Acoustics For The Musician: Pietro Righini

Fundamental book. I personally met the great Righini back then, at the age of 80. He was a great supporter of acoustics and wrote this book specifically for us. I remember him with great pleasure

I became aware of Righini on the 30th anniversary of Fazioli: I saw Fazioli the engineer speaking for an hour, and he said that he too relied on Righini for his requests and doubts, who if I am not mistaken (in addition to being a physicist) was first horn with Toscanini.

Paolo, I hope not to abuse your memory: does the book have a purely scientific character (I mean, does it have rigorous mathematical treatments) or more of a popular science character? I ask because as an engineer (mechanical), formulas fascinate me little, which are indeed important, but never as much as the concepts behind them (always according to my modest opinion).

Would you also recommend other books? Or rather: which books come to mind that struck you for their clarity and lucidity?

Actually, there are two books:

ACOUSTICS FOR THE MUSICIAN - ED. ZANIBON AND

LEXICON OF ACOUSTICS AND MUSICAL TECHNIQUE - ED. ZANIBON

Both to be purchased, in that order.

Very pleasant books with very few formulas. (In the first one, almost none)

Yes, he was a horn player in the RAI Orchestra of Turin, which was also conducted by Toscanini. He did not have a good memory of the Great Maestro (And who could... given how he treated the orchestral musicians??Chat)

They are two beautiful books that break away from the routine of Pintacuda and other books that continue to be used "obstinately" in conservatories (not useful, and just little essays at the end of Allorto's book!!!!)

happy reading

I wanted to draw attention to a book "Pianosophia" by Paolo Spagnolo and Giovanni Stelli (Ed. Alfredo Guida-Napoli), have you read it?? I had the chance to read a few pages and was fascinated by the explanation of how and why piano technique has changed....what do you think??

I continue to compliment the site. The possibility for me to have friends to talk about music with is exceptional. I feel less alone....THANK YOU 😉

Mmmmmm no... I haven't read it. Is there anyone who has a presentation? The first pages?

And yes, here in the oasis we all feel a little less alone!

In the pages of I don't know which forum (I don't remember the name), a guy posted some pages. I copied them and created a doc file.

Simone, can I post it in this section??

Everything placed above must not be covered by copyright... Up to 10% of works covered by copyright may be published.

HAPPY READING

“Pianosophia” by Paolo Spagnolo and Giovanni Stelli (Ed. Alfredo Guida-Napoli):

“Undoubtedly, the traditional nineteenth-century technique (which aimed to develop the pure articulatory mechanism of isolated fingers without any participation of the arm and its weight) [Czerny in “Letters to a young girl on the art of playing the piano” says (2nd letter: ”On touch and on the way of playing..”): “even when striking with considerable force, the hand and the arm do not make any jump or oscillating movement. You will discover… that the fingers cannot play with pleasure and tranquility if hands and arms are unstable”] has long been recognized as erroneous in its foundation, and its principles have mostly been abandoned in current pedagogy. However, curiously, methods based on such technique still circulate and are periodically reprinted, even more curiously, and there are still some teachers and some pianists (including internationally renowned performers) who teach and play with this type of technique. These “islands” of resistance could be dismissed as the last residues of a conservative mentality, but the stubborn persistence, albeit a minority one, of this type of approach must be explained less hastily… Piano pedagogy today is based predominantly on modern weight technique, whose essential principles were identified as early as the first decade of the last century by a series of theorists and teachers (including Steinhausen, Breithaupt, and the English Matthay, to mention a few well-known names), who through their writings and teaching contributed to a decisive transformation of piano technique.

There are, however, many teachers who, while considering the principles that inspired the old technique of “articulated fingers” to be overall outdated, do not place themselves at all among the faithful followers of weight technique; they reproach the latter for neglecting the autonomous movement of the fingers, which in their view maintains an essential importance and to which adequate emphasis must be given in pedagogical practice. These individuals, distrustful of theoretical discussions, essentially seek an empirical, practical compromise between the >. And it must be recognized that, if dissatisfaction with weight technique has some basis and if space and importance must therefore also be given to the autonomous movement of the fingers, then precisely an eclectic approach, not tied to > scholasticism, can, perhaps, exert positive effects on certain elements, particularly on those more gifted, avoiding harmful unilateralism. On the other hand, it appears evident that diametrically opposed approaches on the level of general principles cannot be reconciled in an eclectic way by taking the “best” of each; the result cannot be much different from an external and contradictory juxtaposition of two opposite types of technique, and this juxtaposition, in general terms—that is, for most students—can only produce confusion and disorientation.

