Piano Techniques - Touch **Includes Radioactive and Stay With Me**

For the next topic in the book Improve Your Piano Playing, Dr. John Meffen continues his talk about piano techniques. The second technique he discusses is touch. 

Meffen describes touch as the driving force one exerts from their finger, wrist, or arm on the key in order to create a loud or soft sound on the piano (61) . He provides tips on how to execute the following types of pianistic touches: finger, wrist, and arm. 

The finger touch is pretty simple. It is just striking the key by only using power from your finger, not any other part of your body (61). From my experience, I think that this is probably the most common touch since this is used for casual playing. This also used to play soft and delicate sounds since they do not require much force.

The next touch is from the wrist. In this case, the "power to strike the key comes only from vertical movement of the hand at the wrist joint" (Meffen 61). I use my wrist when I want to play make a louder sound than with finger touch. The wrist can also really help when you want to play with feeling and emotion since you can create a  smooth, connected sound by moving your wrist.

The last touch is from the entire arm. Meffen says "the action for pure arm touch comes from the movement from the shoulder joint only" (63). Whole arm movements are usually used to accomplish loud and powerful sounds because it uses force from the entire arm. 

QOTD: What do you prefer, loud music or soft music and why?

Citation: Meffen, John, Dr. Improve Your Piano Playing. New York: Allworth Press, 2007. Print.