Arm weight debate on my website

[ This isn't the one I looked at it before, but it says the same thing. Thanks for the link, cziffra. Let me quote an excerpt from the paper's conclusion: The present study supports the pianist’s opinion that the piano tone quality is affected by the touch. However, it is in a much lesser degree than most pianists expect. So if the study's results are valid, there remains the question of how significant for pianists is this limited ability to affect the tone of a single note by touch. The effect was found with only 1 of the 3 notes tested (G5), and one of the three subjects couldn't hear the difference. As a pianist and teacher, I would be extremely interested in hearing a recorded demonstration of the extent to which tone quality can be varied on a single note while keeping a constant dynamic level; in 50 years of studying and playing the piano I have never heard such a demonstration. In recent weeks I have driven myself half-mad trying to reproduce the phenomenon on several pianos, using every possible way to depress the keys, with pedal and without, with no success, and I think my hearing is very acute. If such a recording were made, I would at least know what to listen for. Making such a video should not be difficult: Place the mike several meters from the piano, then play a ppp-to-fff series on one note, with or without pedal as you prefer. Then play the same series with a different touch so we can hear the difference. Do this with as many different touches as you like. Keep the camera pointed away from the keyboard so that our hearing will not be influenced by visual perception (this is an established phenomenon in psychoacoustics, as is the influence of kinesthetic feedback). Granted, this would not be a scientific study, but it would at least give us something to hear, discuss, and learn from, and would be extremely useful. In the meantime we are discussing a phenomenon that so far as I know has not been demonstrated except to the limited extent that was found by the above-mentioned study. Richard

[ This isn't the one I looked at it before, but it says the same thing. Thanks for the link, cziffra. Let me quote an excerpt from the paper's conclusion: The present study supports the pianist’s opinion that the piano tone quality is affected by the touch. However, it is in a much lesser degree than most pianists expect. So if the study's results are valid, there remains the question of how significant for pianists is this limited ability to affect the tone of a single note by touch. The effect was found with only 1 of the 3 notes tested (G5), and one of the three subjects couldn't hear the difference. As a pianist and teacher, I would be extremely interested in hearing a recorded demonstration of the extent to which tone quality can be varied on a single note while keeping a constant dynamic level; in 50 years of studying and playing the piano I have never heard such a demonstration. In recent weeks I have driven myself half-mad trying to reproduce the phenomenon on several pianos, using every possible way to depress the keys, with pedal and without, with no success, and I think my hearing is very acute. If such a recording were made, I would at least know what to listen for. Making such a video should not be difficult: Place the mike several meters from the piano, then play a ppp-to-fff series on one note, with or without pedal as you prefer. Then play the same series with a different touch so we can hear the difference. Do this with as many different touches as you like. Keep the camera pointed away from the keyboard so that our hearing will not be influenced by visual perception (this is an established phenomenon in psychoacoustics, as is the influence of kinesthetic feedback). Granted, this would not be a scientific study, but it would at least give us something to hear, discuss, and learn from, and would be extremely useful. In the meantime we are discussing a phenomenon that so far as I know has not been demonstrated except to the limited extent that was found by the above-mentioned study. Richard I think, that like such studies, you're rather missing the point though. Why emphasise the occurence of one (and only one) note with no pedal? That is the very LEAST relevant example where tone production is an issue. However, with some experiments having established that it IS possible to make a different (not matter how subtle that different might be) it leads to the real issue- ie. how such differences are magnified when one uses pedal and has MANY notes going on at once. In such circumstances, I don't believe they are small or negligible in any sense whatsoever. After you establish that some ears CAN hear the difference, why stick to the place where that difference is least audible rather than focus on the real implications? On my piano at home I can definitely make a difference in the tone. Forget the issue of one note and no pedal. It is the least relevant situation of all- EXCEPT to illustrate that affecting the tone in such a circumstance is not the absolute impossibility that some insist, as that experiment shows. Try depressing the pedal and playing a note with an extremely abrupt staccato. Would you honestly say that it's impossible to make different sounds at a similar dynamic (when playing some as clipped as possible and others with a longer tone)? If not, you have the evidence of the reality of tone-production that is as clear as day. The single note with no pedal may be vital as the bare fundamental from a scientist's perspective, but from a musician's perspective it is far more pertinent to play into a depressed pedal- something that in no way makes things less scientifically relevant, even if it does introduce additional factor.

