Note (6/27/16): This article, first published in 2010, as well as the follow-up article (Studies Addressing Piano Voodoo of Tone Production), were edited and combined into one article, and published as a feature article in Clavier Companion titled “Tone Production: Doing the Right Things for the Right Reasons” (July/August 2016, p. 16-25). Clavier Companion also published a longer version of the article online. Readers are certainly welcome to read my more informal, sarcastic take on it (below), but the version in Clavier Companion is more effective.
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The word timbre (also called tone quality or tone color) is an important part of every musician’s vocabulary. Woodwind and brass instrumentalists can affect timbre by such simple things such as embouchure or fingering choices. String instrumentalists have things such as bow speed, angle and pressure to work with. Surprisingly to some, pianists have one and only one way to legitimately manipulate the actual color of each note they play: pedals.
Some may be compelled to cite qualities such as “warm”, “harsh” and “transparent” as auditory examples of how technique and touch can affect tone quality on the piano. We can affect tone production with our fingers, not just with pedals, right? Yes and no. We can affect tone production dependently of hammer velocity, but not independently of hammer velocity. In other words, those who ask their students to play a note “less harsh” without playing the note any softer are asking for the impossible.
Pianists do have the una corda, damper and sostenuto pedals at their disposal, but these are wielded by the feet, not by the fingers.
Physical Representations of Tone Production
Consider the following list, which represents all possible qualities of a note that can be controlled by the pianist:
- Pitch: Which string in the piano does the hammer strike?
- Rhythm: When does the hammer strike the string?
- Volume: How fast is the hammer traveling at the instant it strikes the string?
- Articulation: When (and how quickly) does the string stop vibrating?
- Timbre: Una corda pedal: How many strings are struck, and which parts of the hammers hit the strings? Damper and sostenuto pedals: What other strings are allowed to pick up sympathetic vibrations from the string that is struck?
If there were other ways to affect the “color” of a piano tone other than just pedals on the piano, there would be a physical representation of this change of color within the piano that obeys basic laws of physics.
Perhaps we can cause one hammer to hit the string with greater force or weight than another hammer that is traveling at the same velocity? Or maybe we can somehow get the hammer to stay in contact with the string for a longer period of time to achieve a warmer sound, perhaps by following the key all the way to the bottom of the keybed?
All these questions seem to ask the same fundamental question: can we affect how the hammer hits the string with factors other than velocity? Unfortunately, we can’t. These ideas are nothing more than myths produced by followers of the pianistic faith I refer to as “Piano Voodoo”.
Piano Voodoo Exposed
We’ve all noticed the point at which a key descent kind of “clicks” at the very bottom of its descent. This point, called “escapement” or “letoff” by piano technicians, is the point during the hammer’s journey at which we literally lose control of the hammer. After the escapement point, the hammer coasts to the string. Whether a pianist accelerates or decelerates a key depression on the key’s way down, and regardless of the angle at which the finger descends onto the key, all we are truly controlling is the velocity of the hammer up to its escapement point. After that, we are completely out of control.
Ironically, this is the kind of non-control that we need in order to be fully in control of the piano. If the escapement of a piano were adjusted until it occurred at a point beyond the string (in other words, escapement never occurred), we would get multiple note strikes and thuds every time we followed a key all the way to the bottom of the keybed.
So, we have no way to affect the length of time the hammer is in contact with the string other than affecting the velocity of the hammer when it is released by the escapement mechanism, which occurs before the key even reaches the bottom of the keybed (and about one-eighth of an inch before the hammer hits the string). This also means that there is no sense of hammer force when trying to distinguish force from velocity. Force implies
acceleration (or what pianists might think of as “continuing weight” on the key), and we non-Jedi pianists can neither accelerate nor decelerate the speed of the actual hammer once it has passed its escapement point.
To read about current research in this field (actual studies done on tone production), see another blog post of mine, Studies Addressing Piano Voodoo of Tone Production.
Jet Engineers Know Better Than Pilots
It is surprising just how many great artists and teachers are disciples of Piano Voodoo. Or maybe it isn’t surprising? In almost every case of observing Piano Voodoo masters, I’ve always wondered how many are so “at one” with the piano that they have ironically lost touch with what is actually happening inside the piano.
