Is this a good idea ?

[musicioso]

Hallo dear members of the forum,

I was playing piano and suddenly got an idea. I wantd to ask you guys, what you think about it.

I was thinking, if you buy a piano with very heavy keys and practise on that piano, your fingers will get very strong. And then  when you go over to a normal piano with average weighted keys, you will be able to play very fast and have good control and convidence.

Is this a good idea? I would like to know you opinion.

[thalbergmad]

My own personal experience is that when I went from a heavy action to a lighter action, my fingers flew all over the place with very little control and it took me weeks to get used to it.

Thal

[richard black]

It's sort of true, but also what Thal says is true and worth bearing in mind. I have however come across plenty of pianists - good, established ones - who deliberately keep a frankly iffy instrument at home for practice on the basis that if they can make that sing, they can get a decent tone out of anything.

[thalbergmad]

haha, that is an excellent idea.

I hate switching pianos as it takes me a long time to adapt. God knows how people who concertise play many different pianos in a short time & manage to cope with the changes.

My own preference is for a heavy touch, as this personally gives me more control. I am a bit of an ape with strong hands, so a soft touch feels like nothing is under my fingers.

I Used to be able to crack walnuts in my left hand, but have not tried for ages.

Thal

[ted]

I usually steer clear of talk about technique as I have never been taught any, but I do happen to know something about this issue as I have used a Virgil Practice Clavier on and off for forty years. This device, popular in the last years of the nineteenth century, operated on the assumption that playing with a key resistance much higher than any piano must eventually improve technique. As Richard shrewdly suggests, the assumption is partly true and partly false. I can best illustrate by describing my own case.

At the time I bought the clavier from my teacher I was playing a lot of difficult stuff. I remember very clearly screwing the resistance up to a around seven ounces and working on a certain difficult passage of finger work. I then returned to the piano and the effect was intoxicating to say the least. The scale based cadenza felt so easy that I could suddenly play it up to speed in double notes in both hands instead of single notes. I then thought that if I increased the resistance still further and used the clavier for longer all technical issues would surely disappear. Had I had any brains I would have realised that because one man can mow a lawn in half an hour it does not follow that a million men can mow it in a fraction of a second. Within a few weeks my touch became horribly coarse and clumsy.

What had happened was that I had pushed the resistance and effort beyond the point of fine motor control of the fingers and had begun using weight to push the keys down. By analogy, the effect is rather like that of one of those nasal sprays which clears breathing wonderfully for three days and then itself causes a much worse blockage (rebound congestion) which takes a week to get rid of.

Is there a right or good way to use the clavier then ? Yes, used correctly it is of huge benefit in maintaining technique and eliminating the need for daily slog at the real instrument, where I am sure we all want to make real music and not grind away at dull exercises. I have explained this in other posts here years ago so I shan't repeat myself here. Essentially it involves constantly making sure of control during its use - as Thal's post implies.

[Bob]

You might run into a problem trying to practice things that can only be played light and quick.  There's a limit to how fast and light you can play when you've weighted the keys more.

That said, I'd go for a little more weight but not overdoing it.

[rmbarbosa]

No, it is not a good idea but a bad idea. Very strong fingers dont give speed, strong is the opposite of fast. And we dont need strong fingers to play piano. To play "forte" or ff, is your hole body you use, not your fingers. To attain speed, play piano ou pp, ok?
rui

[ted]

Admittedly that is how I reacted too after I worsened my technique as I described above. However, after a couple of years and reading about other pianists, e.g. Arrau, who used one all the time, I began to realise that I was simply using the device wrongly. Moreover, they are so rare that hardly anybody knows what they are let alone their optimal use.Over the past thirty years I have developed routines with the practice clavier which have greatly improved and stabilised both velocity and control over the entire dynamic range.

Of course, I have to qualify this by saying that I only know it has worked for me, and that the unusual nature of the beast precludes assumptions about other players.

[jinfiesto]

I'd say it's a bad idea. On the other hand, practising on an iffy instrument generally keeps my practice "honest." I do need to play on a good instrument semi-regularly to keep things in perspective however.