I think this is why hand movement is so important. You can drive your arm hard, but if the finger collapses like jelly then most of that energy hits the keybed as an aftershock. It doesn't make the hammer go faster. If your arm is already driving hard (and that's where you put your attention) it can create a false impression that there's nothing more to be given. Especially if you're already whacking hard into the keybed. However, getting extra movement in the hand more can generate plenty of extra hammer speed, without need for a massive whack of arm energy into the keybed.

Wouldn't the speed of key depression partially depend on how much weight/force is applied? If you drop a heavier mass into the key, that should overcome key resistance more easily and cause the key to depress more quickly.

If you were just dropping mass on the key, then yes. But you can move your body faster than it can drop.

BDB, Thanks for correcting me and pointing that out. I should have used the term "faster" instead of "harder". But generally, I mean something like "transfer more energy through the keys and into the hammers".

I am seriously considering wrapping small weights in felt and dropping them from varying heights onto my piano, and measuring the volume of sound produced. That would give solid empirical data, and show the difference (if any) of changing speed (via changig the height) or mass (via increasing the weight).
Unfortunately, the smallest weight I have is 2.5 pounds and the next lightest is 10 pounds... So I may use a roll of pennies.
If I can do this, I will report the results. Hopefully there's a good iPhone app to measure volume.

If you are serious about doing this, I suggest that you put your weights midway on an arm with a stationary pivot and put something like a piano hammer on the end. That will help with the aim and the consistency and keep your piano safe. You can vary the height of the arm to vary the speed the key is depressed.

It took me several years to figure this out.

You're tense. Even if you don't think you are. I would be willing to bet $1000 on it.

There is tension somewhere in your body, likely your forearms, your shoulders, or you neck. You will not be able to get a big sound out of the instrument, or play advanced repertoire quickly, until you solve the tension problem.

My second year in conservatory is when I got a teacher who finally addressed the unknown tensions problems I had, and the change in my playing was instantaneous and obvious.

People talk about "using your whole body" and "using gravity." In a way they are right, but that's still confusing. What you have to do is learn to actively recognize what it feels like to be loose, and then consistently focus on regaining that feeling when you inevitably tense up. To see what it's like to be loose, grip a 5 lb weight in your right hand. Stand up, let your hand fall at it's side. Relax your shoulder so it lowers naturally, then relax your neck, back, etc, until the weight is simply dangling and you feel it exerting a pulling pressure on your upper bicep and shoulder. Now try to do the same thing without the weight, recreating that sensation of gravity pulling down on your arm to the point where you can feel the sensation of your ligaments holding it on. That is the state of looseness that you need to play. It should feel easy.

When you start playing with this lack of tension, you will need to take a couple of steps back in tempi most likely. It will feel that you cannot control your fingers you are so loose. Once you get the hang of it, you will be a different pianist. I can get thunderous, rich, forte just by being loose and using the natural weight of my arm.

Your body size honestly doesn't have much to do with forte. I'm 5'7, 145lbs and I've gone to conservatory with slight Asian women who could produce a wonderful forte as well.

Why don't you write to mythbusters?

Actually you don't need gravity at all. I recall seeing a video years ago by a teacher from Eastman, I think her name was something like Nelita True (sp?). She showed how you can get a big sound right from the surface of the keys.
You just spring off like a platform diver. Try it, it works. Also it gives you accuracy.

I played in a Masterclass with Nelita True at the Louisiana International Piano Festival.

Using gravity doesn't mean dropping from 3 feet above the keys. It simply means not actively resisting the force of gravity to give your arm weight. Springing from the surface of the keys has nothing to do with whether or not you are tension free.

When you talk about looseness, are you saying that you should land gently on the keys, even when playing fortissimo? I think that some musicians have the labit of equating looseness with collapse of the joints, unnecessary holding in the muscles, and a sense of holding back the sound. For that reason, many people probably need to be reeducated to understand exactly what looseness and minimal exertion feels like. Taubman teachers talk about the concept of releasing more weight to play fortissimo, and I was under the impression that "more weight" implies more energy. Is it possible to apply that energy while still remaining completely loose?

