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Hi;
My new piano teacher insists that I keep all my fingers and thumbs on the keys while playing "hannon" and learning Scales and Arpeggios. I am finding it very difficult because my thumb always wants to stray from the keys each time I change positions. It is getting very frustrating for me. She says I must concentrate more, and go slower. Do any of you have any sudgestions as to how I can train my thumbs to "STAY ON THE KEYS" Is this one of the advantages of starting piano lessons when you are five or six years old? I have a feeling that because I have started so late that it is more of a problem for me to learn the hand to eye coordination that I need to learn this skill.

I'm just taking a stab in the dark here, but my thought is that your teacher wants you to keep all of your fingers and thumbs on the keys so that 1) you gain strength in the fingers and 2) that your fingers are properly curved.

This last one is why you would want to keep your thumbs on the keyboard. In order to keep your thumbs on the keys, you have to have your hand and fingers curved. Perhaps you've been playing with straight fingers?

One of the points here that you indirectly allude to is hand-eye coordination. Particularly for the earlier exercises in Hanon, the idea of keeping all your fingers on keys means that you do not have to look down at your hands to see where they are. Keep your eyes on the music and your fingers on the keys, and you'll have less eye-hand coordination to have to worry about.

If you keep your hand completely relaxed, your thumb should not want to stray.

Regards,