A pianists touch

The more I study this beautiful instrument, the more  I want to discover all that it can do, and how pianists adapt their playing in different ways in the form of the touch and sensitivity of the keys.  So…. I went to a lecture at the Royal College of Music in London to find out all about a pianists touch.  This was not what  I was expecting but I discovered some useful information about key hammer action on accoustic pianos.  First of all, this lecture was given by an Associate Professor of  the Associate of  Music Accoustics,  He spoke about the different types of touch on a piano keyboard using and recording data on a graph being measured by electrodes attached to the hands. The two different kinds of touch that was given out tonight (pressed and struck) were interesting in as much as, the faster you play, the more you get into struck touch and slower playing is pressed.  He also discussed the hand and finger motion, captured on an electronic graph to see how the graph varies with different key strokes and how they are heard.    An interesting and very intellectual study.

This video shows a typical example of struck touch.  It outlines what  has been said above with the pianist recording electronic data.

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