From my OED: and elegant: Does your students' concept of graceful playing mean adding something rather than being free of something? i.e. confuse grace with affect?

I'd hate to be overly simplistic...

I suppose that you could ADD flexibility in the wrist

I also suppose that you could REMOVE tension in the wrist

Adding flexibility to the wrist is 'REMOVING' tension from the wrist which is a 'not doing' (so doesn't exist).

That's the thing that has puzzled me every time I read about the actions of wrists. The wrist is a joint that allows the hand to move up and down, side to side, and circles. When the wrist "goes down" it has to be that the hand is actually tipping up.

So when someone has a "flexible wrist" that "moves" or "can move", are they actually saying that the hand is able to do these movements at the wrist unimpeded?

If I try to feel what it is like to have a "stiff wrist" it seems that I would have to tense my palm, thumb, and/or fingers, or maybe the whole forearm.

Kbk, to answer your original question as a student with a concept - when I first took up violin after my first lesson, I had the thought that the movement should be graceful like the dancing of a ballerina. I don't know where the thought came from. There was neither adding to, or freedom from - it was "being". I suppose that it smoothed out the angles.

The piano was more natural to me since I had played it since childhood, but the ballerina cum gymnast might be in there too.

I find, though, that it is the sound coming from the keyboard, or reaching toward that sound, which relaxes my hand and makes it flow. If I am to consider my hand overly much, beyond having intelligent fingering and logical movement, I would be adding tension and awkwardness where there was none. Can one say that the flow of the music that one hears in producing it can create a flow in physical motion?

It has absolutely nothing to do with the hand. The forearm is raised, the 'wrist end' of the hand gets dragged upwards. The forearm is lowered, the 'wrist end' of the hand falls.

You shouldn't have thought anything. Thinking is also an activity and effort shouldn't be wasted. Here's a Macrobiotic question for you - Would you consciously cast away a single grain of rice from your pot?

And how will I describe to you in words this automatic and natural action of casting that single grain of rice? More accurately - I "felt" like a ballerina; I "felt" this movement as I drove home from that first lesson in a dance-like manner and it remained correct and fluid. The feedback next lesson was on how quickly it had been acquired.

Your question was on what a student's "concept" of graceful playing might be: "concept" has an intellectual or thinking idea. I attempted to answer that question. However, when I play it is a physical thing, just as you put forth with your grain of rice. What is your "concept" of throwing a grain of rice? There is none - you do it, right?

My final answer, however, went toward something else. The movement for me actually emanates from the visualized sound, and moves toward it.

Generally speaking trying to explain anything of that nature in words in a forum is inaccurate. Traditionally people are together and it is seen, heard, and felt. These things cannot really be turned into verbal descriptions.

In terms of your original question, how can anyone know what their student's "concept" is? When I was in that lesson, my teacher saw correct movement with fluidity, also producing sound of a certain quality. But would he know that I felt like a dancer?

I would also say that in lessons "concepts" were not discussed in analytical words so much as things were done, shown, guided to produce certain things. The understanding is in the body, the ears, sensations. The mind can go back later and intellectualize what might have happened, when there are discussions for example, but that is not where the learning takes place in lessons and practicing for me.

Thank you for clarifying that. I have been mystified by what piano teachers and pianists were talking about when they talked about "wrist" movement. One way or another, you end up having the hand tipped up or down but in your description it happens passively through raising or lowering of the forearm. I can easily see what is meant by that.

If I ever raised my hand, especially when quiting the keyboard, my teacher was very unamused!

I am confused. Is raising hands under discussion? What do you mean by raising hands - tipping the hand upward i.e. knuckle higher? I am gather, in any case, that this is something one should not do.

I have just checked to see how I play. There is flexibility at the wrist and I see movement which seems to come from what the forearm does, but I've never done so deliberately or thought about it. Everything seems to work together as a unit so I can't really tell overly much. I did find earlier, however, that if I wanted to make it difficult to move (be movable?) I could do so by tensing the hand itself.

Thank you for your explanations today. The mystery of the moving wrist I've been reading about has finally been clarified for me.

I just found this post of yours in another thread:
I guess that "raising the hand" refers to "b". Gotcha.

Yes. The wrist extensors have a far more important role than lifting the hand needlessly. They are the fulcrum for finger flexion.

Thank you, kbk, that is good to know.

To finish up today's lesson: If you do a 5 finger exercise (scratching) constantly for a number of minutes you will start to feel strain on the top of the wrist-end of your forearm. This is because your wrist is trying to go up instead of the key down. To make sure the key goes down, the extensors pull the hand up (pulling your wrist down).