Colours And Shadings

[zhiliang]

Hi

I have always heard pianists speaking of playing the piano with colours and shadings and also thinking in terms of an orchestra. For example playing a phrase like how a flute would sound or a cello (not like how they really sound but the colour). How are we able to achieve this through our practices?

Zhiliang

[bernhard]

Good question.

First, “colour” and “shadings” are obviously visual metaphors. Sounds do not have “colours or shadings”. So the first question is what exactly are we talking about here?

Here are two conflicting viewpoints:

“Here are a few common phrases […] which quite obviously have no valid relation to piano playing: colour, a singing tone, marvellous legato. Beautiful tone, harsh tone. brittle tone […] No performer can colour tone unless he is in contact with the vibrator which produces tone. How can a tone be a singing one, when it starts diminishing the moment it is produced? How can a tone be harsh when all that can happen to it is an increase in volume?”
(Abby Whiteside – On Piano Playing – Amadeus Press).

”[…]tone colour is a topic that is quite controversial. It has been “proven” by some experts that it is only the volume of sound that can be altered and that altering tone quality is purely a matter of imagination. This may be true in playing a single note, but a series of sounds  in sequence is quite another matter: touch and tone quality are most personal things and they are clearly recognisable. […] Perhaps it is caused by the rate of acceleration of the speed of the hammers; perhaps it is the way the damper stops the sounds when it descends on the strings; perhaps it is the spacing of notes, the agogic qualities of the playing of the flexibility of metric units – these and many others may influence tone quality. But differences do exist!
(Gyorgy Sandor – On Piano Playing – Schirmer)

My own understanding is that what is referred as “colour” is actually timbre, that is, the quality of sound that makes a flute sound different from a clarinet and from a cello.

Timbre is a consequence of overtones. Flutes sound different from tubas because the pattern of overtone volumes are different and specific to each instrument. Therefore for the piano to imitate a flute, it would have to somehow mimic the overtones of a flute. Since the piano has its own overtone patterns (The peculiar sound of the piano), such mimicry can only be achieved by piling up the overtones of several notes (something melodic instruments like the flute cannot do, but the piano can), either by using the pedal, or by specific chordal/note configurations. Using the pedal is pretty much the performers responsibility. Chordal configurations is the composers responsibility. Most times you will need both (e.g. Debussy chordal configurations will not bring forth the desired effect if the pedal is not used to allow an overlap of overtones).

How do you practise this? I am afraid the only answer is to have extremely sensitive ears, and to know in your mind exactly what kind of sound you are trying to achieve and keep experimenting until you hit on the precise combination of co-ordinates that will get you the sound you are after.

I hope this thread doesn’t die, because this is a really interesting subject and I for one would like to hear what other people think about it.

Best wishes.
Bernhard.

[zhiliang]

Very well said Bernhard, but i believe that there must be some difference and like what you say timbre. Because 2 different pianists on a same piano in the same hall playing the same piece will sound so different in the tonal shadings.

I guess you are right in saying that having a sensitive ear and experimenting with different touches and pedal is the only way to achieving it.

I also believe in having in mind how you want the sound to project out, or else it will be even harder to produce it.

Does anyone else have anything to contribute on this topic?

Zhiliang

[nomis]

Time to dig this topic up.

Before "enlightenment" I've always wondered what critics were banging on about when they said "such and such pianist has a wide range of colours in his playing." They also say, "his tone was generally warm and loving, but occasionally in the louder passages, it became hard and percussive." I still do not know what is, or how to achieve "good" tone but I can tell differences in tone colour because of one recording. That recording is Vladimir Horowitz's Scarlatti disc from the 1960's. When you listen to the fast scalic passages he plays, they are bright and rippling, but when you hear him play cantabile, the way the melody sounds is totally different. You can try this for yourself at the piano. Take the C major scale and play it fast legato, half-legato (portamento, I think it's called) and staccato. Listen carefully and you should be able to detect differences in the way they sound.  In the legato scale, the notes will be melding into each other, whereas the staccato scale just sounds, detached.

You have to listen extremely carefully to recordings to detect a difference, and unfortunately they're not so marked as they are in the Scarlatti disc. It is harder to detect variety in tone colour of recordings of romantic pieces, as the style does not differ so often as in Scarlatti's wonderful miniatures. Hmm...I'm not proceeding in a structured manner, so I'll stop.

