Playing The Piano Part 3 – The Damper
The second duty of the key is its action on the damper. It has already been stated that, in fulfilling this duty, the key is being kept ” at work ” until the very moment that it rises, the “work” being that of preventing the damper from touching the string, thus allowing the tone to continue sounding.
The damper of the piano is the only means of stopping the string’s vibrations, which would otherwise continue, in many cases, longer than would be necessary or agreeable. In violin-playing, the same stoppage of tone takes place when the player ceases drawing the bow across the strings.
The continuance of the tone, in the case of the piano, depends only negatively on the action of the damper. Positively, it depends on the vibrations of the strings, assisted and reinforced by the large surface of the sounding-board, over which they are stretched.
The key, as long as it is kept down by the finger, exercises a restraining influence on the damper, and the finger may therefore be considered to have some slight extra resistance offered to it by the weight of the damper. If this resistance were great enough to be perceived by the finger while keeping the key down, some extra force would be needed to counteract it; but as the weight of the hand and arm are far more than sufficient to resist the weight of the damper, added to that of the key, no extra pressure on the ivory is necessary to keep the damper away from the string.
Considered from the side of the necessities of the hand, the hold which the hand keeps on the key after the push, must be accompanied by no continuous clinging pressure, as this after-pressure destroys the looseness or elasticity of the muscles, and makes no greater impression on the damper-mechanism, than does a hold of the lightest and loosest description.
The finger-work consists of two elements, namely, the push, necessary to make the hammer strike the string, and the hold, necessary to prevent the damper from stopping the tone. The impulse used in delivering the push should always be of the most momentary duration, as the work done by it
Tags: Damper, Hammer, hammers, key-mechanism, keys, Music, pianist, piano lessons, piano playing, piano touch, sounding-board, study of the piano
Add A Comment