A jet fighter pilot (who is more “at one” with the jet than anyone, even more so than the engineers who made it) is not the most qualified person to understand exactly how the physics of the jet work. The pilot knows exactly what kind of hand movements are necessary to produce the jet movements desired. Jet pilots have their own set of techniques that allow for “smoother” jet flying, but their understanding of how their joysticks, levers and buttons move the jet is nothing more than an illusion being interpreted by the software and hardware that allows the jet to function. Fighter pilots would never pretend to know how to write or even understand all of the software that resides in all the computer chips on modern jets that manifests all of these different flying techniques. Likewise, the most brilliant concert artists and piano teachers on Earth are no more qualified than basic piano technicians are (and in fact are nearly always less qualified) to explain why a certain passage sounds so different from one pianist to another in terms of piano mechanics. It is the greatest artists on Earth who are often the most deceived.
Even being an illusion, this illusion of “control of piano timbre via fingers” is a very strong one. A great artist plays one note abrasively-loud with one technique, another more pleasant note with a different technique, then the artist argues to his or her death that they were both the same loudness but different “colors.” The master’s own intense musicianship is what deceives them: because they so desperately want to hear different “colors” with every fiber of their consciousness, they project these colors onto the notes they play. No matter what technique is used, the pianist is still manipulating a simple 17th century machine to produce the sound.
Authority Bias
Unfortunately, most piano teachers I have spoken with cannot tell me what “escapement” is. That is why Piano Voodoo is taught at the very top, at national conventions attended by music teachers. That is why Piano Voodoo articles sometimes appear in music magazines and journals, and why the issue of tone production has remained so mysterious and “complexified” over the decades. Certain speakers and authors complexify the issue of tone production to the point where teachers walk away from these articles and presentations with a small knot in their stomach. While the talks are very artistic and inspiring, they leave the listener empty and confused. “How am I going to get my students to do this when I don’t even fully understand it myself?”, they ask. Fortunately, teachers who have ever felt this way can take comfort in the fact that it’s not that you didn’t fully understand it, it’s the speaker who didn’t fully understand it.
Authority bias is the tendency to value an ambiguous stimulus (e.g., an art performance) according to the opinion of someone who is seen as an authority on the topic. Applied to Piano Voodoo, the voodoo master can say just about anything they want to with the expectation that followers will nod their heads. In the realm of the arts (in which there is often no real “truth” to anything), this outcome is especially reliable and predictable since those who nod their heads with the most vigor end up looking like masters themselves to others who are more transparent about their confusion. Students and teachers who don’t know any better and who have never heard the term “escapement” before (let alone understand its implications) have no choice but to subscribe to Piano Voodoo when the music field places Voodoo masters on teaching pedestals.
One would think that these authority figures would be discredited by truth, but the problem is that these figures are some of the greatest pianists alive. There are other great pianists who achieve the same great playing without the use of mechanical illusions, but it is much more dazzling to speak about (and to listen to) illusions than simple physics of the piano that were known hundreds of years ago. One places a lot on the line by challenging these viewpoints, since looking at truth square in the face does not seem like a very “artistic” thing to do. Perhaps my favorite quote about teaching is the following, spoken by a football coach (emphasis added):
“It is sometimes said that the great teachers and mentors, the wise men and gurus, achieve their ends by inducting the disciple into a kind of secret circle of knowledge and belief, make of their charisma a kind of gift. The more I think about it, though, the more I suspect that the best teachers – and, for that matter, the truly long-term winning coaches, the Walshes and Woodens and Weavers – do something else. They don’t mystify the work and offer themselves as a model of oracular authority, a practice that nearly always lapses into a history of acolytes and excommunications. The real teachers and coaches may offer a charismatic model – they probably have to – but then they insist that all the magic they have to offer is a commitment to repetition and perseverance. The great oracles may enthrall, but the really great teachers demystify. They make particle physics into a series of diagrams that anyone can follow, football into a series of steps that anyone can master, and art into a series of slides that anyone can see. A guru gives us himself and then his system; a teacher gives us his subject, and then ourselves.” – Adam Gopnik (“The Last of the Metrozoids”, The New Yorker, May 10th, 2004)
As powerful and true as this quote is, in the field of musical artistry, I don’t believe Piano Voodoo will ever disappear. Authority bias will continue to take place, and people who are truly liberated by truth will continue to be criticized by those who have based so much of their teaching style on pianistic illusion.
