Piano Video Lesson: The Secrets of Playing Softly on the Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com. I'm Robert Estrin with secrets of soft playing. Did you ever try to play something softly and the notes just don't play? You're trying your darnedest to create a beautiful line with a decrescendo and then notes just drop out and you wonder what's going on. Is something wrong with you or is your piano broken?

Well, the secret is that it takes great energy to play softly on any instrument. If any of you have ever played in a symphony orchestra and for example, there'll be a woodwind solo, a clarinet solo, an oboe solo, a flute solo, something of that nature. It could be a French horn solo and if you're next to that player playing this solo, that is a quiet solo, you'd be amazed at the energy they are utilizing in order to project that sound. Even though it's soft, it has to be able to somehow get out to the audience when you've got a 80 piece orchestra or a 60 piece orchestra, whatever it may be.

Yet it doesn't sound loud because they are not expelling their air. They're just pulling that air under tremendous pressure with the diaphragm support, much like a great singer can sing with a beautiful sustained sound and achieve whatever volume they want. Well, what's the analog on the piano? I've talked a great deal about arm weight. Well, here's the thing. It takes much more energy than you may think in order to project a quiet melody.

For example, in the second movement of the famous Mozart C Major Sonata K545, if you try to play it... It's a piano movement. It's all pretty much soft throughout. If you played it without much intensity, it would sound like this.

It's lifeless. So you have to use some intensity. First of all, you need to overcome the accompaniment in the left hand. Nobody wants to be listening to this. This is supportive, should be like the babbling brook under a boat floating on the water. It supports it, but you don't want to call your attention to it.

Now sure, this can be quiet as possible and the secret to playing something like this very, very quietly is keep your fingers close to the keys and make sure the keys depress all the way. As long as keys depress all the way in one motion, all the notes will play on a well regulated piano. But to project the melody, you have to use a tremendous amount of arm weight. What do I mean by that? I mean that when you play that first note, you are actually holding up your whole arm with that single finger. That's right. That finger is holding up your arm. So I'm not holding up the arm with my shoulder anymore and that way the weight can be transferred from note to note smoothly, getting a beautiful line. Even though it's piano, if I played it loud, it would sound like this.

But there is a way to project the melody in a piano context and yet using the energy so it's above the accompaniment. Listen to the sound, keeping the left hand light and just pushing the keys to the bottom with a minimum amount of effort and the right hand, supporting a tremendous amount of weight that transfers smoothly from key to key giving a singing line, and yes, it will still be piano.

Notice, it's also possible to get nuance of phrasing, the rise and the fall of the melody as it goes up to the middle of the phrase, and then descending to the end of the phrase. Just like as I'm speaking to you, that natural rise in the middle and the coming down at the end. Music imitates life and when I say life, I mean literally breathing and you have to have that rise and fall and you get the analog to the breath on the piano through the weight of the arm. Don't be afraid to use a lot of energy. Just like that musician in the orchestra, projecting the melody from back in the woodwind section, you have to do the same thing by utilizing arm weight, projecting the melodies in your music that's written piano and pianissimo, and that's the way to achieve it.

Let me know how this works for you. If you have questions about your piano, whether it's capable of this, you can email me robert@LivingPianos.com. I'm very responsive to comments, particularly on LivingPianos.com, where we have a beautiful blog. You can post your comments as well as YouTube. Thanks so much for joining me again. There's lots of videos to come here and thank you for subscribing. We look forward to seeing you next time. Robert Estrin at LivingPianos.com.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/the-secrets-of-playing-softly-on-the-piano/

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