My piano teacher wants me to have my hand still

[lynxerious]

I just have my first piano lesson with a teacher this week. I self taught for 2 years. I want to improve on my technicals so he told me to play Czerny 636. The first piece is a 1 2 4 5 4 5 2 1 pattern where you alternate 4th and 5th fingers in the right hand.

The problem is I am over rotate a lot when it comes to finger 4th and 5th. So the teacher put a pencil onto my wrist and told me to keep it very still so it didn't drop. The instruction text in Czerny also said to keep the hand static and only focusing on moving the fingers.

I used to have forearm pain when I first started piano so I implements rotation with arm weight a lot into my playing. My teacher noticed I used too much rotation and put my arm weight where the 4th and 5th finger too much, he said since my goal is to play something like Ballade 1 or Waldstein, I should learn to be as efficient as possible, or I'll get tired and not have enough speed.

I think he's absolutely right that I flail my hand around, but I'm not sure if I understand the keeping my hand still properly, more specifically he wants my wrist still. Do I only use the fingers to hit the key if I only play within an octave? Or do I actually use rotation and arm weight but in a more subtle way so it looks like I don't move my wrist at all? When I practice the Czerny I feel like I'm focusing on the keeping wrist still too much that it feels stiff and mechanical. And I'm not sure about the pencil part, I figure I need to move up down and in out a little bit, but if I do that will I become slower or tired quickly?

To be honest, I'm very uncomfortable about the pencil part so I'm just gonna have a talk with him. Though as a student to a teacher, it's kinda difficult to say something you don't think is good, since I'm not as good and I don't have anything to prove. I always prefer to have clear communication even though it might feel awkward later on. And when he tries to use that method, I feel like two of us does not align in our idea, but I'm merely a student so I kept my doubt from becoming words in that lesson.

Like how do I say things like maybe it should be like this or like that to a teacher as if you're teaching them, it kinda makes me feel arrogant and I prefer to be humble,  it's a difficult thing to do. And I'm also not a total newbie so I could kind of understand how playing the piano work.

But I need a second opinion so can anyone give me advice on how should I approach this situation?

[nicholas c. duval]

I understand it is hard to disagree with a teacher. That being said, I personally believe it is bad pedagogy to discourage wrist rotation.

If you are trying to achieve efficiency and speed, the use of larger muscles and rotation is necessary; your fingers will never be as strong as your forearms. Trying to play with only fingers is sure to cause fatigue quickly.

There is a reason the Taubman method is so popular. Your hand, wrist, and forearms are all one “playing unit.” Using only one part of this unit severely limits your capabilities.

[ego0720]

Technique is like enlightenment. It sounds wrong when describing and takes many words that may appear to oppose each other. I like to see it for its internal power management. You use your larger muscles (forearms and wrist) to take the fingers mostly there and then the fingers use just enough strength to push the keys. Even then it’s important to relax other inactive fingers (get ready position) so any of them can strike. But u have to connect the feelings to make that feel right. And not only that make sure u push just enough until u release some point *before* the physical endpoint of the key so the remainder of inertia will take care of that key (fingers push off against the remaining key weight into relaxed or get-ready finger mode). You don’t “elephant stomp” but play between the notes to keep a continuous supply of energy + motion (despite the sounds being discrete by design). I can imagine that lateral and vertical movements of forearm and wrist can still work with a pencil and what probably is taught is keeping a steadiness.

Lastly, it’s not mastered until you stop thinking about all these steps and they are burned into your subconsciousness. But it begins with the right or proper thoughts. U do per “protocol” after the programming with muscle memory, not with cerebral cortex.

As far as interactions, note that there’s a difference between skeptical and cynical. Skepticism is healthy and should always be welcomed. I usually use the talkback method like “is this what u mean..” and summarize the point. Or I use the positive-challenge format where I say “I like this .. but I can’t seem to work out this..” and ask.  Don’t come up with “this doesnt work bc..” bc your bias is there. U want to demonstrate openness not heckling attitude. Having a healthy challenging mentality is necessary for growth. Doing it respectfully is important. If there is pushback all parties should stop and reflect.

There’s 3 things ppl like when listening. Asked a favor, told a secret.. and 3rd (I forgot). In this case u r asking a favor which can begin with “hi I need a favor. I tried this technique but have trouble making it work..” and go on.

