Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical How does one develop 'touch'?

I'm the latest thus far to chime in.

But my two cents are to the OP is make sure piano is well regulated first and foremost.

And gosh guys, Gyro isn't all that bad, I mean, he or she isn't mainstream? I mean Gyro does have a different perspective on most topics here which makes this forum, I think, somewhat colorful.

Anyways, maybe Gyro was trying to say the same thing perhaps. The fact that a digital piano does have an even touch, in other words it does not need regulation. It is what it is and very consistently at that.

The problem with digital pianos, imo, is that there is no live tone. Which takes touch to produce. Developing a nice and even touch with control of dynamics can only be developed with a good quality piano that is well tuned, evenly voiced and regulated.

Maybe this is why Gyro is saying practice on a digital. Because most pianos are not perfectly regulated, yet digitals are.

I don't think I can agree with either of those sentences.

I scanned back through all the posts in this thread to find out if the word "touch" was ever defined.

Nope. No problem, I'll do it.

Touch is simply a very precise ability to adjust how loud you play any given note.

That's all. But that's a lot, considering how many notes you may be playing at one time, etc.

The digital piano now has 127 levels of loudness available. That should be enough for most of us mortals.

Now, the exact effect on the tone can vary depending on the software. Cheap digitals may have the same sampled tone just supplied louder or softer, and that doesn't truly give the same effect as touch on an acoustic. But the high end digitals sample the acoustics at various levels of volume and they do pick up the differences in timbre that result.

I don't think that's how I would define touch. To me, it is not just the "loudness" with which you play the note, it is also how you get that loudness, and what you do with it. The speed with which you approach the key. The speed with which you move away from the key. How it interacts with other aspects of your playing. And much more.

For example, do you attack the note quickly, or move into it slowly? What kind of voice are you trying to get with the note? My teacher has asked me to think of various instruments from an orchestra in playing a piece, and for example (in one piece) with a series of low bass notes he suggests I think of a bowed bass. So a series of bass notes with a sort of soft entry and exit, flowing together... not like a plucked bass, or even a bassoon. This requires a particular touch. I can't even approximate it on a digital, but I can "get it" on the acoustic.

I do think it is useful to try to define the concept we're talking about. I just would not define it so narrowly.

Touch is texture, not just loudness. It involves how one note blends into the next one, or doesn't blend, and the contrast between those notes. It is the creation of the colour or quality of a tone, how it starts, rings, dies down.

The digital piano has a built in colour and does not allow you to create or interact. There are no hammers that begin to give and swing that you are able to respond to, and no actual strings with the acoustic properties that physics has given them, nor is there wood and metal having vibrational properties spread three-dimensionally across a massive instrument.

It seems that the only thing you can control on a digital piano is loud, soft, and duration, and the rest is done for you. The very fact that an acoustic piano can reveal your uneven touch also means it will reveal other shades that you intentionally put in - something impossible in the digital due to its built in perfection and pre-conceived sound. It's kind of like homogenized milk from guernsey cows, versus the choice of unhomogenized choices of guernsey and rich creamy jersey mixed at will with a touch of goat. There is no richness of flavour or texture, and there are no surprises.

Thought that touch was about putting each tone in their place.

What I mean is that the melody notes should be hear clearly over the harmony notes underneath it. And the bass notes controlled to be played softer. We've all probably hear this from our teachers over and over, but this simple strategy takes a lot of practice and listening to get this just right! Otherwise you get notes just blending all together.

Dynamics, dynamics, dynamics! Can't emphasis that word enough.

Most people play notes and can sound mechanical, but when emotion and feeling are put into the touch by putting the tones in their place, it ullimately draws emotion out of the listener and isn't that the goal!

Easy to play notes, but not so easy to play music!

Add perfect timing or some rubato to all this, and you've got music that touches you!

Yup, and as you imply... easy to listen to music, not so easy to listen to notes.

Tim is right. Touch is only speed of key descent - nothing else. If thinking in terms of orchestral instruments helps your conception that's fine but you can't break the laws of physics.

Commonly believed to be true, but in actual fact merely mythology.

In blind tests (single blind, obviously, no way to double blind this) sophisticated listeners are unable to tell the touch of a finger from the touch of a pencil eraser held between the teeth.

Loudness really is all there is. But as I've said, that is still a lot. And yes, the higher end digital software does capture the effect of other string resonances, etc.

The one statement does not lead to the next. It is not what part of the body touches the instrument, but how the musician interacts physically with the instrument. That can be done with finger, hand, arm, pencil, or nose, if you can coordinate well enough.

Yes, the digital software captures some of the effects of string resonances in translation, but not the resonance that you want to create and not three-dimensionally.

