Hello all.

I'm new to teaching the piano (mid-career switch) and have had one student for a year now. She just turned 7 last December and was almost completely new to the concept of music when I started teaching her. I'm actually having some serious issues teaching her, but I'd expound on that in another thread when I get certain things sorted out.

A couple of days back, I was going through A Dozen A Day (Mini) with her when we came across our first triad (C E G). She tried it a few times but was unable to play it without her 4th finger going down as well.

Why does that actually happen? Small hands/weak fingers?

What should I do to correct it?

I think this is very common with young children and it's sometimes difficult for them to play a two note chord with thumb/third finger or with 2nd/4th, let alone trying to play with 3rd/5th. I use a 5 finger exercise which involves playing up/down a 5 note scale which finishes with a 1-3-5-3-1 fingering (or 5-3-1-3-5 for LH) - the pupils can always learn/manage the 5 finger scale part but it takes a while for them to get the skips up/down on fingers 1,3,5 at the end. I get them used to playing 2 note chords with different fingers first as well as playing the bare 5th with thumb/5th fingers before adding in the 3rd - it depends a bit what they have been learning repertoire-wise and what has come up - I use Piano Adventures tutor books and these do quite a lot of chords in 3rds, some 2nds and the 5th (Primer and Level 1) but not much more than this. Even just playing 3rds up/down the keyboard with the same pair of fingers, listening for both keys sounding at the same time makes them focus more carefully on what their fingers are doing - eg C/E; D/F; E/G; F/A; G/B and turning round to go back down to C/E.

I also teach quite a bit of keyboard and teaching fingered chords to 8/9/10 year olds can be quite a challenge to get them to finger 3 notes, then play them all at the same time. These are usually young beginners with 2-3 terms worth of lessons, sometimes more if they've started on single fingered chords from age 6/7.

Just a few thoughts - good luck with your pupil.

I think that this is very common too, especially with a young child.

There's no magic cure.

I have one 6 year-old who's progressing very well (two hands, quavers, small chords) but can't play tonic triads without his 4th finger going down.
I don't want him to force them either and make his hand like a claw in order to do it.

So I'm just ignoring the third note and he's playing a fifth in the couple of pieces that have them (which means his hand is in a good position and the sound is about right).

We're doing quite a lot of finger and chord exercises and I'm quite sure that it'll happen naturally quite soon.

I agree it's pretty common. I find you just have to sidestep or modify chords and not make a big deal of it.

Gentle finger-indepence exercises can help, as others have suggested.

I find the same thing with some students, while others seem to find it quite straightforward. It's just something for them to practice - most of my kids can come back the next week able to do it pretty well.

I think all that has been said above is good comment and good advice. It will come with time. I've got one little girl who 2 years ago could hardly play anything without finger joints bending. She couldn't manage some of the chords in Dozen a Day Mini Book either. I worked on this from time to time, trying to make it fun (you know, the old "Don't squash the mouse " thing and such like) but I never made a thing of it. The point was she was enjoying her lessons and intellectually absorbing everything very fast - just the fingers wouldn't follow. Now at nearly the end of her second year her fingers are beginning to be stronger and she
will eventually develop force and a good hand position. with some children it comes from the word go and with others it takes time. I think you just need to be patient.

well... in a way

At the end of a lesson in which something like this has arisen, I say:
"Now, there is one thing you can do which will help your piano playing a lot. Are you listening carefully? I want you to try very hard to do this all week, and I will check next week if you've been doing it. I'm sure you will! And it is this: get older"

They love hearing that, and when the next week turns up, not only have they been doing getting older all week, they can often do what they couldn't the previous week.

One biochemist parent said I was probably not far wrong in this, in that I explained why it was that we could go to bed one night unable to do something and wake up the next morning able to do it, without even having practised, and it's not because we've slept on it or dreamed about it, it's because the synapses in the brain have continued to develop as we grow physically and overnight that little infinitesimal amount of development has formed a necessary connection that wasn't there before.

I do think there must be a point where we stop getting better as we get older. I passed it yonks ago!

Thank you all for the comforting replies!

I considered skipping that part too, but being a newbie teacher, I wasn't sure of what the implications were and was afraid of skipping stuff.

I will definitely get the student to skip the third and play the fifths for starters and continue with the finger exercises.

But what would be some finger exercises beneficial towards development in this area be like? maggiemay mentioned finger-independence exercises. Would this be something like those in A Dozen A Day e.g. hold down right hands fingers 2 and 4 on E and G respectively, then play D, F, A with fingers 1, 3, 5?

I think for a beginner that would be very difficult indeed.

The child I had who found the triad difficult was still in the first group of ADAD, and couldn't do the Deep Breathing exercise C-E-G-triad. In the end, we found she could get the triad if she added her fingers in order from the little finger to the thumb. Finger 4 was still sitting on the surface of the key but at least it wasn't sounding with the others. By the end of the last lesson she surprised her sefl by managing 1-3-5-triad. She had come in at the start of the lesson and said (a)she still couldn't do it and (b)she hadn't practised it. Enough said. This is one of the areas where knowing how to do something is not sufficient for you to be able to do it. You are the only person who can teach your own muscles.