If one wishes to avoid the unsatisfying shortcut of eclecticism, it then becomes necessary to examine the assumptions of weight technique to try to identify within them the possible root of those deficiencies and defects that frequently manifest in students educated with this type of approach. But, since weight technique is historically configured as a radical critique and antithesis of nineteenth-century digital technique, it will be appropriate to go back… “to the origins” and analyze, preliminarily, also the theoretical framework of the latter.”

Technique as an artifice: “lifting the fingers like hammers"

To understand the approach and prescriptions of nineteenth-century digital technique, one must refer to the history of the instrument. The history of the piano indeed clarifies sufficiently the origin of the fundamental misunderstanding that lies at the base of this now ancient pedagogical tradition. The piano comes from the harpsichord; this statement is, in essence, perfectly correct; it is certainly true that the harpsichord and the piano are two structurally different instruments and that, strictly speaking, the ancestor of the piano is not the harpsichord but the clavichord, but it is even truer that the piano was the new keyboard instrument that replaced, towards the end of the 1700s, for performers and audiences, the old harpsichord, and that harpsichord literature immediately became, without requiring any modification in writing, literature for the piano. The piano technique could therefore not help but be, especially at the beginning, profoundly influenced by harpsichord technique. In harpsichord technique, in relation to the constructive characteristics of the instrument, not"}

it is necessary to use the weight of the

arm. Pure digital movement is more than sufficient to lower

the keys, which are very light, and to produce sound. The fingers do not

need power: they are found, together with the

forearm,

as if in "levitation" over the keyboard and, generally remaining rather

arched, they assume a position distanced from the keys, in order to avoid

any false contact with the latter which, being very sensitive, respond

immediately to even the slightest stimulation, causing the

plectrum that vibrates the string to snap.>>

new and absolutely original compared to all existing

keyboard instruments lies in the possibility of producing

an enormous volume of sound and at the same time grading it, in an

extremely wide and refined way, in intensity. This peculiarity, from which

not without reason the new instrument derived its name, is present (despite

deficiencies and defects in both sonority and mechanics) already in the first "gravi.

cembali col piano e forte" [harpsichords with piano and forte] of Cristofori, who had intuited and brilliantly

realized its fundamental constructive principle, namely the interposition

of a system of levers, of a "mechanics", between the keyboard and the

strings. The mechanics of the Paduan builder already contained the essential

parts of modern piano mechanics and was thus naturally open

to a series of improving modifications that actually

took place in the 18th century and especially during the 19th century. Pass

ing from the harpsichord keyboard to that of the piano, pure

digital movement of the clavichord-type type soon had to prove

insufficient for adequate percussion of the keys and therefore to

realize the sound volume and the entire rich dynamic range of which the

new instrument is capable.>>

evident also on instruments used between the 18th and 19th centuries, namely

on the "fortepiano", as the piano was called at the time. It is doubtless,

however, that the constructive characteristics of the "fortepiano" - wooden

frame, leather-covered hammers, rather thin and short strings,

simple escapement, very light keys - were such as to favor the illusion

that it was possible to somehow continue using the digital technique

of clavichord origin: in fact, it was not yet indispensable to fully exploit the weight of the entire

arm starting from the shoulder, while the absence of the double

escapement device made a rather pronounced digital articulation necessary,

specially to perform trills and repeated notes at speed (The absence of the double escapement device could also explain the origin

of the old, and today completely superseded, "wrist technique" for the execution

of octaves in rapid succession).

