Depression Of Key

I know that Mr. Fraser has referenced Thomas Mark's book, , on several occasions. I was reading that book and came across an interesting point, namely that the speed with which the hammer strikes the string is the sole factor that determines volume and tone. The amount of force or weight that is used has no direct effect on sound. Is that point true? Thinking about Mr. Mark's claim, it does seem plausible. Only the hammer is in direct contact with the string. However, I wonder if applying more weight would somehow allow the hammer to strike the string with more force and to produce a bigger sound. I remember Horowitz talking about how the weight of the legs and the torso assist when playing forte. If the speed of key depression is the only factor determining sound, then how would weight assist you? If Mark's claim is correct, then I would think that it is most efficient to use as little weight as possible, as the quantity of weight will not increase the sound. Also, Mark talks about how harsh sounds are produced when the key is struck too quickly. That seems to imply, that when you play too loudly (as a result of the key being depressed too quickly), it sounds percussive and unpleasant. However, Horowitz produced the biggest sonorities of any pianist, and he did so without banging. If velocity of key descent is the sole factor determining volume, then it would seem that you can have a very fast key descent (as Horowitz would have used to produce his fortissimi) without sounding percussive. How exactly should you measure the velocity of the key descent? Should you simply strike as quickly as possible if you want to produce a big sound?

Yes it is indeed! But this simple fact has led to more misconceptions than I care to think of... Horowitz used the strength of his legs and torso not the weight. Weight doesn't make the key go very quickly, a real muscular action is far more effective. Harsh sounds are not a result of overly fast key speeds but of collapse in the structure that's transmitting the force to the keys which in turn causes inaccuracies in the balance and striking instants between voices. You fast key descents! Well... it's not quite THAT simple... but yes, that is a big part of it. AFF

To be honest, I can't really agree with all of that. Weight can certainly be an issue, because of the way in which the key pushes back at you. The more energy you impart, the more that the key pushes back- which can limit the possibility to add further energy. If you imagine a theoretical arm of almost no weight at all, no amount of force could move the key well, because there would not be any support and it would be repelled. Conversely, an arm like that of Volodos will absorb the return force as if it were almost nothing and channel the energy very directly, without undue loss. I've recently been experimenting with practising using 1kg wrist weights, and this has made me more certain than ever before that graviational weight can add considerably to the sound. If anything, while wearing these weights, I have to consciously withold weight, compared to how I would normally use my arms. However, the increase in the size of the tone produced is overwhelmingly evident (literally from the first note I played). The fingers also have to work a lot harder when doing this, but it's all about between the finger and the weight- not one or the other. Interestingly, when I remove the weights, the playing becomes WAY too light- as my arms are still expecting to have to resist the weight a little. The greater intensity of finger action that will have ensued momentarily becomes worthless for producing a big tone- although this state permits some remarkably improved leggiero playing. But then I start feeling that I'm releasing a little more weight again- and the big tone I had with the weights on becomes possible once again- but without them. However, with time, I often realise that I'm starting to push a little instead of activating the fingers- so once more I put the weight on for a while and get the feeling of witholding more from the arms, while using the added ballast for the fingers to activate very strongly against. Because the brain is always having to adapt, it gives a superb way of constantly having to evaluate the very real interaction between the variable weight that acts and the action of the fingers. Hopefully, if I keep regularly taking them on and off for a few minutes at a time I'll gradually converge towards that mid-point- where the arms deploy enough (but ONLY enough to make the fingers work) without starting to dig in. I'm definitely massively closer to that, although I still find I have much to learn from using them. In many ways I'm mostly using less weight than I had done previously. But at the same time, the practise with wrist weights has made me more certain than ever before that it is indeed valuable to conciously monitor the weight that is deployed and monitor how that corresponds to what the fingers do. Where it's a case of then using less weight or more weight, above all, using the wrist weights showed me that monitoring it and