Another Thought On Weight

Going back to the wrecking ball analogy/ping pong ball analogy, but in a slightly different way to before, I had an idea yesterday that I think could be very useful for the dichotomy between lightness and heaviness. Taking the wrecking ball idea a stage further (rather than purely as separate example of what larger masses can do), I think it's sometimes useful to pretend when you play into the key that your arm is a hugely heavy wrecking ball that is being hung over the key (with a view to something rather more sophisticated as the long term goal, of course). I think Alan mentioned something similar, about hanging a giant cathedral 1mm over the key. However, to fully understand the reason for this, it's important to put in the context of the return force that comes from the keys. When you play the key, the whole 'ball' doesn't have to move down and put it's mass directly into the key. It's like a if a finger on the side of wrecking ball moves the key (perverse as the image may sound) , while the wrecking ball remains attached from above. When the finger moves, that mass of that wrecking ball would make the return force practically a non-issue (in fact, in this case the level of mass would be so great that it would hamper the finger's ability to move- fortunately the arm is not actually quite as heavy as that!) Any force that is returned to it is going to dissipate into that mass, at once- without any release at the point where the ball is attached. If the finger were attached to a mere ping pong ball, it could scarcely produce any tone- due to the absence of support. There wouldn't be enough to repel the return forces to the extent that you could get a deep tone. Before playing the key, you could even think of the arm as being more like a mere ping pong ball on a piece of string, with virtually no perception of weight whatsoever. But the moment that force comes back at you (particularly in legato playing at forte and above) you sometimes want to feel that your arm has the ability to absorb forces in a way that is more like a wrecking ball (just not that heavy a wrecking ball!)- that absorbs forces via mass without having to push back into them. This must be done by release of effort, of course, not by effort- or it's a totally different issue! In one respect it needs to seem 'light' and entirely suspended but in another respect you must have a feeling for the weight that will counter forces against it as if they never even happened. So, it's a dual perspective. You never feel that a heavy weight is falling or digging into the keybed. But it's equally important to feel there's plenty of weighted slack for forces to vanish into- in order to avoid either bouncing or straining so as to stop yourself bouncing. I cannot figure out exactly what contributes to this physically (it's probably too complex to even analyse in depth) but thinking in that rather subjective way is definitely giving a clearer picture of what to feel. I feel sure that there are ways of setting up so your mass provides maximum potential for effortless absorption of forces, without any trace of the whole arm actually descending into the keyboard. When it comes to skeletal playing, I think this mass is even important- as the return forces of the hand's action are really very pronounced. Would that make clear sense, without any detailed understanding of the physics? I think it's a good illustration of what role mass can play- without leaping to any assumptions that striving to feel weight is about falling or collapsing. I've been a finding it quite useful for converging on a state where the arm's weight provides a consistent means of absorbing return forces without effort, while there is a kind of 'hovering' impression. If seeking to move away from the most weighted playing, I think it's essential to realise what role the arm's mass still needs to be able to play- even if you are not going to support a release of the whole arm's weight against the keybed. I still take the view that it's far more common to see students who have not learned how to properly release their arm's mass and potential for absorption- rather than those who overburden themselves due to excessive release of gravity. In cases where the hand is overworked due to pressure, I'm still much more inclined to attribute that to needless pushing (which compensates for failure to release the correct amount of gravity) than to blame gravity based thinking.

I happened to meet a guy who studied physics for his degree at a party yesterday and he confirmed a lot of the ideas that I have been thinking about recently. Interestingly, he said himself that if the finger were to contact in too direct a path (as if the movement were solely downward, on a single plane, with no action at all on the forward/backward plane) it would cause the finger to repeatedly bounce up and down at the keybed. (of course, on a microscopic scale and for a tiny duration, but in a way that would be perceived as a significant thudding- as the forces reflect back and forth in overly direct opposition against each other). I'd strongly suspected this in the past, so it was interesting to hear someone else come to the same conclusion. He confirmed that the more mass and the more slack is released in the arm, the more it would be possible to damp out the return forces that result from the intense (but not solely downward) finger action that Alan showed me- which serve to prevent the heavy, thudding contact. In pulling from the lumbricals with a low but free wrist, you add a slight action on the forward/backward plane- which adds just enough indirectness to prevent the jarring crash. He also confirmed that an arm of greater mass gives the finger more to work against and that correctly proportioned release of that mass would be a very big factor in what fingers can apply- even if the perception of movement is very much based around the finger itself. For the finger to act in a specific manner, it needs a correctly proportioned counterweight over the course of its action. So what you are able to do with your finger is absolutely inseperable from the extent to which you either correspondingly withold or release the weight of your arm- even when the release of weight is virtually invisible to the eye. So, I'm seeing more and more how the 'floating' arm can work in a mechanically explicable way, if you still release enough mass to perform the arm's vital function as both a shockabsorber and counterweight, but not to weigh down too heavily as a whole. Gravity need never necessarily weigh a key down too greatly against the key-bed between strikes, but it still needs to be utilised correctly for a finger to be capable of doing its job without being locked in place from the wrist, or thrust via the arm. Perhaps I'm just oriented towards a particular type of mindset. However, understanding the true nature of the role that mass and release of gravity play in increasing rational depth is making for a phenomenal improvement both in the quality of my physical perception and the clarity of the goals that are leading to progress. I don't know specifically what the muscles are doing differently for many things, but they are naturally responding to the generalised idea about how the forces that could easiy be countered by effort are better off being felt to dissipate into release of effort. Even in situations where the arm is at its most witheld of all, remembering to strive to ensure that it's the mass of my arm which absorbs whatever comes back at it is making for drastic improvements- where the hand works more clearly and and the arm and wrist feel like they have to put miniscule effort in, even for big sounds. It's like a kind of seemingly contradictory dual state- where the arm is able to move over the top of the keys in a way that is so effortless that it practically seems to have no mass. But the instant a force comes back at it, the arm's gravity how easily it's entire mass is capable of damping out even rather large return forces, it far easier to avoid accidentally slipping into any actions of straining into the forces that reflect back at you. It makes it possible for the arm to be substantially looser and capable of absorption, without that necessarily translating into bearing down into the keybeds. The more I understand the nature of the role that mass plays in even the lightest of actions, the more I am able to set about reducing the release of weight, without straying into a situation of losing the feeling for how to balance the up forces and down forces.