We’re all familiar with hearing how certain pianists have a fantastic ‘tone’ at the piano. We’ve all probably read numerous articles telling us how we need to concentrate on ‘tone production’ at the piano. However, how often is it even clear how we should do that? What is more important, training the fingers or training the ears?
A mechanical box
I read Neuhaus Book The Art of Pianoforte Playing with great interest. As, I explain here, I think it is essential reading to anybody serious about improving their piano playing.
You’ll find an entire chapter on Tone in this book. Here, one of the first things he underlines is the fact the piano is basically just a mechanical box. It’s not like many other instruments where the player has a tactile influence on the sound that it will make. In fact, as Bach is quoted as having said, it’s a remarkably simple instrument to play. Just press the right keys in the right order and the instrument plays itself.
However, our mechanical box, in the right hands, is capable of amazing things. Great pianists have shown us that it is possible to produce entire tonal landscapes at the instrument. However, there is little in-depth discussion as to how this can be achieved.
Lies to children
Fans of Terry Pratchett may well be familiar with the ‘lies to children’ quotation.
“A lie-to-children is a statement that is false, but which nevertheless leads the child’s mind towards a more accurate explanation, one that the child will only be able to appreciate if it has been primed with the lie.”
Another way of thinking about it is “a simplified explanation of technical or complex subjects as a teaching method for children and laypeople” (check out the Wikipedia page).
So, how can this be applied to Piano. Horowitz said that it’s vital to make the piano sing. Yet, if the instrument is just a mechanical box, how do we achieve this. How do we achieve the much written about notion of ‘cantabile’ for example. Is it really about how your fingers actually touch the keys?
Is tone in the fingers?
Unlike let’s say a Violin where there are umpteen ways of changing the way the instrument will sound, on a piano we only have a small key depression. We don’t actually touch the strings (the business end of things). We simply send hammers flying towards them. Those hammers have a speed (velocity) which is influenced by the height of the hand from the keyboard and the force used (Neuhaus). I have even heard it said that fundamentally, the only thing the pianist can influence is the velocity of the hammer.
There is a school of thought that would say worrying about ‘strong fingers’, or ‘stroking the keys’, or using the ‘pads of the fingers rather than the tips’ is bordering on the ridiculous. However, clearly all of these things can make a difference. The trick, I think, is to understand why. Fundamentally, the hammer can’t know what your hand did – it simply gets thrown at a given velocity towards the strings.
Let’s say we strike a key say with the pad of the finger rather than the tip. This area is somewhat softer and, therefore, for the same height and force will produce a lower velocity as a minute part of the downstroke will be absorbed by the fleshiness of the finger. This is a little like the difference between hitting a hard or a soft surface at the same force. Don’t forget that the distance between the key full raised and the point at which the escapement mechanism is triggered is, in the grand scheme of things, tiny.
However, Neuhaus believes that rather than overly focussing on what our fingers are doing, time would be better spent listening to the sound that is produced.
Characteristics of piano sound
Two of the major things about a piano are attack and decay. Unlike wind and string instruments (or, indeed, the human voice), with a piano as soon as we strike a note, it begins to fade. This decay (the official term) will be different depending on many things:
- The piano itself
- Acoustics of the space
- Whether (and how) pedal is used
- Holding down or releasing the key (when no pedal)
- Other notes played simultaneously
- The volume of any given note
I could go on. However, it will eventually die away. Neuhaus suggests that a student should listen to this entire cycle carefully to understand it exactly.
To apply this, let’s go back to the famous ‘Cantabile’ (singing) tone. Simply put (and I grant you over-simply), Neuhaus would say that cantabile is more about controlling how one note blends in with those that surround it than how you used your fingers.
This is where the natural decay comes into play. When we play several notes in succession, whether or not we achieve a singing tone will depend on how we match each note to those that preceded it and those that will follow it.
Let’s say we are playing a melody at ‘mezzo piano’. If we strike each key with the exact same velocity and force, then each would be at the same volume. However, even on a Steinway Concert Grand this will not create a ‘singing tone’.
For example, to ensure a line that blends together, we have to remember that a longer note needs to be played with a greater volume than a shorter one. This is to compensate for the natural decay. Otherwise, the previous note might have all but died away before the next note in the same ‘singing line’ is sounded. This would make that following note sound too loud, even where there is no change of dynamic in the initial volume of each note.
Polyphony
Another key example of tone is polyphony. The thing that turns our mechanical box into a self contained orchestra is polyphony. Whenever we play let’s say a four note chord on the piano, then we are able to voice each of those notes independently. Most of us will get reasonably good at voicing a melody with practice. Playing the top note of a chord ever so slightly louder than the others is something that we can generally achieve.
However, one of the secrets of the ‘tone’ of a great pianist is that they will voice all notes differently. More than this, all of this is done with reference to what went before and what comes after. As each individual note has a different volume and therefore decay, inner lines can be brought out and different tonal characteristics achieved. When we watch a pianist like Vladimir Horowitz or Stephen Hough, is it really some mystical way their fingers touch the piano keys? I think not.
Rather, and this is what is perhaps the most interesting takeaway from Neuhaus for me, the tone starts in the ear. They are able to ‘hear’ the sound that they want to produce before touching any key. This is the real skill of tone production that we all need to learn. Otherwise, the tone produced is just good (or perhaps bad) luck.
Clearly, we still need to hone our fingers. However, to go beyond the ‘lie to children‘ we need to simultaneously improve our ears by carefully listening to our piano heroines and heroes. Listening to those tiny details – how they can play ten notes simultaneously, yet you can distinctly hear different lines. Only when we can really hear this I think will we have any chance of reproducing it! Thoughts?
