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As an adult pianist for pleasure, I am about to start learning Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor, but I've been concerned about the FFFF section. Someone told me, "This is really a man's piece." I tried to reject the sexist implications of that, but it did make me worried that I might not have the strength to play this piece as forcefully as it ought to be played. So here are my questions about this:

1--Can an average-sized female with very little upper body strength play this piece, or any piece with big, loud chords, well?

2--Would lifting weights hurt my playing by making my hands stiffer? Would it be a waste of time toward playing forcefully?

Nancy

Well, the person who said that this was a man's piece was actually being sexist. What he meant to say was that this is a Russian's piece. (I believe that it's Russian).
Either way, I have heard recordings of finely fit men who should have no problem with the chords, but they still don't put enough force into it.
Personally, I am trying to learn this piece as well, and I'm afraid that I may break the keyboard off the piano.

Your second point I have no comment on as I am not one to talk about relief of stiffness.

Nancy,

I learned this when I was 12 years old.

At that time, I was about 5'5" and weighed 100 pounds, if that.

I have a feeling you are much stronger today than I was at 12.

I made the Prelude thunder.

Use your arms and shoulders, and all of your upper body weight.

Have confidence in your self.

You can definitely make it thunder, too.

Mel

NancyM333 :

For this piece, it is not a question of strength but of weight. Put the weight of a fully relaxed torso - hands, arms, shoulders, back - into the playing of this piece, and you'll be able to play it with as much "virility" as any man.

It's not about brute force but about total, controlled relaxation.

Stamina is another question altogether, but the C# minor Prelude is short; it doesn't require endurance to get through it.

Regards,

I too, learned this when I was younger. Not 12, but as a female teenager and loved the power that it gave me.

Teacher taught me arm, shoulder, body weight, yet staying relaxed.

Enjoy.

LL

Nancy I dont think it takes a Hercules to play this piece or any other one for that matter. So long as your hands can get the chords even if you have to roll some of them I'msure you will sound just fine.

Took the words out of my mouth as i was reading the top post.

STRENGTH << Momentum

My teacher can play much louder than I can. I'm 6'3", she's 5'4" and weighs maybe 110 lbs.

Couldn't agree more. Just think of Martha Argerich. She's a small person and when she was very young didn't weigh more than a pound of soap after a full day's wash . . . but she produced a sound big enough to cut through any orchestra.

And Joyce Hatto, the late great British pianist. In her late 70s she recorded the Chopin-Godowsky etudes from a wheel chair, and critics find her playing even more persuasive and powerful than Marc-Andre Hamelin's.

It's all about body weight transferred through the fingers into the keyboard. And you have to be totally relaxed to accomplish this. Hatto cconceptualized this notion as feeling as if your entire body is "hot, flowing oil."

Down with sexism!

Thanks, all of you, for your thoughts and experiences. I have just been introduced to the concept of playing with body weight rather than what I've done for years, which is more akin to strangling the keys with my fingers. My desire to play this piece well will motivate me to work on that skill even harder. I'll be thinking about body weight transference and controlled relaxation making this piece thunder.

I think I'll also see if YouTube has some videos of Argerich and Hatto. I'd love to see Jon's 5'4" 110 lb. teacher playing like that. It's hard to picture that she'd get more sound than someone much, much taller.

Nancy

just a random biomechanical intuition, but you know how some people's last finger joints bend back really easily, like they were made of rubber? I bet that's a really bad thing for trying to produce volume on a piano. Conversely, solid finger joints would be very important, as well as fast-twitch muscles in the wrists and maybe shoulders (if there is such a thing).

Keys aren't massive enough for raw strength to come into play much for the speed with which they're struck. It's just a matter of getting your fingers moving as fast as possible into the key, and the pianist's mass probably has little to do with that. Would you assume a bodybuilder would be able to move their fingers faster than a spry woman? I wouldn't.

The way you play FFFF need not be any louder than how you play FF (or even just forte) in another piece - just as long as you have enough 'space' and control to compensate for the other dynamics level markings.

You don't necessarily need to become a body-builder, but working out and being fit is a great pasttime for anybody. Being healthier and stronger is a great side-effect, and applies to all sexes. And, I don't know where so many pianists get this ridiculous idea that working out is bad, but it's not. Done correctly (like nearly anything else), it can only benefit you.

As for "playing loud," there are two ways to achieve it:
1. physical strength (wrong)
2. body weight (right)

Playing loud is the result of two things: the weight you put into your finger as you play the key, and the acceleration of your arm into the key. The more weight you put behind the finger--using your arms to "back-up" the finger weight--and the faster you can drop your arm onto the key, the more force you will strike the key with. The greater the force, the louder the sound. A twelve year old has enough "strength" to break a string. That ought to be loud enough.

I agree with BruceD that you should work for relaxation and weight control. Properly used one can get a great fortissimo as Gabrilowitsch was noted to do that is big and sonorous but not blatant and harsh. Most pianists in trying for big sound come off as pounding with unpleasant results. Playing properly, one can produce the big sound. Mme. de Horvath was about 5 feet, small lady, but could coax a huge tone out of the piano (more than I could at 6 feet) and how to do this was one of her great attributes as a teacher. If one breaks strings then something is wrong. My high school teacher commented on our playing at times while we were learning that 'you can break a string playing like that!' And for this particular piece, which I was pounding, she had me stand to play and the tonal quality was vastly improved. I didn't learn this at 12 but at 15. I didn't start piano until I was 13. Using the back and full body is something that you need to be shown and then practise diligently. Also, as Mme. de Horvath emphasized regularly--LISTEN to the quality of tone you're producing. She was an ardent supporter of the Russian school of tonal beauty and complete technique. Oh--and this is a Russian piece as Rachmaninoff was Russian and knew and used the Russian technique of tonal control.

I cannot add much more, but just that this is a big piece, and you will need to throw your entire body into it regardless of how large or small you are to achieve the expression the piece demands.

Using one's full body is important. This is not a finger piece.
Russian music calls for a big sound. russians play Russian music the best, but it doesn't need to be that way. It's only that way because they've been trained in that technique of tone control that Varcon's talking about.