Forearm Rotation Element (Necessity)

Forearm Rotation Element

Forearm Rotatory Stresses remain mostly invisible

Forearm rotatory exertions and relaxations must be adjusted for every note you play. They are either repeated or reversed from note to note. During performance, they are applied without any outward indication of their presence or absence. The forearm rotation element applies throughout all playing and motions. Without its application your hand would stand upright on the keyboard (with thumb up) instead of lying prone upon it.

The fingers move only in cooperation with the forearm. It is needed for all single notes, octaves, and as well as for every note in the fastest of agility passages. Whatever the form or type of touch employed, forearm rotation represents the core of piano playing. It is required equally for loud or soft playing, staccato and legato, and slow or quick passages.
Most ruined playing is to be traced to a misunderstanding of how to employ forearm rotation. Understanding and mastery of rotation is therefore usually the solution of most "finger-work" challenges. Attention to it indeed largely constitutes Fingerfertigkeit.^[1]

Of all the six forms of arm-use or condition which have been enumerated, forearm rotation is the most important. It therefore needs far more detailed clarification than is desirable at this stage, hence it receives a separate module 6.

Four Optional Forms of Arm Use

As already noted, the first two forms of arm-use

the poised arm "balanced" and
rotative arm

are required in every passage, whereas the remaining four ways are optional.
These last four (optional) ways of arm use are applied only during the moment of each individual key-descent. They are required where the poised arm condition by itself, does not offer a sufficiently substantial basis for the work of the finger and hand. Choice, therefore, here largely depends on the kind of tone required.

Hence, have arisen the curvilinear^[2] theories of touch, first put forward in the dark ages of piano-teaching, when everything was tentative, owing to the fundamental muscular facts not having been grasped, since "eye-evidence" alone was used to create theories with respect to keyboard technique.

[1] Fingerfertigkeit: This word translated from German to English means finger dexterity. Zauberei ist eine kunstvolle Demonstration von Fingerfertigkeit.

[2]curvilinear: consisting of or bounded by curved lines; represented by a curved line