Confusions about the relaxation...

[cardinals]

I have had some problems with making deep, ringing and singing tones, and I believe it's mainly because of unnecessary force in my arms, shoulders, etc...But whenever completely relaxing them I found it really hard to make forte sounds and control the fingering and I tended to make lots of wrong notes and inconsistent tempos (lots of slip downs)...

And they used to say only the fingertips should be rigid to support the arm and body weight but the thing is all finger muscles are connected to the lower arm muscles so when I tried to make my fingers strong my arm muscles also became stiff...

How would you describe the mechanism of relaxation (i.e. what sort of things happen in our body parts and muscles while playing the keys especially playing in forte)?

Also...I am curious how the relaxation contributes to making resonant beautiful sound...If you have any suggestions or tips, please let me know because, by working on my own, it doesn't seem to be easily corrected...

[arbisley]

Hi there,

relaxation/tension in the right parts of the body is the eternal quest of the pianist!

When playing loud notes, the point is not to relax, but to play with a sense of ease. This happens because when a naturally produced effort uses all efforts in conjunction it should feel effortless even though you are working the muscles hard.

I think you might have some problems with holding on to the tension unnecessarily after playing chords or notes, it is all about using the amount of energy you need to produce that lovely singing tone, and then letting the arm follow through without tensing up.

And if you hold your hand in the air and twitch a finger, it is indeed possible to isolate that muscle from the rest, but to achieve the ringing tone all muscles need to work so that they are working in conjunction in the same direction.

I could go on for hours, but just try and experiment with different ways of doing things, and don't get stuck with one way of doing everything! That is what leads to injury as this makes all your movements repetitive and therefore causes strain.

Hope this helps

Anthony

[m]

How would you describe the mechanism of relaxation (i.e. what sort of things happen in our body parts and muscles while playing the keys especially playing in forte)?

Also...I am curious how the relaxation contributes to making resonant beautiful sound...If you have any suggestions or tips, please let me know because, by working on my own, it doesn't seem to be easily corrected...

This is not even something to correct, but rather is a longlasting active search of learning your body and how it connected with music.
In a nutshell, relaxation is a process of accumulation and releasing energy, which lasts only very short period of time--basically, in term of physical processes at least 90% of our time playing piano is resting. My rule is, take a note and relax is the same--it is like a dart--ones it hits a target all the energy gets immediately released and the thing is in resting "standby" position.
Some more in this thread:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,26910.0.html

Best, M

[guendola]

Step 1: Arm pushes down the hand
Step 2: Key arrives at lowest possible position
Step 3: Finger releases tension, wrist goes down a bit, wrist- and finger muscles store the energy from the down-movement like a spring - Arm muscles relax here
Step 4: Unload the wrist- and finger muscles which results in an up-movement - finger and wrist muscles relax here, if there is enough time, fingers will hang from the hand

This is not exactly related to playing one single note, this can also happen after a series of notes only. And it is one out of many possible movements, but quite useful when playing forte and when playing chords.

[javacisnotrecognized]

And they used to say only the fingertips should be rigid to support the arm and body weight but the thing is all finger muscles are connected to the lower arm muscles so when I tried to make my fingers strong my arm muscles also became stiff...

The fingertip isn't rigid; rather the part of the finger that attaches to the hand is "rigid". Though it is better not to think of it as *rigid*, but as fulfilling a supporting role.
The finger is made up of three segmnts, they have technical names but for now I'll refer to them as the nail segment, middle segment, and the first segment (The first segment is the one attached to the hand at the knuckle). The middle and nail segment are controlled by muscles in the forearm which curl and extend them. However, the first segment is controlled by muscles located in the hand itself. If you have your finger segments arranged the right way (So that the finger is slightly rounded), exerting pressure from the first segment only will be enough to hold the arm up. Can you move your fingers without curling it so that the whole finger rotates around the knuckle? Try using this. Also, note that your triceps can share some of the weight of your arm, to take a load off your fingers.

[dan101]

Playing from the wrist, as mentioned before, is important. This touch avoids a rigid finger slapping the surface of the key.

[nearenough]

I think this topic IS confusing and not scientific at all, but laden with preconceptions and superstitions. I've played the piano for 65 years and been watching pianists for nearly that long. Horowitz had nearly motionless wrists, some  young players on You Tube are seen waving their arms and hands up and down like waterfowl. Sometimes I see grand gestures of withdrawal as in a marching baton wielding band-leader. I like Argerich's counter-clockwise rotating her right hand on its pinkie at the end of some phrases.

Let's face it; all these motions are made AFTER the note has been struck. The piano cares not a whit about what your hands, wrists and arms pretentiously do, nor is it concerned about Glenn Gould's singing.

[lostinidlewonder]

It is quite an impossible task to word what relaxation is and how to play with this for all cases at the keyboard. Every person is different, everyone acts against "perfect" efficiency in a different way. As a teacher the more I watch one particular student the more I can understand their own hands and when they are feeling tense. Often it has to do with consideration to the balance of the hands, our center of gravity and which notes in a particular passage are used as points of balance.

