5th finger droop and skeletality/knuckle collapse

Interesting how written descriptions can be interpreted differently. I was surprised to see you tap your finger in an unexpected (for me, that is) direction. Or is that optional illusion? I had expected you would tap it in the direction of the movement you describe so often, from above, from behind the proximal joint diagonally forward and down into the key. In your clip it looks like you are tapping in the direction of the hand, against the movement. Paul

Yes, I've done it largely through experimentation rather than consciously, but I tried various things and settled on that. At that type of angle it causes a notable lengthening of the finger - but combined with the equivalent of a rather significant knuckle pull. Now that you mention it, I'm also wondering whether the same quality of preparation makes it more feasible to merely pull from the knuckle and let the extension be passive, as I believe Beauchamp suggest elsewhere? I've made extension actions quite deliberate elsewhere, but this may contain the trick to simply conceiving a pull without also slipping across each key. What did you find from trying it yourself? Did your knuckle droop at first, or did it balance very easily? EDIT- I should add that the faint prepping action is of lengthening diagonally forward as you describe, btw, even if the tap isn't. I think this is the key to transmitting the tap through the finger. I'll go and experiment with whether purer knuckle pulls have a similar result or not, from the prepped state.

I don't like the idea of exposing myself too much, but I think it's about time to show my hands to you. Some time this week or next. I won't show you how I do the handstand on my fingers ; just some close-ups of my arches. I have worked my hands so intensively over the years that any drooping anywhere within the structure is out of the question. When I put my hands on the keys, the arch is formed by itself, with no attempts to set it up artificially. Perfect balance and great convenience. My weak spots used to be the proximal joints of my pinkies, but I worked those with the help of clothespins; first a light one (plastic), then a heavier one (wood) and a really heavy Soviet type (metal). I must say that your lengthening action did it for me in terms of working with those clothespins without buckling. Those problems have been solved successfully. It's something I would recommend to anyone who has trouble with those joints. Just put it on the table, support it with one hand so it doesn't suddenly fly into anyone's face, and slowly press it with the lengthening action of the finger as if you are pressing a piano key. Of course, I have tried Beauchamp's version of fingertapping, but I have a feeling it is too detached from the fingertips. Paul

I don't like the idea of exposing myself too much, but I think it's about time to show my hands to you. Some time this week or next. I won't show you how I do the handstand on my fingers ; just some close-ups of my arches. I have worked my hands so intensively over the years that any drooping anywhere within the structure is out of the question. When I put my hands on the keys, the arch is formed by itself, with no attempts to set it up artificially. Perfect balance and great convenience. My weak spots used to be the proximal joints of my pinkies, but I worked those with the help of clothespins; first a light one (plastic), then a heavier one (wood) and a really heavy Soviet type (metal). I must say that your lengthening action did it for me in terms of working with those clothespins without buckling. Those problems have been solved successfully. It's something I would recommend to anyone who has trouble with those joints. Just put it on the table, support it with one hand so it doesn't suddenly fly into anyone's face, and slowly press it with the lengthening action of the finger as if you are pressing a piano key. Of course, I have tried Beauchamp's version of fingertapping, but I have a feeling it is too detached from the fingertips. Paul Interesting. I tried that just now and I have some work to do with my 5ths, before they stop spiralling down. In some ways, I think the doing the lengthening action without making sufficient contact first has caused some of my problems with 5, but this prepped state is the missing link to getting it right- where the finger is gently firmed together between knuckle and tip well enough not to be able to have the knuckle follow down. I like this clothes peg idea for testing it. Incidentally, I'm finding that it's as true that 5 contributes to the arch between 1 and 2 as vice versa. I've found Alan's advice about the thumb very useful and am currently doing a lot of exercises based on pointing the thumb straight down, in order to improve the posture of 4 and 5. Actually, pointing the thumb down and getting the wrist low just made it a lot easier to do the cloths peg without the 5th knuckles moving down. However, I'm also realising that my 5th wanting to go up is often spoiling the strong side of the hand, so it works both ways. In the trills before the coda of the Chopin second Ballade, my r.h. always wants to point forwards. The resulting knuckle droop intereferes with the trilling of 1 2 and 3. By sometimes practising it with a near vertical fifth keeping a note depressed at the same time, the trill moves much more freely and with more control. In the same way that pointing the thumb down (even without contacting anything) helps the weak fingers, taking care to actively point the fifth slightly down against the surface of the keys makes the stronger fingers operate drastically better than when it starts wanting to invert.

