Once again : The perception of piano touch and tone . Can touch audibly change piano sound independently of intensity ?

This study addresses the old question of whether the timbre of isolated piano tones can be audibly varied independently of their hammer velocities — only through the type of touch. A large amount of single piano tones were played with two prototypical types of touch: depressing the keys with the finger initially resting on the key surface (pressed), and hitting the keys from a certain distance above (struck). Musicians were asked to identify the type of touch of the recorded samples, in a first block with all attack noises before the tone onsets included, in a second block without them. Half of the listeners could correctly identify significantly more tones than chance in the first block (up to 86% accuracy), but no one in block 2. Those who heard no difference tended to give struck ratings for louder tones in both blocks.