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Turning Special Needs Piano on its Head

Two Nursery Rhyme Piano Favorites

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By now you are getting the idea that while piano can be taught to special needs kiddos it requires just as much work as any other teaching tool in your clinic or piano studio. So let’s take a look at learning some easy pieces; Twinkle, Twinkle; Brother Jack; Row, Row, Row Your Boat and Mary Had a Little Lamb. Apps and print outs will follow this blog shortly.
You have been using the black keys exercises to keep the kiddo busy at the keyboard without stressing them out with too much new information and you have been watching the confidence build. So why not tap into the pool of nursery rhymes that every kiddo has been humming along to since they were say six months old? So pick any of the following pieces above. Twinkle Twinkle is complex but has the advantage of being the most famous of them all. And as a bonus, it was written by Mozart. Nothing like starting at the top.
You will need to guide the kiddo’s hand here and unless the kiddo is reasonably high functioning do not expect them to remember anything too quickly,. I have one kiddo who learned five pieces in his first five weeks while others are more inclined to remain in the familiarity and the comfort zone of the black keys exercises. There is nothing like the confidence that comes from knowing the kiddo is king of a drill and we all know they do not like to give up that great feeling too easily.

So like everything else in special needs, take your time here. If mom gives you any stick for not playing pieces you can always blame me! However if there is a stepping stone after black keys it is Twinkle Twinkle, even if it is complex. Kiddo will expect you to do a lot of hand holding here and give a lot of guidance. They might look away while you guide their fingers to play the notes, but you can be sure they will be humming the tune to themselves as you do the work for them.

Play each key and let the key go before you play the next one. Remember to play very quietly, while supporting as much of their hand as you can. If you can, try to use your own finger to play the key while letting the kiddo feel the keyboard surface at the same time. This makes sure that you do not apply any pressure on their little fingers. In the end, the kiddo will be the best judge of how much pressure should be applied and they will have built up some experience in muscle memory from having played black keys for a few weeks.

The opening of Twinkle Twinkle, although famous, always takes the kiddos by surprise. The big leap from C up to G followed to the next A is something none of them ever expect. The fingering is even more unexpected, thumb on C followed by fourth finger on G and then pinkie on A before finishing on G with the fourth finger again. The words to this note sequence are:
Twinkle, twinkle little star.

So while the tune and the words are really famous, from a playing point of view they really need a lot of help with this opening. Practice this opening a few times and give kiddo a long runway to get used to the feeling of first thumb then fourth finger. Believe me, I have taught this riff often enough to recognize the look on kiddo’s face. Is there not another way to do this?
The big barrier the kiddo cannot get around? The pincer twins! Pincer twins have nothing to do in the opening sequence of Twinkle Twinkle. Mozart knew what he was doing here. He starts the tune with the thumb and just as kiddo expects pincer twin index finger to follow the opening thumb on C, Mozart calls for the fourth finger on G. This is a really difficult expectation for kiddo to break, that index will always follow thumb on the keyboard. After all index always follows thumb in life; picking up toast, a pencil, a book; thumb and index are always in there working together. Not on the piano though and it will take a while for kiddo to get used to this.

The next words
How I wonder what you are.

These notes are really easy to play as they require only middle finger, index and back to thumb. Kiddo is usually really relieved to get onto this run after the tough opening sequence.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

These words require only the fourth, then middle, then index and then thumb. The sequence gets repeated and then the opening tune starts all over again to finish the piece.

Now here is an idea you will enjoy. You have just struggled to take kiddo through the piece using all five fingers? Now stop doing that and let the kiddo learn the piece using only one finger. Play the entire tune with the thumb, then the middle finger, then the fourth and finally the pinkie. Do not let kiddo play the piece with the second finger. Why? Because the second finger is the strongest gripper and the strength does not need any more reinforcing.

What is nice here is that you are now teaching pieces in the same way that you are teaching the Black Keys exercises. And this is good; you are extending the confidence zone from Black Keys Exercises into learning pieces. You can worry about teaching kiddo to use all five fingers after about three months. In the meantime kiddo can start racking up the repertoire of nursery rhymes using the single finger technique. Remember each nursery rhyme will be played four times; once each by the thumb, middle, fourth finger and pinkie. You can even run through the pieces with each of the four fingers in the left hand. So the piece can get played eight times each session.

