Don't Fight Gravity!

In my last post, I talked about something called the “gravity drop.” I think it’s important to take a closer look at it for you to really see how physics can work with you or against you when you play the piano. Try this exercise to see how the gravity drop works with your own hands and your own piano:

1. Place your right hand on the piano and your fingers (1, 3, and 5) in the correct position to play the chord, C-E-G.
2. Remember to keep your entire arm and body relaxed.
3. Keep your wrists flexible, and begin to lift your hand about 5 to 20 centimeters above the keys.
4. Allow gravity to let your hand drop, and let your hand and fingers drop as one entire unit, without moving the fingers.
5. Your hands should be completely relaxed during the entire drop, and then as your fingers come to impact the keys, you need to “set” your fingers and wrists to take the shock of landing and depressing those keys (remember to keep flexibility in your wrists).

You are now letting gravity lower your hand, therefore referencing your strength or sensitivity to a completely constant force. Maybe it doesn’t seem that interesting right now, but to really dig deep into piano playing, it’s necessary to look at how physics compliments the structure of the human body to create, you guessed it, music.

Did you know that an underweight 6 year-old and an enormous sumo wrestler dropping their hands from the exact same height onto the piano will produce sounds of equal loudness?

Why does this happen? This happens because the speed of gravitational fall is actually independent of weight or mass and the piano hammer will be launched into free flight as soon as the knuckles are taken off the jack, which are the last few millimeters before striking the strings.

If you majored in physics, you might say, “Ok, what about kinetic energy? Kinetic energy is conserved so the above statements are not precisely true.”

Piano keys do not have the mechanical structure to physically act like an “elastic collision.” In an elastic collision, the piano key would fly off the fingertip at a high velocity, sort of like when you play staccato. However, because the fingers are kept relaxed and fingertips soft, inelastic collisions are produced and kinetic energy is not conserved. The smaller mass, which are the piano keys, can stay with the larger mass, which are your fingers/arm/hands, which results in a controlled key drop.

Now, the sumo wrester will probably create a slightly louder sound because of his arm being 20 times heavier (momentum conservation), but the difference between his sound and the sound of the 6 year-old will be relatively small.

So, what’s so great about practicing YOUR gravity drop?

Using gravity to lower your hands allows you to rid yourself of all forces and all tenseness that cause some of your fingers to land before others. And most importantly, using the gravity drop allows you to practice relaxation.

Gravity is the perfect force for playing the piano, and it’s no coincidence. Human beings have evolved under the complete influence of gravity; walking, running, jumping, and of course, playing the piano. Just remember that you only need the amount of force that is relatively equal to that supplied by gravity. You don’t need to bang the keys or keep your hands tense. This will be detrimental to your practicing. It’s a great idea to practice the gravity drop for a number of weeks or even months, every time you practice. Once you are truly relaxed, you’ll be able to feel the gravitational effect on your hands as you play.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

At the time of impacting the keys, stiffening your hand will ensure that your entire weight of your arm will transfer to the key drop. However, make sure not to add force during the stiffening. This takes practice. A pure gravity drop becomes more difficult as you increase the height of your hand. That’s why I recommended a height of 5 to 20 centimeters from the keys. Choosing a height of 5 centimeters will be easier because you will have a better chance of not adding your own forceful impact in combination to gravity.

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Relax!

As you build up your speed in your piano playing, it becomes more and more important to learn how to relax at the same time. Generally, this means that you should only be using the muscles that are needed to play. You can achieve relaxation much easier by practicing your pieces hands separately. Here are a couple pieces of advice that I follow during my practice routines:

It is better not to practice at all than it is to practice with even the slightest bit of tension. It’s much more efficient to relax and play a single note, and then advance carefully; only playing those easy materials that can be played relaxed.

Do not forget to relax all areas of the body, including breathing and periodic swallowing. You thought hands and arms and fingers were the only parts of the body needing relaxation? Well, think again. Some students will stop breathing when they find themselves playing very demanding pieces because the muscles are anchored at the chest. If you’re throat is dry after playing, it means that you also stopped swallowing. My piano teacher told me a horror story of her younger years when she had been playing for an audience at a recital, when all of a sudden she started choking on her own breath right in the middle of her playing.

