Do Falls Really Help?

Every piano gesture is important. It is important to understand it, while applying it to the musical context of the passage. Some insist for months... and beyond on practicing exercises on piano gestures. I believe that the reason and the advantage of each one must be understood. It is not my conviction to believe that it is USEFUL to practice them "isolated" for months. Applying them, instead, to the musical context makes us understand "what needs to be done," case by case, to make the "fundamental basic gestures" useful and "economical." In my Video-Tutorials on piano technique, which you can view on our website, I illustrate, albeit summarily, the main basic gestures. You will also find two lessons on a Mozart sonata, with some reference to the practical application of gestures. In this way, I have gone directly "into the field," also showing (I hope I succeeded somewhat) how in a sonata we can find almost all or all the gestures useful for technically resolving musical phrases. You will find the first and second movements of sonata K 330. There is also talk of attacks and falls.

For example, in the case of falls, the difficulty consists in understanding, and not just intuiting, how much must be entrusted to gravity, and at what moment, and how much the fingers and the hand must resist the impact. A separate discussion is made up by the height of the fall, which, in past piano schools, was required considerably. Later, this concept of "height" was scaled back in favor of precision, which, previously, in the other method, could only be achieved after having acquired much "dexterity."

In short, watch the videos and tell me. You will see that the movements, in the final objective, will be minimized. The fall can also be minimized by a small "attack" gesture (for example, the attack of the first beat on the third finger) which must however be sharp and decisive, and the "firmness" (not rigidity!) with which the fingers receive the impact generated by the fall must be sharp and decisive.

Words are not always sufficient to guide a path. Your Teacher, who sits near you and monitors you, will be able to correct you and will surely be useful in realizing these applications.

Always keep in mind, however, the listening to the quality of the sound. What we call the realization of a "good touch" comes from the careful evaluation of sound production and from the refinement of the "essentiality" and the "correctness" of the piano gestures that we produce to execute a passage. Finally, you will find that when the gesture is natural, elegant, and composed, the sound and the solution to the passage will also be correct.

Happy technical-musical studying.....

Thank you Paolo, I realize the different points of view that one can have on the matter. For me, the pf is not an instrument to play (or rather, it would be nice to be able to play it decently) but a means to deepen polyphony.

I understand that a master pianist must bring out a beautiful sound; in my case, it is like squeezing blood from a stone, but my goals are different and that is perhaps why this strong "insistence" on the subject weighs on me a bit.

Thank you anyway for the clarifications.

For those interested, there is an interesting in-depth study on Sandor's book regarding falls

>Do Falls Really Serve a Purpose?

Yes, to understand what gravity is