Playing Daynamic

Hello, I have a question about playing loud and soft,i know that in order to play loud you should hit the key faster,in order to do that some people told me that you should lift your fingers high and then strike the keys ,my question: i want to play a scale very loud -ff-and fast,if ill lift my fingers up high it will slow the velocity of the playing. Am i right about the the fact that in order to play forte you should lift your fingers high? and what should i do when it comes to play really fast notes and play them as loud as ff? Thanks

It is entirely possible to play loud without lifting the fingers high - that should always be a choice, not a necessity. You've described the solution yourself - move the keys faster. It's up to you to find a way to move the key quickly whether your fingers are lifted high or resting on the surface of the keys. Perhaps you can use the lifting high to get an idea of the speed that your fingers need to travel, then gradually reduce the height while still maintaining the speed? You need to experiment with how it works for you. Just make sure you're moving your fingers from the knuckles (metacarpal-phalangeal joint). It's difficult to say more without seeing how you currently play.

EXCELLENT question!!! And a pretty good answer from Nick. We lift the fingers high to play loud to stimulate the sensory nerves as to the experience of moving with vigour and quickness. We then out of necessity reduce the degree of movement when we increase the speed, to make it more efficient. Without this direct sensory experience of the large, really quick movement, it is difficult for the nerves to figure out how to get the key down at close quarters, and the brain resorts to all sorts of wrong solutions - mostly which involve too much arm force coming down through the fingers, compressing everything, jamming the entire finger-lever mechanism, and wreaking havoc with your sound and your sense of agility.

It is entirely possible to play loud without lifting the fingers high - that should always be a choice, not a necessity. You've described the solution yourself - move the keys faster. It's up to you to find a way to move the key quickly whether your fingers are lifted high or resting on the surface of the keys. Perhaps you can use the lifting high to get an idea of the speed that your fingers need to travel, then gradually reduce the height while still maintaining the speed? You need to experiment with how it works for you. Just make sure you're moving your fingers from the knuckles (metacarpal-phalangeal joint). It's difficult to say more without seeing how you currently play. Just a thought- although key speed defines volume achieved, aiming for high finger speed doesn't necessarily translate to the high key speed, unless it's the finger TIP which is moving fastest. When a finger gives way, the knuckle can end up moving far quicker than the tip or key itself ever get to move. This then lands uselessly into an aftershock after the sound already occurred. I think one of the best things about the right kind of finger lifting is it generally encourages the distance between knuckle and fingertip to be expanding rather than contracting and crumpling up. This means the fingertip is where most of the speed is achieved and thus it reaches the key. For me, it's almost entirely about the chance to experience efficient transfer of speed that makes lifting helpful, rather than the idea that it makes it easier to achieve faster fingers. When I lift the fingers I don't really aim for notable speed of motion at all but the efficiency that is usually encouraged (if you do it the right way) tends to make plenty of tone with minimal perceived speed or effort. From there, the finger gets better at passing on speed via efficiency (rather than abruptness) from contact too and the need to try to go fast in the finger evaporates. I just say this because although key speed is what matters, I personally find that aiming for speed of key depression is generally more of a hindrance towards effortless efficiency rather than an aid. Personally I prefer the idea of a movement that feels extremely slow and gradual yet very powerful and deliberate. What I usually see in students is abrupt swiping movements with little perception of interacting with the key resistance. I actually find a slower perception of movement more reliable at generating a really big tone than thinking about trying to move anything quick. It's similar to how you need to save your speed for where it really matters in such sports as golf, tennis and snooker. If you watch a master snooker player at work, they pace the acceleration so smoothly that the cue never seems to move fast at all- yet the white suddenly shoots back and screws all the way up the table. Amateurs usually start moving too fast too soon and don't get the same effortless zip into the shot. Even if trying to generate real speed I think it's vital to feel a sense of slowish pacing into the moment of speed, rather than to try to from 0 to 100 in a split second. In some ways it's easier to feel the resistance when moving from the key, but it in other ways it's actually a lot harder to pace acceleration through the point where it really matters, without working too hard in a bid to force speed of motion. PS. I'm certainly not saying it's always wrong to aim for a violent and instaneous acceleration, but I don't think it's generally good to think in terms of trying to do quicker movements until there's a feel for quite how much tone can come from a slower and more gradually paced action, done with efficient transmission. Otherwise there's a danger of creating needlessly large impacts, when real issue is not absolute speed but whether the speed produced actually reaches the hammer.