[lynxerious]

thank you, very interesting write up. I totally agree with you, I want to burn these movements into my subscioncous but right now I'm trying to make sense of it. It's difficult for me because I'm not a total beginner, most difficult piece I can play is the C# nocturne, so I had been researching, self teaching and listening to all sorts of sources and opinions. And some of these ideas clash, I had to pick those I feel comfortable with, it feels shocking to do opposite right away. My world somehow broke a little after that, "Was I going the wrong way? Or does the teacher make me do a dated method?".

Still I want to politely discuss the problem and said what I think without being disrespectful. I like your explanation of the two types of discussion, it's very enlightening and would help me think of how to communicate better with my teacher, I hope he could hear me out and we discuss how to approach it next.

[lelle]

It's a tricky issue and different teachers and schools approach it differently. It's hard to know where your teacher is coming from without seeing you play or asking them. in my view: you need easy, independent finger movement where you can keep everything not directly involved in moving that finger very relaxed. But you also need free arms and arm movements. And you need to integrate the two into a harmonious whole, which results in technical difficulties feeling quite effortless. My guess would be that sometimes when people try to do the arm movements and rotations their fingers become too inactive, not doing their allotted share of the overall work so to speak, and as a result the playing as a whole sounds a bit clumsy and crude, maybe your teacher is trying to address that? But if holding your hand still while moving your fingers results in tension and stiffness its no good either.

[ego0720]

Always remember that for every story there is, we all start wrong somewhere. The important thing is in how one respond to it. Information will constantly change. What is true today may not be true next year as you grow. Sometimes in music you need to have a stepping stone in falsity in order to reach a better truth in the next phase of development. Everyone will have a truth but also remember that we each have different experience that makes some facts that appear to be skewed or wrong. Because of these differences, that is why nobody will have the right answer or they will have the right answer for them which can vary and sometimes be contradictory. Hence we are our best teacher and there is a need to ask questions to better ourselves. And be adaptive. That is perfectly ok.

For the cerebral cortex I point out that there are 6 points from shoulder to fingertips: shoulder, elbow, wrist, knuckles (thumb has primary knuckle too), and two digits. I also point out the metacarpal bones between the wrist and knuckles. If you can visualize these and refer to them as the 6 points.. that helped me. Visualize how they work similar to a whip. And how they are not. Don’t need to overthink. Then come up with your own interpretation how to distribute power to this thing we call arms in proportion to the segments.. this is good starting point. When u go deeper you will follow up thinking how the entire human body works in conjunction to the arms.

Enough preaching. Keep at it. Enjoy your progress. Eliminate self-doubt or doubts about the past. Focus on the present and be happy and proud how you got to where u are at. Music ain’t easy and more ppl should play music. We can help each other out to keep as many ppl in as much as possible.

[roncesvalles]

I was taught rotation by a Taubman teacher. One of the things is that, when we first learn rotation, we often do so by exaggerating the movements, on a single note, on two notes, on a slow succession of notes, etc. But this is not the ideal mechanism for rotation, only something that is meant for you to get a feel for what is actually required, which is economical movement and structured distribution of force.

After I read your post, I watched my hands on some of the faster pieces I'm practicing. I'm not sure if a pencil would stay on my hand because of things like leaps and fast changes of hand position, but the rotation is more felt than seen.  If for instance, you were playing with rotation on something relatively easy like a fast sixteenths note five finger pattern, where you don't change hand positions, you might not want to rotate in an exaggerated way if you want to play fast, in rhythm, and evenly, because you have to compensate for that over-rotation with the following notes. In that situation I use rotation, but a pencil wouldn't normally fall from my hand, because the angle of rotation is fairly small and subtle.

Your teacher might not be advocating a kind of Kalkbrenner approach where playing is supposed to all come from the fingers. Your teacher might want you to get more proficient with rotation so you're not making unnecessary and counterproductive motions that would put you at a disadvantage as you learn more difficult repertoire. While putting a pencil on your hand sounds extreme and might raise the specter of a finger-centric approach, it could also be a way of teaching you that rotation, if you are to become proficient at the piano, is going to become a very fine motion, except for very specific interpretive situations where a larger motion makes sense.

[keypeg]

I only saw this thread today.  I was told about that kind of instruction.  It was given to my grandmother.  She was born in the late 1800's, so taught around 1910.  It's been largely discarded.  You still get teachers who insist on something because "my teacher to me, because my teacher's teacher told her, because her teacher's teacher....".  That is not a good reason.

[lelle]

I only saw this thread today.  I was told about that kind of instruction.  It was given to my grandmother.  She was born in the late 1800's, so taught around 1910.  It's been largely discarded.  You still get teachers who insist on something because "my teacher to me, because my teacher's teacher told her, because her teacher's teacher....".  That is not a good reason.

