Collasping 5th finger

Hard to say at this distance. However you do proceed to work on the problem, remember one thing: NOTHING BY FORCE. For instance, if you do some Pischna, it is very important that you try to lower the amount of effort you are using to do things: find the "bony" way in order to increase sensitivity and offer your senses a chance for self-education. Higher efforts automatically lower the CNS's capacity to sense what it is doing and increase the chance of a chronic "parasitic contraction" continuing to manifest as a habit. Whether or not the habit is useless or useful remains to be discovered! Best, AFF

Alan B. Hi. I'm back on the board after a long absence. I agree with Alan--don't force anything--that can lead to many more strange things & more likely than not, injury -- recall Schumann & his attempt to strengthen the 4th finger--he was really forcing the issues and it caused disaster. I have a bit of the same thing happening on my left 5th, as you do on your pinky. The cartilage on the left side of my wrist is torn and the Ulna nerve is injured, in that it has a slight tear somewhere ==also at the wrist. Physical therapy had me on a TENS (actually inteferential) unit. It causes contracting/relaxation of the muscles, slow to very rapid--faster than you can see, so it is felt as a tingle, that's generally used to regain muscle tone and/or relieve pain. To make the story short: I had played a bit and my pinky got stuck, locked--just as you described yours. But I continued to play, since it really wasn't giving me any problem. Later, I used my TENS unit to help my wrist injury. Set it to a really high frequency, for pain relief. There was no concern as to my 5th finger at all. It was set to stimulate the Ulna nerve at the wrist. After the TENS treatment, I went back to the piano, & guess what: no pinky stuck, no locking, complete control of all its motion. As the TENS treatment wore off, the 5th returned to its state of wanting to lock or "catch." I was amazed. By chance, I came upon the reason for the pinky acting as it does. The very slight tear of the nerve, somewhere, seems to be controlling the finger. There's nothing to be done about it, except I can use the TENS unit to regain nerve control for a couple of hours. Let's hope not, but you may have had something, however slight, happen to a nerve. Time will tell whether what you described will do anything to your playing, good or bad. BE careful though and don't force anything. That can certainly do damage or more damage if there is a problem. Bob

A good Feldenkrais practitioner should be able to accomplish in one lesson the same thing the TENS does, but because she or he deals directly with your brain's learning processes instead of simply stimulating an isolated nerve, the effect should last longer. Several lessons could possibly solve the problem for good. Why not give it a shot? AFF

I would like to chime in with something for Alan because he describes something that I experience in precisely the same way. All my life, I have tended to curl the 5th finger of my right hand. I think I used to do it a little in my left hand, too, as a kid, but I grew out of it. I, too, have more difficulty raising the 4th finger of my right hand than my left. I always ascribed this to a very minor injury I had as a child that I supposed made my right hand a little less flexible. I even used to do some physical exercises that I thought would strengthen that part of my hand. There are teachers that talk about finger "strengthening." I now think this is complete bunk. There are no weak fingers, just bad leverage. (Try picking up a chair with your arms out straight. It's hard if it's a heavy chair. If you hold it close to you, it's easy. You didn't need to work out to pick up the chair, just change your approach.) I was taught to play with very curved, spindly fingers. After seeing the Craft of Piano DVD, I realized that I was playing with rather more curling than grasping. While playing moreso with curling, I also allowed my hand to be flat on top, or even caved in at the knuckle. Over the last (what, a couple of weeks only?) I cultivated an arched position, and what do you know, my 5th finger uncurled. Here's when the curled 5th comes back. If I play by curling the 3rd finger (instead of grasping it, sorry about the multiple uses of the word "curl") and allow my knuckle to collapse, well, then when I try to raise my 4th finger the 5th one curls up. If, instead, I return to grasping the 3rd finger and maintain the arch, my 4th and 5th fingers lie down (or extend straight). So often, the problem you see with your eyes is really a symptom of a deficiency somewhere else. I return frequently to the One Hand Clapping exercise to cultivate a grasping exertion from the palm. In the heat of playing, I have tiny lapses so I play some slower things, too, to give myself a chance to instill some better habits. But some fast etudes work a whole lot better. I've always dreamt of playing Feux Follets well, but in the first double note section I couldn't figure out how to get my 5th finger down. You can't play fast if your fingers aren't staying in contact with the keys. Well, now I don't have a problem keeping my fifth finger down because I watch out for lapses in grasping of my 3rd finger. Also, Alan's trick of rotating in order to facilitate extension helps out, too. It seems counterintuitive. Lowering the outside of my hand would seem to reduce range of motion for my 5th finger. However, in Feux Follets, when I rotate that direction I don't have to work to get my 4th finger on the black key. Okay, I'll stop talking now. I was just very intrigued by Alan's post. I've experienced exactly the same thing and this is what I changed and got different results. I like watching videos of Christian Zimmerman on YouTube. His technical approach is exemplary.

Dear Jai, Thanks so much for a great post. I am really gratified to see my ideas helping other pianists. And you perceive it really well, when I read your description it's straightforward, clear and simple to me. This is a basic tenet of Feldenkrais Method, so nice you came to the same conclusion through your very perceptive work at the keyboard. About Krystian Zimmerman: would you care to post an especially exemplary YouTube clip to our PIANO MASTER VIDEO DISCUSSION GROUP? Thanks again, keep 'em coming! AFF