As one gets older one notices wear and tear on the body. I have more wrinkles, I’m obviously slower than I used to be and I’ve just picked a nasty case of tennis elbow in the right arm which is taking quite a while to dissipate. All of these things I can adjust to since they are anticipated as one matures in life. What is more difficult to adjust to (and indeed recognise in the first place) are the mental changes. I’ve always relied much more on my brain than my brawn but now I’m noticing that there are things that I used to be able to do which now are either much more difficult or else I cannot do at all.
This is exacerbated by the Stuart piano, which in fact requires the performer to be much more careful about how he/she plays and monitors the sound coming out. It is very easy to overdo things. The trick with this piano is that there are a number of important features to get used to.
The first is the dynamic range of the initial strike. As I’ve indicated before in this blog with reference to the pedals in particular, this piano has the widest dynamic range of any that I (and other people) have played. A properly voiced 2.9 metre Stuart piano can deafen people close to it, but by the same token on the same piano you can produce clean, controlled sounds that are practically inaudible. A colleague of mine who is an expert in the physiology of the ear and therefore is very sensitive to such things, plays my piano with the lid down …
Secondly, the decay transients also have a unique behaviour. These transients are much more responsive than in the standard piano where they have been dumbed down to produce what could be described as a dull, woody thud. Not only do you have a longer sustain, but also a unique tonal quality of that sustain.
Lastly, there is an almost total lack of low frequency masking which is the tendency of the lower frequencies to obscure or overpower the upper frequencies producing the thick dull sound common in the average acoustic piano. It is thus possible to create a clean, long lasting sustained sound involving the entire 97-note piano range. Another consequence is that you can play much more loudly without drowning out an instrumental or vocal soloist. This is quite evident in performance.
What this means in practice is that it is necessary to listen much more attentively to the sound coming from the piano. Even more than in other pianos, the combination of the fingers, feet and ears is absolutely critical to producing the best sound. In my case my feet are OK. My fingers never were that strong but as long as I don’t overdo things I can work them pretty well. My ears are the problem. Even now, I’m still not listening properly. I pick up things when I listen to a recording of my playing which I never recognised when I was playing and recording it.
More practice, more recordings, more listening.
Did I mention the word challenging earlier?