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Piano technique: the so-called weight
technique. Dear
Reader! The so-called weight technique was the truly brilliant concept AFTER
the shady time of "hammering"... Here
below you could see and read the answer on very interesting question sent to
me by Paul, my Dear Old Friend from Canada. As well as to Him, I would
like to dedicate this text to Jamie (USA), Johannes (Germany) and Jin
(Singapore); all of them probably need the similar kind of support...! Welcome!
Question 17.
Dear
Stefan, I
am still under the influence of my earlier years of training, the so-called
weight technique. The beginning and ending of passages and the production of
isolated tones are giving me some problems. My piano teacher is telling me
that I should not play the first note of a passage with arm or forearm
impulse unless it is on a strong beat because I'm producing an accent on that
note. I always thought that the first note of a passage or All notes, which
are not legato, are Arm notes. I also thought that the release of the keys at
the end of passages should be done by the arm (both weight and triceps
action).
Hoping to
hear from you soon.
Dear Paul! Thanks for the email! Once your message touched me deeply, I answer as
rapidly as I can! The first thing I should say looks as follows: the
so-called "weight technique" truly was the great conception AFTER
shady time of the hammering, or – after time of the "isolated finger
technique", which probably was the most dangerous and the craziest idea
the pianist race had ever invented... On the second hand, the unqualified "weight technique"
seemingly forms the opposite pole to the "isolated finger
technique", and is able to produce the similarly poor quality in playing
the piano only...
Dear Friend! The piano playing (violin, clarinet, trumpet playing, singing etc, too)
is a multifarious activity, in which the instrumental situations persistently
are of the fluent, flexible, and changeable character. That is why – because
the quality of sound hangs on so many refined factors as style, instrument,
acoustic, composer, artistic image of each one particular piece – all the
possible kinds of motion of any part and element of the pianist's hand should
always be in a view... Consequently, here cannot be any exclusively "Arm notes,
"Finger notes", "Forearm notes" and so on; complexity of
musical material could be accurately realized by the adequately developed
piano technique indeed. Look, if you put accents on the musically
(aesthetically) wrong places due to any technical prejudice – "the first
note of a passage", or "All notes which are not legato are Arm
notes" – it means you are doing a wrong thing, and in that point I must
agree with your Teacher! As the last and the most essential instance yet, the
decision-making (what's good, what's bad) should actually be determined by
our hearing that of course must be integrated with our sensing of the musical
styles. Strong faith in "generous influence" of purely material
elements you have writing about, as arms, forearms, tricepses, weight, etc,
in the last end could produce miserable results only: monotony and its mostly
beloved daughter – dissatisfaction... However one can PARTIALLY agree with your opinion, "All notes
which are not legato are Arm notes", I am strongly afraid, you perhaps
not fully adequately interpret the role of "the Arm"...
That is why I would like to try once again, and as vividly as
possible, clarify the question concerning relations between particular parts
of the hand in playing the piano: The
most important duty of the upper parts of a hand is to LIBERATE the fingers
and palm from each one ounce of the UNNECESSARY LOAD (just its, in the
particular situation, useless WEIGHT). We, of course, should NOT be
interested in achieving any kind of the unwise "looseness" in our
arms and hands, because "looseness" in its core truly is too near
to "passivity", which is the last wanted state inside of the
playing pianist's body. Consequently,
putting your liberated... - It
means: liberated FROM UNNECESSARY tension, likely EMPTY as a tube, but not
"loose", NOT passive - ...hand on the key and producing the basic, about the mezzo forte
tone, you should try to produce the vivid, crystal clear and singing sound,
ergo – a tone that would stay in the proper (to you and to the instrument you
actually use) dynamic & emotional Zone. Such
task could – seeing it from the mechanical side of the whole process – be
realized via appropriate CONTROL of the QUANTITY of the hand's weight one has
used to produce it. Seeing this activity from another angle: only our hearing
conjoined with your aesthetic and emotional understanding of what about we
are going to do... – is the adequate measuring DEVICE that is able to give us
the truly valuable bit of advice related to the whole matter. Of course, one should use the adequately fixed, "READY"
finger (no looseness inside of it at all), and always (and always likely
automatically) try to "take up" each one unnecessary ounce of
weight that might disturb the action. The main direction recognizable as well INSIDE of ones hand as in ones
entire mind & body wholeness should become as described below: -
"UP and slightly to the side the melody might want to go to "; but
surely NEVER straightly DOWN, just to the bottom...!
