What makes piano hard?

ranjit · 2026-01-03T17:57:42+00:00

I was thinking about this yesterday. It felt like the only thing that makes piano difficult is an ungodly amount of fine motor control of the fingers. Music...

pseudonym58

TC3
This was definitely one of the most important factors in my choice of piano. I wanted to make sure that the keyboard had enough resistance (or however I should describe it) so that it wouldn't so easily allow me to play forte with a minimum of effort. That, and a less brilliant sound, so that when I actually did deliberately play loudly, the tone color would shift towards the bright end. It strikes me as odd that the same model piano, same year, can sound so different from instrument to instrument. But it's always worth my mentioning that I speak as someone who has not had a lot of advanced formal training on piano (as opposed to cello).

pseudonym58

pianoloverus All I can say is that I'm very good at determining whether I'm listening to a major, minor, 7th (of numerous types), augmented, diminished, etc. chords by their sound. Jazz musicians, and especially jazz pianists, use this understanding in their improvisation, voicings, and chord substitutions.
I'm absolutely useless when it comes to perfect pitch, however. I can take a stab at approximately where the note is on a keyboard, but I could be off by as much as a fifth.
In an ear training class, we at one point trained ourselves to more or less memorize what "A" 440 Hz sounds like. From there, relative pitch would allow us to determine what other notes we were hearing. But that's not really perfect pitch, as far as I can understand it.

iternabe

TC3 For me, the most difficult thing about piano is dynamics.

In my very limited experience, practicing on digital pianos, I have found a tool that seems to help a lot with developing dynamics control. That is to have an objective, quantitative measurement of the dynamics my fingers produced. In Pianoteq, it is as simple as watching the live velocity curve graph during playback. What I found is in my playing I am rarely able to play the soft dynamics as soft as indicated on the score.

Some may say dynamics is only relative, not absolute. Well I understand that argument may be true depending on circumstance, like in a large concert hall the audience still need to hear the pianissimo, so everything may need to be louder. What I am talking here is the dynamics (e.g. how soft) in terms of what my piano action is physically able to do. For example, if my digital piano can produce quietest to loudest dynamics (represented by velocity value) of 1-127, piano would fall somewhere between 40-60. So here is what actually happens, a lot: I play some phrase in piano, and subjectively hear it as about soft enough, then I play it back only to find the velocity actually is 80-90 (mp to mf). That's a big problem. Even if I can control the gradation of my dynamics so that my mp is always louder than my p and my mf is always louder than my mp, I am only using a part (and compressed) range of dynamics far short of what my piano is capable of.

In daily practice, periodically check the velocity curve during playback has led me to spend more time working on my dynamics control - specifically in the area of how to play softer by modifying my technique. It is still very very difficult. But like most technical problems, awareness and targeted practice seems to help.

pianoloverus

iternabe In daily practice, periodically check the velocity curve during playback has led me to spend more time working on my dynamics control - specifically in the area of how to play softer by modifying my technique. It is still very very difficult. But like most technical problems, awareness and targeted practice seems to help.

Playing very softly while still avoiding ghosts notes Is a pretty advanced technical problem, and there have been many posts on Piano World about how to do this. Here's one I think is very good:

ranjit

iternabe What I found is in my playing I am rarely able to play the soft dynamics as soft as indicated on the score.

It is more difficult to play soft on digital pianos because they have lighter actions and touch curves, almost universally. I learned to play really soft on a digital but had to unlearn it subsequently on a grand. I find that you have to play as light as possible to be really quiet on a digital, which is hard to control and not how it works on an acoustic.

HeartKeys

[non-classical player, who's gained interest/appreciation for classical]

I want to touch on the "classical piano" aspect of all this. I believe majority of people on this forum play classical pieces to some degree.

