If you teach beginning piano students or are a beginning piano student yourself, you may notice a case of the “floppy wrists.” A teacher will immediately notice the non-legato, bumpy, and percussive sound. A student may notice their wrist going up and down like a trampoline every time they play a key on the piano.
A fun way for students to troubleshoot their own floppy wrists is to place small, flat erasers, about the size of a quarter, on each hand while playing a legato piece. I have little skull-shaped erasers left over from Halloween that have funny eyes that the kids say are watching for their floppy wrists. When the students are concentrating on reading the notes and forget their curved hand position and start to use their wrists for momentum, the erasers will fall off of the hands and remind them to not to bounce the wrists.
The cap of a small water bottle works great for adults as well. Don’t use coins, as you risk getting them wedged between the keys!
May the legato playing you hear be a smooth and connected as someone tiptoeing across a wire!
Hi, “wenjenpiano,”
It’s strange to read your advocating “Clementi’s coin” whereas every modern piano pedagogy textbook declares that this idea has long been abandoned, that it’s an archaic idea of a long-gone, wrong past…
On the other hand, I know that we, teachers declare they we need ‘even’ wrists, at least in the beginning of teaching (i.e. when all neuromuscular associations and motoric habits are established), so your words resonate well with all (old and contemporary) ideas supporting wrist evenness and e.g. chiroplast.
So, who is right?
This piano teaching seems to be quite complicated.
You make a great point, and I like the way you view this from different perspectives. I find myself using this method a reminder to my very young piano students, ages 3 to 5 or a beginning adult student only in the first few weeks, so that their hands develop a muscle memory of that even hand position. The student can then focus on listening for that legato sound. . I agree that when these neuromuscular associations are set, there generally is no longer a need to to use the “Clementi’s coin” method. It is impossible to use this method once phrasing and wrist lifts are introduced. I find that many young students have excellent fine motor skills and are able to multitask well are able to focus on their hand position and sound production simultaneously without ever using this method. There are a few however, that have a hard time achieving a smooth, legato sound, and technical hand position reminders begin to fall on deaf ears. In this case, the “Clementi coins” serve as a fun, effective game, with immediate results. You are right, “this piano teaching seems to be quite complicated!” Thank you for contributing to the blog. I hope that you continue to add your input to future posts!