Wrist and relaxed arm technique

[geopianoincanada]

My teacher feels that my arm/wrist combination technique (my right arm/wrist is so heavy and also heavily arthritic) could use some improvement.

But I just don't understand what she means by relaxing the arm. She showed me and asked me to duplicate her way.

My heavy arm, once relaxed, just plunges into all of the keys at once like a dead weight holding all of the keys down just by it's mass. How is one supposed to play in this manner? It's as if I've dropped a boulder on the keys all at once and now I have to make music with all of the keys pressed in. I can't make any sense of it.

[kosulin]

I am not a teacher, but anyway...
First of all, this is good (and must) for slow practice.
The idea is to use the gravity. BTW, the shoulder and elbow should also be involved in a similar fashion (but to a lesser degree), the whole arm should play.
When you hit a note, you let the weight of the whole arm help the finger, instead of having the wrist and elbow tense and hitting the key just by pushing finger down into the key.
The wrist is relaxed, the finger hits the key, and the wrist and elbow continues to move down until there is time to stop the movement..
When you release the key, you move the wrist (and elbow) up first, with finger laying down on the key, and the finger follows the wrist up naturally to release the key.
Think of this as something similar to the arm movement of swans from The Swan Lake, but less pronounced, and with less shoulder movement.

[kosulin]

Here are few good instructional videos where you can watch how arms work and listen for explanations:

[lelle]

My teacher feels that my arm/wrist combination technique (my right arm/wrist is so heavy and also heavily arthritic) could use some improvement.

But I just don't understand what she means by relaxing the arm. She showed me and asked me to duplicate her way.

My heavy arm, once relaxed, just plunges into all of the keys at once like a dead weight holding all of the keys down just by it's mass. How is one supposed to play in this manner? It's as if I've dropped a boulder on the keys all at once and now I have to make music with all of the keys pressed in. I can't make any sense of it.

What I don't understand is, doesn't your teacher show you what the next step is? Or does she just watch you let your arm plunge into all of the keys at once like a dead weight and say nothing? Like, she is supposed to show you what to do, you are not supposed to sit at home and try to figure it out alone.

[geopianoincanada]

She did show me. I was not able to duplicate her motion. She even put her arm on top of mine and grasped my hand to demonstrate. I have very bad arthritis in my right arm, wrist and hand so my right limb was just unable to follow such motion.

I watched the Wrist circles video there. Yea she's a lot younger and non-arthritic than me. My right wrist especially sounds like a Mexican maraca at times, the left wrist isn't far behind.

[pianistavt]

You make it sound like you're too disabled to play the piano with any kind of positive experience - - tough situation for sure.

[joturner]

My teacher feels that my arm/wrist combination technique (my right arm/wrist is so heavy and also heavily arthritic) could use some improvement.

But I just don't understand what she means by relaxing the arm. She showed me and asked me to duplicate her way.

My heavy arm, once relaxed, just plunges into all of the keys at once like a dead weight holding all of the keys down just by it's mass. How is one supposed to play in this manner? It's as if I've dropped a boulder on the keys all at once and now I have to make music with all of the keys pressed in. I can't make any sense of it.

To relax your heavy and arthritic arm while playing piano, try to evenly spread the weight from your fingers onto the keys. Practice releasing the weight gently and work on making each finger move independently. It takes time and practice to get better at this. Talk to your teacher about simple exercises that can help with your specific needs.

[geopianoincanada]

You make it sound like you're too disabled to play the piano with any kind of positive experience - - tough situation for sure.

Just getting too old I think. The stiffness and pain in my right hand affects my ability to sign (my wife is deaf) as well as typing on the computer. The pain at times radiates up to my elbow and at times up to my shoulder affection whole arm motion. Sign of growing old.

As long as my teacher understands this limitation then I plan to keep going with piano. I've been at it for nearly 6 years now and am studying RCM grade 6 material in hopes of taking an exam perhaps next year so I'm not interested in giving up.

[geopianoincanada]

I filmed my right arm attempting to relax. My arm weighs 10 pounds. I checked with the bathroom scale placed on the table.

So in this video I relax my entire arm and mash the keys in. Then consider, in order to play anything at all my one finger must then apply 10 pounds of force to lift the other fingers away and simultaneously press the key in. Yuck!

I can’t see any usefulness at all in this approach, it’s like a big incompetent beef leg mashed into the piano. One cannot get anywhere playing with this technique.

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[brogers70]

That video did not look bad to me. Learning to relax is a process. It's a good first step to learn to let all of your arm weight rest on one finger and to learn how to shift that weight to another finger. But in no way does that mean that the goal is to play everything with all of your arm's weight supported by one finger after another. It often happens, though, that people who are tense will use a lot of unnecessary, isometric contractions in their arm and shoulder as they keep the weight off of the key. The very first step in fixing that is to get comfortable letting the arm hang like a bridge supported by the shoulder and the finger. After that, you can get used to taking weight off the finger without tensing up your wrist and arm and back, but first it's good to get comfortable just letting the weight hang there. You and your teacher have a better idea of your physical limitations than the rest of us do, but it does not sound like she's crazy.

[ranjit]

It's good to feel the entire arm weight to get used to it.

How it really works is that you suspend much of the weight with the upper arm, I think, so the actual weight put in might only be half a pound.

[pianistavt]

...

[pianistavt]

So in this video I relax my entire arm and mash the keys in. Then consider, in order to play anything at all my one finger must then apply 10 pounds of force to lift the other fingers away and simultaneously press the key in. Yuck!

I can’t see any usefulness at all in this approach, it’s like a big incompetent beef leg mashed into the piano. One cannot get anywhere playing with this technique.

That technique is for learning to relax, it's not meant to be THE WAY to play a piece (unless the piece is very slow).
It would be more helpful if you posted a video playing one of your pieces or playing scales, arpeggios and octaves at moderate tempo...

[geopianoincanada]

Update: I sent this video to my teacher and during our weekly session we looked at things in-person. My left arm and wrist technique are just fine she says. We can only attribute my difficulties with the arthritic pain and stiffness in the right limb. Hopefully physiotherapy will help me with this, I begin physiotherapy shortly.

[loveibert]

I ave not seen the Taubman Technique mentioned here. I have pretty severe arthritis, but I am able tp play just about anything after training with my Taubman/Golandsky  trained teacher. There is no dropping the wrist. The hand stays in a neutral  position -think of as a natural shape when you have your hands down at rest, It is not easy to explain, but I think it is well worth exploring, especially for someone with arthritis or an injury.
Go here for more information.:
 https://www.ednagolandsky.com/
https://www.golandskyinstitute.org/

https://www.tonebase.co/piano-courses/taubman-approach-to-piano-technique-edna-golandsky

There are a lot of free videos on youtube  presented by various teachers.
Here's one:

Please give it some thought! I would not be playing piano at all if I had not studied with my amazing teacher:
https://thepainfreepianist.com/aboutalisoncheroff.html

She gives online lessons though it's best to find a trained teacher in person if possible.