Tag Archives: piano action

How to Make Your Melody Float on Water

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today I’m going to show you how to make your melody float on water. What am I talking about? You want to be able to have your melody soar above a bed of rippling currents. The accompaniment in the left hand is like the rippling waves, with the melody in the right hand floating above. I’m going to tell you how to achieve this!

You must find really great fingering for the left hand in order to achieve a delicate legato.

The way to discover good fingering is by practicing without the pedal. Support the melody in the right hand with a lot of arm weight, so the melody can be above the accompaniment, and then play with a very fluid legato in the left hand. By playing without the pedal, you can hear what’s involved in this process. You’ll hear the fluidity of the left hand. You have to find fingering that enables that kind of legato.

The other side of this is that you must have a buoyant melody that rises above the accompaniment.

Why is this so difficult? For two reasons. First of all, high notes don’t last very long on the piano compared to low notes. And on top of that, you have more notes in the left hand. The left hand is faster than the right hand, so it’s a double whammy. So you must create an angularity in your balance where the melody is much louder than the accompaniment. But how can you achieve it without making it sound harsh?

The secret is to transfer the weight of the arm smoothly from note to note.

Instead of articulating each separate note, use the weight of the arm to smoothly transfer from key to key achieving a fluid line, like the breath of a singer or the bow of a string player, so each note floats to the next. You can never achieve a smooth line by calculating from note to note. It will end up sounding calculated! When you transfer the weight of the arm smoothly from key to key, you get a fluid line. By doing this, you can play with tremendous energy without getting a harsh sound. Remember, the piano is a percussion instrument. When you’re playing a beautiful melody, how can you make it sound smooth? Use the weight of the arm in the right hand and a smooth left hand that’s very beautiful, but underplayed. Find a fingering where you can play that extreme legato.

Practice incessantly without the pedal so you can find the fingering that enables this.

That is the secret! Find great fingering in the left hand, practice without the pedal, and use the weight of the arm in order to get a smooth line. Try it in your playing! Let us know how it works for you in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and on YouTube! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

For premium videos and exclusive content, you can join my Living Pianos Patreon channel! www.Patreon.com/RobertEstrin

Contact me if you are interested in private lessons. I have many resources for you! Robert@LivingPianos.com

How Can A Piano With A Heavy Action Feel Light?

Thanks for joining us here at LivingPianos.com. I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is, “How Can A Piano With A Heavy Action Feel Light?” How can that be possible? Believe it or not, we have discovered this to be true! Sometimes we get a piano in and the action feels comfortable and light, but when the technicians weigh it out it’s really heavy. Typically, you want somewhere between 48 – 60 grams of down weight. Of course the lower notes on a piano are harder to push down than the higher notes. The keys are longer and the hammers have more felt. So, the action doesn’t have the same weight throughout the keyboard. But, generally, a piano should be somewhere in that 48 – 60 gram zone. A piano that has 65 – 70 grams of down weight in the middle register is a heavy piano. We have had some pianos with heavy actions that didn’t feel heavy. The flip side is also true. Sometimes a piano feels heavy and it’s not. You feel like you’re working so hard to push down the keys. How can this be?

It comes down to psychoacoustics.

The amount of energy you have to expend to get sound out makes you feel like a piano action is either heavy or light. For example, let’s say you’re playing a 9 foot concert grand piano with bright voicing and a heavy action in a very small, live room. If you play that piano in that room, you will feel like you barely have to touch the keys to get a big sound. The heavy action will feel light to you. The opposite can also be true. Let’s say you’re playing a small piano in a big room that has carpet, drapes, and soft furniture absorbing all the sound. You’re working so hard to get sound out that it feels heavy to you! So, there’s more to action weight than you might think. I will say this: If your piano action is extremely heavy, you could possibly do hand damage. So, you want to avoid actions that are out of that zone. Secondly, if a piano is really light, let’s say in the low 40s, it’s almost impossible to get very fast repetition because you don’t have any weight to overcome the friction of the action. That’s why there’s a certain zone of normal action weight. Within that range, there’s heavy normal and light normal. Psychoacoustics play a role in that as well.

It’s important to match your piano to your room to have the right playing experience.

There’s nothing worse than having a piano that you have to keep closed because it’s too loud. Or conversely, if you have a small grand piano in a school or a church in a big auditorium everyone’s pounding the heck out of it trying to get the sound out. This will wear out the piano quickly, and the piano will produce an ugly, harsh sound. So it’s very important to consider the acoustics in your room, as well as the weight of the action.

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store.
Please feel free to contact me with any piano related questions for future videos!

info@LivingPianos.com
949-244-3729

Are Keys all the Same Weight across the Piano? What is a Weighted-Graded Action?

You may have noticed that the feel on some pianos is heavier than on other pianos. But did you know that the keys on any piano are different weight across the keyboard? All pianos have gradually heavier feel the lower you play on the keyboard! There are 2 reasons for this you can observe if you look inside a piano:

The keys (behind the fallboard) get longer and longer as you get lower across the keyboard.

The hammers are thicker and heavier the lower you go on the keyboard.

This is why the keys on pianos are harder to push down in the bass section than in the treble. You are moving more mass with longer keys and heavier hammers the lower you play on the keyboard.

Digital piano manufacturers attempt to mimic this feel by creating different weight in zones across the keyboard. Soon, there will be a digital piano on the market which will have a truly weighted-graded action transitioning smoothly from key to key across the entire keyboard, not just in zones. Stayed tuned to Living Pianos to hear about this new technology!

Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Store info@LivingPianos.com 949-244-3729

What is an Acceptable Level of Action Noise on a Piano?

