learning to play the piano from Youtube

[jy_]

I was recently introduced to this by a friend who studied under this teacher -

I've tried doing what he says about repeated octaves at 04:20, but i find it very hard to make the up-down movement for the wrist. its feels easier to make the upward movement instead of the downward movement, (and also, how do you know you've done enough of the movement or not?)

[keypeg]

It appears that the same thing is happening with the student.

[jayeckz]

I've tried doing what he says about repeated octaves at 04:20, but i find it very hard to make the up-down movement for the wrist. its feels easier to make the upward movement instead of the downward movement, (and also, how do you know you've done enough of the movement or not?)

The point of the wrist movement is to emphasize relaxation.  If you're completely relaxed you should be able to move your wrist and arm in virtually any direction. 

I've never focus on making particular movements with my arm/wrist when I play repeated octaves, but I'm completely relaxed.

Thinking about it, this is a great preliminary exercise to teach a tremelo.

[nyiregyhazi]

I was recently introduced to this by a friend who studied under this teacher -

I've tried doing what he says about repeated octaves at 04:20, but i find it very hard to make the up-down movement for the wrist. its feels easier to make the upward movement instead of the downward movement, (and also, how do you know you've done enough of the movement or not?)

The reason the student struggles to isolate movement from the wrist is that his thumb and finger and not trying to move adequately, but are instead forced into emergency stiffening against collapse. The collapse of the arch means his thumb has to stiffen from a difficult position- where it needs to be actively moving to open out of the arch and also bounce the hand back away from the keys. He does this better later in the film, but when asked to isolate movement from the wrist (without instruction to actually move the thumb and finger, in order to spring off the keys) he struggles. You simply can't separate the wrist activity from genuine movement of the thumb and finger- or it's just an awkward struggle against collapsing. For some reason, this key element is the thing that virtually all teachers neglect to even mention in octaves.