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Currawong,

When I play, I do not consciously "grip" (sorry) the keys. Perhaps it's an unconscious thing; in any case I don't think about it at all. When I sit at the keyboard with the appropriate posture and bench height (I have a Jansen bench; max height on that fits me perfectly), and my body is appropriately relaxed, my forearms are approximately parallel to the ground at a height so that I can easily maintain a natural to flattened hand shape with little bed in the wrists; and my knees fall just under the keybed. That is the most stable, comfortable position for me, that I discovered after much experimenting. I find that my hands fall comfortably on the keyboard. They do not slip off. They do not tense up past the flexion that's created naturally by the flexors and extensors in order to operate the fingers to strike the keys. I can play freely, with control, and expression.

N's statement is implausible to me because outside of music played in the manner Chopin's Op. 15 No. 1 or Schumann's Träumerei, where there is a legato touch required and there are many notes that must be held for their full value, you simply very often don't have time to support the hand by resting it on the keys. In Chopin's Op. 44, for instance (or any bravura music, for that matter), there are frequent jumps, and the general pulse is very fast indeed. You simply cannot have your hands glued to the keys and expect to make that next jump! For example, there's a couple of times where the hands must jump over an octave — from double F# octaves to double A octaves a minor 10th higher. That jump is impossible if your hands are resting on their laurels; they must be on the ball, ready to jump up and be on top of the target notes.

Additionally, putting too much weight on the hands makes a deft pp touch very difficult to achieve. This is illustrated clearly by a relatively simple and famous example, the first movement of Beethoven's Op. 27 No. 2 Sonata. The triplets in the middle voice must be soft indeed so they do not overpower the melody. Impossible to achieve if your touch is too heavy. And so is the case with much of the Romantic repertoire, where melody is of the utmost importance.

I hope that clears things up for you.

Nice post, Currawong. I bowed out of this pages and pages ago, but I'd like to take a shot at responding to this. I will respectfully refer to Nyiregyhazi as "grip man" and Keyboardklutz as "beaver man", just to make things easier for me and others.

As much as I argued with Grip Man about his grip definition, and how he tied it to a friction that was, in my professional opinion, in the wrong direction and uninvolved, I do think I see what he is trying to say. I explained what I believe is occurring during the tabletop gripping movement that Grip Man was using back in the teens and 20's (pages that is). It involved moments (torques if you will) being generated at the knuckle joints. These contractions are what cause the knuckles to stand up from their original position against the table. The normal force at the fingertips starts at essentially zero and increases in a continuous fashion to some nominal value by the time Grip Man's movement is complete. I can see this occurring so easily with a robotic arm (think Terminator) having stepper motors at each knuckle joint. Nearly makes me salivate just thinking about it. (Yes, I am much more used to working with machines than people!)

Continuing...Grip Man didn't like this because of his insistence on friction being involved, and Beaver Man didn't like it because he kept suggesting that moments can only occur at an infinitessimally small point, and can only be generated AT that point (i.e., with no help from ligaments coming in from afar, or hydraulic lines, etc). But I think in the end, that is exactly what is occurring. Different people will attribute this action and feeling to different things, because, well...it is not always easy to decipher exactly what is going on in an anatomical situation (even a static one), from a force and moment standpoint. Throw into the mix some careless semantics, and you get what we have here I guess.

So, if both parties agree that the "gripping movement" detailed by "grip man" so long ago leads to a shape of the hand/fingers that is suitable and common for piano-playing, then maybe this is all nothing more than an argument over semantics. Would that be funny? After all this?

Of course, I could be wrong too.

Rick

Thanks, Horowitzian.
I didn't think N was saying you need to grip the keys so as not to slip off - I understood him to mean that totally relaxed hands/arms would slip off. And we don't totally relax everything or we'd be jelly on the floor. Unless I've misunderstood him.

Of course. But was anyone suggesting you have your hands glued to the keys? I thought N was suggesting a certain amount, usually very small, of what he calls "grip", in the sense that the soles of your running shoes have "grip". Not a permanent state of attachment

Once again, of course. But I don't think excessive weight was suggested.


