Learn How to Play Piano from Expert

In fact, the keyboard ought never to be struck hard at all in legato passages or in melody of any kind. On the contrary, the keys must be caressed with a sort of almost stroking movement, to obtain the requisite tone-values. And in connection with this there is another thing to which I attach great importance, namely, that the hand in its attitude on the keyboard should reflect in some degree the spirit of the music.

For instance, it would not be natural to hold the hands as formally when playing Chopin as in the performance of sixteenth century music. Again, in a vivacious piece the hands should look sprightly and full of energy, while in slow cantabile movements they should present a soft and sinuous appearance. For even the fact of the hand looking hard and stiff during playing will assuredly affect the sound adversely, and rob it of beauty of quality.

All these things are intimately connected with the preparation of a fine touch upon the piano. The word “touch,” as a musical term, signifies really the mode by which the fingers attack the keyboard. For the great difficulty to be contended with on the piano when it is necessary to produce a singing tone lies in this, that by its mechanical composition, if once a key is struck upon the instrument, no further modification of the sound-quality is possible. No vibrato or mellowing of the tone can be afterwards applied as on stringed instruments; with the piano, all is over when the ringer has once fallen and the hammer has struck the strings.

Therefore anything that can be done to sweeten the tone must be attempted before the striking of the note. By this I mean that an infinitesimal time should elapse between the action of lifting the finger to strike and the definite falling of the finger upon the key. Touch must be thus prepared in the playing of all melody and singing passages with a slow pressing movement of the hand and fingers. This caressing touch could not, of course, be employed in rapid difficult passages, where direct quick blows of the fingers are indispensable in order to save time. In such cases, and in the higher development of technical brilliance, no more lifting of the fingers is necessary than is compatible with distinct articulation.

As hurrying and also dragging the tempi are both errors connected somewhat with faulty rhythm, I will speak of this next as a highly unsatisfactory failing. Rhythm is no doubt to a great extent instinctive, and is bound up a good deal with individual temperaments. But it must be carefully developed by teaching and analysis, for too much emphasis can never be bestowed upon giving every note in music its proper value, apart from any other rhythmical consideration. For rhythm in. piano-playing is so essential a factor in obtaining a good tone-production, that it is imperative to cultivate it with great attention to correctness of outline.

Lack of rhythm, or faulty rhythm, will take all character from a musical performance, and will leave an impression of insipidity and monotony where there is no rhythm, and of irritation where the rhythm is inexact, as the case may be.

Close on the heels of bad rhythm comes the weakness of always using the same kind of tone while performing. Plenty of variation of tone-colour is absolutely necessary for inspired and interesting playing on the piano, as, indeed, on all instruments.

On the piano this is more difficult to arrive at than on the stringed or even the wind instruments, and needs much study of the technique of touch. For frequently we cannot understand, after coming out from a concert, why what we appreciated as a really fine performance of a musical work had not arrested our attention more, or aroused keener pleasure. A certain sense of monotony or dullness had crept over us while listening.

Such a feeling, or rather want of feeling, is almost always the result of the performer’s failure to grasp the possibilities of his instrument in relation to tone-colour. Everything he plays is in a similar hue of tone, therefore a sameness and lack of life and contrast pervades the whole. It is a strange anomaly that the more beautiful is the touch of the pianist by natural instinct, the 1 more he is apt to fall into the fault of using it indiscriminately in the same strength, because he takes so much personal pride and pleasure in it. It is like the case of singers who are gifted with wonderful top notes, and, therefore, are always inclined to warble them forth in full but monotonous volumes of sound.

It must always be remembered, of course, that the device is only a creation of the imagination and must in no wise be allowed to become evident or interfere with the proper rhythm. But as a mental measurement it will always facilitate the negotiating of rapid jumps correctly and continuously. The last passage in the Concerto in C minor of Saint-Saëns for piano and orchestra, also serves to illustrate the method of reducing the difficulty by this calculation of the mind.