What is an acceptable level of action noise on a piano? You might not have ever thought about this before, but the action indeed with almost a hundred parts to each note can have some noise to it, particularly older actions. There is a way I like to test pianos. First of all, having the lid opened or closed is going to make a dramatic difference in the amount of action noise you hear. When a piano is open on a grand piano or in an upright that has the possibility of lifting up the lid or some other way of getting the sound out, you’re going to hear the mechanical noise of the action.

One way you can test how much noise your action has is to push down on a bunch of keys with the palms of your hands and then let up very quickly. Pianos that are older and are located in dry environments can have dried out leather and felt parts. This can cause extraneous noise. There can be a lot of reasons for that. So, what do you do about such a thing? Well, if the parts are not too far gone, sometimes they can be treated with chemicals to soften them up or even brushed with metal brushes to get these parts to soften up to lessen the action noise. Other times, the parts are too far gone and parts do have to be replaced in order to get a high level of performance and to minimize the level of noise.

So what is an acceptable level of noise depends upon the kind of music you play as well as the situation. For example, if you like to play aggressive pop music or rock, action noise is really not going to be much of a problem because the sound of your music is always going to be above the level of the action noise. Perhaps for a new age pianist or anyone who plays delicate music, the noise could be more distracting. As I mentioned earlier, if the piano is opened or closed, it is going to determine how much noise you hear from the action.

In recording situations, it can be vital to have a dead quiet action, particularly if you use close miking techniques for certain types of sonorities. The miking of a piano has a dramatic effect upon its tone. A close microphone can capture a very intimate kind of compressed sound that can be very appealing for certain styles of music, but you must have a really quiet action or it can be very distracting to your recordings. So, you can determine if action noise is a problem for you on your piano. I hope this has been helpful for you – info@LivingPianos.com

What is a Square Grand Piano?

You may have heard of a square grand piano, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t. Square grand pianos are an interesting side note in the development of the piano. They have a unique design that looks like a coffin when closed. But are they good instruments?

The piano has had a long development from the harpsichord to the early forte pianos from the Classical era. In the 19th century there was massive development of the piano bringing about the modern piano we know and love today. I have more information about this in my show, Living Piano: Journey Through Time – Historic Concert Experience.

In the mid to late 19th century we got an iteration of the piano that would soon become only an interesting footnote in its eventual development; the square grand piano. They are sometimes referred to as “coffin pianos” because when they are closed they look like a coffin. These pianos are certainly distinct in their appearance but technically they are inferior instruments.

Instead of aligning the strings with the keys – like a traditional piano – they are perpendicular. This means that the keys on one end of the keyboard are much longer than the keys on the other end of the keyboard. The part of the keys that are longer and shorter are behind the fallboard, not the part you see unless you remove the action – otherwise it appears as a normal keyboard to the player.

Here is an example of an action from a square grand piano:

Image from Worthpoint.com

Notice how the keys get shorter and shorter.

Because of this design choice, these actions were notoriously difficult to regulate with any kind of consistency. Only a skilled technician who is used to working with these type of actions can get them regulated properly. Yet, even then they don’t respond as well as modern piano actions.

These instruments fell out of favor and the design was abandoned. They were not known to be particularly good instruments and they had problematic actions. However, the designs of the cases are particularly elegant and many of them have ornate carvings. These instruments are much better suited to a museum than in the home of a serious pianist.

I welcome everyone’s comments and would love to hear your opinion of square grand pianos. Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729

Wood Piano Actions Vs. Plastic Piano Actions

This is a very interesting topic and one that is relevant to the reality of modern day piano building. There was a time when piano actions were made entirely of wood parts but with advances in technology come newer and cheaper alternatives. Today we are going to discuss whether or not plastic actions are as good – or better – than their wooden counterparts.

If you’ve ever looked at a piano action you notice the sheer complexity of it – there are literally thousands of parts. For centuries, piano actions were made out of wood. As time went on and plastics became better, some piano companies began experimenting with putting plastic into their actions in order to cut down on costs.

Early attempts at incorporating plastic parts in actions in the 1950s and 1960s – were wrought with problems because the plastic would become brittle and break over time. These piano actions can be a nightmare to work on and generally should be avoided.

In recent years plastics have come a long way. In fact, Wessel, Nickel & Gross have invented a carbon fiber action that has no wooden parts at all! These actions play differently from traditional actions and are very high quality and can be found in new Mason & Hamlin pianos.

Generally, companies started to rely on plastic parts in their actions because they are easier and cheaper to mass produce. This is not technically a bad thing but most of the companies that are cutting costs are using plastic for some parts of their actions and not all of them. This can cause problems because wood will expand and contract with changes in the weather and room climate – yet plastic will not. This can create problems in some situations with notes hanging up. If you live in a place with widely different temperatures sometimes an all wood or all synthetic action will be a better choice for you.

Another issue with plastic actions are new designs and technologies that require new skill sets to work with. A wood action has been the standard for so long that any reputable piano technician should be able to work with them. When it comes to plastic actions or carbon fiber actions, you might have to search for someone who is familiar with those particular actions and possibly have access to spare parts if necessary.

There are many great companies like Kawai and Mason & Hamlin that utilize plastic and synthetics in their piano actions and they have had great results. However, the vast majority of great pianos in the world still utilize wooden actions – such as Hamburg Steinway and Bösendorfer (which both use Renner Actions made entirely out of wood).

More than anything, it’s finding the right piano and action for you. You should certainly be wary of actions that mix wood and plastic in more extreme climates but overall there are new technologies available that are worth your consideration.

Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com (949) 244-3729