A detailed demonstration on how the shoulder acts as a conduit between the hand and body during piano playing, emphasizing natural movements that allow the entire body to participate in creating music

Alan is showing how to move fingers and wrists fluidly while maintaining relaxed hand posture to create beautiful sounds without stiffening

Alan is emphasizing the importance of keeping the elbow low and wrist flexible while playing, particularly for a student recovering from a shoulder injury

Exercises by maintaining relaxed arms while keeping fingers gently unified like a seal flipper

Increase hand tonus and viability

Alan demonstrates the "cat scratch" technique, a relaxed method of playing where students use their hands loosely like a cat scratching, emphasizing how this relaxed approach creates a warmer sound on the piano

Alan shows sleeping bear method that emphasizes lying down your hands and rolling them over the keyboard to play black and white notes with complete relaxation, helping to avoid tension and discomfort during piano practice

Standing up on the thumb to strengthen its sense of structure. This video demonstrates a dynamic exercise that involves moving the thumb in different directions while engaging the entire body, designed to improve shoulder mobility and flexibility through guided movements and stretches

Alan demonstrates the bird beak hand position for piano playing, focusing on proper thumb movement, connection between fingers, tonus and incorporating whole-body mechanics to enhance technique and produce a finger-pedaling effect

Increasing suppleness while maintaining thumb empowerment

Explores the first degree of creating some independence for the thumb from the hand

Explores the second degree of Independence of the thumb from the hand

We review a totally structuralized thumb and then individuates it even further from the hand.

We skip chapter 12 because it was done in the introduction, and go to Chapter 13 which explores the most structuralized hand yet. Teetering Toucan was done the previous day so in this video we skip it.... But it introduces a strong hand combined with a lateral removing arm, the first indication of the arms rule as a phrase producer

We return to a sensorially enriched let-go of the hand feel to melt it into the keys in a triad

Here we go to the other extreme once again, making the hand literally into a high tonused but unweighted mallet

Termite Temerity, where we learn to manipulate the key instead of pressing it down.

The Tai Chi empty step. Here we see the value of preparing the ground with the thumb individuation exercises of Section II

Walking between two Yang fingers instead of a Yin and a Yang finger

Activates the thumb, drawing it towards the fingers but in a moving way whether rather than a static, overly structured way

We are talking about extending the thumb without collapsing the hand arch structure

Free the arm and the fingers for maximum velocity

Slinky Snail has the same kind of quick finger action, but while overholding - to inflate the hand in a deliciously free manner

We explore keeping the hand supple in an octave by pronating it and supinating it while holding onto a large interval

We explore growing the hand arch suddenly, as if the fingers were a diver's legs springing off a diving board

Forte Flying Fox is explained and dispensed with in only a few seconds, integrating the movements of the previous chapter into an actual playing situation

39:05 Chapter 27 pronates and supinates the hand while holding a large interval, to increase the suppleness of an octave without reducing its strength and agility

We finally addresse the age old question of finger curling, putting it into a more functional context of the hand's motor development.