Not pushing down, just placing your hands on it: Holistic pianism (2)

The biggest misconception about playing the piano is that most of us believe we “have to” push down the piano keys to produce sounds.

I understand this image.

When we see the piano, there are so many black and white things on it, and when we “push” them, the keys are down and it makes sound.

It’s hard to not think of “pushing them”!

But have you ever thought about how much weight is required to make each key go down?

The piano keys are adjusted to go down when approximately 50 grams of weight are placed. Just 50g.

Have you ever tried to measure how little 50g is?

If you place your single finger on the food scale, it measures easily over a few hundred grams. If you want to make it 50 grams, you have to pull up your finger quite significantly. That will surprise you.

It’s that light.

The mechanism of the piano is quite simple. When a key goes down, the hammer hits the strings, and that’s it. Unless you release the key and the damper goes down to stop vibration, the strings will keep sounding. Whether you keep adding more weight to the key that has already gone down or not, nothing will change. We are not able to change the sound that has already been produced.

So keep adding more weight to the key, which has already hit the key bed is redundant and harmful.

If you play a slow piece, it won’t affect much technically. You just get tired quicker. But what if you are playing a fast-moving piece? You keep engaging your muscles, and you won’t have time to release the tension.

That will block your hands and arms quickly, and you will think that you are missing some technical skills.

Yes, maybe in some ways, but the biggest technical issue here is the approach to the keys.

If you can reorganize your thoughts and think piano keys are not the same as elevator buttons, for example, you might be able to replace the idea of pushing down the keys with placing your hands on the key surface, like placing the cup on the tray!

This is a secret about how to use the arm weights to play the piano without building up any tension.

There is more to cover.

I've learned so much about technique in the past year. I will share it with you. 

Let’s start one by one, step by step.