[asyncopated]

Hi

Does any one have a further comment on how the attack (just one single note to begin with) affects tone colour (or timbre)?  I was told by my teacher (and i think this is absolutely right) that I must first support every note by putting my forearm, wrist and possibly elbow and shoulder behind the note, to make a singing sound. 

I've also read that to make a nice singing tone there are two basic ways to do so, one is to play deeply into the key, if the volume required is mezzo forte or less.  As you depress each note there is a perpetual feeling of your finger digging down.  Other way is to use your fingers like a hammer and bounce it off the keys, (possibly digging in at the same time).   The second technique should also be used for staccato and can make the piano sound like a plucked instrument -- harp or harpsichord.

This is to try and hide the fact that the piano uses a hammer mechanism (ironically).  The two techniques stated above can be used to mask the attack (the moment when the hammer hits the string). The first is to slow down the action of when the hammer hits the string the feeling of pressing the keys deeply is so that the action follows through correctly. C.f. playing tennis.   On the other hand, the second is to make the hammer hit quickly and pull back immediately, to get out of the way of the string and let it vibrate freely. From what I've read, it is a combination of these movements makes the different tone colours for a single note.  I'm not sure how to combine these two actions, as the seem completely different to me, but I do try to listen carefully to the attack of each note.  Does anyone know of other ways to create a good sound?

Having tried these, I’m not sure if I'm getting the first method right, but as for the second, it certainly makes a nice bright and focused sound.  Also, I do find that if you curl your fingers (as suggested by my teacher) in as you play, it does give the hammer that extra velocity to produce a better tone.

Any comments about this?

Here are some other thoughts. 

The piano is a distinctly non-legato instrument (that is compared to the violin or flute) but in music today, many (mainly my teacher and friends) speak about a singing tone, a legato line though your phrases, and breathing.  Although one can with good technique, produce a reasonable legato line -- such that it feels as if each phrase is support by one single breath, is not really asking to much of a piano?   I was just wondering if Bach was ever this concerned about the legato line?  Although, I was also told that he did insist on a sigh motif (cantatas).  Is the legato line a romantic invention on steroids (perhaps for the better), just as the vibrato was?

I've recently went to a couple of concerts by good pianists (e.g. Volodos).  What does amaze me completely is that I get the feeling that each note played was very carefully weighted for volume and tone colour, on its own and in connection to the other notes.  How do they do this?  Does this come naturally after a while or do you have to sit at the piano and try out different ways of playing almost every note -- playing in slow motion for every piece you learn.  This is what I'm doing.  What I[ve noticed as well, is that I don't achieve absolute consistency, even when playing slowly the sound comes out slightly differently for different practice sessions.  Aught one practice to the point where the sound produced is (almost) exactly the same all the time, or is that impossible, inpractical or even unadvisable?   

Yet more questions.
 
Are the analogies used for colours too limited?  Since the piano is such a popular instrument, (just look at the repertoire available specifically for piano) should the piano not have its own tonal description, so that a teacher can make suggestions more accurately to a student, or columnist can describe sensations more accurately?  Has anyone attempted this? Will this be useful at all, or is it just too confusing.  Are our ears/brain highly developed enough to distinguish the differences clearly -- I believe they are.  It is useless if nobody agrees on what they are speaking about.     

If you want to make it more scientific, that's possible as well.  The timber or overtones manifest as harmonics of the base frequency, as well as a signatures of a spread around the base -- just look at the graphic equalizer of your radio (although, it might not be sensitive enough).  E.g. A is not exactly 440 Hz, it's mainly 440, but there is also some 220 Hz and 880 Hz (Also, As in different octaves) as well as some 440.05 Hz and 439.95 Hz... you get the drift.  Perhaps it is possible to see how the attack changes the harmonics of the note produced.   Please remember that here; I'm just referring to a single note.   Making a statement like imitate a violin or a harp tends to be extremely vague. 

It is amazing to see how with basic elements of producing a single note, using the essentially limited action of a piano (compared to say the violin or guitar); we get such the wide variation in tonal quality.

al.

P.S. More to do with tone -- I need to learn to make my writing sound less 'sex and the city' like.

[berrt]

Hi
It is amazing to see how with basic elements of producing a single note, using the essentially limited action of a piano (compared to say the violin or guitar); we get such the wide variation in tonal quality.
like.

It cooks down to the question: Is it possible to produce a different sound with exactly the same volume playing a single note (i dont believe that)? With chords it is a completely different matter because of the variety of each note to contribute to the overall volume (is it in any way clear what i want to say??).

