Ten Things I Wish I Could Have Understood about Taubman Technique from the Very Beginning
3. You must learn to allow gravity to play a role in the arm’s downward swing into the piano key.
With a little practice, anyone can learn to allow their forearm to fall freely downward from a horizontal position—first away from and then at the piano. First, try it from the elbow (without any attempt to rotate your forearm). You can then cultivate the same downward freefall rotationally, from either a supinated or pronated position. You can quickly overcome any lack of “talent” for this basic skill as long as you aren’t hurrying, and aren’t trying to learn four or five (or more) new skills simultaneously.
It is incredibly well worth spending the time to get the feel of arm weight into the rotations. Using arm weight creates the opportunity for loveliest sound, and it is also a prescription for minimizing muscular tension. You can’t have gravity do its magic for you if you are stiff anywhere in your arm. You will also start to create force-sound equations earlier in the learning process, making expressive playing possible sooner. I would argue that, in Taubman, the force generated by the falling arm is the force of first resort for creating meaningful dynamics.
A good way to make sure that your arm is falling as a result of gravity's pull--rather than through muscular exertion--is to cradle the forearm in the oposite hand prior to dropping. Your forearm should feel quite heavy even if you aren't a large person, and you will just need to pull the "helping hand" away for a true drop to happen. You can do this with the forearm in a supinated or pronated position as well.
If your upper arm is tight, it is really hard to recruit gravity! This is why...