Ben Laude: Ask Me Anything about Piano Technique!

Don Calvert Interesting. to be honest I haven't thought a ton about pedal action. If I had to choose, I would say that I prefer "stiffer" action (so long as "stiff" doesn't mean "rigid") simply because our feet are pretty heavy and I can control the gradations of so-called "half-pedal" and "flutter pedal" more easily. A pedal that is too easily depressed makes it more difficult to "ride" that in-between range that allows us to inflect our sound with more nuance.

Ben Laude Thank you.  I recently upgraded my Yamaha Clavinova 709GP to a 809GP; an incredible digital piano with authentic action and full sound.  The pedals seem to be heavier on the 809 and i understand that was done to approximate the feel of a real Yamaha grand piano.  Anyway; appreciate this series you are offering.  Have a great weekend! Don

Hollie Thanks for your patience. I'll have a video for you ASAP this week!

Hollie Thanks again for your patience! Here's some help on playing beautifully and evenly in the Chopin.

ALICE First of all, I'm delighted to hear you're making progress on your Bach!

On the question of loud playing and weight transfer, remember that dynamics are controlled simply by the speed of the hammer striking the string, which is the direct result of the speed of your finger entering the key.

It also depends on whether you play to the key bed or to the escapement (that "bump" you experience on the way down that is the feeling of the hammer being flung). If your rate of speed changes at the moment your finger meets the escapement and you don't follow through, this puts the brakes slightly on your finger and diminishes the sound (this might be desirable in certain instances).

If we enter the keys with weak finger tips that aren't acting as the extension of the arm and hand, then the key itself will slow down our fingers, and you won't ever be able to make FF or FFF sounds.

To create a loud sound as a beginner is actually really easy: just make a fist and let it drop like dead weight from about 6 inches above the keys. Boom! Fortissimo. Closer to the point, you can do the same by pressing your 1st and 3rd fingers together, carry it right above the keys and – without engaging any big muscles in your neck or forearm or upper arm, just lift your arm like a lever from the elbow and then fling the pressure point created by your two fingers into the key with velocity.

See? You can create fortissimo sounds, no problem. The question is, how do you recreate this feeling of firm, concentrated weight that is easily created by a first or the pressure of two fingers, while in a natural playing position?

The answer is given in different (but complementary) ways in Penelope Roskell's and Robert Durso's technique courses, which if you haven't studied – you should. And, in a simpler, more concise fashion, in Seymour Bernstein's Keyboard Choreography course.

If you want to transfer weight from finger to finger at a F dynamic or higher, you absolutely have to develop your rotational mechanics. Watch the second lesson in Durso's course, which is all about rotation. Since you can't lift and drop each finger in the key when you want to play legato, you must use forearm rotation (single and double rotations) to make small swing strokes and fling the fingers back into the keys, moving laterally. Then, when you get faster, these rotations minimize into a feeling of balance and lateral direction, directed by the forearm, and allowing the fingers to draw on the full weight of your body even while moving quickly.

ALICE Now let me address your practice regimen.

What you described sounds quite comprehensive to me, especially for a beginner! Let me just caution you about your notion of "technique practice." What you described are common and important patterns that any good pianist must feel at home with, and it's good you're drilling them. But it doesn't rise to the level of "technique practice" unless you're using these patterns deliberately to develop your playing mechanism. Otherwise, I would just call it "pattern practice" – which is important! The fingerings and hand positions used in these various patterns need to be internalized. However, one can internalize them all with poor technique, which just reinforces bad habits that are difficult to overcome.

I'm not saying you're doing this, I just want you to keep the two kinds of practice separate in your mind: on the one hand, developing the physical mechanics to play at an advanced level, and on the other hand, learning the patterns that make up the material composers use to create music. So you should always be conscious of improving your mechanism while running your fingers over the patterns.

I would add that, if anything is missing from you practice, it's ear training and mental practice. This is very easily incorporated into practice: take those cadences you play and, at a slow tempo, begin sight singing along with the bass line, then the melody line, and then the inner voices. I like scale degrees for this kind of work, but you could also just hum; and if you know solfege, that can be useful. This will do wonders for your ear, and your brain! You'll start recognizing even more note relationships and connecting the dots, and this will ultimately improve your technique because you'll be able to strike the keys with more confidence about what you're actually playing.

