Piano Technique for Tiny Fingers

Let’s Play Music: Keyboard Method

There exists a piano-playing dilemma in the world: Parents know that piano lessons are the best way to begin musical education (read our post), BUT a child’s ability to hear and internalize music peaks way before his ability to precisely control his fingers. 

Parents find themselves in a quandry: "Should I put my child in piano lessons now, even though his fingers are not really ready, or should I keep him out for a year or two but miss out on meaningful music and ear training during a critical time!?"  

Let's Play Music has solved the dilemma!

In the first year of Let’s Play Music, we took advantage of the ears' sensitivity in the ‘Music Learning Window’ by emphasizing ear training, rhythm training, melodic patterning, classical music listening, and harmony exercises without requiring finger dexterity to participate.

Students practice harmony and rhythm without much dexterity

I like to tell parents, "We let their ears and brains internalize as much as they want, as fast as they want- they don't have to be held back by what their fingers could perform at this age!"  Can advanced concepts be taught to little students? Yes, yes, they can.  If they hear and internalize the concepts early on, they are ready for abstract conceptualizations we explain it to them in year 3.

Get Started on Keyboards
Typical second year students are 5-6 years old and ready to begin using the keyboards. At the beginning of the year, they are not usually happy to sit still or practice for long periods. For this reason alone, I generally advise against enrolling 5-year-olds in private 30-minute lessons.  

At this age, they learn best through active play (read our post here) but enjoy focused bouts on the bench, progressively lengthening in duration. Let's Play Music is specifically designed to meet the needs of this age student, and that means being more active and fun than sitting still!

5 year-old hands and fingers are still quite weak and uncoordinated, so keyboard experiences must be simple training exercises that progress slowly. 

For a bunch of ideas for playful (non-piano) ways to strengthen fingers before and during the GREEN semester, read our post here. Of course you'll be doing your on-piano drills from class, too.

It will take some time before the fingers catch up to what the ears and mind have already learned!  The beauty is that the child's trained ear will correct his fingers.  

I find it very satisfying to have a student say, "gosh, that didn't come out sounding like I expected. I better double-check my fingers and play it again."   Likewise, I find it worrisome when a non-LPM student pounds out a song at the piano and cannot hear his own errors!

Posture at the Keyboard

An example of improper posture. PC Julie Fishbeck

The keyboard is a phenomenal teaching tool. We wish to introduce it properly and with correct technique. But be aware- technique is best adapted around age 8, when students' ability to precisely control hands and fingers is finally developed.  Wise private piano teachers will wait until age 7 or 8 to focus on technique drills. (Remember, age 5 is the time to focus on ear training.)

The following are things parents and teachers can encourage during Let's Play Music, but they are not expected to always be maintained/ enforced. That will come during private lessons.

Arm Position: ideally your child's elbows will be slightly higher than the keyboard.  Teachers with electric keyboards can lower them, but with a real piano at home you'll have to raise your bench height or use a booster. Adjusting seat height is perhaps the most impactful change you can make.  Arms should hang loosely from shoulders.  If elbows are too high or low, it's impossible to achieve a level wrist and a correct hand shape and the student often hunches up the shoulders to raise her own arm.

Teacher Anna White purchased these piano cushions for $20 to boost students up, but also uses these cheap foam craft squares to create just-the-right-height for each kid.  Marnie Christensen and Mallory Harris (Gilbert, AZ) remind us that you can go old-style an old phonebook bound in duct tape, or a new pack of printer paper! 

Flat Feet: it seems unfair that we just made you raise your child up and NOW we are saying the feet should reach the floor! Dangling feet can cause a student to lean back away from the keyboard.  A footstool, book, or box can be placed under the feet so the student is able to lean forward slightly.  you could buy this perfect piano footrest for $80, but Teacher Misty Burnett (West Point, UT) found that IKEA pull-out drawers were just the right size and shape.

Bench Distance: the child should sit far enough from the keyboard so she sits perched on the front 1/2 of the bench, leaning forward ever so slightly, and can put both hands in C position comfortably.

Sit up! Remind your child to sit up tall, like a string is pulling up on her head, so her back is straight and shoulders can relax down.  Green Turtle Shells are not for shoulders to hide in (you are not a turtle!) If you see a chin poking way out forward, remind your child to pull her chin in and sit up.

http://wellbalancedpianist.com/bpseatingguide.htm

Hand and Wrist Position
Wrists and Fingers:  'Bubble Hands' is the term we use to explain the soft, round, natural position of the hand on the keyboard.  This position allows for natural movement of the fingers, making it possible for all fingers to touch the keys at the same time and promoting relaxation in the hand.  

Did you notice that although all finger pads touch keys, it's the side of the thumbs that rests on the keys?  If fingers are stiff and straight, thumbs can't even reach the keys. That's why we sing "Rounded like a bubble, fingers flat are trouble…"

In class and at home, your child will practice holding a REAL BUBBLE so she can see and feel the shape her fingers take.  Once the bubble is no longer used, her brain and muscle memory take over to reproduce this perfect bubble shape whenever possible.  Of course, when she begins playing, variations are expected.  Bubble-hand is an ideal position to strive for, and it will come as fingers grow in strength from years of practice. 