Passage from C minor Concerto of Saint-Saëns to illustrate the mental device of
considering the Octaves in groups of threes, as indicated by the lines below,
though the sound of the rhythm must remain in 3/4 time.

Still more hard than so-called simple octave technique is that where intermediate notes between the octaves have to be struck together with them, as in successive progression of rapid chords, such as are to be found in the opening cadenza of Liszt’s E flat Concerto. (Picture 1) This starts with a tremendous sequence of grand chords in C major, which is extremely difficult to play accurately, and can only be mastered by unceasing practice. In such a passage the wrist should be kept loose and the intermediate notes (in the chord of C major it is the second finger on G) should be struck with rather a stiff finger, so as to form a sort of point of support, the thumb and 5th fingers, however, falling loosely on the two octave notes, C and Octave C. The hand should be arched and form a cup-like position. Thus :

Showing position of hand when playing Octaves
with intermediate notes.

The stiffening of the intermediate finger must be very slight and almost imperceptible; in fact, here again it should be little more than a mental impression. I give the fingering which I use in the afore-mentioned passage in chords out of the Liszt concerto, in the hope that it may help some who may be struggling with that particular cadenza. (Picture 1)

For very rapid octave scales with intermediate notes, it is of assistance, instead of striking the middle note with the finger in its natural position, which interferes here with speed, to strike it upon the key with the first phalange joint of the finger, as in the following passage out of Saint-Saëns C minor Concerto. Thus :

Showing intermediate note taken
with phalange joint to help speed.

Extract from Saint-Saëns C minor Concerto.

The above is a passage where the intermediate notes between the Octaves can be struck with the whole of the first phalange joint of the finger instead of with the tip of the finger simply. This is a device for facilitating speed, and can only be used in the right hand.

But this last is a technical hint for helping rapidity, to be used only by those who have already reached a considerable stage of virtuosity and also possess a wide stretch of the hand, and it should in no case be adopted by the student even of advanced technique! I merely mention it as a curious instance of the little ingenuities that can make the greatest difficulties become possible.

What are termed broken octaves are also continually to be met with, especially in adaptations of pieces from orchestral scores and in the works of Beethoven and Mozart. These have to be played with great skill if they are to sound really well and make a good effect, therefore they must be patiently studied. For practising them I advise using the 1st and 5th fingers with equal strength, the wrist being kept stiff and the hand oscillating to and fro as if it and the fingers were made of one piece with the forearm. There are excellent studies for the development of broken octave technique in Czerny’s “Kunstfertigkeit.”

Picture 1
Extract from Liszt’s Concerto in E flat, showing fingering of opening Cadenza.

I now come to Octave Technique for which every sort of studies have been and continue to be written. Now the real octave wrist, combining great strength with high nervous tension and suppleness, is a gift of nature, like the capacity for playing staccato bowing on the violin. But those who do not possess the power can develop it to a limited extent. There are several methods of playing octaves, one being with a loose wrist and the 5th finger slightly stiffened. This is a good way for octaves in a slow tempo, but when speed is required it can only be secured by nervous contraction of the arm, the wrist being kept stiff meanwhile. To accomplish this needs much muscular strength, as the advantage of the loose wrist has to be discarded, and whenever the rapidity of the tempo increases, the stiffening of the wrist must increase also.

As far as the practice of octaves go, I do not think merely playing them in scales is efficacious, and, as I have already said, there are so many studies devised on this most difficult branch of piano technique that it is best to work with them. Those of Kullak are, I find, especially excellent. It is very unwise ever to work at octave playing for more than ten minutes at a time, as it is so fatiguing and may injure the arm if overdone. But there are ways of helping oneself to relieve exhaustion during long sequences of octaves. Some of these devices are useful for all, though generally each player finds out means for himself according to the structure of his own particular muscles.