But as early as the period 1815-1830, the new instrument underwent

a series of very important improving modifications that brought it

essentially closer to the modern piano: it was in 1815 that Broadwood

first inserted metal bars into the wooden frame, and soon the

mixed wood-metal frame became generalized, the hammers were covered

with felt and became heavier, the frame was divided to allow

the increase of the length of the strings, which were increasingly reinforced

(string crossing would be reached in 1859), the double

escapement was adopted (invented in 1821 by Érard), the weight of the keys

increased and the resonance pedal (patented as early as 1783) became increasingly

important. On a piano of this type, i.e., on the 19th-century piano,
the clavichord-derived digital technique had to

reveal its total inadequacy in an now unequivocal way (on a modern instrument this inadequacy is naturally even more evident.)>>

structure with the adoption of the entirely metal frame [the "Cupola Iron Frame", patented by Theodor Steinway in 1872], and its sonority increases further in

power, becoming "darker" especially in the bass area).

The adoption of the double escapement device makes another important difference of the piano

more relevant and significant compared to the harpsichord. Generally speaking, on the harpsichord it is necessary

to play more "slowly" than on the piano and this, in the first place,

for reasons that have nothing to do with mechanics, but only with

music: a speed that is too high is in fact not musically acceptable

because of the particular, typical sonority of the harpsichord, that is,
because of the "halo" that characterizes the sounds produced by this

instrument: at an excessive speed, clavichord sounds tend

in fact to overlap and an unpleasant effect of confusion is produced

which destroys the clarity of the parts. Secondly, in the mechanics

of the harpsichord, in which the key directly operates the jack that

acts on the string, there is nothing similar to

the "double

escapement" device characteristic of the nineteenth-century and modern piano,

a device that, by making it possible to strike the

key well before it has returned to its resting position, allows for

highly rapid repeated notes and trills. On the harpsichord

the fingers must "wait" for the keys to return to their resting

position before they can be touched again, so a harpsichord trill can never exceed a certain speed, and this

limit obviously conditions the overall speed of

execution.

In any case, to achieve a fast trill on the harpsichord,

it is necessary to "lift the fingers well", i.e., to possess a developed

digital articulation capacity.>>

never in an isolated way nor is the hand ever completely immobile (as

theorists of the old school believed), but rather it is always somehow

present - even if invisible - at least the rotational action

of the forearm, which "guides" all digital movements.

it is clear, however, that in harpsichord movements the participation of the

forearm and the arm remains circumscribed and the digital movement assumes a predominant importance: at least in appearance, the fingers articulate entirely in isolation

with the hand immobile without any participation from the other parts of the arm.

On the keyboard of the nineteenth-century and modern piano, however, the greater

speed, made possible by the "double escapement" device,

cannot be easily achieved through mere digital

articulation, also due to the greater weight of the keys. it is necessary that the movement

involve the forearm in a much more evident way, which

must have its characteristic rotational function properly exploited; in

effect, only the conscious use of the rotational movement of the

forearm, and of its weight, can allow for the satisfactory

execution of a very high-speed trill on the piano.

The essential technical problem that nineteenth-century pianists and teachers

had to solve was the following: how to obtain the power

and speed required on the new instrument?>>

adequate power and speed instinctively and naturally, exploiting the

weight of the entire arm and the rotational movement of the forearm,

yet without being able to theoretically analyze their own

movements and therefore without knowing how to transfer their spontaneous technique

into teaching. The theorists and teachers, for their part, remained tenaciously

anchored to harpsichord-origin preconceptions and thus developed

the principles of a piano technique based on pure digital movement. Those same great pianists who played in a "natural" way,

when they dressed as teachers, generally fell back into the dominant prejudices; occasionally, notable intuitions can be found in their writings,

but always fragmentary and insufficiently founded. In conclusion, instead of studying the peculiar characteristics

that radically differentiated the new instrument from the old one and of

elaborating a suitable technique accordingly, they limited themselves, on the

whole, to transferring and adapting the previous harpsichord technique

to the piano.

It was precisely through these "adaptations" - necessary, since the fundamental principle had to remain unchanged - that nineteenth-century piano technique assumed the physiognomy of a completely artificial system. This artificiality was, moreover, recognized more or less explicitly by the theorists of the time themselves. Since any participation of the arm was strictly excluded and the use of weight was considered even an "unaesthetic" absurdity, the hand and fingers could only appear, on the whole, rather "unsuitable" for playing the piano! In fact, almost all teachers highlighted its various and numerous "defects" and "imperfections" (Boccaccini, for example, after praising the hand as a "wonderful work", carefully emphasizes "defects and imperfections"). Piano teaching thus found itself, especially in its initial phase, in contradiction with the anatomical structure and natural dispositions of the hand and fingers, which it was explicitly intended to "correct". Consequently, piano technique could only configure itself as a substantially unnatural technique, which prescribed a series of entirely artificial psycho-physical movements and adaptations.>>

through digital movement alone, it was prescribed to transform the fingers into

many small and powerful little hammers, an objective that could be reached only by strengthening them adequately through actual gymnastics, i.e., through interminable and mechanical exercises, often and gladly proposed even without the instrument and sometimes with the aid of monstrous mechanical devices specifically designed for...

