Levitate!

The wrist is very agile at rotating freely around the axis of the forearm. Rotational motions of the wrist permeates all of piano technique, and is a very potent ingredient when appropriately combined with the other axes of the wrist’s motion—horizontal (medial/lateral) and vertical (flex/extend). Wrist rotation may be used in combination or exclusively, depending on the nature of the passage to be played, and there may also be situations that require stabilizing the wrist against rotation.

In this post, I share some foundational wrist rotation exercises that I learnt back in my college years from my piano professor at the University of Michigan, and with newly incorporated external focus tools that I developed for myself more recently.

I accredit my professor for overhauling my piano technique. Starting from my freshman year, we went back to basics, deconstructed every minute movement into its component parts, and then put it all back together again. From him, I learnt not just what wrist rotation is, but also how to practice and internalize the new movement patterns. Fast forward 20 years, and returning from a decade-long hiatus, I discovered that my wrist suppleness had gone rusty and old bad habits had begun to creep back. But without the careful guidance and watchful eye of my professor, I was left to my own devices on how to revive the skill.

The Wrist Pulley: Finding your axis of rotation

A major challenge that learners face when learning wrist rotation is knowing how to differentiate the rotational motion from the other axes of motion. As straightforward as the instructions may sound, “rotate the wrist around the axis of the forearm,” it is less easy to overcome the fact that deeply ingrained habits do not simply yield to verbal instructions about an unfamiliar movement pattern. I have observed that it is not straightforward for a learner to translate explicit verbal instructions into an internalized motor skill. Plus, it becomes even more complicated to identify the rotation when it is thrown into a diverse mix of finger, hand, arm and body coordination, along with tons of notes to play!

Thus, the wrist “pulley” is a simple DIY method I devised to isolate the wrist rotation. Designed based on the principles of external focus of attention and implicit learning, it implicitly teaches the learner how to perform the rotational wrist movement, without needing explicit verbal instructions of what those wrist movements should be. It works because it is a task that is designed such that the very act of achieving the task successfully necessarily means the learner is performing the movements correctly.

The Wrist Pulley Method for Finding the Axis of Rotation

Equipment: To make a wrist pulley, find a ribbon, belt, tea towel or other household item that can be draped over your wrist, has some weight to hang down on its own, but is not too heavy to weigh down the wrist. (My wrist pulley is repurposed from a Theraband which I got from my physical therapist. Clips were added in the video for visibility, but I do not to use them during regular practice as they add mass and swing too much.)

Steps:

1. With your hand in playing position at the piano, drape the wrist pulley over your wrist and forearm so that the two ends hang at the same level.
2. Play an ascending 5 note scale. To start on the thumb, rotate the pulley such that the thumb side of the pulley is lower than the pinky side.
3. Keeping the fingers firm^* as you play each successive note, rotate the pulley smoothly to end on the 5th finger, and the pinky side of the pulley is lower than the thumb side.
4. Play the 5 note scale descending. Rotate the pulley in the opposite direction.
5. Repeat at varying tempos, but keeping the same rotational motion. Then, try without the wrist pulley.

^*The fingers should be firm, and do not have to move much. In this axis-finding exercise, the thrust for depressing the keys comes more from the wrist rotation, and less from finger movement.

Note that if the ends of your pulley are swaying sideways instead of moving up and down, it is an indication that you are using lateral wrist motion instead of rotational motion.

Deconstructing Rotation

The most enlightening exercise my professor taught me was deconstructing wrist rotation for basic scales and arpeggios. In the video above, I demonstrate how playing a C major scale comprises of a series of rotational movements at every note. Taken in slow motion,

• the rotation is in the direction of the scale, for consecutive notes played with consecutive fingers (clockwise for ascending, counter-clockwise for descending.)
• On notes where the thumb turns under or where the 3rd or 4th finger turns over, the rotation is in the *opposite* direction of the scale!
• Each rotational movement is preceded with a preparatory counter-rotation in the opposite direction.
• Gently but firmly stop the rotation on a level wrist with firm fingers.
• Free your elbow and shoulder to move however necessary to achieve the above objectives.

The exaggerated rotation should be practiced initially to learn the fundamental movement pattern. When playing scales at any speed, the exact same rotational movements are retained, albeit in a more subtle way. If learning this for the first time, start practicing it from a slow tempo and as exaggeratedly as the tempo allows, until it makes intuitive sense which direction the rotation goes.

In the video, I used the Wrist Band Tool from my previous post [link] to make the rotation more visible. If you’re not yet adept at finding your axis of rotation, you can continue to use the wrist pulley to isolate your wrist rotation in this exercise, as well as in any musical setting.

The same rotational concept applies to arpeggios, tremolos, and pretty much any time you move from one note to another!