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Ruth P., North Carolina

I have a class of students who have had 5 lessons. Today we were reviewing Jackson Blues and I was demonstrating something. One student stopped me and asked a question I’ve never been asked before. She said “Do your middle 3 fingers (left hand) give you any information when you are playing?”. The more we talked about it, I realized, of course! They absolutely do!

If your fingers are relaxed and ‘sitting’ calmly on the keys, you can feel the black keys you are slightly between (if your hand is in far enough) and it helps you orient yourself. I had everyone in the class take a turn and focus on just their left hand – trying to relax all the fingers and tactically feel where they were on the keys. Almost everyone said it helped them and I saw a noticeable difference in their accuracy and relaxation. Students can be the best teachers. Love group lessons!