Key Velocity

[MzrtMusic]

At my last lesson, my teacher was telling me about key velocity. It has to do with how quickly you press a key affecting the tone you produce. He said that it was mostly a European thing, and that it's rarely talked about in the US. I know that quite a few of you on here are from Europe, and I was just wondering what your take on it was. Have you found it to be effective, and what are some good methods to practice it?

Love,

Sarah

[Diabolos]

Yep, you're right - it's really basically a European thing.

I was introduced to it a long time ago; though I realized there are other ways to produce a better tone (playing out of the piano while taking the power from the back).

But if you wanna give it a try: Start with Bach (any pieces). You'll realize that when pressing keys down quickly, your sound will be a little harder, more metallic; if you press the keys slowly while 'pulling' them towards your direction, you'll have a softer and deeper tone (that method's mostly used for the romantics).

I don't know if that explains it well, but since I basically grew up with that technique I didn't think about practising it often.

good luck
Regards,  

[selsa]

That is right.

You can create a soft hammer motion by a sliding your fingers slowly horizontally along a key, and a fast hamer motion by hiting the key almost vertically. It's all about changing your movements in order to change the speed of the hammering of the strings.

-Selsa.