Berrt

[lostinidlewonder]

To me Color is the written sheet music, Shading is your ability to color the music. Music to me is like a child's coloring in book. You see it, it is blank, has no color, just the outline of the picture which you have to get your pencils and color in. So color to me is like the empty pictures in a childs coloring in book, you can see what it is, but you have no concept as to what choice of shading to use. Shading then to me, is your ability to control the structure of the music, how well you actually color in the picture. Color is the genius stroke of composers writing, it is the skills of the composers which bound all choice of notes/rhythm together. We can't effect color(the empty picture), that is always there, what we must do is shade it all right, or it looks like a kids book with untidy coloring in, going outside lines, using wrong colors, mixing them up etc.

Color and Shading to me seems to be simply the sound control of notes, the expression. It has nothing to do with accuracy of notes, people can play very inaccurately but have wonderful color and shading (even though wrong notes take away from the sounds overall effect it doesn't totally destroy it, that is why in exams some teachers are kinder than others when note mistakes are done, beacuse they can see through that and still sense the expressive nature of your playing, but some cant so they fail you.)

The progression of chords generates infinite ideas. For instance, play a C major then a C minor, we all know the minor of course naturally has the more "sad" sound than the C major, the color is set, major to minor will alway create a happy to sadder feel.  Think of its shadings now, if we play the Cmaj soft then slam out the minor, that shades the idea differently than Cmaj very loud to a soft Cmin. If we finish loudly then we think, oh it must continue, the color of the loud Cmin demands that it is connected to more. But if it is very quiet and controlled then it seems to be a resting point. If the Cmaj is soft it sounds like an ending, then if the Cmin is loud then it sounds like we are starting a new group of notes but in the minor. The color is happy to a sad (like bright yellow to dark purple lol something like that), but the shading depends on the movement of the music. How do you shade it? Are the colors just juxtaposed next to one another, or are they blended, smudged? Do you just play them both the same volume? Is one louder than the other, is one shorter in sound than the other etc etc. All these things effect the movement between two chords.

From Cmaj to Cmin we could have quite a few different varitiaions of rhythm, added notes inbetween each, volume or touch quality(stacatto, legato, marcato etc) each of which has a reason(connect, introduce parts of the piece etc), you must understand those reasons if you want to crack how to present the color/shading.

How well you construct/present musical ideas is color and shading. What do I mean by constructing color and shade? Well if you come up to a cresendo for instance, do you just get louder on the overall group of notes or do you select notes which gradually pull the sound louder and louder?  This would make your control of the cresendo a lot more intimate and focued. You see this is the best way to discover shading and color of music in my opinion, break expressive ideas of the bar(s) into partilcular notes which effect the change most, and play in a stepwise fashion each one note which alters the sound. Then you go back and make these sharp stepwise alterations into a more smoother curve progresion. That to me is controlling the color/shade of music, knowing how to make your progressions move smooth like a curve not stepwise, and knowing when to make it very sharp and stepwise (immediant tempo/volume alterations etc).

Moving to a cresendo for instance. You can shade it in very routine, just get a little louder, or you can shade it more detailed with more contrast in sound, start a lot softer than you usually would and get a lot louder. That increases the length and bounds of your expression (color and shading), also choosing which few notes draw the sound louder and making the progression between each intimately felt (feeling and observing the shape that the notes which effect the sound stepwise make) will increase your color/shading ability. Of course we cant play ppp to fff on every cresendo that is ridiculous, that is where we must make the musical desicion as to what is best, and that is what makes us all unique in our playing.

That also comes up, what is f for you is maybe mf for others, maybe your pp touch is someone elses f touch, although the latter would require one person to have playing problems. f and mf are good examples, where does one find the common point where the volumes comes from? A lot of music when i play is much more naturally heard, i dont think ok this is loud lets play louder coming from my arm. no, its more automatic. But i think that it is first important to have a concept of where all the volumes physically come from. I wrote this before here: https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,7150.msg71298.html#msg71298

I guess what i try to say is that we need some common tools used for our color, or maybe music is so various that we all shade the color in with constantly unique tools. I dont think so, i feel that we all must have some common ground and then the variation of that is our personality.