I think it does, actually. I think you agree with N more than you think you do (ducks... )

No, actually, I do think there has been a bit of arguing past each other. But I don't know where to go from here. It might have gone too far to be resolved at present.

You're welcome!

I think everyone agrees that total relaxation is not feasible; in fact I don't think the body is ever totally relaxed except possibly in extreme medical situations. As you say, we'd be puddles if that was true.

Just to clarify, what I mean by "glued to the keys" is keeping your hands right down on them at all times. I have been advised against doing so by several pianists who are much better than myself. My point is that this "grip" cannot be sustained in music that moves around a lot, i.e. "disjunct".

No need to duck! I've stated already that I think the root of disagreement lies in definition of terms, which has resulted in just that – arguing past one another.

I know this school of playing very well. currawong, it is constant weight on the keybed at all times. We do this in slow legato but if you do it constantly you can't do leggiero.

The main trouble I've found with this thread has been to work out what everybody actually meant. *sigh*

Thanks to a few others joining in I think we're getting somewhere. Just before we move on to the knuckles, could you elucidate futher on why the elbow in my diagrams is 'rigid' (how you tell so much from two straight lines is a mystery to me).

+1

Thanks to a few others joining in I think we're getting somewhere. Just before we move on to the knuckles, could you elucidate futher on why the elbow in my diagrams is 'rigid' (how you tell so much from two straight lines is a mystery to me). [/quote]

Have I not been forced to repeat myself enough times? Hold out a heavy sword that is unsupported at the end. Does that position feel free? Now rest the end on something. Does that feel easier? If you do not support via the fingertips you're equivalent to the first. Sadly, with so many free hinges, the fingers cannot simply be 'rested' on something as a sword can. They need an additional force to stabilise their structure.

Okay, so let's assume the elbow is free. Now you've also introduced the problem that the wrist is going be collapsing, along with the knuckles, unless there is active stabilisation at the fingertips.

Now, if you still seriously believe you can defy all the laws of physics with your model

ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!

I think a drawbridge is a better metaphor than a sword - talk us through that.

"I didn't think N was saying you need to grip the keys so as not to slip off - I understood him to mean that totally relaxed hands/arms would slip off. And we don't totally relax everything or we'd be jelly on the floor. Unless I've misunderstood him."

No, that's precisely my point. A slack arm and hand will slip off (unless supported by a huge surface area, like if you put your whole palm on the keys). Therefore, it IS possible to over-relax the hand. With that in mind, to insist that everyone try to relax their hand more and that nobody needs to grip more in their hand risks imposing collossal limitations upon those who actually fall into the category of relaxing too much. Having been limited by such problems, I really don't take kindly to closed-minded thinking about the issue.

Incidentally, I have also previously slipped off individual black keys from time to time though. The fact that activating greater grip has served to reduce this substantially illustrates that grip can be an important part of creating friction at a keyboard- not just forming the hand's shape. Once more, preach that grip is never a positive and you might rob some people of the solution to a problem.

I have never denied that for some the notion of 'grip' is better replaced with a notion of relaxing the hand (although, frankly, I would be a little worried if a pianist could not actually perceive the difference between a genuinely slack hand and the natural playing position). I pointed that for at least SOME people it is absolutely vital. I'm simply sorry that some people insist that it's one or the other, rather than the balance between finger stabilisation and arm stabilisation that I have always suggested here. On countless occasions I asked people to simply acknowledge this balance, rather than try to tell me that grip is bad (even going so far as to advise me to drop it in my own playing!). The argument has been extended as the result of a blanket refusal for people to accept that grip (which I stressed was very small) plays any role in an equation, under any circumstance.


"Once again, of course. But I don't think excessive weight was suggested."

Indeed, once you have the balance suggested, you have the freedom to put more weight on the finger or support more with the arm. If one does a little more, the other can do less. Resting on the keys is designed as a basis for taking the strain off the elbow and shoulder etc and spreading the workload around. Did anyone ever suggest that you must NEVER withold ANY weight from the fingers? It's a basis for freedom, not a rule for exertion.

If semantics was the issue, would it really have been hard to ask for further clarification on what I referred to a slight grip? Rather than shout "NO!!!!!!!!"?