The joints in the fingers should not collapse; sorry if I implied that. There has to be a way to transfer the energy efficiently to the instrument, and if your joints are collapsed there is no way to do that.

It seems paradoxical, it really does, but what Taubman said is what I was trying to say. He's just more concise and better at explaining it

When I play a big forte, all of my major joints (elbow, shoulder) are completely lose. My fingers are not collapsing.

For an illustration of the same principle of "looser is more powerful," grab an axe and find a dead tree outside. On the first strike, tense yourself up and try to hit the tree as hard as you humanly can. On the second strike, aim below the first (to make a new cut), but focus on being as loose as you can possibly be, generating the force from the elastic snap of the hips instead of the forced tension of the muscles. The cut will be significantly deeper than the first, but require much less effort. The same principle applies in baseball, tennis, running, etc. Basically, don't work against your body for no reason.

It's the same thing with piano. If you try to muscle things, you'll generate less force than you would by relaxing and utilizing the natural motion and weight of your body.

But what is stopping them collapsing? If we don't get into that, we're barely scraping the surface of what is happening. I like the description in the article I linked- where he points out that there's a third choice which involves neither fixing the hand nor letting it sag. You just move the fingers in the opposite path to the one they would otherwise collapse in. They neither stiffen nor sag, but do something else.

http://pianoscience.blogspot.com/

The previous post in there about thumbs has some good ways of doing this.




What about your hand? Does keeping that limply relaxed stop it collapsing? Surely not? Relaxing into the key makes the whole hand flop like jelly, unless you give your fingers a task to perform. If we talk about the loose and easy movement of the arm, we're only looking at a tiny part of the picture. I think that's the easiest bit- otherwise all good tennis players would be good pianists. The difficult part is to prevent collapse in the hand, without stiffening it.

Have firm fingers, firm bridge, but everything else needs to be rid of excess tension.

I think preventing the joints from collapsing is where some people get into trouble. Obviously, there needs to be a small degree of tension to prevent collapse: that is why Taubman has correctly pointed out that we shouldn't aim for relaxation, but for freedom. It seems that finding the right balance involves applying just enough tension to prevent the joints from collapsing, but using no more force than that. Of course, such a balance is easier said than done, which is probably why so many people exert too much force when playing loudly.

As to the ax analogy, I have noticed with some pianists that if the keys are struck very gently, often you don't get any sound. But then if they start pounding and tensing the arms, they sound louder. Do you think that such an experience creates any contradiction to the theory that looseness brings more sound? Perhaps when some people try to be gentle, they aren't really loose, but they are simply holding the muscles- a false approximation of looseness.

I think that when many people hear the concept of releasing more weight into the keys, they have a tendency to exert more muscular force, as opposed to being light and gentle. Maybe that's a complete misconception. If you release more weight into the piano, perhaps your arms themselves should feel lighter, not heavier, as you are letting to of their weight. In that sense, you become looser as you release more weight because you are letting Go of (releasing) muscular tension. Perhaps if the hand and arm are moved minimally- but precisely- in a loose and free fashion, that is what truly leads to a huge sound.

Exactly. It's very easy to say to keep the fingers solid but the rest relaxed etc. but that still leaves it almost impossible to get a feel for. I think there are big problems with this style of explanation. I appreciate that you are speaking in subjective terms, but how can "freedom" accurately describe using "tension" to stop a hand from collapsing under duress? All it takes it to throw out the idea of tension and move the joints in the opposite direction to that which you don't want them to go in.

Imagine if someone were trying to push you over and you respond by trying to using the minimum "tension" not to fall over. It's not going to offer much freedom and that mininimum is by no means going to be minimal. All it takes is to attempt to move in the opposite direction to that which they are pushing you in.



I think looseness and tension alike can be problems. Frequently people collapse a good deal due to excess looseness- missing out on sounding the key because of it. Then they compensate the next time by stiffening. All they need to do is to move the finger, so it's neither stiff nor giving way. Both problems vanish.



Definitely agreed here.

Firm fingers + loose arm = big sound.

For me, at least.

I was wondering--is it acceptable to have some tension in the triceps? I have some tension in my triceps when I play chords, but the rest of my arm is basically relaxed.

Sweet!! I got something correct when it comes to a technical issue!!

