Balanced and Resting on the Surface of the Keys

The upperarm plays an important role in resting on the keys. The player should be able to rest on the keys with the fingers gripping them and without depressing the keys and the whole playing mechanism of the humand being should feel at rest. The piano keys like the limbs used by the pianist, are levers with the fulcrum at the balance rail in the interior of the piano. The outside edges of the white keys are farthest away from the fulcrum, offer more leverage, and are the easiest to play in that area. The black keys are closer to the fulcrum, therefore there is less leverage and the action feels different.
Each piano key is weighted with a silver disc, so when two keys are played together it takes twice as much weight to depress them, three keys takes three times as much weight and so on. The power of the fingers alone is not enough to cope with this combination, and for this reason the fingers require assistance from the hand and forearm. When the forearm is taught how to increase the power of the fingers, there is no longer any difficulty with multiple key depressions.

If a student gets tired or has pain it is because something is being done incorrectly. The student should be placed at a table with his fingertips resting on the tabletop, and his arms resting on the fingertips. There should be no feeling of pushing, for his fingertips are resting on the tabletop the same way that his body is sitting in the chair. Place the student at the piano, with the elbow on a level with the keyboard. This will balance the arm and position the forearm and the upperarm. The wrist will be slightly lower than the hand knuckle. To keep the hand knuckle fulcrum firm, grip the surface of the keys to gain a tactile sense of the keys without depressing them. The arm weight thus rests on the keys balanced on the fleshy fingertips (not the fingernails). This requires practice until the brain gets the message to hold.

Employ the tapping finger by ensuring that the finger movement originates at the hand knuckle. Move the fingers up and down until natural finger curvature is attained . If there are spaghetti fingers it is because the fulcrum at the wrist is breaking and causing the entire mechanism to fail. When the wrist moves up and down on each finger, it creates collapse and is producing an isolated action. This incorrect motion represents a lack of coordination with the arm.
The fulcrums must hold so that coordination of all limbs may take place. If the student is made aware of how these technical flaws look, and then is made to feel the difference when it is done correctly, the message will go to the brain, for the brain picks up the action of the fingers against the keys through the "Act of Touch".