Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical Is only the Classical Pianist Corner Obsessed with "Tone"

Just call it touch?

You started a thread with what I would consider to be a completely incorrect "summary". Just pointing that out. I certainly don't intend to do your "assignment". I doubt that thread or any thread where there are numerous opinions can be summarizaed.

Hmmm, those that claim they can make a certain distinction, criticize others for not meeting their standards, yet cannot or will not articulate the difference when push comes to shove: there is a lot of that kind of empty monkey business going around these days.

Thanks for your "contribution". It was yet again better for your post count than for progressing a meaningful discussion.

As long as it makes you and sotto voce and Horitzian feel good, then who are we, those who would like to have serious discussion, to argue with you?

Cheers.

Excuse me? I don't have a dog in this fight, so go pick a fight with somebody who gives a damn.

Steven

So in the long run, what's the general concencus on tone over in the pianist's corner? That highly trained classical pianists can control which direction the hammer shafts twist and bend in, and to what degree, ergo they can fully control and contort the piano's tone?

If so, can they also control the level of humidity surrounding the shafts, to adjust to environmental changes that may alter the malleability of the hammer shafts?

It would seem that there's more to playing classical music than I had ever dreamed of!

I have an entire new found respect and reverence of classical pianists and their paranormal shaft-bending abilities!

The general consensus is that you ought to get a dictionary.

I think you and I might agree but it's hard to be sure, because there are different definitions of this ASR stuff. I'm not sure it's really any clearer than the word tone.

Attack? the spectrum of the beginning of the note is determined either by the speed of the hammer, or the software that defines it in the case of the digital. I don't think any pianist controls attack on either piano, but all of us try to place that attack in the precisely correct place (either before, on, or after the notated note value as required.) Especially critical to attack is separation from the previous note, and dynamic level - I claim that totally defines attack, I suspect some of you disagree.

Sustain? Yeah, how long we keep our finger down.

Release? This is probably what tone is mostly about. One finger comes up as another comes down, but with humans there is an infinite amount of variation possible in the timing of that. Space between the notes? How much? Overlap of the notes? How much? And within the voicing, overlap of part of the chord with space in part of the chord.

But as far as affecting the spectrum of the note through the release, nah.

Touch, tone...hmmm...

To me, when it's right, it's an embrace between (among) the instrument, the pianist and the composer...

And I think we all know it when we hear it. It's harder on a digital, but I did get a nice compliment on my touch when playing Chopin on a CVP 409 at the Yamaha dealer....then again, he was probably buttering me up.

But the only time I've really felt that I played with nice touch/tone is when I play Chopin on my Knabe.

Seems to me there was one poster who claimed that hammer flex was a component to tone above and beyond the velocity of the strike, but there was certainly no consensus that such a thing was even detectable let alone controllable.

Definitely no consensus, I'd say nor probably ever will be.

I guess it's a blessing in a way that you have that much time on your hands to run spell and typo checks on everyone's posts on a Saturday night, when most adolescents are out and about with their friends and girlfriends having fun! How lucky you are to have such a limited social calendar to make that possible.

I have no use for a dictionary. You're the college student, I'm not. Nobody is grading me on my typos except for you.

So much hate =( Why can't you just get along.

Funny you should say that. I don't hate anyone nearly enough to run spell checks on everyone's posts and then troll them if I find a typo, suggesting they buy a dictionary.
Ironically, when it comes to matters concerning jazz piano, an occassional text typo is the only thing Horowitzian is qualified to correct me on, truth be told.
That's not angst or not getting along. That's just plain facts.

The claim that pianists control which way the hammer shafts twist and bends is ridiculous. Do people actualy claim that is the mysterious tone controlling technique? Of course there are all sorts of things some people claim to be true that are false.

Jazz+, if it's my post you're responding to, I was just saying that there is no consensus in the Pianist Corner about the degree to which a pianist can control the piano's tone. There are those who say it's just velocity of hammer and you can't control tone, and those who think there's something else (one of the somethings might be the hammer twisting thing according to some), and a whole lot of others who don't care all that much, but just keep using their ears and trying to make beautiful sounds however it is they're doing it. I think I'm in the third camp.

I can think of multiple practicle and basic examples of where these statements are ignorant. A classical pianist can alter the voicing or balance as a parameter of expression. They can use rubato which is certainly different from tempo. They can use various techniques of touch combined with pedaling etc etc. They can bring out different voices within counterpoint. They can manipulate time and silence. I could go on and on.




