I know we've discussed this before, but it's really bugging me at the moment, and I'm assuming that I've misunderstood some of you in the past.

I almost never instruct a pupil to play with all five fingertips actually resting on the keys even from the early stages. They may place them on to make sure they're in the right position once or twice, but after that, a run of CDEFG should start with just the thumb making contact, and by the time the G sounds, the thumb and 2 and 3 should be well away. Yet I have inherited pupils who keep the fingers on the keys and say they have been taught to do this. The child I taught this afternoon said this, though on cross-examination she said it could be that she had just never been taught not to. She was finding it quite awkward manoevring her way around the melody, although once I managed to encourage her only to have one finger on the keyboard at any one time (well, obviously there's a brief take-over for transfer of weight) she was much more confident.

When I asked a few months ago I got the impression that several of you disagreed with me about this, saying the fingers should stay on the keys - I was surprised, because I am sure that none of you actually play that way. That's why I think I must have misunderstood.

If a child plays a phrase in a "5 over 5" position (5 fingers over 5 consecutive notes) and then has to play it an octave higher, do you (a) tell them to place their fingers on the new 5 notes first, or (b) drop just the starting finger on the correct note?

I've always maintained that you have the greatest contol over the tone of the note if it's approached as near as possible from above, and with the last joint as near vertical as possible, and with all the joints free to flex or straighten just like robot arms. The fingertip doesn't need to lift very far, maybe half a centimetre is enough. I thought for a long time that obviously everyone taught that way.

(Sorry about the typo in the heading and any I've missed in the post: my space bar is dying)

Just went to have a quick try.
I've never instructed anyone either way on this.
If I start in a 5 finger position my fingers are all lightly touching the keys.
If I jump up the octave my hand automatically lands with the same hand shape.
I tried having fingers not touching and it's hard work and I thought it needed a fair amount of forearm tension to retain that position.

Will see what my teacher's thoughts are on this if I remember.

There are 2 things I do that relate to this:

I demonstrate finger independence or lack of by getting students to see if they can rest all their fingers on the notes and then play just one at a time without moving them off. This is partly to demonstrate the physical reality of independent fingers, rather than just talking about it, but also psychologically it's about having faith that you can have your finger resting on a key and still not play it when other fingers are playing and knowing that the keys require actual force so it's safe.

I also discourage them arching fingers away from the keyboard by doing very light, quick 5 finger scales, moving up and down the keyboard, to show that every fingers needs to be ready and available to play at any time. (if I say 'teacup' my pupils know their little finger is sticking out excessively, and for grown male pupils you can sometimes get away with teasing that they look like the just painted their nails and don't want to smudge it!).

I don't think I specifically teach that fingers need to stay on keys, more that they need to be in relaxed, ready position, ready to play consecutive keys unless the fingering coming up means they need to open/move hand. Which means being veyr near the keys if not on them.

I'm with you on this, Linda.ff.

Teaching a good, solid legato to beginners within one or two lessons is a cinch if you take this approach - nigh on impossible, otherwise.

The drawback is that they will often end up with their fingers pointing a bit too high at first, but I would rather they develop a good tone right from the off, and then encourage them towards a better overall hand position later, once the fingers have built up some strength and control.

But the reason for keeping fongers off the keys is not so that they won't accidentally play - it's in order to getgreater flexibility for the rest of the hand

That's not inconsistent with their being off the keys, though.I've just watched, on YouTube, Glenn Gould, Alfred Brendel, Angela Hewitt and several others - not seen any evidence of fingers left on the keys, and plenty of lift.

So at what point do you introduce rotation, then? I'm not sure that can be done with the fingers on the keys.

*** (sorry, don't know how to reply within a quote) But some students think that the only way to play one note at a time is to have all other fingers way away from the keyboard - this is a demo to show them they have more control than they think, it's not how I ask them to play all the time. So maybe it's not so relevant to your OP...

What kind of rotation do you mean? Are you talking about hand rotation, or finger movement from note to note?

Wrist

Sorry, I don't know what you mean, it may be you and I use different terminology?

It may be what you call hand rotation.

Your wrist can rotate around three different axes (that looks wrong, but I know it isn't axises)

Rotating around the horizontal axis gives you the up-down movement of the hand and forearm.
Rotating around the vertical axis gives you a lateral rotation (looks like trying to polish the table) which is useful for arpeggios
Rotating around the front-to-back axis (what's the word? I just asked my mathematician husband and he couldn't remember either) turns your hand from palm down to palm facing inwards. The natural relaxed position of our arms is not with the palm down. To keep the hand in that position for any length of time causes tension in the forearm. So even a small amount of rotation around that axis is healthy for the arm.

So exercises that go 1-5-4-5-3-5-2-5-1 etc are referred to as rotation exercises in the hopes that they will free up tho wrist; I have a watch on my wrist and get the pupil to look at it while I perform such an exercise; often I'll exaggerate a little if they don't notice the watch moving from side to side, but you should see it rolling slightly. I once heard a nice description of that part of our anatomy: "our arms were made for climbing trees"

Ah ok, yes that is what I would call hand rotation - turning the door knob exercises!

Yes, you're right, and maybe I was being sloppy in saying 'near the keys if not on them' when really I mean near the keys and occasionally that might mean more than one finger is resting on key, and that should be ok without compromising the ability to play one note at a time' But i think it only takes a gnat's leg of distane from the keys to be able to create rotation, and some passages can have less rotation than others. EG 34543 etc woudl have a very tiny amount of rotation but also important that 1 and 2 are not sticking right up as they often are in beginners.

I get them to 'piggyback' on my hand to feel the correct movement. Copying doesn't always work.