Ben Laude Ben, Your insight is so helpful! Now I can see the difference b/w "technique" vs "patterns". Could you please clarify what do you mean by sing scale degree? How do you do that? If you can share a Youtube video on this would be much appreciated! I'm learning solfege now and doing daily practice of sining solfege scale/triads. Thanks.

Ben Laude I read your earlier response on how to feel the arm weight (sandbag) and I am trying to feel my heavy arms. I also tried to put a heavy book on my forearm and hand to feel the weight while playing. Definitely a work in progress on the arm weight subject. Is this something one needs to experiment and figure out him/herself? I feel like my teachers' explanation only help me to understand the concept cognitively, but not physically. 

I will watch all the courses you recommended above. Thank you!

ALICE Here's a little video on singing scale degrees with your cadences/chord progressions! 

Ben Laude I enjoyed reading all responses and watching all your videos. Thank you so much sharing these with us. I'm also happy to see more early intermediate level materials on tonebase!

Georgie C You beat me to it!  That was going to be MY question, LOL!

Georgie C I’m also very interested

Georgie C Gail Starr Shoshana Kalson Sounds like a popular topic!

So, I don't have small hands. They're not enormous either, but I can reach mosts 10ths comfortably (some more easily than others; minor 10ths are fine, but major 10ths like D to F# I can stretch but I can't play it solid in a musical context).

But, I do have to play music that requires spans bigger than I can reach (Rachmaninoff, but Franck is actually worse)! So, by analogy, I can relate to your experience trying to deal with intervals that are slightly too large for you.

• The first thing to know is, there's never any shame in breaking a chord. Usually this is done by catching the lower note with the pedal and in one continuous motion, moving to play the rest of the chord solid. But, depending on the context, you might also find it nicer to roll a chord, or play the bottom notes as a chord and the top broken. Note that Rachmaninoff, who could definitely reach the LH chords at the beginning of his 2nd Concerto, nonetheless broke them for musical effect.
• For octaves, let me just ask you: can you reach an octave? If you can't even stretch an octave, I'm sorry to say that repertoire that a great deal of repertoire will be off limits. Assuming you can play an octave, even if it's a stretch, the most important principle to follow is what Garrick Ohlsson calls the "relaxation response." He talks about this in multiple lessons, including (albeit in a different context) at the beginning of his lesson on touch. His hands are huge, obviously, but the principle still applies in the context of playing octaves with small hands: only stretch the fingers to the span of an octave right at the moment of attack, but keep the fingers more comfortably contracted before and immediately after you play the octave. This can even be true if you need to hold an octave, although some stretching still needs to occur. But you no longer need to bear down on the keys, and you can just straddle the octave and use the 1st and 5th fingers as stabilizing balance points. In other words, you should develop a reflex where you release tension the moment you've struck the key, even for repeated octaves: practice slowly, and get used to spring-boarding out of the keys and let the muscles disengage slightly in between octaves. 
• Related to this last point is pedal. The pedal is your friend, more so than folks with bigger hands. And, it's for reasons again discussed by Garrick Ohlsson (again, doesn't matter that he has big hands, the principle still applies) in his Rach 3 course (go to 18:30 here). He's talking about a huge moment where the left hand has to play lots of big chords and leap around. His point is: if the pedal is down, the moment you release from the keys you can relax the hand while the sound continues.
• As for jumps, this is everyone's problem, not just small-handed pianists. But obviously the jumps are longer relative to the size of your hand. But my line on jumps is this: a two or three octave leap might seem wide relative to your fingers (anyone's fingers), but relative to your arms, it's not far at all. You can probably lean forward and spread your arms out to touch both extremes of the keyboard with no problem. The keyboard ain't that big compared to our bodies. It's not like you're actually jumping long distances here. So, what to do then? Rather than thinking of a leap as this wide chasm you have to jump across, fearing for you life while in mid air, think instead of your forearm moving laterally like a windshield wiper from your elbow. Look how quickly and easily you can cover wide spans back and forth. So, if you approach jumps not as simply picking up the forearm and carrying over laterally to the left or the right, suddenly the jump shrinks and you'll feel much better about at least getting close to your target. Within that framework, then it's just a matter of practicing so, once your arm carries you within range of the note, you develop the muscle memory to stick the landing. And again, in mid air, you shouldn't be keeping your hand spread out during the jump.
• Asiya Korepanova talks about this exact point in her lesson on La Campanella (the mother of all jumpy pieces). Starting around 3:10, she talks about occupying an "imaginary middle", so you're looking at the jump from the perspective of your arm and elbow and not your hand.

