Strictly speaking, they don't have to, but often, they just do; at least most of the ones that come to me to cure them...
Paul
Is that necessarily for the reasons he describes though? I wouldn't say it's definitely not any kind of factor at all, but my personal belief is that if a pianist thinks of trying curl, the path is severely indirect and would cause slipping. For this reason, they add a co contraction to try to stabilise it- and often general tensions in the hand and arm to try to stop everything slipping.
If I play a five finger exercise with fingertip curls, I don't consciously notice any difficulty in keeping the other fingers still or any sense of effort being needed to keep them still. However, I feel a strong sense of the reactions trying to drag my hand forward and destabilise everything- from the individual playing finger to the whole arm. Personally, I think it's being forced to fight against such reactions that would be the primary explanation for the problems with fingertip curls. It's very hard to stay stable without trying to fix various muscles. When you extend, the reversed direction of reactions actively helps you to stay loosely aligned- hence very little need for generic stiffness. Nothing is being dragged forwards and nothing is slipping, so it's easier to stay at ease.
I suspect that most learners don't even think about a perfect path to move a key, let alone about slipping from a key, etc. The curling thing I see so often is mostly directly related to very basic (fight-or-flight-or-freeze response). Often there is no clear musical image in their heads and even the reasons for playing the instrument are obscure to put it mildly. Recognition they never got (even from themselves) but still hope to get in some far-away future.
On the one hand, they want to break speed and sound barriers and think they have to be Schwarzenegger to do so (raw physical strength and endurance stories they have heard or read about).
On the other hand, they try to drive their cars with the handbrakes on. Instead of relaxing (oops, a bad word actually)... Instead of economizing resources, they try to use more and more force when they reach speedwalls, and then you get over-curling, hitting, beating, pushing, and all the notorious professional diseases that are described on the Net.
Paul
I suspect that most learners don't even think about a perfect path to move a key, let alone about slipping from a key, etc. The curling thing I see so often is mostly directly related to very basic (fight-or-flight-or-freeze response). Often there is no clear musical image in their heads and even the reasons for playing the instrument are obscure to put it mildly. Recognition they never got (even from themselves) but still hope to get in some far-away future.
On the one hand, they want to break speed and sound barriers and think they have to be Schwarzenegger to do so (raw physical strength and endurance stories they have heard or read about).
On the other hand, they try to drive their cars with the handbrakes on. Instead of relaxing (oops, a bad word actually)... Instead of economizing resources, they try to use more and more force when they reach speedwalls, and then you get over-curling, hitting, beating, pushing, and all the notorious professional diseases that are described on the Net.
Paul
Absolutely. For me this is where all the problems are rooted. Everyone has a basic conception of how they are going to move the keys. They may never have stopped to consciously think about it, but somewhere in the brain is a basic concept. Even if never consciously thought out, everyone knows the keys go down. As the fingers natural everyday movements do not go straight down, most people use the arm to press down- like a kind unconscious rationalisation. They notice that a relaxed hand gives way and causes problems, so they instinctively stiffen- as the alternative extension movement is not as obvious. This may not be conscious, but an inner conception evolves that is flawed. Stiffness seems to be helpful more helpful compared to relaxation so it becomes the default. The pianist simply does not know the option in movement that is more useful still. Similarly others may start from the fingers. If they close up the finger (the most familiar movement from everyday life), the brain will detect the slipping and destabilising of the arm and likely cause cocontractions to try and compensate.
I think the thing about the extension action is that, while it is the simplest solution to the problems (with or without arm pressure), few get it by instinct, because it is so different to what the fingers normally do outside of piano playing. Since I've been working at this, all of those other problems are fading away. There are no longer extra muscular actions to be made by the brain out of necessities (that the conscious may never have even noticed) . The action in itself creates both stability and key movement- without emergency additions needing to be thrown in by unconscious or semi conscious reflexes.
