Anyone fancy writing a teachers' troubleshooting handbook - what to do if your pupil does x, y, z etc?

I'm having trouble with a boy of 10 - post grade 4 - very good generally on the piano, can find his way round all the notes, but somehow it is all a bit 'brittle' - word used by the examiner on his latest comments sheet. He looks a bit tense and his fingers tend to be very straight. His fortes tend to be rather sudden and a little aggressive sounding, and I am trying to get him to play a little more smoothly and freely. I also need to work on his finger position.

Suggestions please...

Would he be OK with this method, it's been useful with youngsters? Tell them to put their hands/arms in the playing position as if they are about to start a piece/exercise. Now place the tips of the fingers from one hand without changing finger position/tension and place them on the wrist or back of the other hand. After a moment let them relax. Now you do the same, but instead place your finger tips on the back of their hand/forearm. Ask them can they feel the difference? Repeat until they 'get it'. Now concentrate on relaxing/drooping the fingers, perhaps even melting, use soft sounding words/effects and get them to repeat, and again with curved but relaxed fingers. Try very slowly, never mind about correct rhythm for now, but say a broken chord, scale or arpeggio. But and it's a big but, with relaxed AND correctly curved fingers. Try and help them realise that less is more when it comes to finger tension versus expression. Try with scales, but once more with feeling!! Go for quality rather than quantitiy, and stress that usually greater control comes from having the arms bending down from the elbows towards the keyboard rather than horizontally, it also stresses the hand/forearm less.

Don't know if this helps, would be interested if you do find it any good, but my teenager newstarter seemed to find it helpful.

To get him to use finger tips try getting him to hold a scrunched up ball of paper while playing. He then has to keep the hand rounded, so that the fingertips point downwards. If he is sitting too high this tends to straight fingers too. I teach pupils to hold the hands as if holding a tennis ball, or imagine their hands are spiders and the fingers are its legs. playing a passage from forte to pianissimo encourages experiment with different qualities and graduation of tone. Busylizzie.

I'm goin to try this with one of my students who has the completely opposite problem to the OP - constantly over-relaxed hands and his knuckles are completely prolapsed the entire time. Sometimes, as he plays, his hamds become so droopy that his wrists end up below the keyboard! I've never seen this before and it actually worries me sometimes. So the paper ball sounds like a really good idea.

Actually, my teenage pupil and one of my adults do this. One is afro-caribbean and the other one could be. It is very marked and impossible to miss. Could just be a coincidence. I don't normally ask my pupils about ethnic background, but it could be relevant. Thinking along the lines of Olympic athletes and strenghts and weaknesses. Maybe there is a recessive gene at work here? Anyway, scrunched up ball of paper sounds a good one. Will try and see how they find it.

Sorry to shoot down your theory (or maybe just put a screw in it) but my student with this problem is very much Italian.

...and I had a similar problem with a student who was very much English!

Without adding to the suggestions here I would just say that I had a similar situation to the OP's - a post grade 4 boy who was very capable when it came to learning pieces but whose technique was very untidy and hands very stiff. I had to work hard for over a year to get him to relax and improve his hand position but now he is SO much improved. So it can be done SueHM!

Ta I knew it was a long shot, and it just made me laugh noticing the severe drop in the hand that both have. I always love it when I get it completely wrong though