It is always a small change that needs to be made rather than a total change in our contact with the keyboard to push ourselves to relaxation. This subtle difference often causes us to be in a the realms of "we don't know that we don't know", that is we do not know what change will produce the relaxation that escapes us.

If one invests time investigating in isolated instances why they are feeling inefficient, they will inevitably improve their efficiency. But how does one know that they are doing what is best? Often someone who has more experience with teaching multiple hands (a good piano teacher) can help reveal to you what you didn't know you didn't know. Once you know it you can make adjustments to what you look for when you experiment improving your relaxation while playing.

A meditation that goes through my head when I sit at the piano sorta goes like this. I sit at the keyboard, I feel connected to the earth with my feet. My hips feel solid supporting my back, my shoulders are back opening my chest and allowing me to breath easier. When my hands touch the keys they complete my balance and connection to the earth. The hands touching the keyboard do not cause my shoulders to closeup. My arms rest parallel with the ground, there is an exaggerated observation of gravity pulling my arm in line with the earth almost feeling connect like my feet are to the ground.  I think feeling your entire body at the keyboard is often forgotten when our brain focuses on the hands. We might screw our bodies up, hunch over and wonder why our hands are struggling, little do we know that we are doing this because we focus on our hands too much.

[go12_3]

Being tense will not help to play piano, hence the tone won't follow through.  The hand has to be relaxed yet with a firm touch upon the keyboard.  The shoulders has to be relaxed as well.  I have had students that are so tense all over, that their shoulders are tight, therefore, the whole arm becomes affected as well, and down unto the finger tips.  Doing relaxation exercises, like raising the shoulders up and down, do the head roll to ease up the neck, then shake the hands and fingers.  If there is a lot of stress going on, let it go and enjoy the process of playing the keyboard.  I play a lot throughout the day and it relaxes me.  However, doing a performance is whole new topic altogether......relaxation is from the mind and affects the body.  Hope I'm making sense here.

[tds]

how bout trying to line up with the concept offreedom instead ofrelaxation. being told to relax can be felt like being told to "do something" within its often misleading passivity the word suggests. think about it. when someone tells you: "hey, relax!". how do you feel? could you become a "victim" of that instruction? easily, i think ; whereas to be told to stay free has a totally different feel altogether. as if we weren't told to "do something", but rather we are encouraged to stay aware, alert, active and be a captain of self. my one cent ( if that ),  tds

[richard black]

Tension/relaxation is important but incidental. You can make

deep, ringing and singing tones

with tense or relaxed muscles. What's important is the relative loudness and timing of the notes within each chord, and with relation to the notes before and after. The only reason a relaxed technique is almost invariably recommended for this is that with too much tension it quickly becomes impossible to regulate the loudness and timing with precision, especially within a chord.

[giannalinda]

You need to press your hands into the keys. Every once in awhile, shake your arms and wrists to make sure you are still relaxed. Make sure that you are using your whole arm weight on the key. Do what is called a relaxed regular scale. You just do the same regular cdefgabc scale. It is easiest to do  the relaxing in a c scale. If you want to do a challenge, do sharps also. So it goes like this: Play the first key. Roll your shoulders foward and backward.
Shake your elbows side to side. Roll your wrists up and down. Play the next key and do the same thing for each note. You Should get better and better at this. Make sure to do it at LEAST TEN TIMES A DAY! SO BE COMMITTED!
I hope this helps! It really hlpd me!
Musicianmusiclovergimmemoremusic

[rachfan]

Relaxation:

Generally, I try to feel that my torso is relaxed along with the upper arm and the forearm.  The wrist should be completely flexible, being able to be readily rotated by the relaxed forarm, to flex verically and laterally, thereby angling and directing the hand.  The fingers, though, cannot be relaxed, as they would become "cottony" and not very responsive, fast or accurate; instead, they need to be kept taught or firm in order to articulate.

There are some more specific things I do to encourage relaxation.  First, I try to keep my shoulders naturally and comfortably level.  If they start to rise upward, an inner monitor senses that and lowers them automatically.  Secondly, it's essentially too that the elbows be in free float so that they can travel away from the body as needed to do their part (along with the torso and upper arm) to direct the forearm along the keyboard.  If the elbows are tucked in close to the body, then that directing activity cannot happen very easily or effectively. 

Finally, during intensive practice, the playing apparatus can sometimes tighten up.  If I sense that happening, I stand up and swing my relaxed arms in parallel at my sides front to back several times.  Then I swing them  directly in front of me such that they cross one another.  Finally, I let my arms fall to my sides where I do a rapid shaking, rotating motion of the arms, as if very rapidly jiggling two door knobs with my hands (or imagine two loose ropes dangling in the wind).  This brief routine immediately dissipates tension, tightness and fatigue.  I find that the better the relaxation, as I've described it above, the richer the tone I produce. 

[nyquist]

Also, note that your triceps can share some of the weight of your arm, to take a load off your fingers.

You probably mean "biceps".

nyquist