Emanuel Ax weighs in on an approach to a single note

[dima_76557]

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[hardy_practice]

This sums it up pretty well, I guess.

yeh, why not?

[pts1]

[nyiregyhazi]

Given two tones with identical final hammer velocities and, as a consequence, identical intensities, listening musicians were able to discriminate between struck tone (finger starts from above the surface of the key) and pressed tone (finger starts in contact with the key) by cuing on the adventitious sounds produced by the finger striking the surface of the key. Not perfectly, but better than chance. This is with dampers. It would not be surprising if, without dampers, additional adventitious sounds would make such discrimination more reliable. None of this tells you that great pianists with a beautiful tone have a beautiful tone because they artfully manipulate these small effects, as opposed to, say, artfully manipulating the speed with which they end a tone by releasing the key, or the way they match the volume of adjacent tones, or the way they overlap or do not overlap sequential notes, or the way they voice chords, or the range of final hammer velocities they are able to attain with either a struck or pressed tone etc.

Nobody says "as opposed to". Literally no person who believes in absolute tone argued that relative effects are unimportant. The issue is whether they both play a role or not. Phrasing it that way and then listing widely accepted effects is a very misleading way to put it- as the truth of not one of those things either proves or even implies that absolute tone cannot also be a factor. The only opposition is from those who who have been misled by bogus science. Those who credit absolute tone see it as complementary and not an opposition to relative effects.

[falala]

I never denied the aspect of hammer speed, but that in itself is not enough to explain different qualities in tone in the same dynamic range.

Why not? The clue is in the word: "range".

You're talking about comparing playing techniques that are not even remotely controlled to equalize the factor of hammer speed. If you play a note one way, and then play it another way, it's likely you will apply a different hammer speed, even if only slightly and even if your ear loosely hears it as being in the same "range". So you have no basis for insisting that hammer speed isn't behind the difference in sound.

You don't even seem to acknowledge the most basic aspects of what it means to control for a variable and eliminate it as a possible cause. If you want to claim that there is a difference unexplainable by hammer speed, the only way to do that would be to strike two single notes where the hammer speed is controlled to be identical, and then measure the output to see if there's any difference. You seemed to suggest upthread that you prefered completely subjective claims of such difference to anything that could be measured, which is silly enough (because as was pointed out, if audio receiving equipment were to measure that there were NO difference, such subjective perceptions would have to be imagined - and we know enough about the psychology of perception to know that they easily could be.) But now you don't even seem interested in controlling for hammer speed at all - you seem to think the only thing that matters is that they are in the same "range".

Nobody here is claiming that two notes played at only slightly different hammer speeds will have the same "tone". The argument is about whether notes played at identical ones will.

[pianoplayer002]

What makes you think that whatever sonic differences occur, they are NOT due to differences of hammer speed?

Do you not think that the surprisingly large amount of noise the piano yields when you strike it vs when you touch it properly (as demonstrated by striking the lid or any other wooden part of the piano) will have any effect on the vibration of the strings? The hammer striking the string sets one set of vibrations in motion not only in the string being struck by the hammer, but in all the other strings and in the wooden parts of the instrument as well, most notably in the sound board. The vibrations of all these parts are what we are percieve as sound when they are transmitted to our ear via the air. If you then send a different set of vibrations through these same parts as they are amplifying the vibrations of the strings, a set of vibrations that are the result of striking the instrument, vibrations that sound like a hollow noise, it would be conceivable that the sum of these mixed sets of vibrations would produce a different sound to our ear, no?

[falala]

Do you not think that the surprisingly large amount of noise the piano yields when you strike it vs when you touch it properly (as demonstrated by striking the lid or any other wooden part of the piano) will have any effect on the vibration of the strings? The hammer striking the string sets one set of vibrations in motion not only in the string being hit by the hammer, but in all the other strings and the wooden parts of the instrument as well, most notably the sound board. The vibrations of all these parts are what we are percieve as sound when they are transmitted to our ear via the air. If you then send a different set of vibrations through these same parts as they are amplifying the vibrations of the strings, a set of vibrations that are the result of striking the instrument, vibrations that sound like a hollow noise, it would be conceivable that the sum of these mixed sets of vibrations would sound different to our ear, no?

Yes, sure. It's conceivable. But I also find it conceivable that the vibrations created by the key-strike are irrelevant or virtually irrelevant, and the difference is entirely due to hammer speed. Without proper scientific tests, we'll never know.

[pianoplayer002]

Yes, sure. It's conceivable. But I also find it conceivable that the vibrations created by the key-strike are irrelevant or virtually irrelevant, and the difference is entirely due to hammer speed. Without proper scientific tests, we'll never know.

If anything they are indeed small, because an untrained ear will often not notice them. They would be big if striking the instrument too hard would end up cancelling out the sound of the strings completely. We are talking about a small difference in the quality of the sound, but yes, it is there. Experiment a bit and you will find that the sound of good tone will seem to have a certain clarity and seem to last much longer than a note with bad tone, regardless of dynamics. In a big hall, a player who bangs will sound small, harsh and blocked while a player with good tone will sound big and carry well.

[dima_76557]

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