With all the cyber forum posts about thumbs up, thumbs down, early or late, advanced or delayed, the ROTATIONAL dimension of the shortest, and most problematic finger is often overlooked, and because of miss-directed attention, the clunky thumb brigade marches relentlessly through countless arpeggios and scales.
But change is possible!
During the course of this evening’s piano lesson, an adult student had an awakening about her thumb as she successfully rotated it through the G Major arpeggio on descent. With a detached (non-legato) approach she managed a picture perfect maneuver, replayed below in three silent motion frames. (with my intro)
Bonus video: G Major arpeggio in legato and Staccato–working on smoothing out thumb shifts
In Summary: The thumb should be relaxed, pliant, flexible and feather light.
International Online Piano Teacher, blogger, recording artist, composer, piano finder, freelance writer, film maker, story teller: Grad of the NYC H.S. of Performing Arts, Oberlin Conservatory, NYU (Master of Arts) Studies with Lillian Freundlich and Ena Bronstein; Master classes with Murray Perahia and Oxana Yablonskaya. Studios in BERKELEY, California; Member, Music Teachers Assoc. of California, MTAC; Distance learning by Skype and Face Time with supplementary videos: SKYPE ID: shirley kirsten
Contact me at: shirley_kirsten@yahoo.com OR http://www.youtube.com/arioso7 or at FACEBOOK: Shirley Smith Kirsten, http://facebook.com /shirley.kirsten; https://www.facebook.com/skirs.7/ TWITTER: http://twitter.com/arioso7
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Private fundraising for non-profits as pianist--Public Speaking re: piano teaching and creative approaches
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1 thought on “Piano Technique: The Rotating Thumb”
1 thought on “Piano Technique: The Rotating Thumb”