I've been wanting to write this post for quite a long time, partly because it bothers me so much, and partly because it comes up in almost every pianist's daily life. For those who find the topic overly esoteric, stop reading here. There is so much on my mind, so a lot of this will seem like incoherent ramble - I hope you can piece it together, and please excuse the poor writing.

Since the beginning of our study, pianists are constantly taught to emulate a non-percussive instrument, particularly but not limited to the human voice or the violin - in fact, much of every teacher's goal is to successfully create some sort of aural illusion to display that the piano is anything but a percussion instrument. Pianists like Radu Lupu, Claude Frank, etc. are forever praised for their 'miraculous tone' and 'deep singing quality', as if it were some type of black magic.

Students today, though it seems, have gone heavily overboard in mythicizing the instrument. How many times have you seen an Asian girl at the piano contorting her elbow, arm, and wrist and every which direction at the top of a lyrical line in a desperate attempt to 'sing' or produce a 'better tone'? How many times have you been told to have a "less harsh" or "fatter" sound on those D-flat major chords in the Tchaikovsky? How many times have you been told to sing on the piano, often through one single note, an obvious physical impossibility?

I hate to de-mythicize the piano in such a Carl Saganesque manner, but I can't stand the Buddhist and surreal approach to producing tone any longer. Claude Frank is the master of tone not because he possess an unworldly and intangible magic to the instrument, but simply because he understands the physics of the piano in a way we could only dream of. Have you ever seen him (or Radu Lupu, or whoever) twist his arm to help out his melody?

I played for a teacher last year at Yale who truly believed that depending on the way you played a single note (sans pedal, mind you), you could control the 'tone' and even how the 'tone carries through the hall'. I thought to myself then that this guy is fucking psycho, but sad to say, it seems as though at least 80% of the piano students in the hall seemed to buy his crock of bullshit! I want to try and clear this up right now.

At the very basic level of the piano, it IS a percussion instrument. When you press a key down (without pedal), a hammer hits a string, releases the damper, and then immediately puts the damper back down. It is more akin to hitting a bass drum. Now think of the variables in terms of physics: when you hit a key (one single note), there is no such thing as "speed of attack" to determine the "harshness" or "quality of sound" of that given note. NO! There is only one variable, and that is volume. The ONLY thing you can control on that given note, by your speed of attack, is the volume of that note. NOTHING ELSE. Face it. If you isolate just one given note, there is no harshness or fatness or anythingness to that note - just the amount of volume. If someone tells you it's harsh, what he's really saying is it's loud.

Try it yourself. Hit middle C on the piano. Now change the speed of attack. Do whatever you want to this middle C. Play it with your nose. Play it with your foot. Change your wrist movements on it. Change your elbow movements. I guarantee you - nothing is changing in the sound except one thing: the volume of that middle C. Trust me. Whatever you hear differently is an aural lie, self-configured in your own convuluted mind.

If you still don't believe me (which I know a lot of you don't, and I really do feel sorry for you), take a friend. Close their eyes, turn them away from the piano. Now hit that middle C 10 times and change the way hit it. See if that friend can tell which ones are different. If your friend has any sort of brain at all, he/she will notice that only one thing is affected: the volume of the middle C.

So what makes a beautiful sound? Or a harsh one?

That's the even easier part. When you had more than one note, say a chord, the harshness is determined by your decided voicing and volume that you give each note IN RELATION to the other notes. A "singing chord" could just possibly be the difference between hitting the top notes louder than the bottom notes. A "fat chord" could just possibly be the difference between voicing the bottom and top notes louder than the inner notes, or vice versa. But on any given note, you really can only control one part of that note: it's volume.

Another myth: the pedal. Many pianists also believe that with the pedal down, whether you connect a legato line with your fingers or poke it out staccato, it makes a difference. Sorry. Wrong there as well. When you put down the pedal, the dampers on every key go up - thus, the hammer hits the key, then the hammer immediately goes back down, and the dampers never come down. Thus, whether you play a melody line stacatto or legato with the pedal down, it theoretically should not matter - as long as you are playing the volume of the notes in the exact same relation to each other.

Think of the piano as a series of drums. You can only control the volume of each note. NOTHING ELSE. In order to play beautifully, we have to produce an aural illusion that we are really controlling more than just that. That is the art of the piano. To think any differently is tricking yourself into believing the piano is something that it is not. To truly master a good tone, you have to believe in the truth.

If you are one of those pianists who turn their fingers horizontally on melody lines, good for you - but know that it is not affecting your sound. If you are one of those pianists who move their elbows in every which direction to try and have a 'nicer sound', good for you - but know that if you DO have a nice sound, it has NOTHING to do with your elbows. It is simply because you are a good musician and have subconscious understanding about the physics of what you are doing.

Many of you don't believe a word I just said. Unfortunately, by laws of physics, nothing I wrote just now was a lie. Learn to accept it. Don't be like a hardcore Christian who refuses to believe in evolution. Instead of learning the 'magic' of the piano, content yourself with learning the 'aural illusion' of the piano. Your life will change.