There are two sides to playing the piano: producing the sound, and knowing what sound to produce.
You could say that there is the interpretation (the mental picture or "artistic image" in the words of Heinrich Neuhaus) and the way you physically make the image heard (technique, in its broadest sense).
The natural weight of the arms is enough to produce any volume of sound. It is enough to make the key go down and the hammer strike the string. If the hammer is hitting the string then a note will be heard. You do not need to do more than this to play the piano! The best way to discover a free and natural use of your muscles is to put a little swing into your movements. When you are practising you can do this as much as you like. Since the aim is to make more freedom and calmness in your muscles, your body might need some extra reminding of how to do this. The little bit of extra movement is not really extra at all. Think of it like this. There are two ways to get from A to B. A straight line or combination of straight lines, and a curve or combination of curves. What we need here is the curvy solution. This is because arms and arm joints work in a curvy way. Keep your elbow still and move your arm from left to right - your hand has started making a circle! That's the way it is with arms, not the straight line way. So even though it might seem as though curves are a bit unneccesary (thinks: Is it really economical to move like that?) you could see it like this: a curve is the 'straight line' of a curvy world. Pianists are human and living and warm, and they move in a living, organic way. Imagine drawing a straight line on a globe: you can't, it always comes out curved. Well, it's like that. All of you can move in its natural way, and all of you should be allowed freedom to do just that. Swing it a bit!
If there is tension in your body already, before you play a note, then this swingy moving will help. The real danger point is when the hand touches the key in order to make the sound heard. It's interesting to see that all body tension has a mental tension to go with it. We are not just physical beings; we have emotions and thoughts and all sorts, and the truth of it is that we are spiritual beings as well. As humans, the important part of life isn't the physical part, it's the part with all the happiness/sadness, inspiration, understanding, meaning. We have bodies, it is true, but that is only a little part of the story. The spirit part of us is actually what we really are. The rest is just what we look like! Because of this, tension actually makes its way to the body from somewhere else. Often mental insecurity is the cause of physical tension in piano playing. Listen to all the thoughts that come up when you try to play a note. They are loudest in performance of course, but even a quiet thought is there to be heard. What do you hear? "Mustn't make a mistake, why doesn't that sound the way I want it to, it looks so easy when he or she does it, I must do better than the others, I should have practised more, do I practise too much, why do I feel like I'm just playing notes all the time, I wish I could just do this by magic like the great pianists do, why can't I do anything right? Why am I asking all these questions?" Those are a few possible examples! Just have a listen for a moment. Did you hear any of them? Maybe some others?
So now you see why I call the moment the hand tries to make a sound through the key "the danger point". There is underlying tension even at rest, but when you move to produce the sound, greater tension pops up. It's dormant until you have to act. You can attack this in two ways, mental and physical. Both affect the other, so both will work. Learning to move naturally like I mentioned will improve your thinking as well as your moving. The best is to examine the thoughts that make the tension and ask yourself if they are justified. They are not.
All the physical tension has a mental origin. We have heard about the subconscious tensions; the conscious ones appear because you're trying to make the sound. Trying to make the sound. I already said that arm weight is enough. What more do you need to do? Amazingly, it probably takes more effort to lift the arm in between playing notes than it does to play the notes. Because arms resting on the keys after they have played a chord are at rest. That's their natural habitat. Anything away from that is more difficult.
Muscle tension for any reason causes defects in the sound and is the sign of problems in the interpretation and preparation. We will talk about interpretation and preparation later, but for now the message is clear: relax!
Next Page: Economy in motion