An Open Question To Everyone

I have already said in my videos that rather than with weight, forte is achieved through the speed of the hammer's impact against the string. Weight helps to maintain "contact" with the instrument and contributes, it contributes. Then it must be said that forte and piano are "read" based on character. Marking strong accents, in itself, is equivalent to giving a sensation of forte, but if we play a Chopin nocturne with a forte and legato, cantabile right hand, we might have the sensation of a piano, calm, especially if the left hand is at a clearly lower level. Let's try to grow the bass to increase the forte. Everything will result in being full and "noble," as Arthur Rubinstein used to repeat (He had an enormous right-hand "weight" in the cantabile!!!!!)

ok so the idea of playing piano or forte by adding or removing weight is completely wrong, right? even though instinctively it seems to me that this weight has an effect... thanks for your availability and especially for your patience. Henry

No. Weight matters, but not only that.

only two things affect volume: speed and mass.

Imagine a bell, and a ping pong ball. Throw it at 300 km/h against the bell and it will emit a faint sound.

Now take a bowling ball and throw it at 30km/h and you will get a much, much louder sound.

moral of the story: playing only by articulating the fingers implies little mass involved, so to have high volumes you must strike the key at high speed; therefore you have two strategies: either starting close to the key you apply more force, or raising your finger high from the key and by applying less force to the finger (to the finger, not the key) making it travel a longer distance before striking the key.

moral 2: add more mass to the finger by involving the wrist, arm, shoulder, etc. etc.

ok but how should I go about involving my wrist, arm and shoulder? excuse me but when you told me "playing articles only the fingers" what do you mean? did you perhaps mean to tell me that you move your fingers and the whole arm moves for coordination but the weight of the arm is not being utilized? maybe if you give me a practical example on the 5 fingers and then on an arpeggio it will be clearer to me. bye

The "Nobility," as Paul says, I like very much, and the well-legato weight in Chopin is an excellent thing. Weight has an effect if combined with the speed at which this weight is transferred to the key. Try letting your forearm fall onto the keyboard, bringing it slowly toward the keys, and you will see that it won't result in a loud sound; instead, by doing the same thing while releasing the weight suddenly from the same height, you will certainly obtain a louder sound. In conclusion, you had the same drop from the same distance but with a different attack speed, and this affects everything. However, the keybed, also as a sensation, is very important and I never underestimate it.

ok but how do I put together, for example, in an arpeggio the various masses? by exploiting the weight of the various parts?

henry wrote:

ok but how do I put together, for example in an arpeggio, the various masses? by exploiting the weight of the various parts?

in an arpeggio, rotating the wrist and forearm and/or lowering the shoulder at the points you want to accent

as can be easily understood, by involving fingers, wrist, forearm, triceps, shoulder, torso, in addition to a combined velocity effect (the velocity of the finger hitting the key is the sum of the velocities of the individual parts of the arm) there is also an effect of increasing the moving masses.

To be clear, you have increased both V(tot) and M(tot), so the kinetic energy transferred to the key which, neglecting very few things, will be transformed into sound energy

ok I must try it. bye henry