OK, take a look at the Twinkle Twinkle video and then move on to Brother Jack at the very next lesson. Brother Jack is much simpler, especially the opening which has a very, very simple three note combination, requiring the use of thumb, index and middle fingers.

Brother Jack now goes against everything I have been saying so far. Central to the Brother Jack opening sequence is the use of the pincer twins, the thumb and index fingers. So up until now you have been working through black keys exercises 1-10 and you are already started on Twinkle Twinkle. You have been playing very lightly and letting all the keys go. Now with Brother Jack we will see if our theories have been working. Get kiddo to play the first three notes of Brother Jack, CD and E with the thumb and then the index finger followed by the middle finger. If all goes well, then kiddo’s fingers will not stick to the keyboard but kiddo will start letting the keys go all by himself.
This is a real moment as the instinct will be for the pincer twins to cling to the keyboard and hold all keys down. So, how did you do? If you are still having trouble, email me or post a video of your kiddo’s hand position and we can work through it together. If kiddo is releasing the keys then move on to the next sequence. You will see kiddo make a mental note of how the first three notes are played by the thumb, index finger and then the middle finger, while the following three notes are played by the middle finger, fourth finger and pinkie.
Morning bells are ringing,
Morning bells are ringing
Because ‘Morning bells are ringing’ has a fourth finger and pinkie combination, sometimes this finger sequence will trigger a memory association with Twinkle, Twinkle and kiddo will play out the fourth finger and pinkie sequence from the opening line of Twinkle Twinkle. This can be a fun moment when kiddo realizes what is happening.

A nice reward for all this work is to go back to playing black keys with the fourth finger or as before with Twinkle Twinkle, to push on into playing Brother Jack with each finger separately. First the thumb, then the middle, fourth and finally pinkie. And then repeat the exercise with the left hand.

So between the black keys exercises, Twinkle Twinkle and Brother Jack you now have a full half hour lesson on your hands. How you introduce breaks and rewards will be an important element in the success of this program. I have structured exercises so the keyboard can be introduced in small components without them having to become full piano lessons. This is the way most therapists will approach the keyboard, as a nice reward for doing well in speech or other aspects of OT or PT. Do not forget to post your videos and check out how other kiddos are doing. If you are a therapist and see someone posting a question you can help with, then please jump right in with your insights. I look forward to hearing from you all.