Even if people have never thought about reactions, for me this is the key to all. The brain perceives them and tends to fight with stiffness and clenching. By perceiving them consciously and feeling how much more effective it is to counter them with the right specific movement than clenching, I think you can completely change the internal conception that causes overwork. By consciously understanding that directed movement is a better alternative to collapsing than clenching, you can stop the internal processes from always defaulting to stiffness.
I think the thing about the extension action is that, while it is the simplest solution to the problems (with or without arm pressure), few get it by instinct, because it is so different to what the fingers normally do outside of piano playing. Since I've been working at this, all of those other problems are fading away. There are no longer extra muscular actions to be made by the brain out of necessities (that the conscious may never have even noticed) . The action in itself creates both stability and key movement- without emergency additions needing to be thrown in by unconscious or semi conscious reflexes.
Even if people have never thought about reactions, for me this is the key to all. The brain perceives them and tends to fight with stiffness and clenching. By perceiving them consciously and feeling how much more effective it is to counter them with the right specific movement than clenching, I think you can completely change the internal conception that causes overwork. By consciously understanding that directed movement is a better alternative to collapsing than clenching, you can stop the internal processes from always defaulting to stiffness.
You may be interested in the following presentation: by Richard Beauchamp (pianist) from the Music & Health web site. Much of what he says (including the extension action) coincides with what you write about, just in different words.
P.S.: Ergonomics does not always mean the most economical movement. For example: if one wants truly good musical results, when "jumping" in a stride fashion, the best path of movement between two points seems to be a curve with a last-minute landing, and not a horizontal straight line with quick preparation. The real problem is that you need lots of guts to do it, a situation many pianists will try to avoid.
Paul
Andrew, I've had a real play around with the extension action today and have managed to reach some level of consistency in its application (though I still have some way to go). I get a distinct sensation that the key has very little mass and just shoots down to the key bed when I get it right; my old movements feel like a struggle in comparison. I can currently only do it with one finger at a time, and occasionally when I'm overholding. Do you find that the sensation is distinctly different when you play multiple keys, or have you developed it to the point that it's just as efficient with multiple fingers moving at once?
A couple of things came to mind while I was exploring the action - one from Alan (.
The first is something like, "Get the key down fast even in pianissimo". With this movement I feel like that's possible, though I haven't achieved it yet due to my tentative old habits wresting control.
The second is that, "the most efficient movement is that which the skeleton would take if pulled by it's skull...", or something along those lines. I don't have copy of to hand, I keep giving them away to interested people. It got me thinking (however inaccurately I've quoted it), surely the most efficient extension movement for the finger is that which it would take if you use the other hand to pull it from a curved acture into extension?
It varies, to be honest. My worst finger is my right hand 5th. The whole knuckle still wants to follow the extension. I'm making a lot of ground with it currently- with the idea of weight BEFORE the key starts to move. The reason I typically dip down is because the finger starts from high and then the knuckle falls down. I'm not resting down enough against the key to begin with, so I end up having to fall or press down to get a big sound. This is where I'm still convinced it's better to understand the real role of weight than completely omit thinking on the issue. I need to start somewhere in the middle of the range- so there is enough sense of weighing down to bond with the key and firm up the finger by pushing away from that. It's both an up and a down all once, to get that "prepared" state for the finger to then generate sound with ease. To be sure that this isn't misunderstood though, this is all done BEFORE the key moves- which I have to stress very strongly. This guarantees that you cannot be overdoing the weight and ensures that you are instead feeling just a enough for the finger to be pushing back against.
It's a tricky thing, as to get this right I have to ensure that I'm weighing down enough to make that preliminary contact with the key surface, so the finger is already pushing up. From there, everything is an up feel. If you start from completely up, something has to go down to move the key. From here, I often start with a fall and only then reverse the direction back to an up (the "saving" action, rather than the proactive movement that Alan refers to). It's ironically when I miss that preliminary weight that I slip into what Alan calls armweight habits. The finger action is primarily felt as upward, but you can't do that unless you've first connected properly down against what you intend to push yourself up and away from. If I'm not weighing down enough, I still have to be sure that after the subtle adjustment, I'm straight into pressing and floating UP- not continuing to dig down when the key actually moves.