WayneP, the concept of balancing replacing negative movement with positive movement sounds like an astute one. How would you go about doing that? Would you move the hand up (solidifying the arch) while the key is being depressed downward?


What do firm fingers feel like for you? Do you avoid striking the fingers too lightly? Do you exert additional pressure to achieve a feeling of firmness, or do you get that feeling simply from the avoidance of collapsing?

Yeah, if the fingers are extending outwards (from curved to something straighter) mid-depression, there is no loss from collapse. This isn't the only way, but it's very effective.



Well, it's a bit of a mixed bag. It's quite hard to summarise in brief. But for octaves I've been using only a very slight preparation of the hand- nothing more than that required to get the finger an octave span apart. There's not sense of firmness before reaching the key. Moving when I get there provides all the firmness I need.

I know that many pianists speak of firmness, but to think "be firm" and do it effectively takes years of the right training. If you think of moving in the opposite direction, it's far easier to keep the arm relaxed. I think pianists who speak of firmness are describing an impression what they have learned to do- not the mindset that trains a person how to do it. Without having learned a feel for how the hand must at least respond to the key, trying to be firm typically means being stiff. Trying to keep something static is not a good mindset for avoiding tension.

The fingertips should feel firm by maintaining a good arm/wrist position. Make sure neither are too raised or collapsed, but also not locked in a position parallel to the keyboard. There should be some pressure in your fingertips, but again not so much that it interferes with freedom in the arm.

+1

Here's an experiment. Grab onto a bar of some sort. Squeeze as HARD as you can, without tensing up your arm, shoulder, elbow, etc. and keep your wrist free and able to move around however you'd like. That's how your fingers should be.

If you can do that with your fourth and fifth fingers, the trills in your Brahms concerto should be thrilling.

This is an interesting one, but I'm a little doubtful. I think it could perhaps be valuable as way of trying to separate hand grip from other tensions. However, it could equally cause a person to become accustomed to an huge excess of effort both in the hand and the arm. The minimum effort that is possible in my arm during this exercise is nowhere near as small as what I use while playing even the loudest of chords. I like the idea of using this to practise separating different actions, but I don't think it does much to demonstrate how little effort is required not to collapse- in either the hand or the arm. For me, it shows how much more effort it takes to firm something than to just move it in a useful direction.

If you start with curved fingers and extend them away from yourself in the air, you have basically all the muscular activity you need. If the fingers are extending, they're not collapsing- which means they can apply even more power than the most stiffly braced fingers that can physically be achieved (even by a professional wrestler). Stiffness prevents loss but it doesn't contribute anything to movement. It just reduces wastage. This movement is just like when lightly pushing your knuckles up, from against a table. However I do this, it doesn't contribute any noticeable tensions in my arm- certainly not in the wrist. When using a powerful inward grip in every joint, there's a slight tension in the wrist, no matter how hard you might try to relax.

Here's a follow up to what I posted about the squeezing. Start off by not squeezing, and slowly begin to squeeze VERY gradually...

I tried doing that, and initially I noticed that there was a temptation to grip in the hand and arm once I started squeezing. However, after directing my wrist and arm to remain free and mobile, I noticed that I could squeeze hard wiht the fingers without involving muscular pressure from the hand or arm. Perhaps the challenge is training your body not to do the things it shouldn't be doing, i.e. do not grip in the hand or arm when applying more pressure and firmness in the fingers.

I experimented at the piano, using a decibel meter to measure my results. I tried an assorment of different approaches. They include simply dropping a light arm into the key without any sense of pushing or trying to be loud, striking hard and quickly with an active forearm, pushing the forearm as hard as I could, playing lightly and gently without any muscular tension, applying a substantial degree muscular tension in the arm, and consciously trying to aim at the center of the keys and to depress them all the way down- as if I was going through the keys.

