Pianist, teacher, and composer Rami Bar-Niv returns this week to continue his excellent, and very popular, series here on my blog. Rami’s articles are focusing various aspects of piano technique and today’s surveys the rotation technique. You can read the first two articles in this series by clicking on the links below:
A rotational movement is the movement we do when we turn a doorknob or a key in a door. However, due to gravity, when we play the piano, we also use the keys to rest our fingers on. Therefore, moving from playing one key to another, we are shifting the weight of the hand/arm from one finger to another. Rotation helps us to shift the weight by moving from side to side, like a seesaw.
In the rotation technique we use different sets of muscles and tendons from the ones we use in various wrist and finger techniques. It is mostly known as Forearm Rotation, though some people argue that the movement is not initiated in the forearm. What actually happens in the movement is turning the forearm along with the wrist, hand, and fingers between supination and pronation. When we rotate the hand/forearm in the pronation direction (the direction of the thumb), the radius bone crosses over the ulna bone. When the hands are in normal playing position which is palms down, these two bones are actually crossed. Therefore, it is not easy to further rotate in the direction of the thumb, and we get help from letting the elbows move out a bit – away from the side of the body.
When the piano keys that are played change direction (up and down pitch wise) with every new note, it is ideal for the rotation technique. Therefore, rotation is particularly helpful in tremolos, trills, turns, Alberti-bass-type figurations, zigzag-type scales and arpeggios, and pivotal fingers.
Let’s look at Hanon exercises no. 5 and 6.
These exercises can easily be done with two hands together, as the rotation movements of the hands are parallel. I will speak about a single hand now, but it is the same for both hands. In order to start playing the first note, our hand needs to be rotated to the right. We play the first note as we rotate the hand to the left into the first note. When I say rotate the “hand”, I mean hand, forearm, and everything that’s between the fingertips and the elbow as one unit. So, we played the first note, and the hand is rotated to the left. Now we are going to swing and rotate the hand to the right into the next note (piano key). When we do it slowly, we can exaggerate the rotational movement by raising the other side of the hand where the fingers are not playing. We continue the same way with every new note, rotating the hand from side to side.
The axis of rotation can change, it can be any finger and it can also be between fingers. E.g. if we trill with fingers 2 and 3, the axis will be between these two fingers. If we trill with fingers 2 and 4 or play a tremolo of a third with fingers 2 and 4, the axis will be finger 3. In a tremolo of an octave with fingers 1 and 5, the axis can be finger 2 or 3.
The wrist is not involved in rotation, though when we get advanced with the technique, the wrist participates too. It is very useful in tremolos, where we change finger placement on the keys. We move towards and away from the fall board while raising the wrist and lowering it respectively.
Rotating the hand position in the pronation direction also helps with smooth thumb crossing in scales and arpeggios. The following photos are taken from my book The Art of Piano Fingering: Traditional, Advanced, and Innovative. In the first photo, the left hand is a bit rotated towards supination which results in a somewhat collapsed pinkie side of the hand.
In the second photo, the hand is rotated towards the thumb and thus the pinkie side is up, which is wonderful for smooth thumb crossing.
Another segment of my piano-fingering book employs rotation for a smooth change of directions in glissando.
When we play glissando outwards on the keyboard (RH ascending and the LH descending), I prefer using the nails of fingers 2, 3, and 4 in various combinations.
When we play glissando inwards on the keyboard (RH descending and the LH ascending), I prefer using the thumb.
If we wish to play glissando back and forth, up and down the keyboard, changing directions smoothly, we can do it well if we use the above fingering for the relevant directions. Then just rotate the hand the other way and the change of the glissando direction will be seamless and injury-free. This won’t work well with other glissando fingerings as there we would have to turn the hand in weird and unpleasant ways.
Now, what happens if the notes in the music or in an exercise do not change direction with every new note, but continue in the same direction like in a scale going up or down?
This is when we employ double rotation. Double rotation is playing a note rotating from the opposite direction and then while still holding the key down, changing the direction of the rotation. This allows us to keep on playing notes in the same direction. Let’s look at a C major pentascale (first five notes of a scale), and always exercise one octave away from middle C in order to avoid ulnar deviation. We play in the right hand the key of C rotating the thumb to the left. We play D with finger 2 by rotating to the right. But now we have to play E which is also rotating to the right from D. So in order to be able to rotate again into the right, we first need to rotate back to the left while still holding down the key of D. This enables us to rotate to the right into the piano key of E. Now going to F, we still need to rotate back to the left while holding E down and then we can rotate to the right in order to play F. and the same again on F in order to play G. What we did on the keys D, E, and F, is called double rotation.
Good luck, and enjoy this very useful technique.
Blood, Sweat, and Tour: Notes from the Diary of a Concert Pianist
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Melanie Spanswick has written and published a wide range of courses, anthologies, examination syllabuses, and text books, including Play it again: PIANO (published by Schott Music). This best-selling graded, progressive piano course contains a large selection of repertoire featuring a huge array of styles and genres, with copious practice tips and suggestions for every piece.
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