The first is something like, "Get the key down fast even in pianissimo". With this movement I feel like that's possible, though I haven't achieved it yet due to my tentative old habits wresting control.
I basically agree, but I'd personally reword to refer to STEADY movement, rather than fast movement. It doesn't need to feel quick, but you shouldn't be pulling back half-way through or you just relinquish control. It's like idea for a short putt- where you move straight through the ball rather than prod at it. You don't putt "fast" through the ball, but you don't want to pull back even a fraction. Everything needs to be about what you are positively putting into it. Personally, I think of it as a slow movement with intent, rather than a fast one (which can work, but which could potentially lead to a sense of going quick and then having to pull back at the last movement, as with the short putt).
I have to say that I'm personally starting to think of the efficiency in key depression in a very different light to the Feldenkrais idea of skeletality. If I'm interpreting the mechanical issue behind Feldenkrais' idea rightly he's basically suggesting that efficient movement involves allowing the pull of one area to be transmitted to the next, via reactions. If you're not doing so, you're fighting natural responses with generic tensions. It seems to me that skeletality is not really letting the bones "do the work" instead of muscles, but rather letting the work of muscles get TRANSMITTED- so you don't end up either doing the same work twice over or fighting against it.
As far as efficient movement of the finger itself is concerned, I definitely agree with what you say. Pulling it from the other finger would help to perceive whether there are impeding efforts and release them. However, the same can be said for ANY finger movement- regardless of whether it will efficiently transmit energy to a key or not. For example, a scrape of the fingertip alone can be done skeletally and "efficiently" in the air. That doesn't mean that the very same action will be effective on a key- because it's a weak action and moves very indirectly across the line of force needed for direct acceleration. In that respect, I think the big issue for whether energy is passed on efficiently is the positive/negative movement concept and pacing of acceleration (which is aided by elimination of negative movements, but which also depends on the TIMING of how positive movements are applied and the directness of the line of action). I don't want to sound like I'm seeking to rubbish Alan's concept of skeletality in piano playing, but I think it helps to make a distinction between efficient movement of the body ALONE, compared to what makes for an efficient way of passing energy to the additional body that is the piano key. What would be an efficient movement of the finger itself does not necessarily mean that you are using it to accelerate the key efficiently. Personally, I'm coming to feel that it's a big aid to have a complementary viewpoint to the skeletality issue, when it comes to the latter aspect. There are two efficiency issues- that which is good for the body and that of how much tone you get for the energy expended, due to mechanics of energy transfer. Obviously these are intertwined, but it's good to separate them sometimes.
I just realised one additional thing, regarding the idea of skeletality. If I pull my fifth finger with the other hand, the knuckle descends like crazy. There is no notable movement if I do the same to my second or third fingers. With the fourth it becomes fairly notable and then massively obvious with the fifth.
I'm thinking that this actually exposes a limit to the skeletality idea, if taken completely literally. I like the idea of the bones doing work as a metaphor (and of learning freedoms via this kind of passive response to external force) but if the finger action follows the true skeletal path, it subjects the weakest fingers to negative movements that are truly destructive, in terms of how acceleration is passed on. I think the priming of the finger against the key (by pushing back against gentle weight before depression) is an essential part of preventing the natural sag from occurring. While this shouldn't be perceived as "unnatural", I'm having to pay a lot of attention to the means of avoiding the most natural skeletal motion of drooping the knuckle. When it comes to moving a key, it's only by directly avoiding this feature of skeletal movement that I can get the utmost efficiency in terms of converting movement into sound. Right now, I prefer the idea of skeletality as an important background issue rather than a direct yardstick for how efficiently the act of producing sound is being done.
It varies, to be honest. My worst finger is my right hand 5th. The whole knuckle still wants to follow the extension. I'm making a lot of ground with it currently- with the idea of weight BEFORE the key starts to move. The reason I typically dip down is because the finger starts from high and then the knuckle falls down. I'm not resting down enough against the key to begin with, so I end up having to fall or press down to get a big sound.