It's HOW they're using the bones and muscles. They want to 'feel the weight' of the bones and muscles, and somehow imagine that it is THAT WEIGHT ITSELF that causes locomotion. They are NOT saying, "Look, here are some bones that create a structure that's moveable because of the joints, and here are the muscles that are moving these bone structures." Anyway, even this simple precept means that the wrist has to move a lot to accomodate this finger/arm alignment. Another principle discussed is using the wrist to make circling adjusting movements to play notes as follows: RH Ascending - Down, around and under RH Decending - Up, around and over LH Ascending - Up, around and over LH Decending - Down, around and under Whilst these movements make sense and they do help, there are times in practicing even simple exercises that I find it hard to feel the balance between using my fingers to play the notes and the weight of my arm coupled with these arm/wrist movements to 'guide the fingers' to play the notes so to speak. When I play like my teacher wants me too I feel like my fingers are doing very little work. They are certainly not active in the sense of them going up and down, yet there is a lightness I experience which is very easy and I can understand how this can be used to control tone better. We need to differentiate actions that are didactic from actions that are implementational (another new word, hooray!). If your wrist is not participating as it should (it's stiff or inert), then you may have to consciously move it in a circle or however for some time. This is a didactic movement. If your fingers are working too hard (they work too hard when they are not in their optimal shape, so that one internal force vector actually works against another, creating a concrete sense of real strain), they may really benefit from the sense of lightness you describe. This is also a didactic experience. However, eventually the feeling is that the fingers are doing the job, moving the keys. If they do this well and follow a phrase or scale contour, You taught the wrist to do it, now let it do it - don't continue to teach it to do it. You correctly perceive the problem and very clearly are seeking to solve it with the wrong solution. The 'Lift Your Fingers' section from chapter 8 of my DVD is closer to what you want. I am really wondering why do we only have these two alternatives, pressing or lightening up and feeling the weight of the arm? Where in either of these is there any mention of activity? It really perplexes me! If you practiced vigorously lifting each finger before it plays, you teach it to , to feel and utilize its own rich potential for movement, freed from the constraints of pressing and also not hampered by the sense of no longer being connected. Do you address any of this in your DVD or does Fink do you know? I think I'll have to get it. Any price specials on at the moment? hint hint Seymour and I both do address this in our DVD's. Sorry, no specials on at the moment except the DVD/Study Guide Combo. But we will soon have multiple specials on, when are published. At that point, people who have already bought the combo sale will be entitled to a 5% discount on the new books... I am grateful for these really valuable posts. It is so important that we find a clear way of expressing these processes in words that are accurate and that help us improve our ability. When you express your experience so clearly, it helps me to bounce off your description and clarify my view of things in my response. Thank you! AFF

I think both of you are missing MY point, which I made clearly in my posts of January 11 and 12. Would you please go back, re-read them, think about them, and try to respond to what I said instead of lapsing back into issues which, given what I said, aren't really to the point? AFF

John Browning put a piece of plywood under the pedals as well. Of course, this re-introduces the 'high knees' problem, but only when you are playing the pedals... And you can partly resolve this by angling your knee to the side as Horowitz did later in life - so you depress the pedal not with a direct action of foot extension but by a sideways action of the ball of the foot... AFF