trying to match it to the situation is exceedingly important. While I'm generally witholding more weight than I used to, I've also discovered through that experiment that I have been needing to release a little more weight through the fifth finger of my right hand, in order to give it something to work against. Since using the weights, it has been standing up like never before (and the locking at that side of my wrist has almost vanished now). Until it had that little bit extra to work against, it just wasn't quite getting there still. So, while I'm much lighter than before overall- I had to consciously look at the weight issue to get there. So, I'm not advocating making the arm as heavy as possble. But I think it's vital to perceive what the weight actually does- however much or little you use. While the idea of seeking to produce sound by collapsing the arm as much as possible with minimal finger activity is certainly nonsense. the worth of of regulating the interaction between weight and finger activity is something that I have never been more convinced about. Also, one further point- I'm certain that Horowitz really did use the weight of his torso, albeit almost invisibly. The press-up experiment I mentioned in another post was partially inspired by someone who suggest that leaning inward a little enables more weight to be accessed. I'd always thought that the idea of body weight was a nonsense- but then I found that leaning in really does work! I finally realised that there is a perfectly rational way of truly harnessing gravitational weight from the torso: Imagine if you were to collapse down from the hips, keeping the back straight. Gravity would set this in motion, as soon you went beyond the centre of gravity, unless repelled by muscular effort. You could 'fall' into the keyboard, and land on it. But, you need not fall at all, to harness the force. If that is immediately balanced out by contact with the keyboard, the rotational effect that gravity would have will add to the force applied- and hence the energy that goes into the keys. Nobody leans into the keyboard this way, more than Horowitz. A lot of the time, I think he resists the inevitable pull of gravity that would be trying to make his whole torso collapse towards the keyboard, using muscles. But when he plays loud (where he often leans in a lot more noticably than in softer passages), I'm absolutely certain that he lets go of those supporting muscles and use the gravational force in addition to the action of the hand. When the movement is done efficiently no 'fall' is visible. But the laws of physics would most certainly back up the idea that a very notable added force can be deployed. I've never seen this more than on the 68 film- where I think that the action of hand looks to be aided by a phenomenal amount of gravtitational forces- not just from the arm but from the torso. He's basically doing the piano 'press-up' I described almost 100% literally, in some of the shots I've seen. Were he to sit up straight, such a force would scarcely amount to anything. But with that inward lean, pushing yourself away from the keyboard to stop the collapse can deploy considerably gravitational force- not just of the arm but of the whole torso. It's setting the angle that makes it possible- you don't need to actually be in notable motion either up or down to apply the action of gravity from there. I'd previously written off the idea of whole body-weight, but you don't have to be collapsing to be making use of gravitational forces. I'm now certain that body, or at least 'torso' weight is indeed totally consistent with the physics of mechanics- provided that you set up at the kind of angle Horowitz did. It's interesting to try the press-up thing with this in mind. While it's definitely aided my alignment, it's also helped me perceive how to utilise this force to push against, without the collapse of the torso actually occurring, so as to take me downwards for a collapse. If anything, I feel more that I'm raising myself upwards, against it. It's definitely adding power to my sound. Collapses are definitely bad, but I think there's a hell of a lot of more to using gravity well than thinking of falling downwards. I can't help but feel that perhaps you're unduly equating the idea of using gravity and collapsing as being synonomous? I really don't think that they should be. It's by perceiving exactly how to oppose the collapse and prevent it happening that gravitational forces can be the most beneficial. Collapsing due to weight is a whole different matter to positive utilisation of gravity. If you let the torso to fall in but invisibly PREVENT it, by pushing yourself away from the piano (instead of using unrelated muscles to repel gravity and keep it in place from in the torso itself), you are certainly using BOTH the gravitational weight and muscular activity (provided that you manage to strike the exact balance of forces from both sides). The push is not instead of gravity. The two things are instrically linked in one single (near) equlibrium of forces. I really don't think that use of gravity is a bad thing.