Interesting - my right hand fifth is also the worst. A while back I did the whole thing of getting the fifth knuckle to stand up rather than droop, but I took it to quite an extreme. There are times when I feel just how much the muscles involved are holding on - to the point that there are huge hitches in any slow movement I do with it. It probably also developed from spending a long time on extreme voicing. So it does not bother me if the knuckle drops, as long as the functionality is not impaired. However, I'm still not quite sure what I'm aiming for in this case. It's a topic I'm hoping to explore when I see Alan at the end of this month.
On the topic of fifth fingers, how do you find the extension action operates when the hand is supinated? For me, the functionality is severely compromised, as such I tend to have problems with patterns based around open triads, or sometimes three or four note chords spanning an octaves, depending on the middle notes.
I'm also thinking that the extension action might be useful when the hand is in a wide stretch. Let's say my right hand has to play a rapid four note figure: A, A an octave higher, G sharp next to it and the high A again (fingered 1 5 4 5). Past experience with this type of figure has just left me with the feeling that any technical ability has left me, but I'm thinking now that the extension action of the fingers will likely complement the extended position of the hand.
This is where I'm still convinced it's better to understand the real role of weight than completely omit thinking on the issue. I need to start somewhere in the middle of the range- so there is enough sense of weighing down to bond with the key and firm up the finger by pushing away from that. It's both an up and a down all once, to get that "prepared" state for the finger to then generate sound with ease. To be sure that this isn't misunderstood though, this is all done BEFORE the key moves- which I have to stress very strongly. This guarantees that you cannot be overdoing the weight and ensures that you are instead feeling just a enough for the finger to be pushing back against.
It's a tricky thing, as to get this right I have to ensure that I'm weighing down enough to make that preliminary contact with the key surface, so the finger is already pushing up. From there, everything is an up feel. If you start from completely up, something has to go down to move the key. From here, I often start with a fall and only then reverse the direction back to an up (the "saving" action, rather than the proactive movement that Alan refers to). It's ironically when I miss that preliminary weight that I slip into what Alan calls armweight habits. The finger action is primarily felt as upward, but you can't do that unless you've first connected properly down against what you intend to push yourself up and away from. If I'm not weighing down enough, I still have to be sure that after the subtle adjustment, I'm straight into pressing and floating UP- not continuing to dig down when the key actually moves.
I find the preliminary weight concept very interesting. My initial experiments have shown me that usually even the idea of this preparation causes the relevant finger to move the key slightly - it's only when I'm very attentive that I can do as you describe. I do find it useful, though, as it reveals to me a lot about the holding patterns in my hands - when one finger starts to exert this tiny force the other ones can start to let go.
I basically agree, but I'd personally reword to refer to STEADY movement, rather than fast movement. It doesn't need to feel quick, but you shouldn't be pulling back half-way through or you just relinquish control.
Yes, steady is perhaps a more apt description. I find it difficult to maintain this steadiness at lower dynamics, though, because my nervous system still equates that with a tentative motion, so I'm finding the idea of being quick useful. But that's just my perception.
There are two efficiency issues- that which is good for the body and that of how much tone you get for the energy expended, due to mechanics of energy transfer. Obviously these are intertwined, but it's good to separate them sometimes.
I agree with what you say here - the difficulty with learning movements away from the piano is that they're done without the resistance of the keys. Of course, dealing with that resistance is a necessary step for learning more and integrating the new quality of movement. It's much the same with many ATMs - a vast amount of them come back to walking at the end of the lesson for the same purpose: working out of context (i.e. lying on the floor, or finger movements in the air) allow better conditions for learning, but at some point that learning has to be related back to real life.
Something else I noticed yesterday. I was working with the idea of releasing almost everything once the key is bedded, but continuing the intention to extend to hold it down. This had a profound effect on my third fingers. My third fingers in both hands tend to be more curled than the rest - my Feldenkrais teacher spotted a habitual shortening of the tendons for those fingers. Maintaining the depression of the keys with just that extension activity allows for a release all the way up my arm and down to my pelvis.
