This is so pertinent to our creative learning process at the piano.
Piano students have a lot to learn from string players who have direct contact with their sound source by strokes of a bow. As pianists, we are physically separated from the strings as hammers must be activated by our key depressions, but by listening to the swells of a violin, cello, or viola, hearing shades of color and nuance, we can try to emulate a vast range of tonal possibilities. As a first step, we must imagine what we want to hear and find the means to achieve it.
What about searching the literature of interviews with string players to get the very inside analysis of how they feel about their expressive medium and apply it to the piano.
I found one such exchange on the Internet between the distinguished cellist, *Steven Isserlis and UK music commentator, Tim Janof. (Quotes were extracted from two separate meetings, one transpiring in 1998…
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Arioso7's Blog (Shirley Kirsten) 
Comment from Seymour Bernstein, author, With Your Own Two Hands:
Steven Isserlis is a very wise and perceptive musician. Everything he says
applies to the piano. If I may, I take exception with one thing: “Teaching
students to be relaxed, and playing with relaxation.” It has been
scientifically proved that relaxation is a total myth. Simply holding the
bow of a stringed instrument, or lifting our hands by means of our arms to
the keyboard requires contractions of muscles. A more accurate and helpful
description of the proper condition for playing an instrument, or, for that
matter, performing any task in life, would be to perform with controlled
contractions of muscles, no more and no less, depending on what we are
playing or doing.
About interpretation, whenever I play my best, I have the feeling that I,
myself, am not playing at all, but rather, I am being played by the music.
Seymour
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