost superhuman exercise of control of the parameters mentioned.

Whether or not someone has use for this level of control within a particular style of music seems to be entirely a personal choice.

And then all the other techniques mentioned above- timing, balance, etc - are used to support the illusion of a singing tone. If you listen carefully to recording of Richter or Kempff or Rubenstein you can hear that they create the illusion of a singing tone - or an orchestral brilliance, or clarity of tone, or separation of voices - by an almost superhuman exercise of control of the parameters mentioned.

Whether or not someone has use for this level of control within a particular style of music seems to be entirely a personal choice.

Well said.

With regards to tone, they most certainly are, used in the manner in which I'm thinking of. There's an entire world of acoustic instruments that can be AFFECTED tonally by electronic EFFECTS, which can AFFECT any of the sonic parameters, for one, TONE, once recorded electronically.
Electronic effects will AFFECT the entire sonic profile, especially with regard to the timbral spectrum, which is the major defining component of tone.
Effects affect tone....

Affect with an a means "to influence," as in "The rain affected Amy's hairdo."

Effect has a lot of subtle meanings as a noun, but the meaning "a result" seems to be at the core of all the definitions. For example, you can say, "The effect was eye-popping," or "The sound effects were amazing," or "The rain had no effect on Amy's hairdo."

Gollum says...



We be nice to you if you be nice to us.

What attack dude? That was my first (and now last post) on this extremely stupid thread.

V1, I think they don't like being pawned by common sense.