How to play louder?

[pianoamatuer]

Wow. This is just ridiculously cool. There are emoticons you can type in too?     
Anyways...
I've been playing piano for quite a while now! I'm playing some pretty songs like Hava Nagila or simplified yet beautiful Chopin. But the thing is, with most of these songs, they demand loudness if you want to play a song nicely. That doesn't fair with me.
You see, when I try to play loud, my fingers tense up faster than Usain Bolt's fastest 100m dash. (9.58 seconds, by the way. That's how you introduce sports into a piano forum. Bring me my cool-looking shades please.)
Oh wait, don't get them. Because this is becoming a really big problem. When your fingers tense up, what happens? Pretty obvious. Think about it. You make mistakes! I'm not too happy about it. In fact, I think even my arm tenses up a bit. Or maybe it's just the fingers. Either way it's becoming a larger issue as it is beginning to conflict with my demonstration of more advanced songs [they require forte like, every second.. ]
I'm a introvert, but my shyness is finally out of the way. I can tell you what my hands are like. I have a very wide palm and wide, but short fingers. I don't know how I play with these big bags of meat.
Anyway, I hope I can get some advice.. how do I address this problem? This is gonna be a long forum..

[adodd81802]

Probably posting a few videos or speaking with a / your? (wishful thinking) piano teacher.

I can only surmise at this stage obviously tension, but not yet sure where. I actually imagine it to be the wrist, but not sure without videos. Your fingers should essentially fall on the keys with gravity, so it stands to reason the higher they fall from, the harder it will hit the notes. We're not talking about 20/30 CM it's tiny differences, but it's not a forceful effort, the only effort should be in lifting your fingers, not dropping them.

Why I say wrist is because most power for playing comes from the shoulder through the forearm into the hands, and while this is not easy to describe, you do understand and feel when you have it, and so most power can be transferred and is often lost at the wrist with bad form or tension.

Also what is quite interesting to note is that making the piano louder isn't REALLY about hitting the keys harder, but hitting them faster. To some extent they go hand in hand witch each other but I want you to think about the minimal amount of conscious effort that you can put into increasing sound, you should not need to tense here.

[iansinclair]

as adodd just said -- loud on a piano isn't a matter of hitting the key harder, but getting it to depress faster.  Therefore... one of the very best types of exercise is almost anything which will allow you to relax but at the same time move your fingers faster.

Don't try to move your whole arm or even your whole hand to do this (I know -- you sometimes see the more flamboyant pianists raising their hands and arms high, and coming crashing down -- but that's just showy, and doesn't accomplish anything other than wow the audience).  Try to keep the hands themselves and arms still (but not at all tense!) and just get the fingers to move faster.

[pianoamatuer]

I have spoken with my teacher about a different topic. Whenever I play my hands are shaped like holding eggs. She told me that over time I will slowly begin to correct my posture without even thinking about it. A week ago she caught me doing a major scale with no fingers bent and she pointed it out critically. She's a very good, excellent teacher. I haven't been doing piano for a long time - just to let y'all know.

I have learned a while ago that hitting the keys faster means your piano will go louder. But I have yet to learn how to do that without tension whatsoever. It's difficult. How will I go about practicing playing louder without tension and going faster? That just seems impossible! iansinclair, do I rest my hand above the keys and simply move my fingers faster?