The particular and very important question in playing the piano,
additionally, is the kind of legato that factually is POSSIBLE to
realize on our instrument at all. As Horowitz (in Evenings with Horowitz by D. Dubal)
said, after becoming the student of Felix Blumenfeld he
started to practice the special kind of PORTAMENTO, and it is very
easily understandable why it has happened so, with that portamento!
Subsequently it must happen because the legato, realized via finger
pressing, is terribly unmusical. As I
think, majority of piano students worldwide is forced to realize legato by
rather strongly tensed fingers' and palm's musculature that supposedly should
help in PHYSICAL LINKING the sounds. This barbarism is commonly realized in
such a way: the previous finger presses a key for a while when the next
finger takes the new sound pressing the new key... The
admirers of that way seemingly thought, the real piano singing could be
completed only when the sounds would even be "MORE THAN PHYSICALLY
ATTACHED"; within the small while one should hear the both sounds
together – the previous and the coming one. These "admirers" still
do not like to take into consideration that such kind of articulation CANNOT
be used in singing or in violin playing AT ALL, and that is why arrangement
of that kind cannot be seen as the proper legato technique, absolutely. According to Chopin's opinion, the most natural way in playing the
piano, especially in the slower tempos, is to realize scales, arpeggios,
MELODIES, accompaniments, etc using something like the brightly singing legato
marcato articulation, which factually is very, very near to portamento,
the MOST NATURAL articulation in singing; particularly – in the bel canto
singing. It should be self-understandable that the hand, realizing the more
or less portamento resembled articulation, must become allowed to do
it as the entire, FREE of any EXTRA TENSION wholeness. Consequently, the
upper parts of the hand CANNOT motionlessly stay afar from the whole action. Depending on tempo, "vibration" of the whole arm could be
greater or smaller, sometimes even nearly imperceptible, particularly when
the tempo would increase. All of these physical procedures occurring in
or realizing by the hands – and this probably is the most important
aspect of the matter – should NOT be seen as the result of the corporeally
realized, and formerly CONSCIOUSLY prepared elements of playing. This kind of
instrumental motions should be the result of artistically oriented expressive
pianist's WILL to round and make "speaking & emotionally
TOUCHING" the each one performed sound; the difference, in any case
in understanding the problem, is quite big. As the best example depicting such kind of the MUSICAL RESULTS I see
articulation of the GOOD singers and the GOOD choirs, particularly, when they
perform the works of Bach: Cantatas, Masses, and Oratorios. As well, it should be as natural as
if any TALENTED singer-hobbyist, who still never had been TRAINED by any
quasi-specialist, would perform it.
At this point I must quote the very good anecdote I have heard in the
Moscow 'P. Tchaikovsky' Conservatoire; Prof. S.
Snitkovsky told it to one of his students: Do
you know WHAT is the magpie? It's
the NIGHTINGALE, but that one, graduated from the Music Academy...
The five points below, in any case, must be taken into our
consideration: 1.
We definitely must know, WHAT we are going to express via each one particular
sound, phrase, motive, the whole FORM: our emotional ORDER must truly be
clear to us... 2.
We should completely be sure, the Image of the Sound we are going to perform,
is truly ACTIVE (means: NOT sleeping, passive) in our brains... 3.
Our hand should be ready to go straightly to the adequately chosen Zone of
the keyboard's depths... 4.
All the neuromuscular system of our body should be liberated from any minor
tension, and truly ready to act as the real wholeness (means: not divided
into UNCONNECTEDLY seen fingers, shoulders, elbows, and wrists)... 5.