[pianonut]

good explaination!  and i like everyone explaining their perceptions, too, whether real or perceived (audience hearing what composer intended).  it seems that, to follow the coloring idea, you have to get 'into' the feel of the piece and play different composer's music in different ways. over the years, i've almost found it to be different meditative qualities before playing.  i was once told to at least have the first few bars in my head.  i take it much further now, and if i am supposed to play (even accompaniment), i go through as much of the piece in my head as i have time for.  it sets the mood, the dynamics, the tempos, everything.  then, i go back and do it for real.  my shadings have to be worked on (i admit), but i do have in my head the timbres that i want to get out of a particular piano (hopefully one i've had a chance to play before).

on another forum, i debated a similar question about tone.  i believed it was the quality of the piano...and my friend thought it was more moveable (but possibly he's still thinking on it) to how one approaches the keys with the fingers (i think that's what he said).  i stick with my theory that tone=color=piano, to me  but modify my understanding of shading to match lostinidlewonder.  say you have one of those huge crayons and you're trying to shade a detailed picture.  you say, ok, i'll do the best i can.  then you get a better tool (skinny crayon) and your picture is more refined.  (ok - i have many crayons at my disposal and have thought more about this).  whenever a piano is truly in tune (harmonics ringing in the upper atmosphere), i just think my playing sounds colorful vs a piano that has keys that are too floppy (can't control dynamics at all), and sort of medium tuned. 

[asyncopated]

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.  This is very interesting. 

It cooks down to the question: Is it possible to produce a different sound with exactly the same volume playing a single note (i don’t believe that)?

I definitely need to be more accurate.  What I mean by this is tone colour, and I still think that you can have different tone colours from a single note (maybe I should call it shading).  So here is an experiment, which if people try and tell me that they think, I will be very happy!

First get yourself a good piano!  It does make a difference unfortunately .   My previous piano was a $600 China made piano and now I have a $5000 German upright and it makes a huge difference.  With a bad piano, everything sounds the same and it is difficult to hear the nuances in the sound.  So I agree with pianonut, but I think it is a combination.  I do think that your movement does make a huge difference, only if you have a sensitive piano.

Ok, so if you have some time, try the following

1.  Use a hard object, like a ruler or a pen and use that to play a note (near middle C because we are better at hearing sounds in that range) Now use a pencil with a rubber attached to the end and try playing the same note with that.  Use the same amount of force each time, so that the volume is approximately similar.

Is there a difference in the sound?

Try exactly the same thing with the following

2. Playing only with your knuckle joints, and trying to keep your forearm and wrist stationary,  play with your finger tips , the bit closest to your nails.  Try that again with your finger pads, located around the middle your last joint.   

3. Now try the same, engaging your wrist and forearm.  With your finger tips, play downwards, (like playing a big fat cord) deep into the key, keeping your wrist flexible.  Finally with your finger pads, play forwards, into the piano (the black keys) like giving a friendly punch. 

Just interested to know if people hear differences in the sound.  If you do hear a difference in the sound (like I think I do, but I may be delusional) this is what I mean by different tone colours (or shadings). 

With chords it is a completely different matter because of the variety of each note to contribute to the overall volume (is it in any way clear what i want to say??).
[/quate]

I certainly agree that different chord evoke different emotions, about perhaps that's what people mean by tone colour.  I need to get better semantics.

So here a application of tone colour (I think).  I've been playing little bits from Schumann's Kinderszanen.  It is an amazing composition.  One thing that does play a role in the interpretation of the piece, which I would like to incorporate into my playing, is the idea of distance.  (This is strictly my interpretation and I may change my mind later.)  One of the beautiful things with the cycle is that some of the pieces sound fantastically distant e.g. (About foreign lands and people, Dreaming and The poet speaks) and others sound very intimate (Knight on a hobby horse).  One of the things I have been trying to achieve, rather unsuccessfully, because I don't know how, is to put distance and intimacy into my sound.   This has nothing to do with volume.  You can play something loud and distant, and you can pay something soft and intimate.  I think it has to do with tone colour (shading) and right now, I'm just experimenting to see how I can achieve this.   If you have any advice whatsoever, I’m all ears!

al.

[faulty_damper]

I'll make a short reply and maybe if I have time make a more thorough one.

Tone is highly dependent on how the piano is constructed.  Different steel wires have different timbres.  Different hammer size, shape, and weight affects how these wires vibrate.  The iron frame which holds these strings together transfers the vibrations to the soundboard and how the soundboard vibrates depends on what type of wood. its size and shape of it.

Climate also changes the tone as it affects the strings, the wood, the felt, the leather.