These conditions all have a direct bearing on various problems of piano technique. A usual method of procedure employed to teach a pupil new movements, be they of finger, hand, or arm is to take the part to be moved and by appropriate force move it for the pupil through the desired range. The teacher supplies the force and makes the movement actively whereas the pupil makes it passively. As a result the muscles responsible for the movement do not contract and hence cannot either receive or send the proper stimulus to the brain-centres. Muscularly the pupil has learned nothing.
At most he has been given certain sensations of rotation at the joint at which movement takes place. In view of unfinished experiments, I am not at present prepared to say to what extent these are a help. Later on in reproducing the movement, for this is primarily a psychological problem. But we may rest assured that muscularly the reaction is not that which is ultimately responsible for the movement.

As a matter of fact, if the correct muscular contraction be the pedagogic aim, just the opposite method of procedure is advisable. Instead of introducing a force acting in the desired direction of movement, we should introduce a resistance against this movement, or, what is the same thing, a force acting in an opposite direction to the desired movement.
Keep your fingers balanced on the surface of the key and initiate movement from the first (proximal) phalange and metacarpal bone.

If finger-drop be the problem, press up against the descending finger. Tthe correct muscles will be contracted.
A muscular condition does not depend upon the position of the parts but upon the external resistance opposing the maintenance of the position.
There can be no doubt of the physiological or mechanical advantage of this procedure, even if it is opposed to the usual pedagogic procedure. The value, if any, in aiding a movement by relieving the maker of the movement of a part of the work cannot rest in any physiological or mechanical phase. It violates absolutely a fundament al law of physiological mechanics. But this help should not be confused with a somewhat similar, helpful procedure in which a slight touch or pressure in the direction of the movement is supplied by the teacher. This acts merely as a suggestion following which the pupil makes the movement unaided.