I think both of you are missing MY point, which I made clearly in my posts of January 11 and 12. Would you please go back, re-read them, think about them, and try to respond to what I said instead of lapsing back into issues which, given what I said, aren't really to the point? AFF I agree (almost) entirely with the issues you raised in those. However, I cannot agree that it's not to the point whether good and bad tone is scientifically possible or not. If a person believes that tone is all relative and that a single note cannot be played 'well' in isolation, that does not make it impossible for them to create a beautiful whole. However, when a person believes that it is scientifically impossible to create a quality of tone, I believe that it is vastly that they will fail to create the most beautiful whole. I think that the mindset is all wrong. No matter how much a person wishes to transcend rational facts in the name of art, they may retain some nagging doubts in the back of their mind. Those of rational mindsets may retain crippling doubts. If you have just cause to question whether this 'fact' ever had proven validity in the first place, you can get on with attempting to realise profound intentions without apparent rational contradictions muddying the waters at all. I believe that tone may very well be possible, as some scientific experiments have actually suggested. The widespread belief that volume relates to a single key velocity is not only definably inaccurate (for a start, it relates to the product of the variable velocities throughout the whole strike) but it may very well be that tone really IS possible. No matter how much a person believes in the piano's capability for producing a beautiful whole, what is to stop them from banging a single melodic note note as horrendously as Kissin often does- if they sincerely believe that the only thing that could physically change the sound is how fast the key moves from top to bottom (or worse still, the easily refutable notion that only a single speed plays a role, rather than the variable speeds over the whole path of the key). As you say yourself, in the process of development, learning a movement may teach a capability in sound that can then enter the musical vocabulary, rather than vice versa. If someone has been told that tone is impossible- why would they want to waste their time caressing a key, when they have been led to believe that only a speed can change anything? If they've been poisoned by this supposed 'fact' it would be all too easy for a rational thinker to put it down to a load of hippy nonsense and fail to achieve what they are capable of. It may not be an impossibility to play well, if you believe what science supposedly tells us. However, I feel that anyone who understands that the widely held beliefs about what is supposedly based on proven 'science' are dubious (and is aware that other experiments have suggested otherwise) will be given a headstart over those who think it's impossible, but wish to try anyway. If you have cause to believe that absolute tone is indeed possible (both in your heart AND in your brain) I think you're much more likely to create that special sound. This applies whether isolated tone is possible or not, yes. But if tone is indeed a possibility (as some experiments have suggested) it makes it all the more important to discard the idea that we can only suggest tone and instead treat it as a perfectly conceivable reality, not as something that we have to pretend is possible. If all this talk about the impossibility of tone had never become so widespread, there would probably be no issue at all. However, now it so frequently quoted, I think it needs to countered not only emotionally, but also rationally. There is no question that anything I've yet seen would convince me of a scientific fact that tone is 'impossible'. With those who have a generally rational mindset, if they are told that tone is a proven impossibility they may not be inclined towards (or even capable of) trying to convince themselves otherwise. However, show them a rational basis that it may very well be possible, and they may go on to produce as beautiful a tone as anyone.

