What is good tone?

[Bob]

I'm just wondering out loud.

I don't really like my tone.  Too loud all the time I think.

What goes into good tone?  Voicing the line and balancing the chords?  Slow drop into the keys?

How do you get a really good tone?

[leucippus]

I don't know whether it's because I'm work on my pianos and I'm familiar with the mechanics of the action, or whether it's because I also play the violin and so the desire for good tone from that carries over to the piano, but I seem to have a pretty good feel for how to produce the tone I want on a piano.

All of my pianos are quite old though.  And even though I have worked on them some, the hammers are still flat-footed.  I know I'm not getting the kind of tone that I would like.  But I can still do quite a bit with it.

I can't really describe how I do it, but I have a real dynamic with the action when I press a key.  I actually 'play' the action.  I have no clue how to put that into words.   But it's has nothing at all do to with how hard or light I press on the keys, it has to more with the type of momentum I impart to the hammer.  I'm actually bouncing hammer off strings.  I'm not 'pressing keys'.

I mean, obviously I have to press the keys to bounce the hammers off the strings, but in my mind I'm not just pressing keys, I'm 'working' the action. 

That's the only way I know how to describe it. 

[counterpoint]

What goes into good tone?  Voicing the line and balancing the chords?  Slow drop into the keys?

I would say, good tone on the piano is to a great part a case of proper timing.
If you play physically loud on the piano that means also it will sound hard and sharp. So if you want to play loud but with flexible and round sound, you have to do this by playing with less force but with more rubato (taking more time for important notes). The same case, when playing accents in a pianissimo piece. Accents often do not mean to play physically louder, but taking more time for a note (and playing it after the regular time), or playing the note before the regular time, if it's a sharp accent.

[jonslaughter]

Good tone is the essence of musicality. You can take two people and have them "play" the exact same music but one could have good tone and the other bad.  Why?  Why does a computer that "plays" the "same" music sound bad?  Good tone is simply all the mechanics and interpretation involved when playing music.  Music comes to us in the form of written notation. All the nuances for a good performance are not notated and hence there is lots of room for interpretation.

I think there are two aspects of good "tone". The first is a mechanical one that has to do with the instrument itself along with the recording and effects and such.  The second is the performance. You can take two people playing on the exact same instrument but one person might make the instrument sound better than the second.  The reason is obviously not because the instrument in this case but because how we perceive the music.   Sometimes its very hard to separate the actual tone from the instrument from the tone produced by the performance. 

For me though when I think of tone I think of purely the mechanical/physical sound produced by the instrument without any performance issues to get in the way(e.g., playing one note and looking at the frequency spectrum is a good way to see this).  You can take the "best" performer in the world and put him on a crappy instrument and he will sound like crap. You can take the worst performer in the world and put him on the best instrument and he will still sound bad(but better).

As far as the performance side of "tone" there are many factors.  I believe the most important is fluency.  When playing, if you cannot play the part well then it will come out. You will be accenting the notes wrong, your timing will be off, not bringing out the correct part, etc...  All these faults sound as if you are not "fluent" in what you do. This is very similar to listening to a foreign speaker. 

So, for the performance side of tone you have many things.  Timing, interpretation, dynamics, fluency, knowledge, etc...  Its so complicated that if you haven't learned it by osmosis then it will probably take a very long time. The best advice I can give you is to get a recording of your favorite performer and a copy of the sheet music and see what he does.  In most cases you will notice that classical performers will play the harmony very soft while bringing out the melody. They also will, in general, not play the rhythms or timings exactly as notated because it will sound mechanical(in general the cadences are sped or slowed down).  They will also accent notes that are not shown as accents.  Try listening to the same performer with similar pieces by the same composer and see how the performer tends to handle similar situations.  Also note that different styles of music call for different methods of performance. 

You have to remember that it is up to you to make the music sound good.  You should follow the performance markings in the notation as these are provided by the composer but they are not necessary(although you should follow them if possible).  But also the composer didn't notate every little thing and sometimes its because its standardized. i.e., its common knowledge(or suppose to be) about how to play it.

Just get in the habit of listening to what you play and if it does sound right then try to fix it.   First make sure you can play it fluently and then try to make it sound good. Eventually you will develop your own style and if you put in the time then it will probably sound good. 

Also note that no matter how good a performer you are that if your instrument sucks in tone then the performance will suck.  So make sure your instrument is decent enough(it doesn't have to be great but should be good enough as to be able to get something musical from it). 

[leucippus]

Also note that no matter how good a performer you are that if your instrument sucks in tone then the performance will suck.

This is absolutely true.  As terribly new as I am to playing, I have already outgrown my instruments.  They simply aren't capable of producing the quality of sound that I'm am capable of playing.  My hammers are flat-footed and I'm all too well-aware of that fact.  I can feel it when I play.  It's like hitting the strings with a board instead of a pointy hammer head.  The pointy hammer head is supposed to hit the strings at precisely the right spot to set them into vibration perfectly.  But my flat-footed hammers are hitting a good 1/4 of string.  It's a wonder the strings vibrate at all!

But a person has to make do with what they have to work with.  So I do the best I can.  I'm thinking about reshaping the hammer heads.  I have Reblizt's book and he describes how to do this using a Dremel sander whilst the hammers are still in the action.  It's called "Bulk Reshaping".