That "old school" way was how I was initially taught. It caused me a lot of issues and forced me to rework my whole technique many years later when it was a deeply engrained habit. I think I'm still ironing out kinks in my playing that were caused by that approach. Do not recommend lol!!

[keypeg]

That "old school" way was how I was initially taught. It caused me a lot of issues and forced me to rework my whole technique many years later when it was a deeply engrained habit. I think I'm still ironing out kinks in my playing that were caused by that approach. Do not recommend lol!!

Here is an ironic side note.  I had no teacher as a child.  I was given a little electric organ when I was 8 and a 10 page book for adult autodidacts (playing organ first created its own habit issues) and then a piano.  Here I was given my grandmother's books: one musical Czerny, and a set of sonatinas.  Years later I was told that my grandmother had had to play with a pencil on the back of each hand which should not fall off.  The way I played, the pencil would not have fallen off either.  The repertoire itself did it.  That is something that my teacher and I sussed out later on going through my history.  First the organ music with the narrow "child size" keys and what you do with an organ - and then that.  I've had to rework my entire playing, and am still at it.

[ranjit]

That "old school" way was how I was initially taught. It caused me a lot of issues and forced me to rework my whole technique many years later when it was a deeply engrained habit. I think I'm still ironing out kinks in my playing that were caused by that approach. Do not recommend lol!!

I find that those pianists who use such schools also intuitively develop a way to relax while doing it. There are minute movements which make a difference, which you can observe in their playing if you look carefully, but they may not be consciously aware of it. I think all really good pianists have a very good innate or developed intuition for what feels good while still being effective. They often do things which contradict their own advice when that intuition tells them to. That is, they play with a clear intelligence behind the way they play, not by formula.

[ego0720]

…There is a reason the Taubman method is so popular…

Going on a tangent. I’m looking up the Taubman “approach”.. and seems like it’s a p2p thing. No real official treatise per se in books for the bookworms. All I can find is https://barbarabanacos.com/about-the-taubman-approach which is the best single source. I searched this forum and most discussions were over a decade old (maybe I didn’t use good key search). Most books seem to be anecdotal or from ppl who went through institutes with their own opinion. I ended purchasing a few books bc I’m interested in this topic.

My initial impression about the Taubman approach is that it’s more of a philosophy with no axioms or rules.. more of a guiding principle (to each their own self-discovery) on what feels natural and any big deviation from what is normal should be avoided or minimized to keep the hand in its default (relaxed) position. And due to different hand-body design the answer will never be a constant from person to person. And maybe that’s why it’s a p2p or anecdotal format? I wonder how many other approaches are out there for piano technique besides Taubman and how they differ. Are the different methods inconsequential in choosing which one to study (focus on one) or is it better to study the different approaches so we can select what works for us.

Addendum: The Michelangelo hand is the most natural hand posture (the left hand pointing, left side).

[fignewton]

I wanted to give a few of my thoughts on this topic which echo a lot of what others have said. I'm very reluctant to give advice but hopefully my comments are merely food for thought.

It is good to be respectfully open with your teacher if you have concerns. If a teacher is not up to discussing things, that's a red flag to switch teachers, imo. However, after a certain point of discussion, it is better to change teachers if you disagree.

I think technique from a physical standpoint is a combination of finger independence and the ability to shift weight (Taubman) making use of each lever (shoulder, arm, wrist, etc.) along the way to varying degrees. Try to find the right balance of both ideas, but also don't be afraid of isolating one idea to better cultivate it. In my experience, developing technique and solving interpretive issues is a constantly swinging pendulum of overcorrection. For example, some days, too much finger, other days, too much movement. Eventually it starts to settle near the center, but it never comes to rest since we always seek improvement.

Personally, I have done a ton of finger independence exercises throughout my life like the ones found in the beginning of Liszt exercises and Cortot studies on Chopin. I still do this kind of stuff, but that's just what I find helpful, not everyone's cup of tea.

I don't think practicing with a pencil for long periods is practical, but trying to keep your hand still occasionally while practicing to better activate the fingers is useful, imo.

Technique is also developing one's ear, so I'd recommend you record your teacher demonstrating the passage slowly how he thinks it should sound, and then you attempt the same passage. Have him point out the differences in sound (perhaps uneven rhythm or tone). See if you can hear the differences. Sometimes if one focuses on the sound, the hand might find the most effective and natural solution.

As you're figuring things out, I'd recommend practicing very slowly and you should never have pain or discomfort.

[fignewton]

Michelangelo hand is a great image, I'm going to use that.