Pop the Bubble
When doing scales, we must pop the bubble for a moment. Teacher Justine Turcotte shows how to avoid "chicken wings" while popping by creating "cat claws" during the cross-over.

Mental Technique
Your child looks at a note on the staff or hears the teacher say a finger number. Then, she thinks about what the notation represents, decides which finger corresponds to the note, and sends a signal to the finger to 'press down'. This arduous hand-to-mind-connection process can take a while – much longer than it takes adults. This process is practice, and although it is slow and may sound ugly, this is what builds the muscle memory for future playing. (Read our post on muscle memory)  

It is critical to not press down on a child’s finger to play the key.  Although we want to help "speed things up", this only interferes with her brain’s processing and will rob her mind of the chance to learn how to translate cues into muscular movement. (You can't practice for your child.)  We should not even touch the finger, as this disrupts the connection from the muscle to the brain and disturbs the 'bubble hand'.

What you can do: A better way to encourage your struggling child is to press the key at the top of the key near the soundboard (we call this the “player piano method”).  Her finger will feel the key drop beneath it and she'll experience the sensation of the muscles moving in the correct way.  This gives the brain a nudge toward learning to send the proper signal to the finger. 

Teacher Misty Ralphs in Chubbuck, ID (studio link) has an additional game for practicing finger numbers that YOU can play at home: she blows bubbles into the room, and the students have a chance to pop them, but only with the specified finger as she calls them!

Technique Drills

Once the hands are correctly placed on the keyboard and each finger feels the key relationships, we train the fingers to play smoothly from one finger to the next.  Each finger gains the ability to independently press down with adequate strength.  All of the keyboard technique songs are essential for developing finger strength, control and dexterity. Undoubtedly, once you graduate from Let's Play Music, your new teacher will have many additional technique drills to add to your study.  By then, your child's finger musculature will be mature enough to handle some very complicated patterns and commit them to muscle memory!

-Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music teacher

Lindsey Judd: The First Teacher Has Impact

In the bustling suburbs of Chicago, IL, Let's Play Music is blooming in the studio of veteran teacher, Lindsey Judd.  Lindsey currently teaches Sound Beginnings,  Let's Play Music, private piano, and voice lessons: not a light load for a mom with a newborn (her 5th child) just arrived in 2014!

I Knew I Would Teach Someday

Let's Play Music students begin our program at age five.  That makes perfect sense to Lindsey; that's when she began lessons, too. Even back then, she felt the premonition that she, too, might one day become a music teacher.  "I think teaching was 'in me' from the start because all throughout my years of lessons, I took mental notes of what my teachers did: things I loved and things I didn't love. Now I'm finally incorporating all of what I've gleaned."

The First Teacher Has Impact

Lindsey told me about her first teaching gig.  "When I was fifteen, a family at church asked me to teach piano lessons to their two daughters. In one moment I was both honored and terrified! I remember sitting in the school cafeteria at lunchtime, a few hours before our first lesson together, feeling the weight of being the first one to introduce these girls to piano.  I knew that as a first teacher, I could shape their entire piano experience."  

Fortunately that first experience went very well and that first family (with 7 children) kept Lindsey as a teacher for them all.  She identified, early on, an important truth we hold dear at Let's Play Music: A child's first experience with music must be fun, playful, and loving.  The environment and attitude around the first experience determines much about the many years to follow for a young musician!

Just an example of the fun you might find in Lindsey's class: Baby Natalie made a guest appearance this week, in the role of Bunny as the students played 'Bunny's Birdhouse' on their keyboards.





Give Them Success 

Not all of Lindsey's early lessons were so successful. One very young student, petite and adorable, struggled with finger strength.  "She wanted to learn to play so badly! Her yearning was tangible.  It broke my heart to see her small, weak hands struggle to push the keys, week after week.  She eventually stopped lessons because it was too frustrating.  Years later, when I found the Let's Play Music curriculum, I remembered this student and wished I could have introduced her to LPM! It would have enabled her passion to flourish without the discouragement from having little fingers.  It breaks my heart to think that any child might associate music with disappointment. Let's Play Music was designed for student's to have the maximum positive musical experience, and I'm grateful for it."

We Teach Music...and Life Skills

Balancing a music studio and five young children isn't easy.  Lindsey let me know that Let's Play Music isn't just the job; it's helping her with the mothering! She says, "Teaching the LPM curriculum helped me rediscover the fun, spontaneous side of myself that got a little rundown in motherhood.  We now implement LPM methods in our home; for example, we create songs for routines, like our jazzy original tune 'Socks, shoes, coats and here we go!'. I can hum a few notes from this , my kids echo it back, and know what to do."