Absolutely not. The skeletal structure and muscular action that move the key would be there even in a theoretically weightless arm! This is also not because of the arm's mass because of the clever way in which Volodos organizes his skeleton. This sounds wonderful - it's your more sensitive. Again, you describe it perfectly: the weights make you more conscious of what you are doing, and the fingers learn to better manage the relation between finger and arm. I cannot disagree with you here! My first impulse was to disagree with you (after reading the shorter paragraph above), but after reading the longer paragraph I am more inclined to go back, study that film again and see if I can perceive what you're talking about. I must add, in any case, that he can only do this because he is skeletally well-organized to an exceptionally high degree. Yes I have been. Right on! As you describe it, it could very well be a wonderful thing! Thanks for a vividly accurate description of your experience, which is bound to help many of us integrate our bodies more. I would not recommend what you do for everyone, as it is a very advanced technique, and I also wonder whether you will do this forever or rather eventually move on to an even more integrated use of body, but for the moment what you descrbe is a wonderfully rich approach - rich both in immediate results and in possibility. AFF

"This is also not because of the arm's mass because of the clever way in which Volodos organizes his skeleton." I can't fully agree here. I'm certainly not saying Volodos doesn't organise well- or that such organisation should not be a primary focus for development. But there's good reason to say that his weight makes it easier, too. It's not just organisation or weight, but both. Imagine a wrecking ball. It hangs suspended and is effectively weightless, while it hangs. But try to push it up and you instantly come against it's mass. A ping pong ball would need to have an added push, to resist you. But a heavy ball can resist the force applied to it through mass alone. I'm not saying that means an arm should hang dead. But a heavier arm has a natural head-start due to that natural ability to resist applied force. I've recently been thinking a lot about the way the key returns a force whever you move it. I'll go into various other issues that occurred to me recently that also stem from that at some point, but when the key pushes back at Volodos, his heavy arm resists that return force much more easily than a child. I'm not saying he doesn't use ANY muscles at all. But he certainly doesn't need to engage as many muscles to cancel out that force, compared to a lighter arm. Honestly, it's amazing how much adding just a kilogram of mass to your arm changes the way that you can absorb the force that the keys return to you. It works the fingers harder, but it adds body to the sound from that mass itself. The added mass helps breaks through the resistance (and absorbs it easily, rather than impacts against) when the key pushes back, I'm sure of it. The less mass something has, the more it would have to stiffen to resist the return force. The more mass it has, the more it acts like a shock absorber, in response- before you even begin to do anything. Now, I'm not saying that means never do anything extra. But there's a definite head-start, before you begin to add muscular activities to the equations. Absolutely. It's amazing how much better the fingers work. It's been very helpful for making the sensations more rich and obvious, when doing your exercises. But I really feel that, perhaps above all at the moment, its the sensitivity to the interaction between that finger action and weight that I'm currently learning from this. I'd advise anyone to be careful about doing this, as it's certainly your exercises that enable this to work properly, without causing problems. It's a great test of whether you're really standing up properly, when you have more weight to stand up against. If you can't stand up while doing it, it could be disastrous. But it's an amazing feeling when you take the weights off and feel that your wrists are just drifiting up- before converging on that point where you allow them to become a fraction heavier again, to find just the right mid-point. I'm seeing more and more just how little gravitational weight is needed for general fingerwork. But at the same time, I can't help but think that the fact that the amount of weight needed being so small makes it all the more important to actively contemplate it- rather than talk about it as being something totally seperate from weight. Weighing the arms down like lead at all times is definitely not productive. But I do feel that if you talk about it as if the weight of the arm is playing no role whatsoever can end up causing limits too. I'm thinking primarily in terms of the finger actions you describe, but experimenting with differing degrees of weight (some almost neglible- where I use a spare hand to push the palm up a little from beneath, others aided by an extra kilogram beyond my arm's natural dead weight) really has been the missing link for me of late. The more interactions I'm trying, the more naturally my hands adapt to normal playing. It's definitely not just the quality of finger action, but how well I judge the heaviness/lightness of the whole arm. I think it's better to clearly differentiate between negative collapses and positive roles of the weight, rather than pretend that weight is not any issue at all. A physicist would definitely disagree! Because the amount of weight involved is sometimes so small, for me that makes it even important to actively explore the precise levels required, rather than talk about it as being entirely separate from weight issues. "My first impulse was to disagree with you (after reading the shorter paragraph above), but after reading the longer paragraph I am more inclined to go back, study that film again and see if I can perceive what you're talking about. I must add, in any case, that he can only do this because he is skeletally well-organized to an exceptionally high degree." Definitely, no disagreement on the organisation. However, were he sitting bolt upright, gravity of the torso could play no role in giving that muscular activity something to push against.. When he leans in, the rotational force that acts about the base of his spine opens up totally new possibilites. I'd never believed 'body weight', because I'd always thought gravity means going directly down. However, if you think in terms of that rotation affecting the whole upper body, generating a force for the arms to push back against and cancel out, it make perfect sense. The Scriabin op. 8 no. 12 shows this most clearly, to my eyes. He leans in massively at the climax of the 68 one. Other pianists tend to do any lean in by collapsing the upper back massively, but by keeping the back straight, there's a very notable force available. At the angle, I can't see how he could possibly not benefit from it. Interestingly, if anything, the motion is more away than in. At a few points you see how he literally pushes himself back through that line of force, towards an upright position. This makes me even surer of it. I'd always been skeptical about the idea of body-weight and, frankly, I don't think many people who talk about using it actually understand it. But I really think that this style of movement shows that Horowitz is one of the few pianists who truly accesses the gravity of the whole upper body. It's basically an internalised press-up against the keyboard.