10 steps to starting special needs piano

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The videos complimenting this blog can be found at www.hurleypiano.com. I recommend you watch Black Key videos 1-20 before you read this article. I will answer any and all questions therapists, parents and teachers have about this method. So get emailing as soon as you have a question. The Black Key Exercises are designed to address two principle areas of special needs. The first area is that of fine motor skills, the second is the building of confidence and emotional stability at the keyboard. Simply put, the hand cannot grip and tense if the single finger has to release, relax and move on to play the next key. It is important to practice these exercises every day. Repetition develops familiarity, muscle memory and confidence. I cannot emphasize this enough.
Most special needs kiddos will encounter fine motor skill challenges in some form. Many kiddos will find difficulty in moving all five fingers independently, whether the kiddo has poor muscle definition or very rough motor skills. What I see most of all is the kiddo who’s hands bunch into a tight fist, only opening with the application of furious concentration. After the note is played, the finger then disappears back into a clenched fist. The kiddo gets frustrated, then bored and then gives up. After that the next most popular group is the hand and arm with poor muscle definition. This article will discuss the tight fist scenario first.
So let’s break this cycle by breaking the task down to its simplest form. Ideally the kiddo’s hand will move along the keyboard in a graceful fashion. What we need to do is to begin not by playing multi finger note combinations, but by playing single finger exercises. In short we have to use the keyboard as a therapy tool before we can even begin learning to play piano. We can use the keyboard as a therapy tool to help the kiddo relax the fist, open the hand and articulate each finger independently. It sounds like a tall order, but this method has been tested many times in an OT PT setting and has delivered success.
Let us explain why we start with single finger exercises. What we are looking to change in hand behavior, is the million year old instinct of the hand to grip and close at the slightest excuse. Starting with the right hand thumb at the right hand end of the piano slowly play all the black keys moving from right to left all the way down the piano. Make sure the kiddo leaves a small break between playing each note. Do not play quickly. There is an important reason for this. If the kiddo attempts to play too quickly the entire arm will lock all the way from the back of the neck all the way down to the ball of the hand. But if the kiddo learns to play slowly then all the muscles along the arm from the back of the neck down will learn to flex and relax. Thus the kiddo learns the rhythm of arm movement, a type of movement that is built not around gripping but releasing. With the new rhythm of releasing we build a new regime of relaxation into the kiddo’s neurological pathways. The flex and release sequence is of course reinforced by the tactile sensation of playing a different black key each time, and each reflex is assigned its own unique sound by the keyboard.
The pincer twins.A (24)1280X720
The sight of a student’s fingers gripping the keyboard, unable to let go is a familiar one, one that holds many students back from making any progress. The breaking of this gripping instinct requires patience. The two most powerful grippers are the thumb and the index finger. I call them the pincer twins. The index finger is so strong many kiddos will do nothing but play piano with the index finger. If this is the case then the first finger to encourage them to practice with is actually the fourth finger, a finger usually associated with weakness. The hand never moves to grip anything with just the fourth and index finger. So when the student is practicing the fourth finger exercises (BK Exercises 7 & 8) the index finger will not feel any impulse to move at all.
The thumb is different from all the other fingers as it has its own muscle system built into the hand and moves in a way that is completely different from all the other fingers. While the fingers will naturally move vertically up and down, the thumb moves horizontally left to right and right to left. This is an important point to remember and one that is very easy to overlook for the following reason. Piano playing requires the thumb to move vertically, a motion that is not natural to the thumb at all. This is an action hard enough for the most dexterous of neuro-typicals to master. Try moving any finger, say your middle finger horizontally. It feels forced right? That is what we are asking the thumb to do when playing the piano; we are asking the thumb to master a motion it was never designed to perform, the up down motion.
So with the bad news out of the way, let us get on with solving the problem. The pincer twins domination of the hand is best handled by practicing Black Keys Exercises 5-10, addressing the third, fourth and fifth fingers in each hand. Over the short term, building muscle memory in the generally considered weaker fingers is the best way to unlock the tight fist. The kiddo will experience conflicting muscle signals as a new set of muscle memories are established. So allow lots of room for failure and second attempts.
The four fingers have their own muscle control in the lower arm. Yet the thumb will also draw on arm muscles to increase its leveraging strength, muscles that can be very reluctant to relax as instinct dictates that once king thumb moves, all other arm locking muscles are called into play. The three areas that will relax after much practice will be the inside elbow of the lower arm, the outside shoulder and the side of the neck. The shoulder and side of the neck will only relax after about eighteen months of practice. Remember that tension in these areas will keep the third, fourth and fifth fingers fairly stiff, so give the kiddo as much as two years if necessary to finally unlock tension in severe cases. I have one student playing Imagine, Dream On and Stairway To Heaven and he is still battling tension in these zones.
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Palmaris longus
The palmaris longus is a unique muscle in the lower arm that does not connect to the fingers at all, rather it connects to the ball of the hand. This muscle is the super gripper, enhancing all other gripping instincts and can be one of the most difficult muscles to train to release and relax. After the pincer twins, the palmaris longus is the next biggest obstacle preventing the kiddo from mastering the keyboard. It will be the practicing of all 10 separate exercises that will unlock the palmaris longus, not any one finger exercise in particular.
Some students actually prefer to stand at the piano rather than sit. This really helps students who’s backs may be weak. Many like to slouch along the keyboard while playing. Other students may prefer to have the keyboard down on the floor. The road to unlocking the bunched fist and altering the complex emotions surrounding fear of failure is a long and complex one. In this, the Black Keys keyboard therapy method is a very familiar one and demands all the knowledge the therapist has built up across the ABA therapy spectrum; eternal patience, reward systems, discipline and or stopping the exercises all together and doing something else instead.
Like so many other techniques, this is not a magic bullet, it is not a one stop fix all remedy, rather I see it as a technique that compliments all the other tools at the therapists disposal, one that allows the therapist to take up a keyboard method in a familiar and structured manner that is consistent with all other methods and strategies at the clinic. This technique merely opens the door allowing the kiddo discover the world of the keyboard. In my next blog I will discuss how these techniques can lead the kiddo into playing very, very easy pieces such as Twinkle Twinkle, Brother Jack or May Had A Little Lamb. Please send any comments to info@hurleypiano.com. Thank you so much for reading to the end and I look forward to you reading the next installment.