03- Beyond the Curved Finger: Rethinking Piano Technique for Neurodivergent Students

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The journey of teaching piano technique to students with disabilities presents unique challenges that require creativity, patience, and a willingness to adapt. Traditional approaches—filled with flowery language about rainbows and waterfalls—simply don't connect with neurodivergent students who think concretely and pragmatically.

Teaching piano technique to students with disabilities requires adaptability, patience, and a willingness to break from traditional approaches while maintaining pedagogical integrity. Success comes through adapting our approach, not by lowering expectations! Learn more in this first episode on teaching technique.

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Episode Transcript

Dr. Elizabeth Davis-Everhart (00:00):
Hi friends, and welcome back to
the third episode of CreativePiano Pedagogy.
If you're new here, thank youso much for tuning in.
I hope you have a chance to goback and check out the last few
episodes.
That'll give you a littlecontext for this series in
Adaptive Piano Pedagogy and allthat entails.
I do want to give a shout outto everyone who's listening

(00:23):
today, because every time Iupload an episode, Buzzsprout
lets me know kind of the generalarea of where my listeners are
tuning in.
So we have had folks from theUnited States of America, Canada
, Australia, India, Argentina,Malaysia, the UK, Ireland,

(00:47):
Sweden, Russia- oh my goodness!Wherever you're listening, thank
you so much and feel free touse that little 'text me'
feature in the little about tabbelow the podcast and let me
know where you're listening from.
I've gotten a couple messagesfrom there and they just totally
made my day.

(01:07):
So thank you very much.
Last week was an unintentionalhiatus due to a very unwelcome
visit from what I called theunholy trinity: the flu,
pneumonia and a sinus infection.
I am feeling so much better,but I did have to miss almost

(01:27):
two entire weeks of teaching,which is something that I really
hate to do.
So, anyways, glad to be feelingbetter, glad to be back at
things and excited for today'sepisode.
Today's podcast is centered on atopic that feels, honestly, way
too big for just one shortepisode.
So I am positiv e will revisitthis in the future, but we're

(01:49):
going to dive into ways to adaptour teaching approach of piano
technique, what that looks likeand how to make it work for
students with physical andlearning disabilities and
differences.
So before we get into this, theelephant in the room- and one
of the most discussed questionsin online piano teacher forums-

(02:12):
yes, we do teach technique tostudents with disabilities, yes,
they are able to play with goodtechnique, but no, it does not
look the same and it will notlook the same as teaching
technique to a neurotypicallearner who does not have these
challenges.
So just to get that out there-yes, we do it, yes, we can and

(02:36):
yes, they are able to do it, butit just will not look the same.
Remember, the pedagogy of whatwe do remains the same, but our
approach adapts for each student.
That is the beauty and theessence of adaptive piano
pedagogy and piano teaching.

(02:57):
So why is it so difficult toteach technique to students with
disabilities?
There are a myriad of reasonsfor this, but I'm just going to
highlight some of the main ones.
.
1.
The physical requirements forplaying an instrument,
specifically the piano,necessitate the ability for a

(03:17):
student to utilize their arms,their fingers and their hands
and have a strong core, to beseated with good playing and
sitting posture.
Also due to the physical natureof playing the piano, we as
teachers are often hyper-focusedon students' fingers Like- oh

(03:38):
no, their fingers aren't curved.
And, by the way, this is a sidenote- did you know that
teaching students to curve theirfingers does not actually
equate with healthy technique ortranslate to even playing
technical passages andrepertoire?
Oh boy.
.
.
as we often say, "that's a bigcan of worms y'all.
I think that's an episode andmaybe some videos for another

(04:00):
time.
But I digress for another time.
But I digress.
We panic when a student's handsand fingers do not look like
how they we think they should.
So we focus really hard onmaking them look correct and I'm
using air quotes there "correct, as in air quotes.
2.
Students with disabilities alsohave sensory sensitivities that

(04:25):
can range from being quite mildto extremely severe.
So it can be really challengingto just get in there and
physically help a studentachieve good technique.
This often involves a veryhands-on (no pun intended
approach) to teaching, whereyou're kind of adjusting the
fingers of your student ormoving their hands around,

(04:46):
helping them feel the weight orhelping them feel the gesture or
whatever.
So adding a layer ofsensitivity and even just
removing the aspect of usingyour hands to manipulate your
students can make things muchmore challenging for a lot of
teachers who are accustomed toteaching that way.

