Weight Transfer Touch

Weight Transfer Touch is a concept focused on using the body's weight, rather than isolated finger movements, to control the keys on a piano and produce sound. Here are some key points about Weight Transfer Touch:

• Emphasis on Weight: The core principle is initiating the keystroke with a transfer of weight from the arm and body, not just finger action. This allows for more nuanced control and power in playing.
• Relaxation: Matthay emphasizes relaxation in the fingers and hand. The weight transfer should be smooth and coordinated, avoiding tensing up the fingers.
• Versatility: Weight Transfer Touch is not meant to be a rigid technique, but rather a concept that can be adapted to create a variety of sounds and articulations. The weight transferred can be adjusted to achieve different dynamics (volume) and tonal qualities.

Benefits:

• Improved Tone Production: Weight Transfer Touch is said to help pianists achieve a richer, fuller sound because it engages larger muscle groupsfor better control and power.
• Reduced Tension: By using body weight instead of isolated finger movements, Weight Transfer Touch can help prevent hand fatigue and injuries.
• Increased Stamina: Efficient use of the body's weight can help pianists play for longer periods without tiring.

In short, as already reiterated so often, the function of weight in playing is solely to serve as a basis for the action downwards by the finger hand and forearm. That is, its function always is but to form a stable foundation, sufficient to resist the reactions of finger and hand exertions, so that the finger and hand exertions can be effectively applied to the Key.

This is a psychological distinction rather than a physical one. It implies that the triple combination of Weight versus finger-and-hand exertion required for singing-tone can be prompted into co-operation in two ways. You can either

1. give your mind to the sensation of Weight-release of the arm; or
2. give your mind to the sensation of work-to-be done by the finger and hand.

Question: What is the triple-combination?
Answer: Weight release in combination with the finger and hand exertions.
The timing of this complete triple-combination will thus ensue somewhat differently, and will slightly affect the quality of the resultant touch-action. If you think of the sensation of weight-lapse, the needed finger-and-hand exertions arise in response to it by reflex action, and are therefore slightly laggard in their response; whereas, if you recall the sensation of work being done (by finger and hand) then the Weight-response will be infinitesimally delayed in its incidence. The first will lead to better key-acceleration than the last, and therefore the tone will be "rounder" and "sharper" respectively. The difference is like slightly changing the "timing" of the magneto of your motor-car engine. Some will aver that there can be but little difference in the actual sound-quality arising from this distinction in touch. Possibly there may not be much, but the difference in sensation is quite marked and therefore matters, since it leads to material (though subtle) differences musically; and such subtle distinctions in musical effect are everything, when we have risen beyond the mere strumming stage, and are out really to express the spiritual in Music.

The researches and discoveries of the Australian physiologist, the late Dr. John Hunter , have important bearing on our work as piano teachers. They indeed strikingly corroborate the teachings of "The Act of Touch" in many particulars; and the importance of his discovery of the dual nature of otir muscular equipment cannot be overrated.
This discovery, that we possess two distinct sets of muscles for the same limb-action, one by which to do the serious work of a limb, and the other by which to do the light work, is most important, for we find this applies again and again in our Pianowork.