Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Calling all teachers - Clearing keys...is this correct?

I began taking lessons a few weeks back and my teacher has suggested that I do something, which I THINK is contradicting what I'm reading on these boards.

One problem I have is getting chords to be clear. A problem I was having is I would get "stuck" in the chord. Meaning, I wouldn't clear the chord before I moved into the next, thus the two chords washed each other out.

He suggested that when depressing the chords (three C maj chords in a row - from "When The Saints Go Marching In") I should completely clear the keys by lifting my fingers off the surface of the keys and then back down. Not only that, but he suggested I put more "arm" into it so I don't "wear out my fingers"

Now, I will say that:

1. I never "cleared" the C chords until I used his suggestion

2. By using just my fingers, sometimes I wouldn't hit the keys hard enough and they'd barely make a sound.

However, from reading a thread a few links down, it sounds like this is exactly what NOT to do...?

This is SOOOOOOOOOOO difficult to explain without being able to demonstrate. What is most likely is that you are continuing to press down on the keys after you have played the chord. This is different to using the natural weight of your arm. By adding extra pressure your movement to the next chord is restricted.

Yes, you must clear the keys between chords. However (the important bit) when you have cleared the keys make sure your fingertips come back down to rest on the surface of the keys before playing the next chord. Never play the chord from any height or the sound will be thumpy and clumsy.

Play the chord using the weight of your arm and then relax. Once the hammers have hit the strings you will get NO benefit from pressing down further. Clear the keys then rest on the surface before playing the next chord. Your arm and wrist should feel free from tension at all times.

Hope this helps.

In the 17th to 19th centuries students were
taught to play with a coin on the back of
the hand. If you put a quarter on the back
of each hand and play, the quarters are
fairly heavy, and so they don't just fall
off easily, and you can play anything like
this, even pieces with many chords and
large leaps with the hand all over the keyboard.

The coins force you to play "mainly from
the fingers and hand" with limited movement
of the other body parts like the wrist
and forearm, etc. But it is maybe a
little misleading to say this is a "fingers"
approach, because of course there will
have to be arm movement and even some wrist
movement when you play. And you don't
necessarily have to do a lot of playing
with an actual coin on the hands, just
some, to get a general idea of the proper
way to play.

But what this coin method does is to
emphasize that playing is ultimately mainly from
the fingers and hands and that you should not use
other body parts in order to make playing
easier, so that you can avoid the hard work
necessary to develop real finger strength.
"Fingers and hands" playing is playing at
its simplest and most efficient. It's also
old-fashioned hard work and thus there
has been a tendancy in modern times to
try to get around this by employing more
body parts in order to make playing easier.
Thus, various wrist rotation or forearm
rotation or arm weight, etc. methods
have been instituted to this end. These
make playing easier because you're adding
the weight and muscle of other parts
of the body in order to aid the fingers
and hands in playing. But by doing this
you make the motion of playing much more
complex. When the pieces are relatively
easy, the physical assist you get from
adding more body parts to your playing
seems to outweigh the added complexity
of the motion. But as the pieces get
longer and more difficult the disadvantage
of this becomes apparent because the
playing motion is now so complex that
you have trouble playing effectively.
For example, imagine if in order to play,
you not only had to hit the notes with your
fingers but also rotate your wrist and
forearm in a certain precise manner according
to the type of passage, and also lean into
the keys a certain way with your whole
body depending on what type of situation
there was on the keyboard, and drop
the weight of the arm onto the keys in
a certain way, and so forth.

I dissagree, I think anything you can do to make a passage easier, then you do it. Your fingers and hands would get tired if they had to do ALL of the work involved in playing piano.