Scales, octaves and arm weight focussing

"I have accustomed to this almost seamless curve. The shoulder became more relaxed as I played in this position and maintained much of their relaxed state as I switched back to the pronounced arch I had before. You were right: it offers one much more possibilities." Great, glad to hear that it's helping! As long as you experience the whole range of movement that can be involved in forming the arch, you can still use the exaggerated one or just do a more slight one, depending on what works in each situation. It's basically just a case of making sure that you're familiar with the whole range, when choosing which part of the action to use. "However I still have problems when trying to play broken chords or whatever and touching the adjacent black keys. On an acoustic piano this is not going to happen, no matter how far from a "straight down" trajectory you will be;or maybe if you are extremely negligent you will barely make one of the black keys next to the white one you play to sound. On a digital you have to be very careful and upright(in terms of key attack) on such situations." I don't really have this problem, myself. The acoustic may be more forgiving, but I don't think that you should be causing any drag on them at all, if the finger is lined up along the key. It's basically the case that if my finger doesn't feel positioned to play with 100% confidence in the first place, I don't play it at all, but want to look at how it's prepared (quite a useful ethos in general for note-learning, by the way). This takes patience, of course, but I almost never play between the black keys with the feeling that the finger had only just got there. You can't afford any margin of error here- which is why you always need to feel the alignment first and only play after that is totally assured. It already needs to feel almost perfectly parallel with the key itself. I'd never even think about trying to play between the cracks of two black keys from a diagonal alignment. I might perhaps turn my rh fourth finger over the thumb from C to B and have it alongside the B flat, perhaps. But I'd never turn over B and place it between the G sharp and B flat. I only ever go directly between two black keys if I'm sure that I arrive there in a straight line, from the very beginning. (Incidentally, I never thought about this before, but only D G and A have black keys on both sides. It certainly seems worth noticing those and paying special attention, if you do have to go between the keys. There's plenty of leeway with only one black note to contend with, but going between two requires much more precise preparation) Try lining up your hand on the front of the white keys and then just slide your whole arm straight in and straight back out. Don't play any notes at all for now. Just get the feeling of the movement that prepares you for doing so. Even wiggle your fingers from side to side a little, while you're in there. While it might be a little tight, there's probably more room in there than you think. If you're not already comfortable and confident of success, don't even think of beginning to start pulling on the key until you are. The main problem I have here is of fingers wanting to curl up too much, when I put them between the keys. I have to make a real effort (especially with the second) to start from only a slight curve., so as to leave room for the fullest type of action. "Much of the weight of the arm is now directed towards the hand and the fingers. It's extraordinary how the weight makes you more secure and stable at high speeds and more relaxed at lower ones. However I think that the pulling does not match the release yet. It's still much more pulling than it should be. I feel that the wrist tends to go up when I (probably) try to play forte or louder. It's much better anyway. In the old days, if I tried to play forte, my wrist would lock and I would start to push like mad." Great! Sounds good. If you think that the release is not all there yet, try doing that one of letting the palm collapse on a cluster and concentrate on feeling where the elbow moves, as you let the hand slip off. It basically slips straight backwards, as the result of a release in the shoulder. I just realised that this is actually aided notably by the action of gravity on the uppermost segment of the arm. It's interesting to try and feel this part of the gravity pull consciously. Before, I've mostly concentrated on the feeling of release of the forearm's weight via the elbow. But a release in the shoulder is primarily what allows the upper arm's weight pull the elbow backwards. I'd try remembering that sensation at the same time as you use the finger action (as well as the sense of what it would be like to let the wrist droop down a fraction) and see if you can balance up a little more from those. If the elbow is getting pulled forwards or the wrist is getting dragged upwards, remember how release gives a perfectly contrary antidote to those movements, if you match it up just right. It's interesting to judge it all from the elbow's movement, and then try to feel the backward and forward forces both acting to balance it in a single spot.

