Technical details
Posted on 19 February 2010
Few piano teachers talk about the extremely subtle mechanics of playing the instrument. Perhaps the reason we don’t often see these issues addressed is because they are very personal; every hand is different and everybody interacts with the piano in slightly different ways.
One big and, in retrospect, obvious issue is the basic physical construction of the keyboard: the white and black keys occupy very different topographies. This can be a good or a bad thing. Good in that it makes scales such as B major easier to play because the position of the black keys fits the structure of the hand very naturally. Bad in that it necessitates constant awareness of the angle of the hand to transition smoothly between white and black keys.
I can elaborate a little bit on this by using Bach’s E minor Toccata as an example. In the first four notes in the left hand three white keys and one black are played (E-D#-E-E). The potential technical issue here is that if the fingering 1-2-1-5 is used (a natural choice), then the size of the thumb and the physical position of the D# can conspire to produce some unevenness in execution. If the wrist is kept straight, as one would do when playing E-D-E, then the leverage exerted on the D# will be different than on the E, thus making it harder to control the volume of the note.
If one reflects for a moment on the physical problem at hand, it is easy to see that by turning the wrist slightly to the left one alters the angle of the thumb and brings the 2nd finger into a more advantageous position. This immediately allows for a more even execution and a greater sense of security in the passage.
The above is a very simple example, but the principles found here can be expanded to any passage in which a combination of white and black keys are used. Of course the level of complexity can increase greatly, but the underlying solution is often the same or very similar.
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