Height in piano playing

[paulpiano]

How much height do you use in piano playing, or may be not at all? What it's about here is the position of the fingers in connection with the keyboard.
If the keys are touched every time from the same height, may be an equal volume of sound for chord tones are more easily obtained... Not quite sure.
There are different schools. According to Leopold Godovsky, one of them is characterized by a pressure touch, another one is characterized by weight playing.
Some pianists like to use more height than others. Do you thing it has something to do with the aesthetics of sound?

[gyzzzmo]

If i may be honost, i think the generalising idea of these schools are abit nonsense.
Height and weight depends (to my opinion) on what youre playing. Example, if youre playing slow chords, you play with weight of the shoulders/arms. If youre playing fast notes theres not much shoulder action involved.
Also, whatever these schools are stating, types like Glenn Gould proof that its mainly about what the pianist himself likes, or how he got used to playing in the past.

Gyzzzmo

[dan101]

As a student, I was taught that some pianists sit a bit higher when a piece has many chords and octave passages, as opposed to, for example, a Mozart concerto. I was also told that this may or may not hold true for all performers.

Over the years, I have found as a professional that one height for any type of playing suits me fine. As for height and weight of an individual, that doesn't make all that much difference. Some of the shortest pianists that I know produce a huge volume of sound.

I hope I've touched upon some of the answers that you're looking for.

[counterpoint]

If the keys are touched every time from the same height, may be an equal volume of sound for chord tones are more easily obtained... Not quite sure.

The question is: which height?

Height of the finger, height of the knuckles, height of the wrist, height of the forearm etc.

And then it's different where the power comes from: from the finger (there are several possibilities how to use the finger), hand, wrist, arm etc.

So the sitting height is only one of many many factors that have an influence on the sound production / the volume of the sound.

Sitting too low will hinder the moveability of the arm, but besides from that, any sitting height is okay for me.

[guendola]

As a general rule one could say have the forearms horizontal while the fingers touch the keys - not lower, perhaps higher. Everything beyond that is very individual and experimenting is the best way to find out more.

[steinway43]

It's all individual. Find what works best for you.

[arrsr]

I also struggled with height - a good bench height to aid my alignment, height of wrist, palm, etc.  This all became clear to me after I started studying the Taubman technique.  There are so many variables with height.  First of all, there cannot be one answer because we all have five fingers which are all different lengths.  Realizing this made playing so much easier because I was not stretching or reaching anymore.  I also agree that your height will vary depending on what you are playing - chords, octaves, ect. and where you are playing on the keyboard - are you in front of yourself, high register, low register.

[lostinidlewonder]

I have generally played the piano in such a way that the black notes always feel under the hand. You should always be able to push your hands far into the keyboard and the black notes will gently touch the bottom of your hand. If the black notes cannot go under the hand then your position is too low. You find that when playing very loud like ff+ you will increase your height above the keyboard so that you can transmit more energy through your hands through the rest of your body(forearm, elbows, shoulders and back).