Two keys to piano technique.

Hundreds, thousands, probably tens of thousands of books on piano technique have been published in more than one hundred years.

However, I know of only two which mention two key, absolutely vital technical aspects.

I don’t know if there was some kind of arrangement in the past not to “reveal” certain secrets... I don’t think so.

As perfectly mentioned by Thomas Mark on his book What Every Pianist Needs To Know About The Body, the constant development and improvement of the knowledge of human anatomy has been showing that some traditional concepts about the “right” technique are not only wrong, but harmful for our muscles, tendons and even our bones.

So it is natural to conclude that an important number of traditional concepts involving the “correct” technique have resulted by external observation, in a period of our history when the functioning of our muscles and parts of the body was something of a mystery. And if that knowledge existed, it was limited to the field of medicine, unavailable to everybody as it is today.

This is what English pianist Tobias Matthay (1858-1945, see photo) points out in another revealing book, The Visible And Invisible In Pianoforte Technique.



Matthay, who studied with no less than one of Franz Liszt’s disciples, knew very well that the simple observation of someone playing the piano is not only limited to decide what the correct playing should consist of, but it can be utterly wrong, because the act of watching fingers, hands or arms moving does not tell us anything about their internal muscle condition.

And, as Matthay very well said, that condition is simply invisible.

Obviously, these are concepts that come to us directly from the very genius of Franz Liszt.

I can hold my arm up in the air parallel to the ground, but nobody will be able to say if my muscles are relaxed or tense.

The two books I mentioned above are those which reveal the two aspects of piano technique I would like to discuss here with you.

In order to make these concepts clear for a better understanding, we can refer to them as “the point of sound” and “keybedding”, to use the original terminology found on the two books.


THE POINT OF SOUND

Only very few pianists, and many of them excellent performers (and I would like to know how many piano teachers) know exactly what happens inside the complex system of levers, pins, strings, bearings and other pieces that work together in the piano action, as Thomas Mark puts it so well in his aforementioned book.

I think we could also consider this as another of the “invisible” elements which Matthay was referring to.

Let’s think about something obvious, but which we take into account only sometimes.

When a key reaches its lowest point, the piece on the other end, behind the back of the hammer (the “backcheck”), is already in position to hold the hammer after it returns from hitting the strings (or “string”, in the case of the lowest bass strings).

Please, take a look at the last paragraph again.

Ready?

Did you discover the key point?

I‘ll give you a hint: when the key reaches its lowest point, the hammer is positioned on the backcheck.

In other words, when the key reaches its lowest point, the hammer has already hit the strings.

So... you may be realizing what I’m talking about...

It’s worthwhile writing it in block capitals...

THE HAMMER HITS THE STRINGS BEFORE THE KEY REACHES ITS LOWEST POINT.

Approximately at around two thirds of key descent (when the escapement mechanism starts working on a grand piano), the action has already pushed the hammer towards the strings, so that the hammer is not in contact with the pushing lever anymore.

This means that nothing we may do after this point (the point of sound) has any influence in the obtained sound.

Once the key is completely down, whatever we do afterwards can only control the duration of the sound or may be relevant in the motion to the next key, but it cannot possibly change or affect a sound which was “decided” before the point of sound.

As a result of this, the degree of “force” or “push” we may use to move the key down is absolutely irrelevant. What is relevant though, is the velocity of key descent; the velocity is the only factor the action can “read”.

The velocity and the rate of acceleration during key descent is the only piece of information the hammer “takes with it” when it is “in the air”, travelling towards the string.

The keys of a piano are not buttons which need to be pressed all the way to ring a bell or call an elevator (as long as there isn’t a power cut).

Would you like to test what we have just describe?

Ideally on a grand piano, play with moderate speed and normal weight, but stop the key descent at half of the movement.

You will hear the sound all the same. The only possible explanation is that the hammer loses contact with the action in the exact moment in which we stopped the key.

I’m sorry to say that the facts mentioned above contradict a lot of conventional pedagogical opinion on piano technique, when too many times piano students are told to use a “heavy”, “deep” or “all-the-way-down” kind of touch.

Wrong.

It is very dangerous to insist on this point because our own muscles, tendons and nerves can be affected by this “heavy” touch.

And this leads us to the second key.


KEYBEDDING

In the previous section we have just had a hint of the incredible and marvelous precision of the action in a modern piano.

Probably when Erard designed it, he may have not realized all its features and everything that may be done with that seemingly innocent combination of levers, screws and little rods.

Once again, the inventor was overcome by his invention.

For example, I don’t think Erard could imagine that some great pianists would discover a trick that Liszt himself used.

When we depress the damper pedal (the one on the right) on a grand piano, the action becomes lighter and therefore faster.

This happens because our foot, through the pedal action, raises all the system of dampers which are no longer in contact with the back end of the keys, so that the keys do not have to raise them.

And you can be sure those dampers are heavy all right. They have to be, because a little piece of felt a few inches long has to stop the vibration of one, two or three strings that can be more than 6 feet long.

Moving back into topic, we have just seen that nothing we can do with the key after the point of sound can affect it.

However, it can affect our muscles, tendons or nerves.

Because another wonderful feature of Erard’s mechanism is that when the key reaches its lowest point (and, remember, the hammer has returned stopped by the backcheck), all the system is held by itself in a kind of self-supporting balance (the term “stand-by” comes to mind) which allows us to keep it in that position with a minimum, almost non-existant degree of weight on the key.

The weight we need to exert on the key to keep it down and of course to keep all the mechanism in suspension is extremely light compared to the weight we must use to push the key down at the beginning to start moving all the necessary elements in the action.

We are talking about two completely different muscle conditions.

Once we have moved those elements and the key is down, all the parts in the action are positioned in such a way that one holds the other in perfect balance, calculated down to the tenth of an inch (or less).

With remarkable clarity and pedagogical sense, Tobias Matthay explains in his book (published almost 80 years ago!) that any excessive pressure on the key to keep it down constitutes “keybedding” and it is not only an obstacle to our agility, our touch or weight control.

Keybedding is terrible for our muscles, nerves and tendons, and is responsible for most of the physical problems we pianists suffer through the years.

What is more, the unnecessary tension that takes place in our muscular system (because the excessive pressure moves back into it) prevents us from keeping the proper relaxation, it “hardens” our fingers and pushes us into a constant feeling of frustration.

We should remember that the act of touch consists of three moments: key descent, weight control to keep the key down the right amount of time (as little as it may be) once sound has been produced, and letting the key move back up, when the sound stops.

Keybedding is usually the result of our lack of awareness in relation to the second moment, because we mistakingly believe that all we are doing is moving the key down and letting it go up again.

Once again, the wrong idea of the keys as buttons.

The second moment in the act of touch could be the most important, because only when it is applied with precision is it possible to keep our playing in the best level of relaxation, balance and speed.