Hi list , Yesterday I worked on a Boston GP178 (customer's place) that was fitted with the Yamaha clamps on hammers (1 g each if memory served). I installed good firm Yamaha punching, get the regulation to have a good even sensation of the compression release of the action when playing (and not the springy feel of the slightly too early drop that lend to an action that goes too directly to the bottom when playing .... Then, I used my hand sensitivity to even the weight perception in DW and UW as well, moving back and forth some clips, and evening "by feel" the BW then. I'll be back there in a few days with weights and I'll check to see what level of precision was attained. Funny experiment ! Does not make sense from a tonal point of view, as the shank modes are then different from note to note, but it was not really very noticeable at first (the voicing being old we'll see that later). What I wanted to say is that our hand seem to be surprisely accurate to check variations in weight, no doubt its use may be inserted in any balancing method at some point. May be that mean using a small strip of double sided scotch tape on the key during weight of, so we can check the weighting in "real" with a little more speed than usual. BTW, the underside of the wrist give us a good rebound surface when regulating backchecks and I used that surface while checking the resistance of the keys (to avoid a . DW-UW parameters around 50-60 g are easily perceived - less easy if around 45 g indeed. The basic trick for the ones that wish to train their kinesthetic sensitivity is to learn to hold their arm in balance in a very decontracted way, the most usual and easy trick is , like for dance or yoga, to imagine you are a moppet without any volition, and your head, shoulders, wrist, are hold by ropes so you stand right without any conscious muscular tension. The ones that practice yoga know what I mean, put yourself in a relaxed state ( elongate yourself on the floor may be before the exercise ) I had a piano teacher that was working with Monique Dechaussée a French teatcher, and uses TaiChi and other cool methods to learn relax applied to piano playing. Piano lessons with him begin always with 20 minutes or more of concentration and relaxation exercises, and I've learned immensely with him, let's say a good basics of pianistic technique at large. Back to the exercise : VERY slowly the guy that hold the ropes pull them up having your wrists moving up without you giving any order to them) to a level a little under your shoulders level(if you feel any tension relax, don't try to go up). Then you are experiencing how really heavy are your arms and forearm, hand and even fingers as well. What makes you learn to use that weight is to understand the sensation when suddenly the ropes are cut, and the hand/arm fall by their own weight. The difficult part to free is your shoulders , you may exercise a free fall of them as well, we rarely have conscious moves of the shoulders. Experience that while sitting at the piano (your body balancing on Aeschylus bones, your back naturally straight mean you are not in the middle of the stool but slightly towards the edge -that posture that allows the use of the legs force as well when the pianist play forcefully) and you'll be surprised with the deepness of tone you'll have , very smooth but precise attack, to experiment a weight falling on a key give also a somewhat clean tone if some smooth material is installed under the weight. No problem if you don't "play" one note only, or if your fingers are not strong enough at first, as long as you experiment that free fall sensation. You may experience then the vibration that the strings and hammers induce in the instrument (hence piano key). The trick of the puppet ropes on the wrist allow us to have a perfectly relaxed wrist and a perfectly relaxed fall of the arm (and shoulders as well), this is also how playing for tuning have been shown to me by Mr. Osato san, the head tuner at Yamaha France, everything relax, but the finger (s) are firm. The problem with most of us non pianist is that they need to have some muscular strench in the palm of the hand and the fingers to accept all that natural force (weight based) without tension. A good method to learn that to hold its hand in an arch shape, a little like when putting it on a bowl, (eventually with the help of a real bowl) , then train yourself in producing instant very thin but precise pressures at the tip of each finger - The equilibrium of the hand of the pianist is given by that arch , namely the 5 - 2 d finger muscles inside the palm. These little pressures are the way to learn nervous impulse to firm its fingers at the very last moment (to accept all that force coming from above). You can do that exercise at any moment, on your knee, a table, etc, after some time you will really experiment a clear separation between the fingers, and see the top of the articulation move up a little, but always think it may be a the speed of the nervous impulse, you don't push on something with the finger, it is almost like an involuntary move. The 3d and second finger are more sensitive and less strong (strangely) than the 4 th and 5th, for muscular implantation reasons. I just realize that when I use the 4th and the 3d joined for tuning, the 4th finger give the strength, while the 3d is more "reading the note" (promised its true !) Philippe Champagne say there is the "force hand" (like when you shake hand) with the 4-5 , and the "sensible hand" with 2nd and 3d fingers. http://www.arts-medicine.com/eng/indexeng.php?rub=3 The 2 different kind of input force the pianists uses when playing, and that we use as well, are : The free weight of shoulders and arm flowing naturally in the fingers. the hand then tend to slip off the keys and . Muscular jerk produced by the ankle opening impulse (making the arm more open), taking it's base energy from the body of the pianist, and eventually even from its legs impulse (when you see the pianist jumping from its chair) driven by all body levers into the keyboard. This last method gives a harder tone, but allows a lot of force even from the key level. The motion then goes toward the keyboard, the wrist goes up. Of course these process are used mixed, to play softly only the weight of the forearm may suffice. In any of the 2 what count is that the whole arm/shoulders system stay relaxed most of the time. All of that long post just to say that learning to ascertain what kind of energy we are using while playing the notes always give back a lot of tactile information, and open the door to a lot of unsuspected uses of the hand as an evaluation tool. As the pianist most of the time play with his hands, it is of primal importance to have a somewhat similar device at hand when we work on its instrument. it may be less difficult to attain than one thinks if an adequate method is employed. Greetings, and sorry for the long winding post. Isaac OLEG
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