I've recently found great benefits from starting to willfully withhold a proportion of the arm's weight, after having previously sought to release it as much as possible onto a point of support at the fingers. In that respect, I'm increasingly being swayed towards reducing the utilisation of arm weight and seeing how dangerous it can be to get overly bogged down in thinking about it. However, almost paradoxical as it might sound, the more I've veered away from using it so much, the more I'm becoming convinced that it perfectly feasible to play certain things in a manner where the primary source of energy is indeed gravitational. I'm still really struggling to see why the muscles must ALWAYS be the source of all locomotion. There are certainly cases where the balance can be swayed so much towards muscular action that gravitational issues are negligible. I think this is why yin and yang fingers are so important. They effectively cancel out the role of gravity to a virtually negligible level. But what when you aren't playing legato and supporting? On the whole, the more I've followed your advice and begun to hold back a portion of the weight, the more improvement has resulted. However, having a background in physics (by no means a spectacularly advanced one, although I know about the fundamentals of mechanics), I know that the following can be stated as fact. I think this is where the problem lies for me. For example, when moving from the elbow, either the bicep must be acting to cancel out the rotational force that results (via gravity) about the elbow, or the weight MUST contribute a substantial component to the movement of the key that. If the weight is not contributing to the movement, it must be flawlessly CANCELLED by muscular action, or you have no equilibrium. It can't go away. Either you harness it actively or find a way to directly oppose it. There's no in between. I appreciate that some actions involve stabilisation via opposing muscles, but why would you want to work the bicep so hard as to cancel out that force? That would be the only way to depend solely on muscular action, with no active application of gravitational energy. All the force could then come from the tricep. However with any release of the bicep, past the level of tension that perfectly cancels out gravity, gravity IS a genuine factor. I really find it hard to conceive of any reason to think that even the most heavily tricep based applications of energy would simultaneously involve working the bicep so hard as to perfectly cancel out gravity- when the same net result could be achieved by working both muscles less. Ultimately, there can only be a balance between muscular action and active application of gravity. You can tip the balance, but both are always going to play some role. I recently experimented with playing a loud low octave, in which movement occurs almost exclusively about the elbow, as described above (I'm not saying I normally play this way, soley from a spatially fixed elbow but it illustrates what gravity is capable of). I tried touching my tricep to monitor the action. I can say for definite that I can produce really a big sound with virtually zero noticeable effect in the tricep, by simply letting go of the bicep (whilst still supporting with muscular action in the hand, of course). I can produce more when I notably push, certainly. In practise, I might well utilise far more muscular action to contribute to the movement as a whole. I'm generally more inclined to 'push' than merely drop, for a big sound. However, it is far from impossible to use gravity not only as a source of energy, but as a primary source of energy. In this movement, the muscular action only serves to stabilise the natural path that a falling forearm takes and activate the fingers a little. The balance most certainly be tipped towards gravity as a source for both energy transfer and movement, in some cases very heavily. The fact that it cannot account for everything, does not mean gravity is a mere sensation and not a hugely active component in the resultant force. I don't believe for a moment that Rubinstein used his opposing muscles to completely cancel out the gravitational force every time he moved from a great height. Assuming he didn't, he was not labouring under any delusions about what an important role gravity played in his big chords. I'm sure he could still have adapted to make a big sound, were he to play the piano on the moon or even upside down. However, the role that gravity plays in the transmission of the energy, as he normally played, is both important and genuine in every conceivable sense. You mentioned the idea of how gravity does not contribute to walking, but I would have to say that this is rather distant comparison. Horizontal movement cannot result directly from a perfectly vertical force. Also, nothing is moved by the foot when walking. A more direct comparison would be to say if there was a kind of pressure plate which could be depressed from above. That plate could be moved either by almost entirely witholding the body's weight and activating the muscles to push it. Alternatively, it could be moved by letting gravity act down through the leg and channelling a minimal amount of force directly via muscular action (although obviously this must still involve muscular action to stabilise the body as a whole, so it won't fall over). Alternatively, most likely is that there is a far more even balance, where both act together to form a distinctly active component of the force that is transmitted downwards. I hope this doesn't sound rude, as I cannot stress enough how much the way I am currently swaying the balance progressively away from the excess of armweight that I formerly went with has been resulting in enormous progress. I think the great thing about properly supportive fingers in the legato playing is that is results it results a balance where the action of gravity really is cancelled out to the point of being virtually negligible. However, in many other situations, an analagous cancelling out of gravity would require substantial forces from muscles that would actively be opposing the direction of movement. I'm still really struggling to see why you seem to be referring to it as if armweight rationally contribute anything other than an erroneous impression. The more I think about the physics involved, the more I see how 'armweight' is a perfectly feasible concept- provided that it works WITH proper muscle use rather than as a replacement. Good octaves may involve active triceps, but there must also involve a notable application of gravitational force. For anything else to a physical possibility, the biceps would have to be opposing- and really very heavily. I'm glad that I've moved the balance away from armweight for standard connections between well supported fingers (where movement occurs primarily about the knuckle), but the more I'm progressing at the moment, the more I'm understanding how real armweight can be in certain circumstances (especially those where movement occurs about the elbow). Ultimately, if you're not balancing the arm's weight against a contrary force, it is contributing a very real force to what reaches the keys. Strangely, the more I'm understanding to how it is possible to cancel out the arm's weight in regular legato playing (without straining to do so), the more I'm realising how sound the physics behind armweight is in many other situations, and seeing just how real the benefits can be elsewhere.

About tone I've just read the last posts and I entirely agree with Cziffra.As I understand the flaws in the so called scientific metodology are the incapacities of the equipement. The subjective human ear and emotions are probably more accurate than todays recording devices. One tone is an infinite composition of overtones depending on every single part and interaction of these single parts of the instrument .Not to speak of temperature, humidity and you name it. It is possible to digitally sample one single tone so it ressembles what the ear would hear on an accustic instrument but no computer in the world has enough memory (this day) to reproduce the interaction of several tones that is several key's played together.And that's because the interaction produce new overtone-series exponentially .That's easy to verify on any digital piano.I beleive there has been attempts to create a new solfege based on these phenomena (Schoenberg). What is valid for producing analog or digital tone is also valid for recording. So in my view any scientifique reliability would require a much more sofisticated equipement and i doubt that even Craig-computers would do. Maybe it is possible to solve the dispute with advanced maths in abcsence of equipement? So until then I'll continue to beleive that I can shape one tone and certainly several together or in a row. All this is of course way over my competence. Eric

