Highest Register...

Hi, just realized the subtle, yet very notable difference it is for me, to regularly trill (piano, pianissimo) in the higher register of the keyboard, where keys have very little resistance. The lower I trill, the easier it gets. To my knowledge this issue is seldom fully covered in literature. What is your experience with this ? Any special way to practice this ? As an example, take the "Music Box" of Liadov, from bar 21 (counting from the first bar of the middle-section in D major). To me ths shows very clearly the role of the "up-weight" of the keys, the natural springy feedback it gives to the fingers movment. To trill regularly and lightly in the high register, the arm and hand should be light as a feather (same as in the lower register), but somehow the movment and/or force must be adjusted. Maybe its also because of the "ooutward" position of the right arm ?

This is funny because I used to notice the opposite. I would take a trill written for the middle register and practice it at the top because it would feel easier there. Probably I was bearing down on the key so much that the up-weight hadn't a hope in heck of helping my finger back up again. In the high register perhaps my unconscious reflexes realized that there wasn't any up-weight to help me and so they backed off, allowing the key to come up more easily... More than one way to skin a cat! AFF

yes indeed, now that I read your experience many days later, I find your 'anti-thesis' very insightful... opens up my spectrum. So... as in many other instances, a good thing (letting key-rebound help the fingers) can turn out to be an 'obstacle' in another context, here a high trill. Not relying on rebound so much puts free and regular finger movement back in spotlight. Maybe in my case, the bigger rebound action acts as a nice damper in the lower register, so any (that is unwanted accents, unwanted tempo-irregularity) is sort of evened-out. The pianissimo in the high register I wanted to achieve shows all hints of any jerkyness like a magnifying glass. Best

Yes... the heavier hammers even out the jerkiness in the sound, . When you play the trill up high, the hidden neuromotor unevennesses come to light. When I would play the trill up top, my neuromotor system would then adjust, finding a new way to do the trill to make it even, and then I would try to retain that new learning when I went back to the normal register. AFF

So... as in many other instances, a good thing (letting key-rebound help the fingers) can turn out to be an 'obstacle' in another context, here a high trill. Not relying on rebound so much puts free and regular finger movement I wouldn't say it's a case of not relying on the rebound. There's absolutely nothing other than the rebound that returns the key for you. Rather, I think it makes you more sensitive to the rebound (in terms of both what it does and doesn't have to offer), and puts in a position where you can utilise it to its fullest potential. Arguably that's quite a small difference, but I think it's worth being aware of. I don't think it's a case that letting the rebound help the fingers is any kind of obstacle, but rather that you've become more sensitive to noticing different levels of it. If you had found it more difficult in situations where the rebound is lesser, that suggests you weren't actually letting it help you . I suspect that working in registers where it is more easy to perceive that a rebound occurs has helped you become more sensitive to the lesser rebound from the upper registers- so you can now get more out of it.

Talk about subjective experiences... the rebound of the key most of the time exerts a lot less force than the force we use to remove our finger from the key, for a very practical reason: we need that finger to play another note, and so it is very quickly it. HOWEVER...: just reworking the opening of the A minor section of the Chopin F major Ballade, and, thinking about the key rebound (from reading this thread) I start thinking, hmm, I could use more "bounce," more rebound here. Everything felt sluggish, stuck and grey, both soundwise and physically. I started to pull more (see the next thread) a la Andrew and lo and behold, my metacarpal-phalangeals started to poke themselves up in the air more, I started feeling more "bounce" and the sound came alive. By changing my technique I created the subjective experience of the key having more rebound. Nice! AFF