It's a pity I am kind of forced to live like a pauper here, because I would really want to buy all of Alan's materials and devour them to find confirmation of what I have learned myself through the years. You can't imagine how much blood, sweat, and tears it has cost me to find out what I know now myself. I have a feeling that Alan and I are kindred spirits, and I would urge you to take EVERYTHING he says very, very seriously and not skip any subjects before you have worked them through 100%. Paul

Thanks for your kind words, gentlemen... A word myself on strength: I offer you one pertinent example as a case in point. Rachmaninoff 1st sonata 1st movement, measure 45 (third page, 2nd line in the Igumnov edition), left hand, second beat, thumb on the G half note. For this note to sing and manifest all its tragic expressive qualities, you must hold it its full value or as close to that as possible. Practically this means still having your thumb anchored in that G while your 2nd finger plays the next the C sharp on the next quarter note beat. Try playing this thumb note with all richness possible and then playing the next three eighth notes so quietly that they do not disturb in the slightest the glorious singing of that thumb note. You can't bang the thumb note to make it sing, you must "intone" as our dear Russian friends put it. Get the feel for this by playing the A - G thumb melody in that bar ultra-legato. And you must still get your other fingers to the bottom of their keys - that accompaniment line must sing too, just a lot more quietly than the lead left hand melodic line in the thumb. Try doing all that without strength! I wish you luck! There are literally thousands of other examples of this, going all the way back to Bach. Everything I describe above derives from the science of articulation, of achieving voicings through differences in touch rather than dynamics - all those other ways of creating vocal colour at the keyboard that existed before the piano existed. It's why Kemal could tell me he needed more hand strength to play Mozart C major concerto than Rachmaninoff 3rd concerto. The tricky part is, this strength must remain totally moveable - every joint must remain free to move as this strength is manifested. In my own experience specially the thumb-forefinger joint and the muscles around the shoulder blade and in the neck have a strong tendency not to cooperate with this necessity - so one can be forgiven for saying it's not strength at all that's needed. We tend to associate strength with this bound-up quality - it's not an accurate perception but we still have it... Our culture needs more Feldenkrais! Respectfully submitted, AFF

It's a pity I am kind of forced to live like a pauper here, because I would really want to buy all of Alan's materials and devour them to find confirmation of what I have learned myself through the years. You can't imagine how much blood, sweat, and tears it has cost me to find out what I know now myself. I have a feeling that Alan and I are kindred spirits, and I would urge you to take EVERYTHING he says very, very seriously and not skip any subjects before you have worked them through 100%. Paul Yes, definitely. At the moment though, I'm putting virtually all my focus into the basic alignment issues and my 5th finger problems. I think this 5th finger inversion is the big hole at the moment. The biggest problem of all is actually to play my 4th in a simple melody without my 5th finger knuckle drooping. I'm working at a number of chopin mazurkas rather than anything advanced and trying to make sure that the transmission of energy is optimal at all times and that the 5th never loses its form on a single key. By focusing on keeping both thumb AND fifth pointing down, I've been experiencing a lot of improvement in the quality of sound production. I think this prepped state is the missing link which still prevents me from from sitting and "just playing" without arch problems arising, so almost everything I'm doing is about building up suitable instinct for it. In virtually any 5th finger alignment, my instincts are to start from a flaccid position where drooping occurs. I don't think the basic movement capability or strength are absent so much as the habit of finding the position where I neither start from collapse nor accidentally end up causing collapse during the act of moving, rather than send its action straight into tone. My fifth is strong now when it operates at its best, but doesn't have a high enough hit ratio in terms of getting itself ready to do what it's capable of. By the way, I definitely agree that strength helps with sound. I'm trying to get that extreme articulated but not loud quality in the mazurkas and it takes some effort from the fingers, when you avoid letting the arm press. I should stress that my quibble with strength is not to say that it isn't useful, but that you don't actually need to resist any particularly big forces merely to avoid arch collapse (if you apply the movement with suitable timing). When it comes to generating really significant finger movement (rather than doing the bare minimum not to collapse) I think strength is very useful.

