Another Take On Arm Weight

Hi, This subject is related to my earlier question about relaxation-tonus-tension in shoulder blade area and how to handle it. Let's do a following experiment: 1. play a single note with one finger (1st for example) or "play" it over your thigh. 2. keep a good arch, one finger standing others resting on a keyboard (or thigh) 3. try to sense a weight which is pulling hand down now go further: 4. can you change from maximum weight to minimum weight and vice versa without any noticeable movement in hand (or arm)? In minimum weight your finger feels like light as a feather and in maximum weight it feels opposite. With this experimentation I can get different levels of arm weight and change that on the fly. To me this is funny, because I've never done it consciously. Few further questions arise: In general, does this kind of practising make sense? Are we talking about arm weight here and perhaps in good way? When you consciously take out this weight (fingers feeling gets lighter) does this mean more muscular activity in shoulder blade area? Is there some neutral level which is preferable - how much weight should we actually feel in normal playing? Or is it just related to musical context: tempo, dynamics, timbre? Thanks in advance! P

Arm weight is never used in piano technique. As soon as you allow the weight to join your finger to the key, you are stuck. So why would you want to do that? As a practice technique to awaken elasticity in your finger and hand, your exercise could be excellent. But you should know what you are doing and why you are doing it. AFF

Arm weight is never used in piano technique. As soon as you allow the weight to join your finger to the key, you are stuck. So why would you want to do that? Thanks for reply. Still I don't fully understand this. I understand that over-pressing or over-relaxation is not useful. But isn't there some amount of (feeling of) weight that is useful for example in slow passages. It is also feeling of playing more deeply than lighter touch in faster runs. You have given us an exercise of transferring weight to one finger to another: tai chi walking at the piano. What is this exercise without some amount weight transfer? I was basically thinking about developing a awareness and control of different amount of weight from ultra light to more weighted feeling and yet maintaining structure and not pressing keys with force. In my opinion it's kind of a tai chi standing exercise on a piano. Can you please explain your position little more?

I have written four big books on this so I can't give you the full explanation here. Suffice it to say, you possess a certain weight. Do you use that weight to walk down the street or do any of the things you do? No. It is there but we don't perceive it. In fact, our sophisticated functioning as humans is dictated by the gravitational field not so we moves the key. It is another phenomenon altogether. AFF

Thx! I think I am now closer to the idea Still I need more time to learn these things on a piano.

Of course it takes time. I myself have been at it 40 years or more... AFF

Hi, Alan's analogy about standing with feet on the ground and standing on a key is a very good way to handle these subtle nuances between too much arm weight to right amount of it. (I now believe that Alan means that a right amount is the one you don't perceive.) "Making peace with gravity" is also very good mental slogan helping you to search for it. I've modified my experiment to really check what's happening in my body and in fact it's revealing to play without shirt and watching yourself with face time camera to immediately see what's happening in your shoulder area: If I let all the arm weight to my fingers (bad!) I feel heavy on my fingers but same time my shoulder area gets fully relaxed. It's quite obvious, cause my finger (and hand's arch structure) takes all the weight. Now, if I try to find this balance ("peace") I can see and feel (with other hand) that it moves some of the muscular activity to shoulder area and probably to back also but this latter I can't see with my camera . Some of activity is needed of course - you can't have both light fingers and totally relaxed shoulder/back - but I believe that my problem is that I tend to overuse my shoulder/back muscles. So my experiment is more about finding a balance with these aspects.

Ludwig Deppe says the shoulder area and upper arm is very involved in piano playing and he is right. There is a lot of really vigorous muscular activity there supporting the right work of the hands and fingers. However, there is also a kind of relaxation that takes place when the hands start "walking" really well. Read about it in my chapter on the Horowitz Steinway in . AFF