For those who really like authority, I can just as easily appeal to authority as the other side can. Those who disagree with this blog entry would also have to disagree with Charles Rosen (here and here), who is the granddaddy of all writer-musicians according to The Guardian.
Which Side Is Really Appealing To Ridicule?
Some people find the suggestion that they are using voodoo instead of real artistry offensive. While the term piano voodoo may sound derogatory, in reality it’s the idea itself (the term’s definition) that is derogatory, and this cannot be helped. The subject of this article covers a provably false set of beliefs about piano playing. I’ve tried many times to come up with a more neutral term that implies a provably false set of beliefs about piano playing, but I don’t think such a term exists. Having said that, the same people who are offended by this are often the ones who are offensive in their suggestion that people who know certain scientific truths about the piano are replacing artistry with science.
The person who understands why they have certain feelings has a larger perspective (not smaller) than the person who simply has feelings but doesn’t understand why, and this larger perspective is going to be true for any discipline in the world. A historian is better off knowing why a war took place than in just knowing it took place. A painter is better off knowing why a certain brush stroke (or brush) is necessary than merely using it “just because it works”. Sound production on the piano is no different.
As author W. H. Auden said, “Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings.” Gaining knowledge and truth of any kind is never going to make someone less of an artist, and I would be embarrassed for making such a backwards argument.
Using Technique For The Right Reasons
“The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.” (T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral)
While the musically elite may be correct to conclude that when a certain technique is used, certain “colors” are more likely to take place, it is not correct to assume this particular technique is the only way to achieve it. The field of psychology knows this as illusory correlation – beliefs that inaccurately suppose a particular relationship between a certain type of action and an effect. Piano strings don’t know what technique you’re using – they only know the velocity and timing of each hammer strike. Therefore, the proper relationship between technique and color is the relationship of likelihood rather than of absolute cause.
Different touches and angles of descent are still very useful to teach. Tone production is a very real part of pianism. There is nothing wrong with telling a student to not play a note quite so staccato while the pedal is down in order to achieve a “warmer” effect. But it can only enhance a student’s musicianship if we also explain the real reason why we suggest to play with various techniques in certain situations, such as the fact that a staccato touch is more likely to produce a greater hammer velocity because of the quickness of the stroke, rather than allowing the student to operate under beliefs that contradict basic laws of physics.
As another example, it is still useful to teach students to play with more “weight” if a less harsh tone is desired. When playing big chords, slapping the keys with the hand (pivoting at the wrist, the same way in which we might knock on a door without moving our arm) can produce a frightfully percussive sound, while dropping the entire forearm with a sense of “weight” helps to moderate that sound. But to tell a student that involvement of the arm achieves an equal dynamic level as involvement of the wrist/hand alone — except “without the harshness” — is simply not true. In reality, it is doing nothing more than causing the hammers to travel slower at the point of contact with the strings. While the hand can jerk downward very suddenly, the forearm (which is controlled by larger and therefore slower-moving muscles) has a harder time moving with the same degree of suddenness. Using additional “weight” moderates key (and therefore hammer) speed and nothing more.
Words like “warm”, “harsh” and “transparent”, as useful as we all find these words to be in our teaching, are nothing more than mere descriptions of certain combinations of note velocities, timings, articulations and pedaling. These seemingly simple parameters each can be manipulated with almost infinite variety, and when they interact with each other, it compels us to assume that there are 30 or 40 parameters instead of just a few. “Warm” might represent a generally soft and legatissimo sound, louder velocities in the lower note registers, or a phrase with a quiet dynamic peak. “Harsh” would be generally too loud. “Sparkly” might represent louder velocities in the upper registers with a staccato touch. “Transparent” might come to mind when we hear an unpedaled/pianissimo Alberti bass.