My intuition is that: 1) you think too much 2) you may be well served by TEMPORARILY switching to another, more straightforward type of movement to ease your restless mind (this is meant respectfully). Sportsmen also change their regimen sometimes. Don't be afraid your body will forget what you have acquired until now. You can always go back to it later, and most likely with unexpectedly good results. If you were one of my students, I would give you the following "instructions": - It seems as if you hold up you arch a bit artificially. Let the arch be a little more the result of your true internal state, and not something that should meet certain visual requirements. - Go back to a movement from the hand knuckle with no other movements in the other finger joints, very much like Rachmaninov does in my signature. You could call that "knuckle pull" if you like. It is nothing forceful, so you might just as well call it "finger swing", "finger fall" or whatever. Rest upon the keys as you found out is good for you. Lift the fingertip about 1 cm or so from the key surface and GENTLY swing it into the key from the hand knuckle. The result will be a Michelangeli/Lipatti kind of sound, weak but penetrating, very beautiful actually, and a little bit less direct than what you are used to. Do not worry for a second about collapse. (As a matter of fact, I trust that if you do exactly what I told you to do, collapse will no longer occur). Ideally would be if you could get into a kind of Zen trance while doing it. Do that for a week or so and keep it S-L-O-W. Don't ask me why I ask you to do this because I just don't know. Paul

I have some daily warmup execises I think I invented. It's kind of inverted armweight: I let the hands relax naturally slightly curbed and arched into the key.Arms totally relaxed. Then I create as strong a sound I can by "shooting" the finger down to keybed.Only thing that happens is that the arch get more "arched", lifting up, and the finger straightens up like a pencil. The arch stands up resting on the finger wrist loose arms loose.No pressure at all from the arm or wrist. Next is same position but I create a sound by dragging the arch forward. To opposite movements but engaging only the muscles behind the knuckles. especially good to get the 2 finger really contributing.I mostly improvise patterns with hands together. I do about the same thing with an old Dohnanyi exercise no 8 (in sixths) but here I start with an as much exaggerated arch as possible and keep it.Biceps/Triceps loose).The exercise is kind of designed to build up and maintain a healthy arch (all tonalities).This one I play fast over three octaves.In this one you can integrate the "Kemal pencilpinkystuff". Silly? Yes Did it all when I was younger especially Philippe and scales but now it's about all I do. Inspired by AF-of course. The clothhanger I guess does pretty much the same.Good idea.

My intuition is that: 1) you think too much 2) you may be well served by TEMPORARILY switching to another, more straightforward type of movement to ease your restless mind (this is meant respectfully). Sportsmen also change their regimen sometimes. Don't be afraid your body will forget what you have acquired until now. You can always go back to it later, and most likely with unexpectedly good results. If you were one of my students, I would give you the following "instructions": - It seems as if you hold up you arch a bit artificially. Let the arch be a little more the result of your true internal state, and not something that should meet certain visual requirements. - Go back to a movement from the hand knuckle with no other movements in the other finger joints, very much like Rachmaninov does in my signature. You could call that "knuckle pull" if you like. It is nothing forceful, so you might just as well call it "finger swing", "finger fall" or whatever. Rest upon the keys as you found out is good for you. Lift the fingertip about 1 cm or so from the key surface and GENTLY swing it into the key from the hand knuckle. The result will be a Michelangeli/Lipatti kind of sound, weak but penetrating, very beautiful actually, and a little bit less direct than what you are used to. Do not worry for a second about collapse. (As a matter of fact, I trust that if you do exactly what I told you to do, collapse will no longer occur). Ideally would be if you could get into a kind of Zen trance while doing it. Do that for a week or so and keep it S-L-O-W. Don't ask me why I ask you to do this because I just don't know. Paul Cheers, I'll certainly give that a try. There's a definitely a problem with my right hand though. There's a tightness and restricted movement in the 5th finger side of the wrist, that makes it difficult to move without something grinding and some positions are hard to access. When I rotate a little to get right on top of my fifth, I often experience grinding and popping, when the key moves as things move from a wrong position into where they should be. This happens less if the finger is already firmed right to the knuckle, by resting the arm on top of it more, before the key starts to be moved. Also, quite often when I lengthen my thumb out forwards and under my palm there is a HUGE cracking sound that comes from the 5th finger side of the wrist, as something pops into alignment. This is a much a problem away from the the piano as at it. That said, this preliminary contact idea is definitely changing things. Whether it's a physical problem that causes things at the piano, or a pianistic issue that has caused the physical problem, by looking for even the small position faults, things are improving. It's only my right hand that I still have to pay extremely close attention to, in order to catch the moments where alignment falters badly and bunches up. My left hand is far from perfect, but it's much easier to take a laid back approach with that hand. Once I stop tolerating these persistent r.h. moments (which really become overwhelmingly bad when I stop thinking about what I'm doing and just play with sound- even for a few days) I'm hoping that I can sort out the physical issue. Whichever aspect was the original cause, I'm certain that failure to rest the wrist down properly when moving my 5th is the reason that it's become quite such a significant problem. I have way more freedom than ever before, but there's still something not right, that requires a lot of conscious focus for me to stay on track.