Trouble teaching chord hand position.

[rlefebvr]

I have a 8 year old student. 3 months playing.

When she plays her Chords, her hand goes almost flat out and out of position. Her 5th finger is really out there and really flat. I can't get her to place her hand properly. She also has pain within 10 seconds.

Strange thing is this only happens with Chords. The rest of the time, she plays beautifully.

I know it's not much to go on, but I have tried different things and nothing is working. I would appreciate any help.

[bizgirl]

Try using broken chords to get the right hand position.  Have her place her hand in position for the chord (I will use C Major choird in the LH as an example) and play the fifth finger, then the third, then 5-3 together.  Do the same with 5 and 1.  You may want to also have her do the same thing backwards (start with the first finger and going down.)  If she is used to playing the notes seperately with the correct hand position hopefully when she puts them together it will be natural to play it correctly also.  I don't know if any of what I just said will make sense, If you have questions I can try to be more specific.  Good luck!

[rlefebvr]

Turns out she figured it out by herself. After weeks where it looked like she would end up hurting herself, she has started to play them perfectly (sorry, correctly) this week. I am not sure if it's something I said along the way or the simple fact that she may have practiced them more and finally figured it out.

On another note, one of my students is doing extremely well, scary well in fact. All of the major chords have been taught in the primary position following the order of fifths.

I am wondering if this is the time to  teach the inversions or continue with the minor chords first. It's the type of question I have asked in this forum before, but this part was not clear to me.

[bernhard]

I answered this question in the original thread:

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=teac;action=display;num=1083193205;start=3


Best wishes,
Bernhard.