PHYSICALITY (TECHNIQUE AND TONE) SEPTEMBER 13, THE PIANO MECHANISM The piano is able to communicate the subtlest universal truths by means of wood, metal and vibrating air. (Kenneth Miller) Technique! We tumbled into Room 14 for what we suspected would be our most challenging course. We were well aware or our differing hands, hang-ups, history, and habits. Still, if anyone could teach personalized technique in a group setting, it would be the magician who had so captivated our opening assembly. We waited, suspiciously eyeing a lumpy table draped in a colorful cloth. Where were the pianos? Professor Lambert entered the room crisply. He was grizzled but youthful, obviously on fire about All Things Technical. Over the year, he would turn our bodily assumptions inside out, explaining the differences between weight and energy, initiating and responding, visible and invisible. He would replace our expressively swaying torsos with a serene stillness. Following the adage that ‘all good things come in threes,’ he would identify three stabilizing ‘pins’ to back up movement, three hand-arches to reduce muscular work, and many times three how to sculpt sound with ease. All this Lambert delivered with infectious energy, vivid images, and rollicking humor. Eccentrically English, his sibilants whistled like a kettle and his laughter came out as a high-pitched ‘tee-hee.’ We came to love his wacky approach, and out of class came to call him simply “Lambert.” 37 THE PIANO MECHANISM Giving a curt nod, he launched into his subject like a force of nature. “First, my young geniuses, it’s time you learned something about your instrument. You know how it looks, how it sounds, and how it feels – but you don’t have a clue about how it works! As a result, you spend hours developing physical gestures that have little or no effect on your sound. This is unfortunate because knowing what you can affect and what you can’t affect – is as important in piano as in life!” With a flourish, he whipped the covering off the table. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the piano mechanism!“ Lambert idly flipped up a hammer and confessed, “Some days, I have this weird fantasy. I want to climb inside the piano and throw fat felts up against steel strings like a crazed carillon player. I want to vibrate with the harmonics and experience from the inside how a percussion instrument can sing and sear with such eloquence. So today, let’s study the piano’s mechanism and how you interface with it – because to play well, you’ll need to know about both!” Lambert patted the flank of the gleaming class Steinway. “Here’s how a fine Canadian teacher, Lawrence Pitchko, introduced the piano to his students: “Why 3, not 4?” A pause before someone ventured, “3 legs?” “Exactly! And why 3 legs?” Some confusion and then, “It a triangle?” “Very close! – and why a triangle?” Hesitantly, “Because it’s less rigid than a square?” “Excellent! And why might we want flexibility?” Receiving no answer, Pitchko exploded, “Amplification! Think of the piano as one huge amplifier. When you play, the piano vibrates, the air vibrates, and the people in the room vibrate!” Typical Lambert! He sat at the piano and riffed off an impossibly fast arpeggio. “Because of the piano’s built-in amplification, you needn’t pound the keys to make sound. Neither do you need to throw your weight around, drive your fingers into the keybed, hold your breath, nor clench your teeth. I want you to think of your piano as a 38 willing partner, bursting with power and eager to please. Treat it like a powerful black stallion waiting to follow your lead. Let out the reins and give it its head! Don’t clamp down, hang onto, or be afraid of its power. Because for spirit and responsiveness, this instrument is a bloody miracle!” He gathered us around the Steinway and pointed inside the lid. “So, here are your three main sources of amplification. (1) A ‘mechanism’ of levers, shanks and pins that multiply your input by a factor of five. (2) A steel harp and strings that further amplify your effort with 20,000 pounds of tension per square inch – the lift of a jet! (3) A wooden soundboard that takes energy from the downward-bearing bridge and amplifies the soundwaves so the piano can soar over a whole orchestra. “Demonstration time!” Lambert lowered himself onto the piano bench and launched into a murderous passage of Rachmaninoff. It was glorious, glamorous, and apparently effortless. But as much as we wished he’d keep playing, our elfin mentor was already heading back to the piano mechanism. “Watch closely. Notice how little force it takes for me to depress this key – about 50 grams, the weight of ten nickels. About halfway down you can feel a little ledge of resistance. It’s called ‘the escapement.’ You can use this resistance to color your sound, but first you have to find it.” He stepped aside for each of us to slowly depress the key and feel the escapement partway down. “This is where the hammer flies off the rail inside the mechanism. You can accelerate the key only to that point, but then must let the mechanism do the rest of the work. Once the hammer has taken flight, you can’t alter the sound – so there’s no use pressing or hanging weight on the keybed.” Useful! Lambert grinned and continued, “But that’s not all. If I lightly hold the key down at the keybed, you can see the hammer drop back a tiny bit from the string. Why? It prevents the felt from muting the vibration of the string. Without it, the felt would dull-out or even mute the sound. This drop-off is also essential for playing lightning-fast 39 repetitions.” He let go of the key. “And now if I take my finger off, the hammer drops back to rest again on its rail, ready to play another day.” Lambert backed away from the mechanism and swung out his arm as if holding a racket. “Consider this. A tennis player accelerates his racket through the point of ball- contact, and then lets it carry through with no further effort. After he’s made contact with the ball, he can no longer affect its course. It’s like shutting a car door where a mere flick of the wrist accelerates the door towards the car body. The mechanism does the rest of the work. If you followed the door all the way in with your arm, you’d stress the mechanism and send damaging vibrations up into your shoulder. So, the rule for playing the piano is, ‘Play and let go – even if you stay in contact with the key.’ Sure, there may be psychological reasons to ground yourself at the keybed, but not mechanical ones. The damage was already done when the hammer took flight.” PIANO TONE AND COLOR Lambert casually flipped the hammer-shank up to the string and let it settle back onto the rail. Then he walked up to the class whiteboard and said, “My last point concerns that all-important quality that we call tone. First, a little lesson in physics. In 1929, a group at Oxford University graphed the shape of soundwaves when weight was applied vertically to the keys. Sure enough, more weight resulted in louder sounds and less weight in softer ones. But this hardly explained the differences we can get in piano color. Consequently, in the late 1970s, Scientific American refined the experiment such that the keys were engaged in more complex ways than purely vertical. What emerged were graphs of very different wave shapes. ‘Harsh tones’ showed up as having a sharp ascent, a serrated ‘shatter’ at the top, and then an abrupt descent. ‘Warm tones’ had a slightly slower ascent, a less violent shatter at the top, and (importantly) a longer descent. Shocking! With this experiment, piano color became audible, psychological, and ultimately graph-able.” 40 Lambert tapped on the second graph. “So, our mission is to find a way to depress the keys such that it creates as long an after-tone as possible. Try to imagine a little crescendo inside each note as if you’re a singer or violinist. Follow the soundwave in your ear from its beginning, through its blooming and diminishment, until its end. When you can subconsciously listen like that, you can become a master colorist. The piano is NOT just a piano-forte. It can express every dynamic and nuance between them.” Letting that sink in, he continued, “So, how can we sculpt as warm and long an after- tone as possible without getting physically bogged down? Here are a few hints. This year we’ll talk about making the key an extension of your arm. We’ll study how to loosen your grip using your hands’ springy arches. We’ll learn how to deliver energy into the keys without pressing. Altogether, you’ll know you have it right when you feel as if you’re releasing sound up into the air instead of stuffing it in. When that happens, you’ll feel connected to the music, the room, and everyone in it. Your audience will hear the difference, so keep reminding yourself: Let me connect to the hammer and ‘slow those big babies down.’ Let me play the soundboard, not the keys! Seeing our dubious looks, Lambert exploded, “Come on, this is exciting stuff! It’s time to give your piano mechanism a little respect! Imagine an unbroken line running from your feet, up through your torso, over your shoulders, down your arms and fingers, and into the keys.