This is a misguided arguement. I would agree that if a key is struck with exactly the same force it will produce exactly the same tone. However, as soon as the key is struck with a different force, on an acoustic instrument, the tone as well as the dynamic changes. And, there are pretty much an infinite number of speeds that a key can be struck at. The slightest change creates a different tone, not just a different volume. On better pianos, the tone changes more.
Now, add to that pedaling effects, balancing/voicing of more than one note, timing, etc etc and the tonal variety available to a pianist within the context of music, becomes limited only by their imagination, purpose and control. This is why a good, purposeful pianist has a sound of their own, regardless of the piano they play on, although certainly at the same time affected by the piano they play on.




True, but who cares about a note depressed at the same velocity and the same force. Out of context notes being played exactly the same way by robots means nothing. Now, add pedal, 1/2 pedal, una corda, in a myriad of combinations while changing that velocity subtley or dramatically and ....VOILA.... you have different tone every time. Add the context of music and a pianist with an excellent imagination for sound and the technique to execute, and you have inifinite tonal variety.



The speed of the attack absolutely changes the tone, not just the volume. The decay after the attack cannot be controlled, but the illusion can be. How a pianist shapes a legato through attack, release, timing, balance, connection, pedaling, voicing, can absolutely create the illusion of sustain where it doesn't exist. This is quite evident when listening to 2 pianists playing the same music on the same piano and one sounds like they are singing and the other sounds like someone playing a percussion instrument.
Release certainly affects tone. Strike a key, and let it linger for one second or 1/10 of a second or 5 seconds. The timing of the release will determine what the listener perceives the tone to be. That note has a different balance of harmonics at attack, 1/10 of a second in, and 5 seconds in.
And, again, add musical context and the tonal variety becomes infinite.

The style of personal interaction of Old New Amsterdam New Yorkers is sometimes indistinguishable from that of Old Amsterdammers.

I read some of these authentic sounding posts and long for a Katz Corned Beef sandwich followed by a long evening in some real, live, in your face, New York Jazz Club.

Sorry for your confusion on the subject, but your statements suggest ignorance of the science of acoustics. It would be a figment of the IMAGINATION that even the most gifted pianist can make an early 20th century Mason and Hamlin sound mimic the "tone" of a late 21st century Yamaha by exercising complete PURPOSE and CONTROL.

The identifying marker that you're referring to that distinguishes one pianist from the next is their PHRASING, the way music that finite music, though unchanged in notation, is subject to variation and interpretation by manipulating performance parameters, not some supernatural ability to uniquely change the acoustic profile of the instrument from player to player.

Though there is an infinite way to rephrase the same music, the acoustic profile of an instrument can only be changed by altering the instrument itself.

I think it is a figmant of your imagination that anyone at any point was saying anything related to this totally random and unrelated point. I will counter it and support my arguement with an equally relevant point. Flying monkeys are dissimalar from toast!



The original poster was writing about a classical pianists obsession with tone. If you are using tone and an instrument's acoustic profile as interchangeable, then you are not addressing what the original poster was writing about.
It seemed like you were saying that one can't change the tone on a piano. You can change the tone on a piano by striking a key twice in exactly the same way, but once with the damper pedal engaged and once with the damper pedal not engaged. You can change the tone on a piano by striking a key twice in exactly the same way, but once with the una corda engaged and once with the una corda not engaged. You can change the tone of a piano by striking the key with more force or with less force. It is not only the dynamic that changes, but also the tone. It will still sound within "the acoustic profile" of the instrument, but "the acoustic profile" includes many many different types of tone.
Now, I am pretty sure that you understand this, but your definition of tone and changing tone is something else. You seem to be saying that the only way that a tone on a piano could be legitamately changed would be if a pianist made one piano sound like another. And then you ignore the change in tone that occurs on a piano that occurs from basic techniques of playing such as engaging the pedal or changing the speed of attack.
You are aware that the definition of tone is not limited to "the acoustic profile of the instrument", right?

"...Seems to me there was one poster who claimed that hammer flex was a component to tone above and beyond the velocity of the strike..."

If I recall, the poster was Kawai Don and the information about the flexure of hammer shanks came from ultra high-speed photography. It wasn't just a blue sky pronouncement. But the speed of the strike is a factor in how, and how much, the shank will flex.