A slightly different hand position can drastically change the timing and velocity of notes (as well as timing of release). When you have 30 or 40 notes in a passage, all approached with one technique as opposed to another, the combination of all these velocity and timing variations will often produce what we artists call different “tones” or “colors”. One simple change in hammer velocity within a chord (on just one note) can affect the overtones present to such a degree that we perceive a change in “piano timbre” when actually it was only caused by volume of a single note.
All these and more techniques and touches at the piano really do work! It’s just that they don’t work for the reason many assume. Pianists produce these different colors and glorify them by assigning them attributes that don’t exist, which (in the end) only serves to glorify oneself. For additional information from a graduate physics thesis (on the piano!) turned into a website, see Piano Physics. Be sure to eventually make your way to the “Agreement of Perception” subsection of the “Paradox” section. You’ll see that the author agrees that basic understanding of piano physics and great artistry do not need to be treated as if they were mutually exclusive.
It’s Still Beautiful, Wondrous and Magical
Astronomers now know why stars flicker, what “shooting stars” actually are, and they know what causes the northern and southern lights. Does this prevent those very same astronomers from appreciating the beauty more than astronomers 3,000 years ago? Perhaps there is less “wonder” for the astronomers: they no longer wonder if Zeus is painting the sky. But this superstitious wonder is replaced with what I would argue is a better type of wonder.
When I heard Olga Kern play a C major Haydn Sonata at the 2009 MTNA Convention with more variety of tone color than I had ever heard in that piece, I stood in awe at her mastery of articulative touches, pedaling techniques, various timing choices, and most of all, combinations of velocity both horizontally and vertically. The problem is, most people who heard these colors probably assumed that mere pitch/velocity/duration/timing/pedaling couldn’t possibly be responsible for the “magic” they heard. But with a little imagination and an open mind, one can see how all this is actually possible. My sense of awe, wonder and appreciation of beauty increases when I consider how few tools pianists have at their disposal in order to create all their “magic.” Yes, they use hand positions and different touches to make these things as easy to do as possible, as do I, but just because someone is using a different grip and stroke on their tennis racket doesn’t mean their racket isn’t still behaving just like it always does. It’s still the same tennis racket.
What we have to work with is plenty, and in my opinion it is magical and humbling in the most glorious way to hear a colorful performance in light of such simplicity. We don’t need to invent the Tooth Fairy in order to judge or demonstrate good tone production. We become greater artists and teachers at the piano by embracing truth instead of running away from it. By examining and confronting the science behind tone production, we do not put ourselves in shackles of realism. We are instead liberated from the prison of illusion and artistic dogma.
Common Responses
Below is a collection of common reactions to this subject and my responses to each one.
1) “Music is an art, not a science.”
2) “When we play piano, this scientific stuff is too much to think about. It makes me feel like a centipede who is unsure of which foot to put forward. It gets in the way of my artistry.” (and) “The focus here is in the wrong place: Knowing this stuff doesn’t make you any more of an artist.”
3) “How do we produce tone at the piano? We produce it with the heart.”
4) “One can hold certain notes down with the fingers before hitting other notes, causing sympathetic vibrations.”
5) “I have great experience in this matter and have studied with great masters.”
6) “Ability to produce good tone at the piano is a gift.”
7) “How about we just agree that there is no such thing as “wrong” or “right” on this issue.”
Sources
Rosen, Charles, Kenneth Wolf, and Marc Ryser. “Playing the Piano.” New York Review, Vol. 46 No. 20 (Dec. 16, 1999).
Rosen, Charles, David W. Ross, and Carolyn Kunin. “Playing the Piano.” New York Review, Vol. 47 No. 3 (Feb. 24, 2000).
(c) 2010 Cerebroom
Just found this and am so grateful. I am a pedagogical descendent of Abby Whiteside, who taught that piano “tone” was all nonsense. I blogged about this the other day, and the Voodoo lovers came after me. So glad to see someone else fighting the good fight.
Indeed a very valuable article. I’m grateful as well for someone to have taken the time and effort to write this and speak the truth.
Thank you very much. As a life long piano player as well as a tuner and technician, I have always known this but was not able to put it into words so well.
I have bookmarked this and although I will probably never convince the true believer, I at least can articulate my position better.
Thanks again
Thank you for another great article. You always touch on something thought-provoking!