Fundamental Movements
Free Fall & Wrist Height (2.1)
- Support your right arm with your left hand, keeping the right arm heavy.
- If you are standing, allow your arm to fall to your side. If you are seated, allow your arm to land freely on your lap.
- Toss your right arm up onto the keyboard, landing with your palm on a cluster of white keys.
- Try the same with your right hand already over the keys. Lift the arm with a supple wrist, draw the upper arm forward, and release it in another palm cluster.
- Next, use the same motion to drop on the interval of a fifth, using fingers 1 and 5.
- Experiment with lifting and dropping on different finger pairs: 2-5, 3-5, 4-5, 2-4, 3-4, 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4, at your own pace.
- In all movements, lift and drop with a supple wrist, maintain a Quiet Hand, and rebound off of the key bed after passing through the sound point.
- Play some dyads in different registers.
- If your wrist is too low at the moment of attack, you risk hyperextending and straining the carpal tendons. A low wrist can also lead to a collapsed bridge, causing further strain and limiting mobility.
- If your wrist is too high, motion at the wrist becomes unnecessarily large, and the fingers may ‘slap’ down without adequate arm support.
- Your connection to your whole body will be increased if you lift, drop and follow through using a more medial position for the wrist, at the moment of attack through the sound point.