Left hand
- Maintain a comfortable and relaxed left-hand shape that facilitates the accurate placement of all fingers, using more than one finger at a time
- Introduce simple chords using one, two and three fingers
Teach pieces and exercises in which two left-hand fingers are held down simultaneously, starting with those in which the fingers are placed one at a time.
Lead learners in a discussion about when to hold down fingers as appropriate to the musical context, i.e. so that notes can ring on beyond the given values in broken chord textures.
Exercises that involve touching the strings (without holding them against the frets), then gradually increasing the amount of pressure, can help learners understand the ‘minimum pressure’ principle.
To help establish finger independence in chord preparation, ask learners to place and hold down pairs of fingers on adjacent strings in different combinations, then to place and lift off an additional finger on another string.
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