I teach a couple of young beginners (5-8) who have a very difficult time curving their fingers. In fact it seems that a child either has naturally good hand position or they don't, and if they don't it's terribly hard to correct.

Does anyone have advice for correcting flat fingers?

Is this something, in your opinion, that is essential for early beginners or can it be developed later in their musical career?

Very young children do have a difficult time with hand position; if you tell them to curve their fingers they often contort their hand into a 'claw', thus tension.

I talk about a 'soft hand shape' and we do many activities away from the piano (on the fallboard, in our laps, etc...). We make the famous 'donut holes' from Faber's Piano Adventure series, and I use the 'braced finger' idea as well (to prevent the collapsed knuckle). The PA series has many ideas for finger strength and technique for the young beginner.

I've never used Faber's PA materials. Would you expand on the "donut holes" and "braced finger idea" for me?

Thank you!

'Donut holes' are when you press your thumb and pointer together to make a circle or donut hole with two fingers. It encourages playing on the 'tips' of your fingers. I say 'press, press, press, H-O-L-D it'. Then you do thumb and 3rd finger, etc... 'Braced Finger' is putting your thumb behind your pointer so that the knuckle doesn't collapse. There are songs in the curriculum that focus on these concepts.

You should definitely check out the Piano Adventures series; the newest curriculum is designed specifically for 6-7 year olds and many teachers have used it successfully with 5's.

Here's the link to the Faber website:
http://pianoteaching.com/

Those exercises are good. Another idea is to choose an easy thing (exercise, song, etc.) that is to be played with rounded fingers. Then don't focus on the hand shape in other pieces. Eventually as the fingers strengthen, they will be able to curve their fingers for all pieces.

Do they have trouble curving their fingers when they scratch themselves? Get them to literally scratch the keys with their finger nails. Breaking joints won't happen if they scratch from the nail joint - but do start from a totally relaxed hand.

I asked a student to "scratch" the keys and she clawed them like a cat... dunno if she got the idea to use just the tip. I've been careful of using that word since.

Anyway, I've been doing a lot of playing on the top of the piano lately, since the hand more naturally lands on the tips of the fingers. This in conjunction with the "O"s dumdumdiddle mentioned tends to work well. I stress a lot of arm movement--VERY exaggerated--and then transfer the same idea to the keys focusing more on how they're moving rather than hitting the right note. I've had trouble when people get to playing the pinky. Ideas? Naturally, the arm movement becomes less exaggerated over time, (too quickly, in my opinion--I have to keep reminding them,) but it does seem to stick. I also like to demonstrate how hard it is to play just pushing down the keys from the knuckles and how much easier it is to use the arm. I've had good experiences with students feeling the difference between techniques.

You could have asked her to wipe the fluff off a babies nose without waking her.

The Faber Piano Adventures website has a link with several short 'teaching videos' that demonstrate how Randall and Nancy teach various songs and concepts.


http://pianoteaching.com/myfirst/index.html