I don't have time right now to answer your whole wonderful post, but I can assure you, although what you say is brilliant and highly perceptive, I am convinced he wasn't doing this. I have played that piano, and I wish I could tell you how far removed from what you describe is the technique needed to make that piano sound as he did. Everything you describe is great as an exercise, related in content to my fingerstands etc. But you can't control the key that way. If the gravitational force of the whole upper body was involved in depressing the key, then every time he let go of the keyboard or even reduced the force going into the keys, his body would fall forward. It just doesn't make any sense, although I completely acknowledge the deep learning you are gaining from playing like this. AFF

I don't have time right now to answer your whole wonderful post, but I can assure you, although what you say is brilliant and highly perceptive, I am convinced he wasn't doing this. I have played that piano, and I wish I could tell you how far removed from what you describe is the technique needed to make that piano sound as he did. Everything you describe is great as an exercise, related in content to my fingerstands etc. But you can't control the key that way. If the gravitational force of the whole upper body was involved in depressing the key, then every time he let go of the keyboard or even reduced the force going into the keys, his body would fall forward. It just doesn't make any sense, although I completely acknowledge the deep learning you are gaining from playing like this. AFF But why wouldn't he be able to use the muscles to stabilize, and prevent that falling forward, then release that gravitational force to push against for the split second in which he sounds the chord? I don't see why this wouldn't make sense. There's no question of that the weight can only be 'on or off'. You balance the degree of release agains the other forces, as required. To do this to a high level is not easy, but I don't think the basics of doing so are terribly advanced at all. At the moment of striking the chord, a considerable force is pushed back against the body anyway. So if he is not using the gravity, he will be using an instantaneous forward muscular impetus to cancel that. I don't see why an instantaneous release of gravitational force (on the exact same path) is any less credible. If he were still witholding the gravity, at the moment when the return force came back at him, he would be simultaneously pushing inwards to counter the return force and holding himself backwards to counter gravity. Why not save yourself so much contradictory muscular effort by releasing some of the gravity to cancel out the return force? There's no requirement of falling inwards, but merely of releasing for the split second that enables the gravitational force to come into play. If there is no gravitational involvement- why lean in? From that angle, to seek to prevent it playing any role (by precisely cancelling out the force) would be phenomenally difficult. Why create that setup, and then go to such trouble to cancel out the weight of the torso from playing the role that it so naturally would? Quite honestly, I find it far more incredible to think that he would lean in so notably but then use an intricate muscular means to entirely withold the gravitational benefits it would have brought, than to think that he might use the far simpler approach of only releasing the full weight when it balances with the need to apply a big force to the keyboard. I see it very clearly in the last chord here, too: First he leans inward, then he pushes that gravitational weight back away from the piano to make the big sound. That weight could not fail to play a considerable role. It certainly can't be overstated how much the muscles are doing, but way he sets himself up ensures that the gravity of the torso has a major contribution. By leaning in, it's like the wrecking ball, where a good deal of the force that comes back at you is automatically absorbed by that gravity alone. Gravity certainly doesn't account for everything but, in an equation of forces, it would definitely account for a substantial head-start, towards a direct unimpeded transmission of power. When you sit bolt upright, you lose that headstart, as gravity is scarcely contributing anything to counter the return force. When at an angle, even if starting in balance, your body's mass will cancel out some of the return force- just like when you try to push the balanced wrecking ball. The amount of force it will automatically resist and cancel out is determined by its gravity. With the torso, the more it leans inward, the bigger the force that gravity can resist against the return force. I really don't think it's any coincidence that he so frequently leans in more to prepare for the big sound, When pushing the piano from that setup, it would be difficult (even verifiably physically impossible, I strongly suspect) to prevent yourself from being aided by the mass of the torso, even if you wanted to. I'm not an expert by any means (although I've studied these things at A-Level), but I'm really confident that there are principles of mechanics involved here that dictate that the role of gravity simply could not even be prevented from playing a significant role- when the torso is aligned in that particular way.