For me, one of the absolute hardest things to do, specific to me, is MEMORIZING anything. I can't, for the life of me, memorize any passages. that's what also makes piano "hard" for me. It's "super easy" for me to "mess around and play anything by ear" but when I do so, it's done haphazardly, and not in any disciplined manner. And it's repetitive progressions type of music.

In most (modern) genres, there's a repetitive chord progression that's unbelievably easy for someone who plays by ear. I can do that in my sleep, as can anyone who has natural ability to play by ear.

In classical, I'm always trying to remember, even the MELODY. So yes, something like Moonlight Sonata 1st Mvmt is easy, or the most basic-basic Bach stuff, or something like ionno, Canon in D (if that's even deemed classical lol).

But anything else, I'm always lost in the sauce.

I commend the many of you who have the ability (yes, it's a talent that I do not have) to memorize things.

iternabe

ranjit I learned to play really soft on a digital but had to unlearn it subsequently on a grand. I find that you have to play as light as possible to be really quiet on a digital, which is hard to control and not how it works on an acoustic.

Was it hard to unlearn? The action on my DP has wooden keys and fairly smooth, but it’s not a hybrid so not the real thing.

BartK

iternabe Was it hard to unlearn? The action on my DP has wooden keys and fairly smooth, but it’s not a hybrid so not the real thing.

The big difference is the feedback you get from a real action with physical hammers and how much velocity you need to produce a sound. If you practice too much extreme soft dynamics on a DP you're going to get lots of ghost notes on an accoustic piano because you need to push with at least a minimum velocity on a real action to get any sound at all. IMO, DPs don't replicate this aspect very well. The minimum velocity is way too low compared to a real piano and the feedback is nothing like the action of a hammer (on non-hybrid DPs that is).

I don't quite agree with ranjit that it's more difficult to play very soft on a DP. Getting a consistent dynamic level on an accoustic is way more difficult IMO because of this very fine balance between not enough velocity to produce any sound and suddenly having too much sound when you cross that threshold.

iternabe

BartK Thanks!

My DP, the MP11SE, has the GF I action which is wooden (almost) full length key stick on balance pin, but with a very simple weighted hammer. It does have the softest zone that won't sound a note (i.e. ghost note). I would not know how lacking the feedback is compared to acoustic action, but I am sure it is lacking a lot.

My reasoning for focusing on learning to play soft on my DP is: there is ability, and there is choice. Being able to play any velocity, on demand and consistently, that my DP action is capable of is ability. Choosing what velocity range to play at based on an instrument at hand is choice. But choice only work after one attains the ability to play the entire velocity range. Does that make sense?

BartK this very fine balance between not enough velocity to produce any sound and suddenly having too much sound when you cross that threshold.

This is exactly what I'm experiencing on my DP. I understand the threshold might be different. But the frustration feels the same.

BartK

iternabe

I haven't played the MP11SE so maybe its action does a better job of simulating an acoustic action. All I can say is my subjective experience when playing any acoustic vs any digital is very different. It was quite a shock at first. The sensation is difficult to describe so I encourage you to go somewhere where you can try it for yourself. If you can get some practice time on an acoustic then that would be even better. Then, when you go back to your digital you can better relate the dynamics and the physical sensation vs how it feels on another piano.

Anyway, I don't want to derail this thread into a digital vs acoustic war. It's just my suggestion for how to avoid having to unlearn anything. I played several years on a digital and I was able to adjust. I think it was in part because I also had lessons on my teacher's grand piano once a week.

pseudonym58

In my experience, I have to ask myself what's quiet? If it sounds quiet it is quiet. That depends of course on so many factors, including the relative volume of notes played before and after, and where the pitch is on the piano keyboard. For all I know it could be that pitches in certain ranges of the piano sound louder just by virtue of their greater sustain. Perhaps the variety of overtones affects it as well. I find that, speaking only for myself, if I'm able to record myself playing a certain way, and obtain a reasonable facsimile of what I thought I was playing upon listening back to the recording, then I'm more or less satisfied.

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