Hi everyone!

My six year old pupil is very intelligent, a quick learner. But he does insist on playing with flat fingers.

I tell him to imagine he`s a lion, and to shape his hand like a lion`s paw.

What else can I do? He`s just not able to do it!

Is it his age? Have you any experience of this and can offer tips?

The books I've looked at with my daughter (also 6) say to pretend you are holding a ball under your hand. One suggests a mouse (picture is of the animal type but I guess the computer type would give the idea too)

You could actually put one of those plastic playballs (Light ball around tennis ball size such as you get in ball pits) into their hand and get them to hold it - fingers down to see the shape as well as imagine it....

(I'm not a piano teacher by the way) Just a parent who plays a bit of piano too and understands kids from a primary teaching perspective.)

Good luck

Thanks Dawn! We are using Tunes for Ten Fingers which tells the child to imagine a mouse under his hand. That`s not working, so maybe the ball idea is a good one?

I use the mouse idea - I "squeak" if the fingers drop, which usually causes some amusement and brings the hand shape back again.

I use a clanger - I have a toy one and the nose fits beautifully under a little ones hand, and if they do it wrong you press the tummy and he does a line that was actually censored from the programme that goes 'Oh ### it the ###### thing's stuck again' (I'll let the censor XXX out where appropriate.) All I have to do is reach for the clanger and the hands go straight up into the right position.

We did the mouse and the coin on the back of the hands too.
It is still a small problem sometimes but has taken years to get where we are now.
Good luck
Dora

I ask very young pianists to make a fist shape and then to relax it just a little. Then we play for a few moments at the start of each lesson using finger three only. A scale played this way soon puts the curve back into the fingers. We don't call it a scale though, but The Animal Song. (C the cat, D the Dog, etc!)

The finger 3 scale is a great idea! Now why haven't I thought of that before? Thanks!

I sometimes do a 'Bike' song with beginners where they play with fingers 2 and 3 and have to keep their 'knees bent' - I find this often works quite well in the early stages.

Also there is a 'Pecking Rooster' exercise in Piano Adventures (same series as mentioned by Cambiata) where the pupil braces the thumb gently behind the third finger's first joint and 'pecks corn' from each key in turn: the rooster has to bend his neck to get the corn so this also keeps the wrist flexible. (For a clearer description have a look on the PA website).

Depending on the child (!) I sometimes ask them if they've ever watched a big spider run across the room and then suggest that their fingers need to run up and down the keyboard like that. (usually after I've tried a number of less scary options)

If wrists sink a bit I ask them to imagine a balloon or fairy-working-hard tied to a piece of ribbon attached to their wrists, and in the first instance I even tie the imaginary piece of ribbon to the wrist. That works quite well because I can just "tug" the ribbon to raise the wrist a bit.