No it isn't a better metaphor at all. When you hold out a sword it reveals the level of muscular exertion that is involved in both supporting and balancing an extended body from only one end. However, you're welcome to hold a small drawbridge out from your body and gradually lower it. That will illustrate the issue just as well. If you refuse to take any support at the hand, the 'drawbridge' of you elbow is subject to vastly greater tensions. That is a fact. Ironically, your rope is more analagous to the role of the fingers, in stabilisation. The rope would be attached to the far end of the draw bridge. Attach it almost next to the point about which the rotation occurs (like with your bicep, right by your elbow) and the workload is HUGELY more pronounced. Even in medieval times, they knew that it took less force to stabilise closer to the FAR END of the drawbridge.

Anyway, I'm not responding with anything further until you answer the question that has been put to you on no less than five occasions.

If you cannot explain the glaring flaw in your own model, please have the dignity to either admit it, or stop wasting my time with these irrelevant factors.

Debate works two ways. I've answered a host of questions, in order to illustrate those factors that you failed to understand. If you still believe you have a case to make (on an issue that you are clearly not terribly well informed on), you need to answer the question.

You've decided that your elbow is free after all, so you are required to explain WHAT FORCE stops your wrist and knuckles from being pulled down by gravity.

That is not a fact, there's no 'vastly' in it. It's the rope that is subject to tension.

It's all very well trying to change the subject via pedantry, but it's perfectly acceptable to refer to tension about a joint. However, as you say, it's certainly the poor bicep muscle that is subjected to the most overwhelming tension, when it acts unaided by stabilisation from the hand's support (as part of your 'relaxation' method). That's why long periods of staccato can be tiring on an arm- yet you continue to insist on the same imposition for ALL playing? As to why your theory of a rigidly fused forearm should be preferable to a hand that simply does something (that it is impossible for it it not to do, in a balanced equation), that remains anybody's guess.

Have you ever seen a drawbridge in which the rope is attached directly next to the pivot point? Have you ever wondered why this would be avoided?

Anyhow, what is of importance is the question that I have repeated 6 or more times that your entire premise hinges upon and which you continue to duck.

Ever seen the interview between Jeremy Paxman and Michael Howard?

Here's another question that I have already asked: Are you interested in thinking about the subject matter and understanding how it relates to piano playing? Or are you simply interested in trying to salvage a grossly flawed argument by ducking the most important holes in your story? Why do you prefer to stand by an argument that you are incapable of supporting? There's a certain dignity in a captain who goes down with a sinking ship, but I'm really not seeing much of it in your refusal to either attempt to answer to the flaws in an example that YOU set out- or to admit that you are wrong.

Everyone else seems to have agreed on the notion of a balanced whole- yet you still seek to stand by a doctrine that contravenes the laws of physics?

Only when there is tension - my fourth diagram shows that the rope (elbow flexors) takes the tension. The tension on the joint is negligible. I think we need to agree on that.

Are you interested in the discussion, or are you simply interested in trying to maintain a falsely positive impression of a pre-determined view, by refusing to deal with the gaping flaws in your argument?


WHAT FORCE STOP YOUR WRIST AND KNUCKLES BEING PULLED DOWN BY GRAVITY?


ANSWER THE QUESTION!


If you don't answer it, I shall simply repeat it after every response you make. Is this how you conduct all discussions and conversations? By ignoring any questions that do not happen to be convenient, with regard to a predetermined belief that you have chosen never to question?

If your happy to accept that in my diagrams 1 to 4 the wrist and elbow are tension free then we can move on to your knuckles. You can't go darting about from one end of a discussion, or a diagram, to another without some resolution on some points.

The problem is that, thanks to your lack of understanding of physics, you are meandering around with irrelevant issues. I am not willing to waste any further time being led by you, as you have not the slightest idea as to where you are going with. The RELEVANT QUESTION is this:

WHAT FORCE STOP YOUR WRIST AND KNUCKLES BEING PULLED DOWN BY GRAVITY?

I have had the courtesy to answer countless questions, including a host of hopelessly irrelevant and ill thought-out ones that led to an instant dead-end in your hope at going anywhere.

NOW ANSWER THE QUESTION!

A table top!

Forget this idiotic beaver analogy. There is no table any more.

NOW ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!