After a 3 year gap I think I'm now ready to re-start piano, will be finding a teacher as soon as I've found the money to pay them (hopefully in the next month or two). I've been looking through my previous exam certificates for ideas of what to work on, and something that keeps coming up on the comments sheets is negleted dynamics. The catch here is that I'm hard of hearing - my decibel loss is mild enough that most sounds are muffled rather than non-existent, but it's enough to affect my playing. I find piano much easier than violin/viola as I don't have to struggle to find the exact note, if you press key X then note X will come out, but dynamics are very difficult, especially the finer distinctions of mf and mp. As far as I'm concerned it's all quite quiet unless I'm really bashing the thing.

Does anyone have any tips for improving control of dynamics? With an acoustic piano I suppose it might be useful to put a hand on the body of the instrument when my teacher plays to feel the vibrations so I can get a sense of how the different dynamic levels 'feel'. At home I have a digital piano with pressure-sensitive keys, which in one way is useful as it means I can turn the volume up to a level where I can more easily distinguish the dynamic levels, but obviously this isn't possible with an acoustic piano. Are there any exercises which might help? I don't use a hearing aid, but I am thinking about getting an assistive listening device (ALD) which has an external microphone - if anyone's used one of these, is there somewhere which is best to put it on (or even in) the piano? Is there anything else that might help?

talking as someone who has a hearing loss (I wear 2 hearing aids) am studying for grade 8... For me, its all done by touch. I know by how it feels if it is loud or soft, or in between. Also, since I don't hear the top 2 octaves of the piano, I practice anything like that carefully so it becomes so automatic I don't have to think about it.

Check this out:

http://www.evelyn.co.uk/live/hearing_essay.htm

What a fascinating article. Evelyn puts it very well. So often folk just shout at you if you say "Pardon" more than once, and it's not the loudness that is the problem, but the clarity.
To the OP........your teacher will help you with the dynamics, mine does and she is not at all deaf. Just explain how you hear and the problems you have and they will adjust how they teach.
I have problems in the top 2 octaves on the piano, and so practise the patterns of music in the lower range and then move the hand up to the correct octave. Otherwise I can't hear that I have played the wrong note.
Bev.