The dynamics are right, and the phrase still doesn't pull
I hear it a lot: the marked dynamics are right, the notes are right, and the phrase sounds flat. Mostly the arm gives every note the same pressure.
To shape a phrase on piano, find the note the phrase heads for and build the tension of the line toward it. In most phrases the arm gives a little more toward that note, mostly more pressure, sometimes also a bit more weight, and a little less after it.
Tension in a phrase: the pull of the line
A musical line needs tension in it. With tension I mean the pull of the line, towards the place the phrase is heading. A tight arm is something else.
The word is the same, and they are two different things. When I write about tension in a musical phrase here, I mean the first one: the pull you hear in the line.
Giving shape to a phrase is for me the same as creating heat. Energy and heat are the same: when the line pulls toward the note it heads for, it sounds full of energy, with warmth, with fire, and that makes it alive. Play every note louder and the phrase still doesn't pull.
The gravity point: where the phrase's tension pulls
You build that tension towards the gravity point, the point is where a phrase's tension pulls towards. Often it is one note, sometimes a small group. What makes it the gravity point is that the other notes pull toward it, not that it sits at the top.
I have a separate post on finding that point in your own music and marking it into your score. Mark it first. You can only give a little more toward a note when you know which note it is.
What the arm gives: arm weight and pressure, together
The Chopin Prelude in C minor, Op. 28 No. 20, starts fortissimo. And we don't make this fortissimo just with the arm weight, we want intensity in it using arm pressure. So we use a combination of weight and pressure from the lower arm.
What the arm gives is not just weight. It is arm weight and pressure from the lower arm, together, and their interaction changes the quality of the tone.
The balance between the two shifts. More pressure in the mix gives the tone more intensity, more weight gives it a fuller sound, and mostly you are using both. How much of each depends on the passage and on the sound you want. In the Chopin the fortissimo is already in the score. What the pressure adds to it is intensity.
Phrase shaping: where the arm gives more, and where less
In most phrases the arm gives a little more toward the note they head for. That is actually pressure, mostly, sometimes also a bit more weight. After that note, a little less, and the line keeps going.
A little more really means a little. Turn it into an accent and you get a different piece of playing.
Keep two things apart here. In most phrases the note the arm gives more toward is the same note the line pulls toward. They coincide, and they are still two things.
The pull is what you hear the phrase do. The more and the less is what your arm does at the keys. A phrase can have a clear gravity point while the arm gives every note the same, and then you are back at the phrase from the beginning of this post, with the right dynamics and nothing pulling.
In most phrases, the arm's more and less works inside the marked dynamics
Of course you play the dynamics as the composer wrote them.
The score tells you piano or forte, crescendo or diminuendo. Within that marking, in most phrases, the arm gives its little more toward the note the phrase heads for, mostly pressure, sometimes also a bit more weight, and its little less after it. That note doesn't have to be the loudest one in the passage.
So you follow the markings and give the more and less at the same time. Then listen whether the line pulls toward that note, and if it doesn't yet, check first what your arm gives toward it.
The arm helps the rhythm of the passage
The arm actually enhances the rhythm of the passage, it helps the rhythm. The arm's movement, and the weight and pressure it gives, follow the rhythm of the passage and support it.
The arm takes the notes as one group. The fingers play inside that movement.
Practising the phrase as one group, toward the note it heads for
In Super Fingers there is this step: work in phrases or note groups to clarify the arm movement, starting from a starting point and moving towards a finish point. The same step helps when you shape a phrase.
The finish point of a note group is not always the note the phrase heads for.
Take one phrase and play it slowly as one group, toward the note it heads for and on after it. Feel and check the arm movement, and how the arm helps your fingers to play smoothly. When that movement is clear, add the little more toward that note and the little less after it.
The catch: concentrated fingers keep what the arm gives
A collapsed finger loses what the arm gives before the bottom of the key. So the fingers stay concentrated, more or less, depending on the sound.
And in a soft phrase? The arm usually gives less weight there, and many students let the fingers go loose with it. But you cannot play softly with spaghetti fingers.
With less weight in the key, a collapsed finger is even easier to hear. So in a piano phrase too, the fingers stay concentrated, neither collapsed nor gripped, and the little more toward the note still reaches the key.
I wrote about how arm weight and pressure reach the key through concentrated fingers and turn into tone before. That post is about the tone of a note, this one about how what the arm gives changes across a whole phrase.
Try this
Take a phrase you know well.
- Mark the note your phrase heads for (gravity point).
- Play toward it with a little more pressure.
- Try some arm weight too, and listen.
- After that note, give less, and keep the line going.
Try the third step a few times and keep the balance that sounds right for this phrase. If the phrase goes on after that note, the notes after it ease away from it, and they are still part of the line.
Where this is built
Without this, a phrase has all the correct notes and doesn't pull the listener.
In the Academy we train weight and pressure in the exercises, then in real phrases. Work on it with me. Bring a phrase you are working on to a live lesson, and I will show you where it heads and what your arm is giving on the way.
