Putting rotation in its place

Yesterday I was working with a new student who had innocently come by the enormous rotation we see sometimes in the students of inexperienced teachers. When I showed him how little rotation he needs in order to play the first measure of the right hand of the Moonlight Sonata mvt 1, he had such a perceptive observation: “You only use enough rotation to shift your weight from place to place.”

Well! I had never heard it expressed that way, and I just loved it. Today when I was practicing, I tried thinking of just using the rotation for the purpose of shifting from place to place whenever I felt my movements were imprecise. It was a great feeling. Depending on the person, the image could be of using rotation to shift your focus from place to place, or of shift your balance. The point is, a shift is all you need.

I don’t know if it will help anyone else, but I thought I would share it because it was an interesting way to put rotation in its proper perspective.