Scratch the Dog

Every musician is faced with common challenges or errors in their technic. For young piano students, I often see them attempting to play with with either straight and flat fingers, high arching wrists or fingers that even buckle backwards at times. It can be an every constant challenge to reinforce students to keep their wrists relaxed and their fingers gently bent.

I attempted something new this semester, by having students first pet my dog, Marley, before they play anything on the keys. We talked about how gently curled our fingers are and not a single one is strait or bending backwards. I have students notice how their wrists are also really relaxed and not pointing upwards.

So now, we can often hear "scratch the dog." if a student is needing encouragement on keeping their fingers curled and I'm seeing amazing results. It always amazes me what little trick will actually work for students. Thank you Marley, for helping out our pianists. ;)