10 years ago by
A Pianist
Alan,
First I want to thank you for writing The Craft of Piano Playing and for creating this forum and other resources for pianists. I expect I will be absorbing and implementing your insights for years to come. Since I have had the privilege of having some lessons with Phil Cohen (maybe 12-15 hours in the early 1980s), your ideas are of particular interest to me.
I am, however, puzzled by certain passages in the book (1st edition). I don't have the DVD yet, so please pardon me if all is made crystal clear in the DVD.
In Application 47.1 (pp 286-288) you ask us to stick out the pinky horizontally and lower the arm as a unit, so that the pinky "catches the key as a hook would. What a sound! This is fat sharp, incredibly powerful but not harsh."
I guess I don’t understand what you are saying here. I have tried this experiment in different registers on a full-sized upright, a Steinway O, and a Yamaha C, all well regulated, and to me it sounds the same as when I play the same note in the usual way, as long as I play the note at the same volume. Nor do I understand what you mean by fat, precise, warm, sharp, powerful, and not harsh. What I did notice is that it is easier to play louder with the flat pinky (as well as with a karate chop), so perhaps that is all that you really intended to say.
(I have a similar puzzlement with regard to your 5-day email course, Day 2. You ask us to make a bird beak with our hand and “peck a note. Notice the amazingly clean and precise sound you get…” Same thing here: I don’t know what you are hearing that is different from playing in the usual way, nor do I understand what “clean” and “precise” mean as applied to piano sound.)
To continue with the Application, on page 288 you ask us to strike a tabletop with a fingertip, then with the whole flat finger, noting the difference in the sound (which I found easy to hear). You then add: “Imagine all this added richness of vibration manifesting in the singing tone of your instrument!”
Either I am missing something or there is a misconception here. Striking a tabletop with a flat finger produces a different sound from a fingertip because the larger striking area, and the likely greater force, causes the tabletop to vibrate in a different way. Same goes for striking it with your fist, a hammer, or a pencil point: in each case you get different sounds, as tabletop virtuosi have known for centuries.
But the sound of a piano, of course, comes primarily from the vibrations of the soundboard, which we don’t touch while playing. The vibrations of the parts we touch, the keys, make little if any contribution to the sound of a piano. So I don’t see any analogy here. If you were talking about playing the bongo drums, I would see your point.
These are teaching issues as well as pianistic ones. In my teaching I try to avoid the use of phrases to describe sounds unless I am reasonably sure that the student knows exactly what I am referring to. I have found that a student's head nodding up and down does not mean that he or she necessarily agrees with or comprehends what I am saying.
So perhaps you can clarify. I'm really looking forward to watching the DVD and reading your forthcoming book.