It's pathetic I know.  But I got my pianos free so I have nothing to lose by my time.  The problem is that everytime I think about reshaping the hammers I end up sitting down and playing the piano instead. 

[jpianoflorida]

what are you thinking about when you play? are you completely focused? do you "feel" the music.....try playing something by memory with your eyes closed, and try to really FEEL what you are playing....almost like a meditation!

[pianowolfi]

A lot of the beautiful tone is made by psychological means i think. The piano tone is not very changeable compared to instruments like the violin or the clarinet. You have less influence on it. So the psychological factor gets more important. To let a note sound exactly as loud or soft as another but different in mood is the goal. Try to fill your emotion into it. For example: Sometimes Italians drive through our street and honk because of a wedding or a soccer game. It sounds cheerful and funny. Party is beginning. Other car drivers come and are just angry because someone blocks the street. It sounds awful and disturbing. But car horns don't sound differently, do they? They sound always the same if they are of the same cars. But I can easily say if someone honks out of joy or out of anger.

[jpianoflorida]

A lot of the beautiful tone is made by psychological means i think. The piano tone is not very changeable compared to instruments like the violin or the clarinet. You have less influence on it. So the psychological factor gets more important. To let a note sound exactly as loud or soft as another but different in mood is the goal. Try to fill your emotion into it. For example: Sometimes Italians drive through our street and honk because of a wedding or a soccer game. It sounds cheerful and funny. Party is beginning. Other car drivers come and are just angry because someone blocks the street. It sounds awful and disturbing. But car horns don't sound differently, do they? They sound always the same if they are of the same cars. But I can easily say if someone honks out of joy or out of anger.

thanks for putting into words what i meant!

[invictious]

Tone isn't too loud.
You can't have loud or soft tones..

Actually

Volume IS tone.

[leucippus]

Tone isn't too loud.
You can't have loud or soft tones..

Actually

Volume IS tone.

The word "tone" can be used to mean a lot of different things.

Tone can mean pitch
Tone can mean volume
Tone can simply be used to refer to the quality of a sound

I prefer not to use the word 'tone' myself.  I'd rather just refer directly to pitch, volume, or the quality of the dynamics of the sound.  Then there's no question what I'm talking about.

[asyncopated]

A lot of the beautiful tone is made by psychological means i think. The piano tone is not very changeable compared to instruments like the violin or the clarinet. ...

I agree with what pianowolfi and jpaino said. When I talk about tone, I usually refer to quality of sound.  Also as pointed out by leucippus, possilby not of just one not by a series of notes or a pharse.

I have to say, I think most amatuer pianist are not extremely concious of their tone quality.  I have to say that I am guilty of this some of the time -- even now.  The problem is not just psycological, but how you transform the concept you have into movement and eventually sound. 

In my opinion, is no simple way around this but to ask someone good (a teacher!!!) to demonstrate how to make the tone and evaluate your sound, but first you need a clear idea of what a good sound is, or at least be able to identify it. 

I would also like to point out a similar thing with singing instead of playing the piano.  In singing there is a school called bel canto.  Chopin was very found of this school btw.  When I first started lessons, my teacher would make me do nothing but exercises.  So I went in week after week, croaking, and really didn't understand much what she was getting at.  I wasn't doing repetoir, just simple scales and holding a single note on a vowel.  Sometimes she would make a funny action with her hands., or ask me to do something like say "Ladies and Gentlemen" as if I were making an announcement to a square full of people in medival times, and so other 'silly' things like that.

After a couple of months of this -- those were really frastrating months as you can imagine and I did think about quitting -- I finally understood what the point of it all was.  She was trying to get me to change my singing habits, and did so by listening to and correcting the "position" of my voice.  Making silly actions and telling me to imagine things was a way to get me to position the voice correctly.  After a while I found that I begin to learn to identify what I good tone should sound like.  The problem with singing is that the musical apparatus is inside your body. So -- she can't just say, realise this or that muscle in the throat and tighten the other one.   In fact, she couldn't even really demonstrate fully what she means -- all that comes out is a good sound, and I don't know any better how she produced it.

The great thing about playing the piano is that you can actually show someone how to produce a good tone.  Movement is not hidden and you can observe it.  It doesn't mean that it's going to be easy, but demonstration really gets you a big step of the way there.


   

[cmg]

I had a wonderful teacher in college, Herman Godes, a Latvian pianist who studied with Gieseking and Casadesus in Paris after WWII, and the hallmark of his playing (and teaching) was the production of good tone.  He taught that this was achieved through total bodily relaxation.  The fingers are regarded as the means by which we transmit our body weight to the keys.  The more body weight, the greater the sound (volume) and the rounder and more luscious the sound.  If you play with great tension in your arms, wrists and hands your sound will be brittle and bangy.  That can be great for some Bartok but is unpleasant in most other music that asks for a singing tone.

To conceptualize this full relaxation, Joyce Hatto insisted that your entire body must approach the piano as if it has become "hot oil."  Very flowing, very relaxed, except, of course, during the moments of key contact, where, for a split second, you must "tense" the finger in order for it to have control.

Arrau was another pianist/teacher who taught this approach.  Students of his told me he instructed them to play from their, well, butts.  Channel the entire body weight so it is behind the fingers and you will produce a round, singing tone that projects beautifully. 

[zheer]

your entire body must approach the piano as if it has become "hot oil." 

 Thats intresting.