We sincerely must want to virtually support the sound we will take up from
the instrument. Let us be sure, our listeners are able to pick up ONLY THAT image that would
actually be created by and in our FANTASY. If we would be able to
"create" the fear only – that is what becomes received by our
Honorable listeners. I am still profoundly afraid, no one of them would like
to pay for such a "gift"... Physically seen, the whole action should possess the typically wavy
character: a resiliency of the keyboard must find its co-partner in the
resiliency of our fingers, palms, wrists and, generally said, hands. ALL the
material elements of our body so easily are "ready to go" down due
to the gravity miracle that – besides – is the most substantial guarantee of
the sounds' stability in playing. That is why, for the balance, all of our
virtual (mental, emotional, vital) powers MUST emotionally, via our internal
pre-and-after-hearing (as Russians are
used to say: via intonation) support the sounds we wanted to produce having
NOT the destructive but strongly CONSTRUCTIVE ideas in our mind. What
was intended to become DISPLAYED, should NOT be pressed down! NOT physically,
and NOT mentally, too! Well, Neuhaus was of the opinion that the real piano schooling should
begin from ARTISTICALLY adequate making of the one isolated sound. I do not
must highlight the word "artistically"...?! According to the Cambridge Dictionary, ART
means: an activity through which people express
particular ideas. It should not even be
discussed: it is impossible to create the vivid, artistically touching FORM
using empty, formal, boring elements (as particular sounds, for example). So, let us try to properly realize even the one sole sound, which
could as well be taken from Italian Concerto, Islamey, from Suite
bergamasque or from any Chopin's Mazurka. And after – the next
one, and next and next, yet within entire time trying to: 1.
Avoid artistically empty, NEUTRALLY FORMAL sounds that always come if any
smallest extra-tension PREVENTS our manual mechanism from possibility to
transfer the adequate neuro-impulses to the tips of the fingers. Without
doubts, such EMPTY SOUNDS are created by the inactive imagination only
because the neurotransmitters are able to transmit only THAT, which formerly EXISTED
in our brains as an IDEA; the old proverb says: "From vain even Solomon
won't pour." 2.
Supporting the fingers by taking all the unnecessary load/weight of the upper
parts of the hand up, so – giving the fingers at last possibility to act freely
and effectively. As long as any extra load would be carried by fingers and as
long as the whole power of the pianist's psyche would additionally press on
his fingers, HE would be forced to persistent fight against... – HIS OWN
INCOMPETENCY...! Point! We
should no one minute longer focus our attention on fingers and palms and
eventually on the wrists only, still totally forgetting that fingers' action
fully depends on certain circumstances, which ARE shaped inside of and by the
upper parts of the hand, and – that the entire process fully depends on the
way we are used to THINK about it. Changing
the way we are used to think about physical side of playing we could change
it, even definitely; means: consequently improve it. Still trying to change
any strictly manual aspect of the problem we factually cannot change
anything, once the brain's energy determines the whole action – even the
fingers' power. This is the exclusively one-way system.
At the last end I would like to express my trouble-free faith in the
nearly complete LACK of the relation between EXTERNAL appearance of the
pianist's hand (how it looks alike?) and the factual instrumental efficacy of
it – how it factually is able to act? Of course, I do not speak about any
pathological situations related to hands' anatomy or physiology... Let you have a look at the photo above! Looking at SUCH HANDS, you
seemingly could think the same, as Prof. Yavorskiy thought and said about the
hands of Leopold Godowsky, whom he had suddenly seen; Prof. Yavorskiy was the
famous Russian specialist, who examined the pianists hands' possibilities to
develop their instrumental abilities, still taking in a view their
anatomic-physiological features and properties only. Being not informed who possessed such hands
(Godowsky was at that time just starting his career and at the end of 19th
Century even greater specialists were unable to check up anything on Google...),
he stated just after a bit of observation, "Well, having such small
hands one has absolutely no chance to achieve any success in the piano". Click on the photo above you will provide you forward. As I hope, that
small meeting is worth your time...!
Waiting on your final impressions I would like to Wish – YOU ALL – the
BIG SUCCESS! Let you be patient yet, because the
Higher Art not always is ready to visit us without truly sincere
Invitation...! Thank you a lot for your attention! - SK PS I
know – this text is incomplete yet. Nevertheless, I am sure – it sometimes
would be ready! WELCOME!
Actualized: 2006-12-12 |