Lindsey hopes to share this love of music with her students- not just being able to read and perform music, but to use it in daily living, love it, and play with music at every opportunity. She told me, "Our lives have become a musical!  We burst into song when we are happy, and again when we're so frustrated that singing seems a better outlet than shouting." 

"Making up songs has become our family norm; on one trip home from the store, three children spontaneously starting singing to their crying baby sister to soothe her... in parts! Each separate, spontaneous lullaby was sweet, melodic, and rhythmically interesting, layered on the siblings' sweet voices.  The Let's Play Music curriculum isn't just helping these children with pitch and theory, they're also learning coping skills; they're also armed with music as a source of strength to use when life gets tough."

"These memories are the moments I hold on to and come back to when practicing seems hard or teaching lessons feels inconvenient." 

Lindsey holds a BFA in Music Dance Theater from Brigham Young University.  You can visit her studio website here or her classes in Skokie, IL.  It was a great pleasure to get to know her better!


- Gina Weibel, M.S. 

Finger Strength Achieved Through FUN!

My barely 5-yo daughter is thrilled to be a Green Turtle student and play songs on the piano like her older siblings.  Unlike her brothers who took Let's Play Music years ago, she has tiny, weak (darling!) little fingers.  Today I share some ideas for strengthening little fingers with ideas you can do both with and without the keyboard.

The Wisdom of Let's Play Music
I am relieved that my daughter has had a year of ear-training, note-reading, vocal-training and harp-playing before being required to demonstrate dexterity and finger strength.  Her mind and ear were ready for Red and Blue level theory and exercises, and she soaked them up.  It would have been a frustrating waste of time, effort and motivation if she'd been sitting at a piano all year, wishing her fingers could keep up with the amazing pace of her mind!  Fingers develop at a slow pace, even for kids with sharp minds, and Let's Play Music planned for it.

Strengthening At the Piano
I can't say enough good things about the drills assigned by LPM teachers.  If your kiddo has weak fingers, never skimp on bubble holding and tapping, individual finger-playing, and kit-kat key pressing!   

This video shows exactly what bubble-hands could look like:


I also have my daughter play the kit-kat song with 2 fingers for the group of 2 (pressing them 4 times before moving on) and 3 fingers on the group of 3.  Our goal is to do it with those nice rounded fingers.

Strengthening Without A Piano
I can't keep her at the piano all day, but luckily there are scores of playful ways to strengthen fingers when we're on-the-go.  The dollar store likely has everything you need for games that will strengthen overall grip/flexion, improve individual finger strength, and improve individual finger control and independent movement.

Sponges: Make a game of filling containers (perhaps during bath time) with water by squeezing a soggy sponge into the container.  Squeezing strengthens wrist muscles and finger flexors.

Bulb Syringe: Maybe you have one of these bulbs left over from when your student was a newborn!? Let her enjoy filling and squeezing the bulb with water at bath time. Ask her to try squeezing with different fingers (only thumb and finger 2? only thumb and finger 3?) Of course every activity is more fun if you fill the bulbs with paint and make it a craft.

Spray bottles: Make cool designs on the sidewalk by squirting water on the cement.  If squeezing seems easy, try using fewer fingers on the trigger! If you've got good weather, fill spray bottles and squeeze bottles with home-made sidewalk spray paint.

Play-doh: We play "mushy pushy."  My daughter holds a ball of dough in her hand and when I say a finger number (or roll a die), she squishes only that finger deep into the dough. There are plenty of play-doh games online to keep your kiddo entertained and squeezing for hours.

Stress-balls: We made our own stress ball by putting flour in a balloon.  Just to be silly, we sing the "flat little red balloon" song instead of "great big red balloon" while squishing it and strengthening fingers.

Finger Exerciser: $6 is a pretty cheap price to pay for a GYM MEMBERSHIP for your fingers. That's what you get when you buy a finger exerciser (available on Amazon.) You can work the whole grip, or each finger individually.

Clothespins: Pick up small items using a clothespin as tongs, or clip clothespins around the edge of your Green Turtles songbook.  Look online for dozens of clothespin educational games  or super-cute animal crafts with opening mouths made from clothespins.  Try opening with different combinations of fingers!

Tennis Ball Puppet: Make a puppet by cutting a mouth slit in a tennis ball.  It takes a strong grip to squeeze his mouth open (and you can hide small objects in there!) Draw eyes with marker or glue on some googley eyes.

I Love You:  Teach your child the classic handsign for "I Love You" and flash it to each other every day!  The ASL (American Sign Language) alphabet and counting numbers also require finger strength and control to shape little hands.  Ask math questions and make a game of only answering with fingers.

I hope these ideas help you and your little one strengthen fingers without getting too frustrated in these early weeks at the piano.  In no time at all her hands will be stronger and she'll be playing chords and intervals with confidence AND be able to remember those hand positions for life.

-Gina Weibel, M.S.
Let's Play Music Teacher