And now, let me turn things over to someone who actually has small hands. In this livestream from a couple years ago, Claire Huangci addresses both the issue of playing with small hands, and leaps, starting at 42:50 and lasting about 12 minutes.

Coming from someone without small hands, I hope this helps!

Ben Laude   Thank you for your detailed answer.  I can play octaves.  I used to be able to play 9ths (think Moonlight Sonata, 1st movement), but since returning to the piano after a long absence, it's a bit difficult for me.  I''m hoping that I'll be able to regain flexibility with careful practice and time.  I have more of a problem with rich chords.  I often need to rotate my hand to increase the span to my index finger.  I didn't use to feel that it was a problem, but these days, it's less comfortable.  Since I'm playing for my enjoyment, it's mostly a case of choosing the right repertoire.  I think that my major problem is really short pinkies.  Since I started recording my practice sessions, I've noticed that my bridge tends to tilt towards my pinkies.  I feel like my bridge is strong, but there's a definite tilt.  I've probably played this way since I was a kid.  Since none of my teachers ever commented on it, I guess it's not a real problem.  Certainly, if I try to reduce the tilt, I feel a lot of tension.  What do you think?

Ben Laude Hi Ben..thank you soooo much for your detailed reply! There is plenty there for me to work on and think about and I really appreciate the time taken for you to do this. I can stretch an octave and nine notes on a good day (!) but that's about it! I don't shy away from jumps and stretches, but I definitely needed some advice so thanks once again! And it's good to know I'm not the only one ( Gail Starr Shoshana Kalson ). Very best wishes to all :)

Ben Laude Dear Ben, WOWWWWW!  What an amazing, detailed response.  Thank you SO much for all your time and care in crafting it.  I can BARELY reach an octave, and since having sports injuries to both hands over the past 5 years, I've created some work-arounds with the pedal and rolling chords.

I've watched most of Garrick's videos and I love the idea of a "relaxation response". Asiya's class on "La Campanella" was great, too.  I think my problem is that I can BARELY reach an octave.  Luckily, I figured out early on that I wasn't going to grow, so I picked a different career since LOTS of the more important rep is beyond me.  But, I love your suggestions and will try to use them right now.

I just was asked to join a local amateur Baroque orchestra that was looking for a harpsichord player, so I have a fun outlet that is totally pain-free. LOL!

Hazel Indeed! The so-called "in-and-out" movements are essential to developing your technique to play just about any repertoire. When you see pianists moving nearer to the fall board, it's likely they're playing black keys. We forget sometimes, but we live in 3 dimensions and we should absolutely move our arms forward in order to balance on black keys. This is a common oversight among beginners who get used to keeping a fixed write position in front of the keyboard and then wonder why it's so hard to play black keys. I always say "just go run up there and stand on them!"

Furthermore, it becomes an issue for advanced pianists when we sometime fail to utilize inward movements, and instead we twist the hand to get the shorter fingers closer to the key. At 7:40 in this lesson, Bob Durso catches me twisting instead of going in – which was inhibiting my command over the passage.

But in-and-out movements are important even when playing white keys, because our fingers are different lengths and we have to adjust inward when playing the 4th and 5th fingers. Durso has an entire lesson on in-and-out motions where he discusses exactly this. Penelope Roskell also discusses the topic (she calls them "forward and back movements") in this lesson, and offers exercises to free up the in and out movement.

Ben Laude That’s great. Many thanks for your answer 🤗

Ben Laude Thanks for letting us know about these videos.  I somehow skipped them and I can really use this info!