it. Yeah, that's a really interesting point. It would be interesting to explore how much is actively done by the finger and how much is passively caused by the key. However, depending on the speed/angle of the attack I think it can be very literal indeed. If the key is held down for a second or more, say, the up force is fairly small- because the energy of the finger landing into the keybed has already dissipated. However, in a quicker strike, some of the energy that the finger had sent down can feasibly be reflected BACK into raising the key once more- so it's not just the upforce of the mechanism but an additional bit of bounce. As long as the action is done quickly (and the finger doesn't jam the key too directly against the keybed) it should be possible to get a decent bounce that could push the finger plenty too. It would be interesting to explore whether certain angles allow the finger to be bounced up more or less easily and how actively it needs to withdraw itself. I suspect it probably varies drastically from piano to piano. On that kind of subject, there are some interesting youtube films by a guy called Roy Holmes. I think his suggestion that you don't "need" legato for op. 10 no. 1 is utter bullshine and I think his method is rather narrow indeed as a basis for allround technique. However, I did find his approach very useful to try out- despite feeling tremendous initial skepticism. He starts with the hand very curved and pulls the keys with very indirect flicks indeed. I think this style of flicking across the key makes the for about as much bounce back as is conceivably possible. The sheer indirectness had made me very skeptical of how it could provide strong actions. However, it makes for the possibility of exceedingly vigorous activity without any heavy landing or impact.

I think Roy Holmes is talking about something valid, which I discuss in this Blog post: At a certain point, the legato from which we gained so much can become an impediment. "The legato that binds is so unkind." Kemal's recording of the Chopin B minor sonata 2nd movement is incredibly light and fluttery. I asked him how he did it and he surprised me by saying he had been trying to play as legato as possible. More recently (almost 20 years later in fact) he gives me the lesson described in that blog post where he does the opposite. I would be interested to ask him if he was playing legato or not in his blistering, towering rendition of Op. 10 #1 soon to be released... He probably doesn't know any more. As for key rebound, when you land on cement, it doesn't bounce you back up at all. There's an impact, and the resulting "up" force doesn't make you go up at all. It just stops the down. The energy is transformed into compression and, if strong enough, breakage! No up at all. If you land on a trampoline, you do get bounced back up again. So how much is a piano key like cement, and how much is it like a trampoline? AFF

I have been experimenting with the key rebound for some time now.I think it depends mostly on our ability to be able to free ourselves and align our skeleton correctly,following and using some uparm muscles to help the hand to be lifted,most people i think simply remain on the keys without ever sensing how the key can help them rebound.I strongly believe the quality of the piano mechanism plays an important part on the effect. I noticed this when i practicted some repeated octaves on a very good quality steinway on the bass region,the problem of speed was solved for me mainly because i could feel the trampoline effect on my playing mechanism,on my piano home it was much more difficult to obtain such speed and clarity because the keys didnt speed my hand as much as that piano did. However the slightest tension and you can simply forget any such effect ,if you bind up the speed is lost and tension is built quickly. Maybe this has to do with the alignment of our apparatus?Imagine that you are running on a wooden roadpath that is only 20 cm in width ,if you run i simply imagine that your feet may not even be on that imagenery small narrowed road,but rather on the edges and if there was chaos below you would simply fell down. Trasfer this to piano,any time the fingers play fast and are not properly aligned, probably ulna radius,as well as the bones may be somewhat like your feet on the edges of a narrow road when running.It takes skill to run on such a narrow road and be on the surface area of that road and not on the edges and a slight move could bring you down. This could built tension very fast,so in slow tempo i think we can properly learn how to align ulna,radius as the whole skeleton to be correctly aligned,now this does not mean always standing on the keys,as standing has a tendency to bind up and lose speed,but rather the time the boney fingers touch the key they are not hitting so that half finger is aligned where the other tiny part is misaligned and tensed but rather properly touching the key surface. I wonder how many people actually try to feel what area of the fingertip is in active touch of the keys,is it the bone that is touching?The flesh meat area or something else?How much rotation happens when we use the key as a trompoline?In a real trompoline we aim for the center to have proper take off,then why in the piano many people hit the keys on the edges and fingers slide? I believe these are some good thoughts one should have when he tries to accelerate and use the piano as a trompoline.

Thank you, Niko, very nicely described. I am ambivalent about this whole rebound thing. On the one hand, I think maybe it is mainly subjective; on the other hand, one of the most wonderful things about the Landowska Steinway is exactly its capacity to rebound my fingers. It is a very strong, palpable impression: the keys bounce, nay, rocket my fingers back up much more than normal pianos do. Bob in Utah says this is because of the difference between the up weight, the down weight, and the touch weight... I think it also has partly to do with the wonderful resonance of the instrument itself. In any case it is a tangible phenomenon, so whether it's subjective or not, it's worth taking into consideration. AFF