The results were interesting. I found that I was most successful in creating a massive volume when I simply envisioned a huge and sonorous sound and did not give much thought in regards to how to physically execute the sound. I'm not even entirely sure what I was physically doing when I achieved the highest decibel levels, but I think that it felt like I wasn't applying any unnecessary muscular tension anywhere. There was a sense of additional energy as I played loudly, but not the gripping and forcing that inevitably accompanies excess muscular effort. That seems to support my initial theory that if you are free to begin with, you can easily apply more power and achieve maximum volume (perhaps by allowing firm fingers to depress the keys all the way down) without forcing. Maybe the lack of muscular tension allowed me to put a good deal of weight behind the firm fingers, making it easier for the keys to go down quickly. Furthermore, I noticed that the highest decibel levels had the best quality of sound. It was rich and sonorous, but didn't have the edgy and percussive quality that I noticed when I intentionally pushed or exerted muscular tension.

When I pushed the sound, it often was louder than when I consciously was trying to be gentle. That supports the theory that there must be some activity to produce more sound, but that it needs to be the right type of activity. When you grip and push with muscles that aren't necessary, it only gives you misdirected energy. If the fingers are firm and the forearm is released (i.e. simply following the motion of the fingers and not gripping or exerting excessive muscular tension), then you should be able to generate the right type of energy for a huge sound.

Perhaps an optimal fortissimo is an issue of not engaging in physical activity that is unnecessary, thereby allowing yourself to do the physical activity that is necessary in a free and effortless fashion. It is not an issue of doing nothing at all, but rather of doing only the correct, necessary motions and nothing more.

Maybe the situation is similar to what many voice teachers say about the production of sound. It has been said that the diaphragm needs to be very active and energized (but not pushed or squeezed), but the rest of the body should feel loose. There should be no tension or unnecessary activity in the neck, chest, etc. Perhaps at the piano we need healthy activity in the fingers, which is followed by movement in the hand and arm (without any gripping or pushing in those body parts.) If you play that way, maybe the firm fingers combined with a free, responsive arm allow you to add more power when needed without forcing.

Incidentally, Guturriez said that Horowitz's teacher Tarnowsky always encouraged his students to strike at the center of the key and really dig in. He believes that the technique of digging in to the center of the key is a significant factor in Horowitz's massive sound, as he can be seen playing that way.

I think some people may do very well from approaching it from this side, but I feel it's important to realise that this is only part of the picture. Although I do some of my work from this angle, if I look at it at stripping things away, I end up with an extremely thudding landing. Movement of the key feels empty- like my hand transfers very little and a notable thud folllows upon landing. This applies both with a relaxed and inactive hand and a "firm" hand. Even if I had the steel hands of Doctor No (that can be firm without effort) I believe that the neutrality would be much less effective that actively engaging movement of each finger.

If I put specific focus on moving the fingers, the landing is absorbed and keys move much more effectively. In particular, I can start voicing the chords- rather than landing into a block of equal sounds. There's actually far less perception of effort when I'm concentrating on what to put in, than when I'm concentrating on what to strip away. I think it pays to approach it from both ends. Ironically, if I strive to strip away, my hands often end being worked harder- as I'm so aware of how harmful a collapse is, that I end up bracing a little to prevent it. It's only when my focus is on movement that I can achieve the optimal lack of effort and the optimal lack of thudding.

Have you visited http://www.pianocareer.com/

There are some very good info over there regarding your questions.
Hope it helps.

regards,

I would say this is not good. I noticed I had this about a month ago. When I finally did figure out how to consistently let go of the triceps, I found I felt the muscles in my back (or back of the shoulder) were engaged when I play the chord. I think this is what people mean when they say to use your back. I had not felt this before and didn't understand what they were talking about. My arms move much more freely from side to side too (I know, the triceps don't control lateral movement of the arm, but letting go of those let me let go of others, if that makes sense).

I quite like some of the advice in her videos. However, I do find that her explanations suffer from majorly one-sided arm-weight hyperbole:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDdvcDlTz...&playnext=1

She speaks about using the "whole weight of the arm" but to look at what she is really doing, it's clear that her arm is being kept extremely light and that her fingers are enormously responsible. Her arm is neither held stiffly in position (which is clearly the problem in her fingers only demonstration) nor is it bearing down heavily. It's just in a very well maintained balance and is loose enough to respond to the fingers. The explanation matters relatively little when the teacher is there to poke you about if you get it wrong, but I think that this type of explanation is subject to severe misunderstanding, when passed on through words.