escogitati

somehow today completely forgotten (A history of pianistic technique should also include the description and history of the fortune of these "auxiliary" instruments, such as Logier's Chiroplasto, the

Kalkbrenner hand-guide (called "donkey-guide" by Liszt!), Jaell's "Accélérateur du toucher" etc. up to Brugnoli's "prehensile thimble".)!

Whether students were then forced to articulate keeping the hammer-fingers "well raised" or - as some seem to have proposed - without raising them excessively,

but by exercising a "pressure" on the keys, it does not change the substance

of the matter: the fundamental dogma of nineteenth-century technique,

that is, purely digital movement, the articulation of isolated fingers,

was not in the least scratched by this.>>

always through interminable exercises, pursuing the goal - also

illusory - of a perfect "articulation" of every isolated finger,

that is, absolute independence and equality of the fingers. It is evident

that it is not possible to play based on these prescriptions without a

continuous strong muscular tension of the hand and fingers, tension

which reflects onto the entire arm and inevitably produces harmful

rigidities and contractions; in some cases this can even cause specific

pathologies (tendinitis, etc.), sometimes so serious as to make surgical

intervention necessary (The proponents of digital technique tended to consider these pathologies almost inevitable. Some advised having children use pianos with narrower keys. It was the supporters of physiological technique, i.e., weight technique, who identified precisely in the traditional digital approach the cause of all the frequent "occupational diseases" of the pianist).

The appeals, which are often found in the methods of the time, to keep the hand "loose" and to avoid "rigidity" appear pathetic today, since they could only be fulfilled

by contradictorily violating the "fixed laws" and the compulsory

prescriptions established by the methods themselves!

Undoubtedly, good results can also be achieved with fingering-only technique,

but only and always at the cost of great muscular effort

and unnatural contraction. In any case, one is forced to

give up the power that can be obtained naturally through the

suitable "disposition" of the entire body to the instrument and the keyboard,

that is, through correct psycho-physical adaptation. A result

obtained naturally is always superior to a result

obtained artificially. Artifice, i.e., a controlled and short-lived

contraction, can be used in place of natural action

only in those rare cases (to achieve, for example, particular

sonorities) in which the latter does not appear adequate to the purpose

one wishes to achieve.>>

I am looking for Pietro Righini's books, but they are out of print and can only be found used.

I wanted to ask specifically what they were about. I would be interested in the formation of scales (from the Pythagorean scale to equal temperament).

Do you think this topic is thoroughly covered??

yes, in both books. You will see that they will be reprinted, they are too important:

let's hope!! i wouldn't want to buy more books if i don't know the approach. Also, I am curious about how the subject might be treated by an author who doesn't only have physical expertise.

I looked at it summarily when I took the music history exam under the old system.

Very, very valid, even too broad compared to what was required for the exam (I don't know what the new programs are like). It would be useful to have an edition with MP3 files or a CD instead of a cassette...

In general, Righini is considered a sort of "classic" for those who want to delve deeper into acoustics.

I also tried consulting Pintacuda's text, but I found it extremely heavy and in the end I "resorted" to Allorto. To tell the truth, Allorto doesn't do a bad job of dissecting the subject of scales... although, like Frank, I don't much like Allorto except as a final review two weeks before the exam.

Lately I have abandoned this matter a bit, since it takes up too much of my time.

As an alternative to Righini's book (which I cannot find), I have been recommended: Andrea Frova's musical acoustics notes, which struck me with the clarity of the discussion even though the subject is not very simple.

These notes, although they do not have analytical discussions, in my opinion are too in-depth for a potential exam, but excellent for those who want to understand the subject well without getting lost in formulas.