I also started to understand why the arm weight wrist drop works for some people. I decided to work on this downwards motion as well as having the arm float up on key depression in an attempt to scramble my habits. When one achieves the correct finger action then the lowering of the arm allows the finger to move much more freely, which in turn allows the arm to support rather than press - a wonderful self-perpetuating cycle of function.
Something else I noticed yesterday. I was working with the idea of releasing almost everything once the key is bedded, but continuing the intention to extend to hold it down. This had a profound effect on my third fingers. My third fingers in both hands tend to be more curled than the rest - my Feldenkrais teacher spotted a habitual shortening of the tendons for those fingers. Maintaining the depression of the keys with just that extension activity allows for a release all the way up my arm and down to my pelvis.
I also started to understand why the arm weight wrist drop works for some people. I decided to work on this downwards motion as well as having the arm float up on key depression in an attempt to scramble my habits. When one achieves the correct finger action then the lowering of the arm allows the finger to move much more freely, which in turn allows the arm to support rather than press - a wonderful self-perpetuating cycle of function.
Good to hear that. If I could add only one thing to what Alan says in his books, in my opinion the objective explanation of the basic skeletality concept hinges primarily upon using this extending and opening activity for balance at the keybed- not actions that would be closing up the hand. I now feel very strongly that grasping exercises should mostly be viewed as didactic, and that it's actually just the precursor to a grasping action (ie the lengthening out which the hand naturally begins with) which is the literal requirement in keeping a key grounded with the lowest possible effort. Other than this idea of making closing actions an option rather than the norm, I feel that virtually everything else is basically just complementary viewpoints of the same concepts that Alan works with. Although I've learned a lot from All thumbs, I found it interesting quite how similar the underlying core of much is to what I've been discovering myself since Alan showed me the thumb "corkscrew". This was the first time I consciously used an action of lengthening in the hand and it was a follow up to that that I came to discover that finger lengthening too is effective. That one exercise basically set the ball rolling for a whole different style of movement. I realise now that all of this stuff is extremely heavily implied by the Tai chi walking and the standing up concept etc, but I don't feel that I was doing these exercises in quite the right way until I had that conscious intent towards of the lengthening action. With conscious awareness of this underlying activity, I feel that you greatly improve the odds that the actions in these exercises will be directly translated to standard the pianistic action.
It's interesting what you say about the wrist drop- as I've recently discovered that it's nothing less than essential to use a lengthening finger for this to work. I've only just begun to be able to use this drop in a functional manner. A pure finger pull doesn't work and neither does a braced finger, if the wrist is descending through depression. The acceleration is pathetic unless the finger actively lengthens at the same time. If you do the wrist drop in the right way, ONLY the wrist drops. The knuckle should still either rise slightly or at least remain very high up (and it's easiest to get this to work if the fingers are already fairly close to vertical when starting). Like yourself, I've been able to understand the secrets behind effective arm weight, but only by learning to combine it with an extremely purposeful finger action. A big part of it is that preparatory finger activity against a stationary key- so you're already providing a force that is pressing the knuckle up before the wrist starts to descend. Without it, the finger tends to collapse and then reverse direction all too late.
Once you have the choice of going up or down with the wrist, in a completely functional way, I think each direction improves how the fingers work in the other one. Now that I can use the wrist drop to make my fingers work MORE (rather than to make them collapse more) they also work with greater intensity when my wrist is drifting up (and the option of dropping the wrist mid-flow also stops me from getting trapped in the bunched forward position that my right wrist used to suffer). Similarly, because I often have my wrist drifting up while playing, it means that I'm dependent (EDIT I meant NOT dependent!) on arm pressures- which stops me from getting stuck in a permanently bogged down position that involves too much weight acting on the fingers. The brain is constantly experiencing both the benefits and potential pitfalls of each- which gives it a much stronger chance of instinctively finding something functional, compared to if you are locked into a single mindset up either up or down.