Thank you cziffra for really grappling with this issue in an intelligent and persistent way. This is how we'll be able to get somewhere in terms of clarity and understanding. it is possible, and as I described in my essay on my 'enlightenment experience' with Carola Grindea and arm weight, there is a certain quality of tone that is achievable by this kind of technique. Brilliant. This is exactly what happens when we humans stand up fully and become vertical in the field of gravity. Remember, it is the that provides the bulk of this neutralizing force. It is also possible for the skeleton to offer 99% of this force when the finger stands on key. This is what Carola showed me when she had me stand the three phalanges of my finger vertically on key and 'hang' my entire arm from the standing finger. The result was an arm that hung from two points: my shoulder and the top of my finger. She had me do this so I could fully experience the weight of my arm. I could feel that weight because my skeleton played its crucial supporting role. In this situation the force of gravity acting on my arm was far more than needed to depress a key. My finger was firmly rooted in the keybed. If I used all that force to depress the key I would get an uncontrolled . This points out again that even when you think you are using the force of gravity to depress the key, it's a subjective perception - in fact you are still using a combination of gravity and muscular interaction. Let's go back to the whole body-standing-walking analogy again. Imagine that instead of walking on the ground you are suspended from a system of ropes and pulleys, dangling just above the ground. Now this system lowers you to the ground in such a way that your inert body exerts a certain force on the ground. Then it lifts you up, then puts you down again somewhere else, your inert leg or legs again exerts a certain force on the ground. Or how about a row of 88 seesaws (I think the British call this a teeter-totter): the rope & pulley lowers you till your body pushes the upper side of the seesaw far enough down that it compresses into the ground. As far as I can tell, this is what the arm weight school aims to do when they use the weight of the finger or arm or god knows what to depress the key. Making this analogy points out the extreme awkwardness and inconvenience of the whole system, and how far removed it is from reality. HOWEVER I do admit that the subjective experience of trying to do just that can be extremely useful, educational, and is indeed a valid way of playing the piano. I have to go now, will complete this reply later on. THANK YOU Andrew for your stimulating, provocative, clear expression of the problem! AFF Moshe Feldenkrais: "My method is making peace with gravity." Gravity DOES contribute to standing. The skeleton provides the neutralizing force that acts, not so much AGAINST gravity as IN CONCERT with it to create a functionally moveable body.

this is a very interesting and informative "debate." I won't get into the arm weight/hand part of this. Some things I agree with, some I need to think about and experiment with a bit more. However, to say that a pianist cannot do certain things to change the tone is nonsense. And what ever "scientists" said that, evidently haven't seen the high-speed photos (movies) of what happens when a hammer strikes a string--how the string vibrates not only up and down but sideways, circular, with long waves and short wave forms--all from the impact of the hammer to the string. I'm a piano tech as well as pianist. So many things go into making a tone--a good tone, a bad tone--they are are too many to enumerate. Does the hammer accelerate as it travels towards the string or is it traveling at a steady speed, does the hammer bounce off the string, does it wrap around the string? all these things are controlled by touch. We learn to play with our ears and make adjustments to our playing to compensate for the different pianos we play or to get the sound we want. Even the hammer shank, that little piece of wood that holds the hammer is very important. How does it vibrate? What is the effect of speed on it, how flexible is it? We learn these things by playing the piano and finding what we want. I think they call it "touch." Actually a hammer shank flexes a great deal according to how fast it is flung towards the string. It also has a resonance that goes into producing a beautiful or not so beautiful sound. When hammers are put on, hammer shanks are selected according to their sound. Probably not too many know that. The shanks are dropped from a specific height. Those that make a thud are not used. Those that give a clear "ping" are. All of these things and so many more are used to make the piano tone and it's the pianist "touch" that causes them to interact in a specific way to give a certain timbre to the note being played. The one part that the scientist do have it right is that once the jack (the part of the piano action that pushes the hammer) is no longer in contact with the hammer knuckle, the pianists work is over. The hammer is in free flight to cover that 1/16th of an inch of travel to the string. A pianist cannot change what happens when the jack no longer contacts the hammer. However, the touch that is being used to push or fling the hammer to the string is indeed in the control of the pianist and it's that touch, that feel, in connection with our ears and musical sense, that is responsible for whether the tone is good or bad. So the real question is, as is so well talked about in this thread, how is "touch" produced. bob t