I try to be inventive when conveying various technical and musical details to students, but I’ve yet to come up with a ‘technical term’ as wacky as this one. Devised by my pupil Amy Reynolds, ‘Chicken Wings’ may be of interest to anyone focusing on the elbow. Many pedagogues feel this part of the body to be of real importance when playing the piano, and Amy felt compelled to write about her recent discoveries. I have reproduced her blog post here.

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Chicken Wings

Yes, you read that right. Let me explain, I had a minor revelation last week. Every now and again I forget that I can do more than move my wrist up and down, I can use my elbow to aid the rotation allowing me to play a certain passage in one movement. I was practising some Beethoven, the Tempest Sonata to be precise, and I could not think of a name for this type of movement so naturally I decided to call it the ‘Chicken Wing’ because I was using my elbow. My students are very accustomed to me using odd terms to describe certain movements, the ‘Chicken Wing’  has now been added to that list!

Now, not all pedagogues mention using the elbow, and I can understand why. The arm is what it is, the most important work comes from below the elbow. But I feel that it is important for me to share my thoughts on why using my elbow works for me. Each person has a slightly different body structure meaning some movements may work for some and not for others.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, when I started lessons with Melanie we focused on keeping the wrist separate from the arm and hand to break tension. Well now I’m talking about separating the elbow. It acts like a pivot, and once you are able to move your wrist freely in all directions you can then use your elbow to cushion and adjust the angle of your hand, therefore allowing you to execute particular passages that need extra movement more easily. If you compare it to when we sit at the piano stool, we make sure it is the right height and we are comfortable before playing. But playing musical chairs by hopping on our bum isn’t how we reach those low notes or high notes. We rock using our sitting bones to allow ourselves a better position both low and high, it also gives easier access to the mid range of the keyboard when playing runs and arpeggios. Our elbow can be that medium between the shoulder and wrist giving us that flexibility, like the rocking of our sitting bones. Maybe I got this idea from playing the violin, where the elbow is something that cannot be ignored as it drives the bow’s direction.

I think that all parts of the upper body are important when playing piano, by combining the uses of each joint to tendon you can create more power and control over what you play, the elbow is just part of that whole system.

Read Amy’s Blog here.

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from Melanie Spanswick http://ift.tt/2qmGK4D