Hello,

I only just can give my opinion and experience there.

To developp touch one need :
To know how to play relaxed (whole body) and with a good equilibrium posture, so he can use the weigh of the body, arm, shoulders, etc, and the force obtained with the forearm opening, the forearm opening along with the legs impulse, etc.

Biggest thing is neitherless to have some musical culture, and touch is realted to tone closely. SO to have a nice touch one need to have good imagination and memory of tones.

A very efficient method to developp touch is to play / work a Bach piece like a Praeludium or any piece that is not too difficult for your level, and paly it while imaginating textures such :
Rain
Snow
sand
dust
wapor
snow tempest
water
stones rolling in the water of a little river.

etc

Doing so you will develop your listening and the touch will be there because of your intention. If you don't obtain exactly what you are trying to that is not a problem because you are learning to understand what touch you are after, and recognize when you have it.

Don't hesitate to jump in the tone, even if you may probably hear nuances that exist at a lesser point to the auditory, to me that is the way to go, and I trained like that for a moment with very good results.

Prior doing so you can learn to "tame" the rythm and respiration of the music, reading the music while walking in rythm in the room.

The link between your body an soul and the music is of utmost importantce to developp touch.

Hope that helps

Musically,

I apologize for my poor english, not my native language indeed.

All above apply for an accoustic piano by evidence.

I know at last one professional classical pianist that only have a GT1 to practice. When he may play in concert, he needs 3 days of work on an accoustic piano to be OK.

You can obtain certainly a little bit in touch on a Keyboard, but so many things are still missing that it may not be as "miracoulous" than with the real thing.

Best

What refreshing thoughts!

One develops touch by listening - listening to those that have it, recognizing what it sounds like, and striving for that sound in your own playing.

No, it's finding your own voice.

.. and the composer's voice, kbk?

It's his/her words.

I think "touch" comes from wanting to find many ways to express the music you are playing. You have to notice there is something lacking in your playing, and follow through with
different "touches" to capture the sound as you imagine it can be.

Listening, selecting techniques, dynamics, articulation capture your attention. Technique is simply a word for "How-to". The more you know "How-to" the more choices you will have in your expressiveness.

If helps to have a teacher well versed in performance standards and the ability to teach the nuances and characteristics of certain composers.

Betty

Like those of a playwright? In language words are never neutral, always require interpretation of intent. I guess you get a blend of the author's voice via his words, and your own as well as what the genre suggests. Um, touch plays into that somewhere.

Kamin,

Yes imagination is extremely helpful, as is colors of things, aromas, sights, feelings, searching one self for exaggerations that can enter into the music through you.

The deeper you can go within your self, I believe, the more expressive you can be, and you'll find the interpretation throught the combination of listening, your life's experiences, and your choice of emotional and physical reaction to the music on the piano.

From the composer's writings, characteristics, era, mood, style, and yourself as the instrument of interpreting his musical works.

Touch comes through motions and fingers, but it also comes from the heart and being of the musician who is the interpreter.

Betty

There are some really good thoughts on this. Thank you Betty, PianoJazz, Kamin, and Keyboard Klutz. You were able to say what I was going to say.

I would like to add to this as well, if I may. You really want to play from your heart and really listen to your playing. I have found that when I am sight reading something, I'm not really hearing the music; I'm only hearing the piano make noise.

Having said this, when you play from your heart, you need to listen to yourself and one of the ways to do that is to sing the melody in your head prior to starting the piece, and then try to match what you hear in your playing.

While your playing, you also want to pay close attention to the shape of the phrases and make the most of them by emphasizing the peaks and valleys, and by making more of different harmonies and melodic lines that are not part of the main themes, but appear within the music by playing them louder or softer depending upon how they fit. One of my teachers taught me to think in other instruments. So when I play a Schubert Sonata, I think string quartet, or one of his piano trios which are similar to his sonatas, and I phrase the music accordingly. Bach keyboard works, as another example, are good for Baroque concerto grossi. I think about playing with different types of stacatto and different levels of legato so that the music speaks rather than yells.

Arm weight, balance, work well in controlling the balance between the hands and the overall dynamics. One of the things that a teacher showed me is to play softer than written. The reason is this gives you more leeway to phrase and stay within the dynamic range noted, and you also have bigger dynamic range so when you really need to get loud, there is still piano sound to get there without banging. For this you use your body/shoulder and arm behind the chords instead of just the fingers to produce a round full tone instead of a harsh brittle tone that the finger-only technique produces.

Don't expect instant results. I had these lessons more than 12 years ago, and it took me until about 3 years ago to just being to understand what he was saying.

John