Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner How do you practice tone?

apart from scales trills octaves etc... do you guys actually practice things like tone? cantabile? sound quality etc...

Any methods out there? I know its most of all, ears. But it has also something about feeling you are playing, touching the right way....

Definitely mostly in the mind, as we all know. As far as physical stuff, I don't focus on anything in particular - just try to remember the body position and arm weight, etc. I had when I generate such and such a tone. I do the standard mind tricks - "feeling" the space between intervals in a melody line, hearing different instruments and timbres, and so on. Also vocal sound imagery - not singing so much as vocal declamation. I find this works particularly well in Bach and Chopin.

As far as music written with actually teaching the cantabile in mind, there is Thalberg's series of pieces. (Which I hear are quite effective.)

Well the best way to get a good sound is to practise making a good sound.

When I work on tone and clarity, I practice slowly. For example, I was recently working on a couple of arpeggiated passages in the 1st movement of the Grieg Concerto, which I'd like to play around q=84. So I slowed the metronome to q=50, and practiced the sections very carefully, with the correct pedaling, listening very carefully to the sound of each note. I made sure that I could distinctly hear every note that I was playing, and that each note was very clear, even with the pedaling. (For a moment, the other day, I thought I was beginning to sound a bit like Horowitz! ) When I could play it very clearly and distinctly at q=50, I worked at q=52, and the q=54, simile, all the way to q=80. It really sounded great that day! I haven't retained most of that clarity, though ( ), but some of it I have. I just need to keep working on it.

hmm sounds like a good idea Sam. I'll have to try that one too. Just another question regarding practicing tone, how the heck do you manage to practice getting a nice sound when your piano hates you? The only possible way to play quietly on my piano is by using the soft pedal at all times, and there really aren't many possibilities for variation of tone... It's an old upright. I can kind of work on clarity, but how can I work on tone quality? Danor, you used to have a pretty bad piano didn't you? What did you do?

well.. is not THAT bad. But i don't practice too much those kinds of thing on it. I preffer going to my university and use better pianos. BTW my kawai rx3 arrives in 8 days! i hope everything will be ok!

One of the things im studying right now, it's the 2nd movement of the second rachmaninoff concerto. And well there's one place that is ALL about tone!. a simple melody played by 2 hands. The only thing you would have to worry about is Tone.

I guess the most important thing to do while working on tone is to listen.

My teacher has often told me that of all the faculties involved in playing the piano (eyes, ears, fingers), the one that is usually most neglected is the ears, even though it is the most important.

Tone: There is a way of striking the keys with csre and not just hitting them.. It is hard to explain. You do not strike keys or cords, you sort of push into them and stroke them.. Pulling out the tone.. My teacher used to show me..just practice the tone on any few notes. think about the difference in the percussiveness you are producing.. I wish I could show you. You never just play notes, you sing the melody with your mind and heart and it translates to your fingers..

Beautifull description, LaPianista (what's your name?), and very acurrate of what's all about!

Keyboard instruments are (in the words of Ralph Kirkpatrick) illusion machines. You have three things you can control, nothing more*:

• loudness
• degree of separation/overlap of notes
• pedal position (maybe this is two things, damper & una corda)

You have to use your hands/arms/body in ways to produce different combinations of the above consistently. I saw a beautiful illustration of this just this afternoon at the Fazioli dealer's here in Chicago. Kent Cook, a pianist at Illinois Wesleyan, was playing the slow movement of the Schubert Bb D. 960 sonata. His left hand was just brushing the keys with what seemed to be hand weight rather than arm weight, producing just the right loudness for the accompaniment to hover in the background. One type of mechanical technique for just the sound needed in that piece.

But Sam, above, has it just right. LISTEN. (Or as an old calligraphy teacher of mine would say, "Practice critically.")

*Edit: Some people might disagree, but think a moment. What Cristofori's escapement does is completely disconnect the hammer from the key at the time the key strikes the string. The only physical variable the player controls in that hammer is its velocity.

As above, LISTEN is perhaps the most important element and that's what so many fail to do and flail and hit the keys. We had to listen to the full vibration of a tone before we left it--extremely slow practise--and use weight to achieve the kind of tone one wishes. Superb control of the playing mechanism makes that possible and involves a complete technical development. Moving the metronome up notch by notch is one way of gaining that complete control of the composition/passage. An effort must be made to avoid percussiveness which is the affliction of so many pianists. With proper 'attack' a big fortissimo that isn't forced can be achieved and, consequently, a beautiful tone. Gabrilowitsch was the pianist most noted for his beautiful tone as well as a complete technique.

A lot of times when I make a point of listening to my tone and keeping my mind just a little bit ahead of my fingers many of the tone/balance issues just fall into place. But the weird thing is that I can't think of a thing I'm doing differently with my hands or arms. heh, it's amazing what a little concentration will do.