I also tried armweights not 1 Kg much less with about the same results you're describing. Actually I used them whenever I played for a while. But I stopped due to a warning from a teacher I respected. It's undeniable that the gravitiational force of the arms mass has a role in playing. But to me that role is 98% to support relaxation and movement of arm and hand -when you actually make contact with the keyboard other more powerful forces take over. To me it's possible to play only with armweight but that's on very rare occations say 2% of the repertoire. Even in free fall the weight is more than often to small to get the speed you would need( you know the speed in vacuum is the same for all masses)-impulses from the muscles and levers are needed to get that speed. Leaning forward is one way to use the body and arms and get support but the body is such a clever systems of levers that you can get e x a c t l y the same effect by leaning backwards and use more of your biceps. Like Liszt did at occasions.And I think Horowitz changed his technique and posture all the time the 1968 "position" was maybe I say maybe just a reaction to enormous pressure and nervousness.as I recall his leaning forward was extreme in Scarlatti.He used to sit more upright and far away from the piano in younger days. In terms of pure mechanics his playing was more brilliant then. Imagine asking ABB to build a pianorobot as light as possible money no hurdle. They would pobably put the big weight at the "butt" to stabilize the system. The sceleton-levers would be made of thin titan and the force created by small hydralic devices with tremendous power. Would the scientists add a weight on the tiny titan forearm?? Learning the armweight technique as I see it is highly beneficial it's indespensable for avoiding accumulation of tension and for positioning and alignement. But when you reach the ivory other mechanics take over. Ergo, it's Volodos butt not his forearm... I would be glad to hear more about your weight experiment how long time does it take you to "come back" without weights and are you planning to use these devices on a regular basis?

"Even in free fall the weight is more than often to small to get the speed you would need( you know the speed in vacuum is the same for all masses)-impulses from the muscles and levers are needed to get that speed." Absolutely agreed. However, I'm really not talking about free fall in any respect here. Anything I'm referring to is applicable to starting from direct contact with the key and pushing it. What I'm interested in is the role gravity plays in such equations and how you can sway such equations to make it do more for you- without any negative collapses or big motions. Gravity simply cannot be removed from the equations, whatever you do. You can simulate no gravity by trying to perfectly counter the action of gravity. But then you are left in a position of having to then use an additional muscle to cancel out the effect of that cancelling out of gravity, in order to apply anything substantial to the piano. I'm all for ocassional use of contradictory muscles, but to feel that you must ALWAYS cancel gravity 100% and ensure that it's not allowed to play ANY degree of active role would surely be absurdly dogmatic? Either gravity plays a role (a role which is surely as worthy of analysis as the action of muscles, when looking for the most sophisticated refinements?), or you are making your big sounds by pushing with one hand and pulling with other (to use a common phrase- not literally). I really cannot begin to make sense of the idea that you must always add muscular effort on top of pre-existing contradictory muscular effort- rather than release some of the gravity to positively contribute to a percentage of the overall resultant force. (To be fully clear, the slightly simplified version is this: if you are stopping gravity from acting, you are exerting a force upwards in your arm. To move the key you need to move downward. If you do not release the gravity, you are still pushing upwards while pushing downwards. For a big chord, what's so crazy about BOTH releasing that upward resistance against the line of motion AND exerting some muscular force downwards? This is the key issue, for me. If that's not a crazy idea, then gravity IS playing an important role, beyond any rational dispute) "Imagine asking ABB to build a pianorobot as light as possible money no hurdle. They would pobably put the big weight at the "butt" to stabilize the system. The sceleton-levers would be made of thin titan and the force created by small hydralic devices with tremendous power. Would the scientists add a weight on the tiny titan forearm??" Absolutely, they would, if it were too light. It's an interesting point about the butt certainly. However, the mass of the rest would be phenomenally important. It would take a more advanced physicist than myself to explain this in great detail but, most likely, either the joints would have to be rigidly fixed in a spatial position (simulating collossal muscular tension) or you would need a decent mass. Otherwise the force would be too easily repelled. Also, on the forearm a kilogram near the hand counts for a lot due to the lever issue. It's a long way from the elbow. The added power that this immediately generates to (even with the most finger based action) is a powerful illustration of just how real gravitational effects are. This, is a little simpler than the complexity of a light robot arm, but consider the demolition ball again and the ping pong ball on a bit of string. Theoretically, you could move the ping pong ball at phenomenal speeds but still