Link between Music and Technique

You cannot make music unless you can produce the precise degree and kind of intended tone at the precise moment it is musically due. To obtain the requisite tone, thus musically demanded for each note, you must accurately apply the correct degree of force required for each key descent. The only way to achieve certainty when setting the keys in motion is by actually sensing the varying resistance the key itself offers during descent.

This gauging of key-resistance at the keyboard is attained by the application of your muscular-sense. This is not merely a touch or contact-sense, but a sensation mainly derived from work being done by our muscles. The American psychologists call this the kinsesthetic ^[1] sense, and include in this not only true muscular-sensation, but also the sensations caused by tension of the tendons, and the pressure or tension within the joints themselves.

It always takes precisely the same amount of force whether you move the key slowly or quickly, just as it takes the same amount of force whether you walk or run upstairs. To move the key quickly, the total amount of work has to be concentrated during a shorter space of time, hence our muscles feel the strain more severely the quicker the work is done. This is the reason why you need to move your fingers slowly into the keys.
It is this difference in the resulting muscular sensation of which we can become aware, if we attend to the key as it is being set in motion, through our muscular and key-resistance-sense. The work done by a constant force of magnitude F on a point that moves a displacement 's' in the direction of the force is given by the product of force and displacement, which is represented by the equation W=Fs.

W = F s   

Here, 'W' represents the work done by the force, 'F' represents the magnitude of the force, and 's' represents the displacement of the point in the direction of the force. It is worth noting that work is a scalar quantity, and its unit is the joule (J). The direction of the force and the displacement does not affect the work done, only the magnitude of the force and the displacement in the direction of the force are important.

[1] Kinesthetic learning : Kinesthetic learning or tactile learning is a learning style in which learning takes place by the students carrying out physical activities, rather than listening to a lecture or watching demonstrations.