My shoulders are slightly tensed most of the time and quite relaxed from time to time. However the tone is still weak. I have experimented today playing with the touch sensitivity on my P-85 set to "fixed" and realized that the intensity of the sound is more stronger than when the touch sensitivity is on default(that is to say "medium"). Quite ridiculous. If I could get to the intensity that the "fixed" setting offers, it would be awesome. This means that I am not able to get to mf no matter how much I relax or how fast and strong I am pulling. There must be something I don't do as I should. My problem too. Especially on descending passages. When I am ascending I have problems getting the finger between the keys without unwanted drag but when descending, avoiding the upper black key adds to the equation. It seems impossible to go so straight with the finger (whatever) passing over the thumb and being, certainly, in a sidelong/oblique position. In most of the cases if I play E minor melodic, when I descend, I will hit the G# when trying to play the G with the 3rd or the D# when trying to play D with the 4th in the RH.

My shoulders are slightly tensed most of the time and quite relaxed from time to time. However the tone is still weak. I have experimented today playing with the touch sensitivity on my P-85 set to "fixed" and realized that the intensity of the sound is more stronger than when the touch sensitivity is on default(that is to say "medium"). Quite ridiculous. If I could get to the intensity that the "fixed" setting offers, it would be awesome. This means that I am not able to get to mf no matter how much I relax or how fast and strong I am pulling. There must be something I don't do as I should. Have you tried ensuring that the contact between the fingertip and the key is the only static point and using a pulling action to literally pull your whole free arm forward? Don't even think of moving the key. Try to pull yourself slowly forward, like you would on a still tabletop. Don't use any momentum, but feel a slow continuous action- that is not ended by the key reaching the key bed. Almost try not to even notice that the key descends. This is basically what I'm doing at the moment. There may be a lot of stuff I'm already used to that allows this to work a lot better than it would from scratch, but it's working wonders. It even corrects the alignment of the finger, if it starts a bit wonky. The arm moves around the finger in response to the pull, not the finger from the arm. This means that the alignment literally creates itself, when the finger moves. A free arm will naturally be felt to drift into position behind the finger, in response. You need to make your arm movable- which means neither locked in place or too heavy. There is no feel of a stopping point or any impact. It's just a very smooth motion. Careful not to do this too much too soon though. While the arm is lightened a lot compared to full weight release (which is thanks to that faint outward drifting feeling at the elbow), it can become quite tiring on the fingers. But from a gradual continuous action- not in terms of anything that would feel like an instant intensity or impacting. In terms of the physics, what I realised is that the finger ALWAYS pulls on the arm anyway! It seems mind-numbingly obvious now. How can a finger only pull a key unless the arm is locked in place? What you are actually doing in teh above is not increasing the workload- but from moving. In the end it stays still simple because it doesn't need to move- not because muscles are forcing it to stay still while your finger pulls.

In most of the cases if I play E minor melodic, when I descend, I will hit the G# when trying to play the G with the 3rd or the D# when trying to play D with the 4th in the RH. I definitely wouldn't go between the keys in that particular context. There's simply not time there. I can't think of a single scale or arpeggio (off the top of my head at least) where I'd turn over straight between two black keys. I go between black keys loads elsewhere and might immediately slide other fingers between them in the split second after turning over. But definitely not on the first note.

I think the lack of pulling force continuity and uniformity(evenness) is causing the tension problem and therefrom the weak tone. Now I realize that I do the same mistake when playing that "Italian Song" from Tchaikovsky's Album for the Young. I do pull my whole arm forward by the medium of my finger action but I am doing it too sudden, too short and too forceful. When this is combined with my inability to let the arm fall back without any holding effort, there ensues a lot of tension.

Now the hand does standup on its own but I guess it will take another ton of practice until I will get the desired difference between loudness and softness.

Interesting to note the difference between the quite strong finger "pulling" we have been cultivating here and the "caressing" from a parallel post. They would seem worlds apart yet both are completely valid approaches. In the end what we search for is a synthesis where you are actually doing both - to the most useful degree... AFF