Making Tone: Holistique Pianism 13

I haven’t really thought much about writing about this,

but recently

hmm…

I’ve caught myself thinking that

from time to time,

so I thought

maybe I’d try to put it into words.

In instrumental playing,

there’s almost nothing as wrapped in mystery as tone.

I only play the piano,

so I don’t know how this idea of “tone”

is interpreted with other instruments.

But with the piano,

when you say tone,

all sorts of extra meanings and decorations get attached,

and before you know it,

haven’t you ever lost track

you were even trying to talk about?

So I gave up on trying to classify or organize it.

Then, when I started studying at IAA

(Integration Alexander Academy),

what really confused me was realizing thatI had been trying to deal with

loudness and tone

as if they belonged in the same place.

And the big division turned out to be

almost absurdly simple.

Hard sound

or

soft sound.

That’s it.

The tricky part is the nuance of words.

When I hear “hard,”

what naturally comes to mind for me

is a short, stiff sound that doesn’t really resonate.

So when I started thinking about where a

“sparkly” sound belongs,

hard or soft,

at first my head just filled up with question marks.

But “sparkly” isn’t “muffled” or “fluffy,”

so it isn’t soft.

And then

a sparkly sound that’s also soft and fluffy …???

Is that even possible?

And if it isn’t,

but you still want that sound?

More question marks, everywhere.

A sound with a sparkly core

and a soft, airy outer layer.

A core that’s sparkly,

with brilliance all around.

A soft core,

with lots of sparkle around it.

The sounds I want are all different,

but my attention was always focused only on

how to make them happen.

I’d never once thought about

what those sounds were actually made of.

But once this became clear,

my focus shifted to

what I should combine

to get the sound I want.

And then I could experiment without getting confused.

It became much easier.

Most of the time, several notes are happening at once anyway,

so things that seem impossible with a single note

suddenly become possible

through the relationship between notes.

I really think this is an incredible technique.

And because this became so clear to me,

I now understand why I sometimes see people

tilting their heads in confusion.

Part of it might be differences in language, but

in Japanese, when we say tone,

we usually mean

what kind of sound is it?

And the way to arrive at that is the way you do it, the technique.

In other words, how you play the instrument to create the tone you want.

I think that’s really about

how sound is made,

but we don’t usually call it “technique.”

When you think about how sound is made,

it starts to sound theoretical.

But when you talk about finding a way,

it becomes practical.

Because you’re making sound on the piano,

you can’t do that just by thinking.

You have to try.

So this becomes a process of

listening with your ears,

evaluating,

and trying different approaches.

The word tone is often used.

And separately,

there’s the term sound production.

Put simply, that means

how you play the piano as an instrument.

And this is where things start to drift off course.

I realized that this is probably the bottleneck.

Because on the piano,

if the key goes down,

a sound comes out.

And that sound becomes a good sound,

a sound that resonates richly,

only when unnecessary tension is released.

Which means

if you can release tension,anyone’s sound

will resonate richly.

And it’s only after that

that you start adding tone.

That’s how rich, colorful, expressive sound is born.

Without this entry point,

you can’t actually reach tone at all.

But when people say sound production,

the nuance of tone

and the idea of a well resonating sound

often get mixed together.

What seems to have happened is this.

The basic way of playing, where released tension alone produces a rich, resonant sound,

and the special ways of playing, which use muscles that are not active in that released state

and should be learned only afterward, have been understood only halfway.

Without a clear reason,

these two are mixed together in playing.

As a result, not only is the technique for shaping tone misunderstood,

but the idea that you should “play first and then release”

has also taken root.

The truth is,

in that state,

a rich sound can’t actually happen.

So “listening” gets added on.

Of course, listening is important.

But there’s a difference between

actively going out to listen,and

receiving the sound you yourself have made.

That’s where the input completely drops out.

And that’s probably how

a kind of formula got created,

you’re not listening, so the sound is poor.

Originally, listening is first taking in the sound you played,

then digesting it,

and then adjusting.

That’s what listening really is,

all of this happening together.

Why am I writing all of this

with such confidence, and at such length?

Not just because I can do it now,

but because

anyone can do this.

Even someone who has just started the piano.

If they can release tension properly

and balance through the bones of their fingers,

the piano starts to resonate.

Even if they can’t yet tell the difference between sounds,

if they play with that kind of sound,

they’ll start to recognize

when a sound isn’t beautiful.

I think there are so many people

who’ve been told, “Listen carefully,”

and thought,

“Listen to what?”

I hope fewer people end up

learning the piano

while feeling that way.