To illustrate what I mean by these helps against fatigue, I will give an example from the A flat Polonaise of Chopin. The great octave passage in the second part for the left hand lasts 34 bars, which is a tremendous length, as all pianists know, and the strain may become almost unbearable.

Extract from the A flat Polonaise of Chopin, showing
Octave passage in left hand, which lasts 34 bars.

Here it is a considerable relief to think of the passage as in a semi-circular motion from left to right.

Above illustrating the mental device of placing each
group of four Octaves as component parts of half a circle.

Again, in the enormously difficult octave passage for the right hand in the Sixth Rhapsody of Liszt, it will be found to be of assistance to keep changing the position of the wrist from being high to becoming low.

First position of hand with wrist held high in Octave playing

This very small action of the wrist gives respite for a second from the tension, and sets the momentum of the nervous contraction going again.

Second position of hand in Octave playing,
with wrist held low to give relief from fatigue.

This same movement can apply to most continuous octave sequences of any length, provided they are in scale-like progressions, or in the form of reiteration. But for octaves which move in arpeggi, this same action would not answer, because here the mind has to be occupied with the matter of judging the distances, or I should rather say, feeling them. For all jumps are very uncertain quantities, and no eye judgment can be possible where a high rate of speed has to be obtained. Therefore in arpeggio-like octave passages only a mental device will be of any help in the difficulty. This contrivance is to imagine the octaves in groups of threes in the mind, no matter what the rhythm is in which they are written. I take an example out of the Hungarian Fantasie of Liszt for piano and orchestra to show the idea.

Extract from “Hungarian Fantasie” of Liszt,
showing difficult Octave passages.
Note : The lower bridging lines indicate the mental
measurement of the Octave passages
in Triplets. The upper lines

Thirds should be worked with pressure of the finger on the top note, that is to say, in the third of C and E the pressure should be on the E, in the third of D and F on the F, and so on up the scale.  (Picture 1) In continuing the scale, after having struck C, with the 1st finger or thumb (taking the right hand ascending), the finger is raised and D is approached with the 2nd finger. The 1st finger on the C is taken off very abruptly, almost as if it was on a spring hinge, whilst the top note E is held by the 3rd finger, which becomes slightly stiffened and is kept down after the lower one has been raised. (Picture 2 and 3) The bottom note of the third might almost be 3/4  of the value of the top note by the way it should be released, practically equivalent to the following example :

Example to show holding on of top note in Third Scales after lower note has been released.

though it will not be distinguishable in the sound of the rhythm. This method is, of course, only for slow practice; the action will disappear in fast tempi, but what will remain is a clearness of outline on the upper notes of the thirds, which is the object to be achieved. The wrist should be held higher than in ordinary scales, where it is kept low, except at the passage of the thumb. But by holding the wrist somewhat elevated in third scales, it ensues that the pressure of the top fingers is accentuated.

Although it be held higher than in single note scales, the wrist must still be kept absolutely relaxed, and the pressure must be obtained through the forearm acting direct upon the fingers. When the 5th finger is arrived at, it should be placed on the key on the side or ball of the finger, the wrist being meanwhile raised even a little more, and the hand inclined in the direction upwards to which it is proceeding. (Picture 4)

Descending, a similar inclined position is taken by the thumb. (Picture 5)

In the left hand it is the thumb in the ascending scale, and the 5th finger in the descending one which assumes the position.

At the end of this chapter on page 60 I give what I find the best fingering to be used for simple third scales, and also for chromatic scales in thirds.

Picture 1
Position of hand upon commencement of Third Scales

Picture 2
Position showing the raising of the lower finger whilst
the upper one is slightly stiffened and held on.

Picture 3
Position of hand in Third Scale after the progression from the
1st Third to the next one has been accomplished.

Picture 4
Right hand ascending assumes the above inclined position in
passing from the 5th and 3rd fingers to the 3rd and 1st.

Picture 5
Right hand descending, showing inclined position of the hand when
passing down from the thumb and 3rd fingers to the 5th and 3rd.