see it harmlessly bounce off a wall. Equally, you could raise the wrecking ball just a few inches and let if off at a pretty miniscule speed. But with enough mass, you could still do some serious damage to a wall. The more mass, the more energy is carried. Similar principles will govern that robot arm. If it's not carrying enough mass it would be limited. Much as I bow down to Alan's knowledge of anatomy and how to find improved function, I have to say that the claim that mass is not an issue really does run contrary to accepted mechanics. I know that he is opposed to poor functions of methods that are based on gravity and mass. But I think that makes it all the more important to study such issues, in a that organisation. Even when you have a suspended 'floating' arm, an arm with more mass will repel more return force and remain stable more easily than a lighter arm- just as the demolition ball is harder to push than the ping pong ball. Obviously a demolition ball would be a rubbish shock absorber, the same as the ping pong ball. T smaller masses mean more give and greater masses mean less. So the ping pong ball absorbs almost nothing, while hitting a heavy demolition ball is as good as running into a brick wall. What the optimal mass is for optimal shock absorption in an arm would be anybody's guess. But, I've seen a lot more 'big-boned' pianists who visibly absorb shock with little effort. The physics couldn't point more strongly to the idea that Volodos's mass counts for something. The less mass you have, the more muscular activity is going to have to come into play, to absorb return forces, and the less automatic shock-absorption. "Learning the armweight technique as I see it is highly beneficial it's indespensable for avoiding accumulation of tension and for positioning and alignement. But when you reach the ivory other mechanics take over." Honestly, not at all. I'm not talking about the drop here. I'm talking about what role gravity plays when you start from the key. You cannot remove it from the equation of forces. I'm not taking anything away from how much the hand and muscles do here. But it's essential to look at the interaction of factors and not to simplify it to either only A or only B. "I would be glad to hear more about your weight experiment how long time does it take you to "come back" without weights and are you planning to use these devices on a regular basis?" To be honest, it could take a while at first. But I can usually adapt to the comfortable neutrally "floating" (as opposed to excessively rising) wrist within less than a minute. This gradually goes away little by little, and eventually I'll put them back on for a few minutes, to change the sensations once again. I'd actually rather like to get some ones of variable weight at some point, to shift the range of sensations even further. I probably wouldn't ever go much beyond 1kg, but I think it's precisely because you have to interact with a different levels of heaviness that it's so useful. I think a whole range of different weights would be excellent practise.

Aha! My college physics is gone but I see what you mean and I totally agree that the forces in play could be expressed in Newtonian terms. It would be really interesting to quantify these "vectors" by emperical experiments.Maybe someone has done that. Everything is possible today with cameras that shoots 1000+ pictures/second and all the rest. I'm confused with the term gravity-it's a constant in Newtons equations-I think. But I see what you mean. I just watched Volodos in Vienna (what a terrible audience) on a plasma and to me he is working with his bodyweight a lot precisely what you say "pushing away from the piano". This is exactly as you describe my "robot" where "joints had to be rigidly fixed..". That is to me effecient pianotechnique-to be able to "fix" and "unfix" smaller or larger parts of the system in nanoseconds. Besides the necessary fingerabilities. Mass matters but if you can't align everything properly it's all wasted. And you need an extremely strong hand to support and allocate all this weight.I've made the same observation lately as Alan who wrote somewhere that with a collapsed arch you can predict with 100% accuracy the sound. Which doesn't mean that using gravity equates collapsing. Collapsing is to be unable to "catch up" the weight properly. Now Volodos has the sound of Anton Rubinstein. But I still can't see that armweight has anything to do with it. Can't say you're wrong either. But as thaught the classical way I don't see any of it in Volodos. I watched the Lenz-masterclass with Alan an I was slightly confused with the guy from Brussels (not Van Damme) it looked to me like Alan gave instructions very close to armweight- and that particular part of Debussy is within the 2% of the repertoir where this is the right thing.But I may be wrong. This debate about armweight is in a way tiresome obviously there is a need for a Newtonian scientist. Problem is nowadays gravity is explained by Einsteins theories... There is also a restriction in the instrument. I've heard to many "strong" pianists playing way above the limits of the instrument killing the sound-a complete waste of energy. It's like a golf club there is a limit to how far you can theoretically hit a ball. Think of all these tiny girls playing the Chopin third-etude in a fabolous tempo filling up a big hall. Or Clara Haskil or Alicia de Larochas filling up halls with Iberia. Still I'm persuaded that the weight-experiment is a smart way to develop better alignment more efficient use of muscles and levers.And as for mass muscles are heavy and fat light. Best regards