By Dr. Julie Knerr
Some students come to us with naturally strong, relaxed hands with firm fingertips. They may take a bit of work to form a good piano hand shape, but the process is relatively easy. For other students (I estimate 70%), more intensive and long term work is required to help the child find the coordination between strong fingertips, relaxed non-playing fingers, thumb on corner, tall bridge, rounded hand shape, relaxed shoulders, and everything else that goes into a good piano hand. For B, our featured Level 1 student, this work is ongoing.
I generally use the Introduction and Unit 1 of Piano Safari Level 1 as a chance to let students find their arms, discover their fingers, and build basic coordination. If the student has a naturally good piano … Read More