Playing cold means sitting down and playing without any warm-ups. It is a
necessary preparation for performing because it is the fastest way to strengthen your performance ability. In the majority of informal situations in which you might play, you will not have 20 minutes to warm up. Practice playing cold every time you start practice in order to be able to play almost anything at any time, as all concert pianists can.
Playing cold can save a lot of time by using it to warm up and to maintain a repertoire. Use cold practice to find out what can be played cold and what can not, and how long it takes to warm up so that you can play more difficult material. There are numerous instances when slow practice is needed, and that can be done cold. Memorize everything you learn, and you will be able to play cold anywhere there is a piano.
For those who had never practiced playing cold, it might seem impossible at first but, with just a little practice, you will be surprised at how quickly your abilities will strengthen. The ultimate objective is to establish a permanently warmed up state in which you can play without warmups. Thus, like parallel sets and staccato practice, playing cold is both a diagnostic device for finding weaknesses and a tool for correcting them.
Warming up, Conditioning: If you hadn't played the piano for days and sit down
to play, the hands are "cold" and need to "warm up". "Cold" hands are incapable of executing technically difficult material but, once warmed up, they can perform miracles. Why is there such a large difference? What changes are occurring in the hands? The physiology of warming up is not adequately understood. Once it is understood, we may be able to find ways to accelerate this process, or even maintain it permanently, so that concert pianists do not need to warm up prior to performances, and students can save a lot of time.
Pianists often warm their hands to accelerate this "warming up" process. That doesn't work well because the muscles that need warming are in the arms. In cold weather, warming the hands (e.g., wearing mittens) can be counter-productive because the reaction to cold is initiated by the feeling of cold at the hands. Keeping the hands warm only makes them more sensitive to cold, eliciting a stronger "cold!" reaction when exposed to cold. It is better to dip the hands in ice water several times a day to
acclimate them to cold so that the body will naturally keep the hands warmer. Do
not leave the hands in ice water too long; just cool the skin where the cold sensors are. Eskimo hands in the arctic function as well as those of people living near the equator because their hands have been conditioned to function at low temperatures. The most
effective solution in cold weather is to warm the body so that it can send warmer blood to the hands.
The importance of staying limber is illustrated by the enormous efforts many pianists expend to keep the fingers warmed up. Gould wore gloves most of the time (probably the wrong thing to do), and Liszt carried a dummy piano around to practice on, when no pianos were available (good idea).
Conditioning refers to the readiness to play resulting from daily practice; it is like a
permanent "warmed up" state. Playing easy pieces for a long time is not as effective for conditioning as practicing difficult material for shorter times. With enough hard work, you can skip one day of practice without significant detriment, whereas if you practice only easy material, skipping one day will decrease conditioning noticeably. Thus at every practice session, end the session with a good workout using difficult material. Make sure
that you avoid fast play degradation by playing slowly, everything that was played fast, before quitting. The physiology of conditioning is not understood and research is needed in order to find simple ways to achieve it. Well conditioned, warmed hands can perform miracles compared to cold hands; too many pianists believe that exercises achieve these conditions, but music is better, and nourishes the brain. Playing cold is a necessary component of piano practice.
(42) Musicality, Touch, Tone, Color
Musicality has never been defined in so many words. Music is an combined inborn
and acquired language we use to communicate with one another and even with ourselves. Bach and the great composers embedded the definition of music in their compositions because the human language and scientific knowledge were, and still are, inadequate. In addition, their own understanding of music was incomplete, and we can not even
decipher every lesson that they embedded in their music. We can only reverse-engineer existing music to see what it is made of. The result of this reverse-engineering is the subject of today's music theory (Scoggin, Nancy,).
Teachers play a critical role in showing students how to play and practice musically. After many years of lessons, students are expected to learn technique and to develop a
sensitivity to musicality. For example, most pieces of music begin and end with the
same chord, a somewhat mysterious rule which is a result of basic chord progression rules. Combe taught that musical phrases generally start and end with softer notes, with the louder ones in between; when in doubt, this is a good default principle. This is one reason why so many compositions start with a partial bar – the first note of a bar usually carries the beat and is too loud. There are many books that discuss musical interpretation (Gieseking, Sándor), and we will encounter numerous pointers throughout this book.
Although musical talent is necessary to compose music, the ability to play musically is not that dependent on the brain. In fact, a majority of us is more musical than we give ourselves credit for and it is the lack of technique that limits our musical expression at the piano. We have all listened to famous pianists and noticed that one is better than the other -- that is more musical sensitivity than we will ever need to make music.
Music is a partly inborn language consisting of rhythm, melody, and logic.
During one's life (including the time in the womb), a person can learn additional elements of musical language, so that music appreciation is partly acquired. Rhythm incorporates timing and dynamics (loud, soft). Melody operates in pitch space and is based on
harmony; i.e., the most important pitch space for music is a subset of pitch space called the (76) Chromatic Scale. Logic contains everything we know and don't know about what makes music, music; it is defined by how the brain reacts to music. Logic makes music limitless, free from our limited knowledge of math, science, cosmology, etc. Thus Beethoven used "group theory" concepts [(67) Mozart's Formula, Beethoven and Group Theory] before mathematicians and physicists recognized their importance to
semiconductor technology that led to computers — Beethoven is the grandfather of the
internet! Statements such as "music is not math" makes no sense because music includes
math — there is no reason why anything should be excluded from music. Knowledge can only help the musician. Musicality is learned by playing music from many composers, and knowing the details of how and why each one was composed.
