A new scientific study has resolved a century-old debate by showing that a pianist's touch can indeed alter the tone color of piano notes. Researchers used advanced sensors to capture subtle key movements at high speed. The findings indicate that these movements produce audible differences in brightness, heaviness, and clarity.
Researchers led by Dr. Shinichi Furuya of the NeuroPiano Institute and Sony Computer Science Laboratories conducted the study. They employed a custom noncontact system called HackKey to track all 88 piano keys at 1,000 frames per second. Twenty internationally acclaimed pianists performed notes with contrasting tonal qualities such as bright versus dark and light versus heavy sounds.