(05:08):
3.
So let's think about this howis technique typically taught
besides using a very hands-onapproach, what we just talked
about?
I don't know about you, but inmaster classes or in university
level teaching, it's oftentaught in very flowery language,
with flowing gestures, lots ofverbiage, lots of analogies

(05:31):
about nature, using ourimagination and imagery and
waterfalls and flowers andthinking of your arm like it's a
branch of a tree and all ofthis kind of thing.
But for neurodivergent students,especially those with autism,
they really struggle to think inthe hypothetical.

(05:53):
They do not do well with vagueterms or maybes or hypothetical
explanations.
They think in the here and now,in the black and white, very
pragmatic, very practical.
They really cannot liken theirarms to branches on a tree or
their hands to rainbows toachieve perfect playing

(06:15):
technique.
It quite literally does notwork most of the time because
it's just not how they learn orthink.
Now, this is not because theydon't possess the ability, but
because we're just speaking thewrong language.
It does not work for them whenwe take this approach.
Another challenge in teachingtechnique is communication.

(06:38):
We've already talked about thephysical aspect of teaching
technique and how we need tomanipulate students' hands, but
communication is one of thebiggest struggles when teaching
students with disabilities.
Learning to communicate withthem, learning to understand
their way of communicating,understanding the phrases and

(07:01):
types of instruction that evenwork for them.
It takes time.
Students with disabilities kindof speak their own language and
dialect.
So even students who may haveautism, or several students with
autism might all think, learnand communicate differently.
So i t's not a one- size- fits-all approach when teaching
technique or when figuring outhow to teach technique.

(07:25):
Something else to keep in mindis that students with
disabilities learn better withan approach that starts with the
whole and then goes to the part.
This is 100% the opposite waythat we were taught to teach.
I don't know about you, but Iwas always taught to teach- you
know, show your students thepart and then that will result

(07:47):
in the whole.
This is opposite.
Kids with disabilities learnbetter by looking at the whole
picture.
Then they're able to understandeach part.
They cannot look at a wholepicture like a whole piece and
then, you know, do this on theirown.
They need to start with playingmaybe the first whole line,

(08:08):
then extrapolating differentparts, and they can see how that
works.
It doesn't work to go the otherway around with them.
Most of the time, students withdisabilities often have a
difficult time transferringconcepts.
What that means is- if I wereto use flashcards with a student
, like sight reading flashcards,and maybe these flashcards had

(08:32):
the same kinds of patterns thatmy student's piece does; perhaps
it's patterns using steps andskips, and I were to do those
flashcards and then, maybe 10minutes later, I were to pull
out their music and we were todo their music, they would not
transfer the knowledge from theflashcards to the music.

(08:53):
Why?
It's the very same.
It's the same kinds of patterns.
It might even be the very samepattern, but it's not to them.
They are such concrete thinkers, they're so black and white,
they're so pragmatic.
The flashcard and the music onthe page are very different.
They are physically not thesame.
One is the flashcard, one is apiece of music, which is 100%

(09:16):
true, isn't it?
They are different and they'renot the same things.
You know, the music might havetreble clef and bass clef and
many more measures, and thesight reading card might just
have very few things.
So that's a very smallexplanation of how students
might struggle to transferthings from an abstract activity

(09:38):
like flashcards or exercisesaway from the repertoire and
then applying those principlesto their playing and making that
inference and transference.
The combination of all of thismakes teaching technique very
difficult and it makes it achallenge for teachers and

(09:59):
students.
There's an assumption that manyteachers make: since my
neurodivergent students hands,fingers, arms do not coordinate
and work the way they should orthe way I'm used to, they cannot
play XYZ, standard repertoire,classical repertoire, jazz
repertoire, hymns, whatever,fill in the blank.

(10:19):
Maybe they think they cannotplay scales or articulations.
Some teachers even think thatstudents whose fingers and hands
work differently cannot playwith expression or play more
advanced repertoire.
Folks, this is so very false.

I want you to remember this: Our students are not limited (10:36):
undefined
until we place limitations orassumed limitations on them.
Yes! Our students are notlimited until we place

(10:56):
limitations or assumedlimitations on them.