Carefully connect each bar to the next bar (or measure, or phrase). These bars/ measures do not stand alone; one logically flows into the other and they all support each other. They are connected rhythmically as well as conceptually. This point may appear to be trivially obvious; however, if performed consciously, you might be surprised by the improvement in the music.
There must always be a conversation between the RH and LH. They don't talk to each other automatically even if they were timed perfectly. You must consciously create a conversation between the two hands, or voices.
"Cresc." means that most of the passage should be played softly; only the last few notes are loud, which means that it is important to start softly. Similarly, for other indications (rit., accel., dim., etc); make sure that you have reserved space for the action to take place mostly near the end. These "expression tools" create mental illusions; for example, if you ramp up a cresc. gradually, it is like walking up a slope, whereas if you wait till the last moment and increase it exponentially, it is like being thrown up in the air, which is more effective.
Strive more for accuracy than expressive rubato; rubato is often too easy, incorrect, and not in tune with the audience. Expressions are usually the tiniest deviations from strict accuracy; they are seldom big.
Many students feel uncomfortable practicing when others are around to listen; some even think that intense piano practice is necessarily unpleasant and punishing to the ear. These are symptoms of common misconceptions resulting from inefficient practice methods. With correct practice methods and musical play, there should be nothing unpleasant about piano practice sessions. It makes no sense to practice non-musicality! The best criterion that you are practicing correctly is the reaction of others -- if your practice sounds good to others, then you are doing it right. Musical practice builds mental stamina because it requires so much concentration. Laziness of the brain is in fact the major cause of the desire to separate technique from music, and practice non-musically; this is not the brain's fault — evolution has conditioned it to conserve energy.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work for pianists because it only cultivates non-musical playing, and reduces brain stamina [(20) Endurance, Brain Stamina]. The need for musicality is a major reason why exercises don't work.
Touch is a basic aspect of musicality and must be developed from day one of piano
lessons. Beginners always start with inappropriate touch that teachers can immediately spot and correct by demonstrating what musical touch sounds like. As students develop, it becomes a personal thing; if poor touch becomes ingrained, it becomes difficult to change
because the brain has become de-sensitized to it. Students should listen to others playing (especially teachers and other students, not only concert pianists); they will hear a
surprising range of touch and can compare them to their own. It is important to hear the bad and the good. The idea is not to imitate someone else's "beautiful" touch, but to eliminate undesirable aspects of their own. Imitation is impossible because touch is influenced by everything from how the music is visualized in the brain to every aspect of a person's technique and musical history. Touch should be practiced at all speeds all the time, unlike color which is easiest to bring out near the final speeds.
Tone is like touch, but is partly dependent on the piano, such as the distribution of
harmonics and other sounds produced by the piano. Typical descriptions of tone are light, smooth, clear, heavy, deep. Light and clear can be practiced using staccato practice. Smooth, heavy, and deep might be achieved with heavier use of the damper pedal and practicing legato play. Playing deep* can be achieved by acceleration through the keydrop, making use of the hammer shank flex (Askenfelt, Anders, Ed.,). This is particularly easy for the grand because the acceleration is needed only until the jack releases the hammer, not all the way to the bottom of the keydrop. This property of grands is one reason why students need to practice on grands when they advance beyond intermediate level, because it requires a different technique.
Pianos make a lot of extraneous sounds. To hear them, play fast, FF music on a digital with the sound turned off. Most acoustic pianos create even more extraneous sounds than digitals, but they are not audible because you are accustomed to them, and the string sound can not be turned off. To hear some of the extraneous sounds of
acoustics, play fast, FF music for 20 minutes using ear plugs or head phones so that most of the high frequency noises are filtered out and you become accustomed to this new sound. Now, remove the ear plugs and play the same music — you will be surprised by the amount of non-music noise you will hear! These noises are an integral part of the piano sound and can add to its richness for quality pianos.
The condition of the hammers and the elasticity of the strings affect the tone. Compacted hammers and old strings that have lost their elasticity produce more higher harmonics and the "honky-tonk" type of sound.
Color is a unique musical quality of a particular piece of music, a composer, a scale,
etc., created by the sum total effect of all the elements in the music. It becomes
increasingly important as the pianist advances to higher levels. It is frequently discussed, but specific colors have seldom been described in words (except for simple descriptions such as happy, sad, energetic, etc.) because the human languages are inadequate. A few aspects of color have been identified, such as key color (Bach), Chopin's special staccato and legato, or elements of Debussy associated with nature and water. Mozart has his own unique color like no other; it is conceptually deep, yet is based on the simplest constructs. Thus, although it may be exciting to play Mozart like a Beethoven, it is not true Mozart that reflects the instruments of his time and the simpler musical expectations before
Beethoven exploded on the scene. Color depends mostly on the composer, so try to recognize color in performances by concert pianists and to bring them out in your playing. Practicing too loud produces a harsh touch and erases most color; of course, color does not automatically disappear in passages played FF. Thus it is important for students to develop the ability to recognize color.
*An accelerating keydrop creates maximum hammer shank flex, which maximizes
the effective mass of the hammer. The effectively heavier hammer creates more low fundamental frequencies, a characteristic of deep tones.