To fully relax, you must find the proper energy and momentum balance as well as arm, hand, and finger positions and motions that allow you to play with the right amount of energy. This may seem complicated, and it can be. Relaxing can require a lot of experimentation. If you have been concentrating on relaxing on a regular basis during your practice routines, then you should be able to quickly execute this. For those who haven’t been practicing their relaxation, you can try practicing an easy piece until you build up stress, and then try to relax. For this, you’ll need to find different motions and positions of the arms, wrists, and body. When you find them, you’ll feel the stress gradually drain away from you.

The most important element of relaxation is energy conservation. There are at least two different ways to conserve energy. Firstly, do not use unnecessary muscles, and secondly, turn off those muscles as soon as their jobs are done. Again, this is easier said than done. You can experiment with this using the gravity drop, During a gravity drop, you allow gravity to pull the arm down, but at the end of the key drop, you need to add tension to the finger for a moment to stop the hand. Then you need to quickly relax all of your muscles, but do not lift the hand. Just rest it comfortably on the piano with just enough force to support the weight of your arm. This is a lot harder than you would assume, because the elbow is practically floating in mid air. You can test whether or not you are pressing down by taking the arm off the keys and resting your forearm on your legs, completely relaxed. Then you can carry over that same feeling to the end of your gravity drop.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

Without relaxation, neither music nor technique could be possible. Technique comes from the brain. Non-musical playing actually violates so many aspects of nature that it interferes with the human brain’s natural processes for controlling the mechanisms of playing. Basically, if you spend your practice sessions doing mindless repetitions, you will find yourself going through a long, roundabout way of learning piano.

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Firstly, I will give a short introduction of myself. Even though there is an About Me tab on this blog, I find it proper to at least tell you a few things about myself considering the fact that this is my very first post to this blog.

My name is Elise and I am 22 years old. I live in the suburbs of Toronto, Ontario. I just finished my Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology this past spring and now I am working at a web-hosting company as a billing representative.

Did that sound enough like a cover letter for a resume? I think it did. Now onto some more personal stuff. Music? I play music!

I started training classically for piano at the age of 8 and stopped at the age of 18, right before I moved away to university. The highest certificate I achieved was my grade 7 practical examination with Conservatory Canada.

I used to absolutely hate training professionally for piano. I hated the technique, chords, scales, and all that other fingering stuff that sounded horrible and practically crippled my fingers. Over past 5 or so years that I stopped training professionally, I realized that I truly do have a strong passion for music and piano… just not the technique that goes with it.

Although I don’t like to admit it, I know for a fact that training all those years and perfecting my fingering technique has definitely helped my ability to learn songs and pieces.

Ever see someone try to play a few notes on the piano and their hands and fingers are just so stiff that they can barely stretch one note over? Yep. That’s where finger technique comes into play. It’s horrible to learn, but definitely worth it.

So, I plan on adding a few things to this blog and also plan on getting my main website (www.elisemoreau.com) up and ready to view. I plan on filming myself playing a few pieces and putting them in the Videos tab. I also have a ton of music I’ve collected over the years, and I think it would be great to share some of that music for free (the non-copyrighted sheet music, that is). I’ll be looking to put that underneath the Sheet Music tab, of course.

Please stay tuned for very frequent updates (I’m trying for daily postings here) and more development with the blog tabs and my main website in general. I was just so eager to start blogging, so here I am with my first post! Also, I’ll leave you with a little musical hint for the day to end each post nicely J.

Elise’s Musical Tip For The Day:

Getting back to my reference to stiff hands… Relax! When you’re playing the piano, try to touch the keys very lightly and gently. If you’re feeling stiff or frustrated or your mind is somewhere else, it’s best to leave the piano and find something to do to calm your mind (take a bubble bath, go for a walk, listen to soothing music, etc.). When you feel relaxed enough, come back to your piano. A relaxed hand is a much more effective hand!

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