Fingers Can't Reach Far Enough With Rotation

Hi Alan, On the video, when you begin to talk about rotation, you have a segment where your right hand 5th finger is on D#. Then by rotating of the hand to vertical you use finger 3 to come down & play the lower D#, making a wonderful octave. You go on to show how that movement can be used to great benefit and effect on wide skips. I've been trying for months to do this. However, my 3rd finger can only reach the lower F#, instead of the full D# octave. If I stretch to the maximum (flat out), using rotation with 5-3, I can just barely touch the lower D#. And I do mean just barely and also flat out-- 3-5 are stretched as far as they will go. In normal position, with my palm down and stretching horizontally, I can do a full 180 degree extension between 1-5. That gives me an 8va on top of the keys and a 9th if I play at the very end of the keys. It seems no matter what I do, that wonderful 5 to 3, 8va you show, with rotation, continues to elude me. That type of movement looks like the answer to many problematic passages & makes them fun too. But I can't, at least not now, do it. Are there specific exercises or anything I can do to open the palm, which would give me the extra inch that I need? Or is my hand just too small and I have to admit I'll never be able to play that way, unless I get a 7/8 keyboard? Bob T

I think Alan simply has bigger hands. He shows in the video that he can stretch an 11th while you can only stretch a 9th. I remember reading Alan's comments somewhere here, saying that he did not intend for everyone to be able to play octaves with 3-5, but rather to enourage people to explore how they can use rotation to their advantage. So yo cannot reach a full octave from 3 to 5, but you can reach probably twice as many keys as you can when the hand is flat. Zack

Hi I havn't gained confidence (yet) in doing that passage like Alan. And I have no problem reaching with 3-5. For me the problem starts with going from 3-thumb. In the meantime I do just the opposite I start thinking the 1-3 as the base and then do what Alan does with his thumb with my pinky. I place the thumb well inside the key which prevents swiveling.And I practise 1-3 together as an octave and than hit the fifth with a rotating movement.With 1-3 in a "stand-up" position and then keeping this position in a relaxed way. I'd say that this passage can't be done without a horizontal movement as well unless you don't have really big hands. Swiveling is a really bad habit but everything is permitted to solve a problem so maybe swivveling in a very determined and conscious way might be a solution in a small and short passage like this? I admire Hofman and Alicia very much-both with small hands- there is only one clip with Hofman to my knowledge and what I can se they don't swivvel much they rotate and fly around like hawks. Waiting for some help from Alan here. Eric

That type of movement looks like the answer to many problematic passages & makes them fun too. But I can't, at least not now, do it. Are there specific exercises or anything I can do to open the palm, which would give me the extra inch that I need? Or is my hand just too small and I have to admit I'll never be able to play that way, unless I get a 7/8 keyboard? Bob, of course you CAN do the movement, you just can't reach as far as I can. One way to increase your hand flexibility is to do that movement to eliminate the sense of leaping in larger intervals and of stretching in intervals you can actually join. Your hand will start to feel more comfortable and begin to abandon the constant sense of inner strain it has cultivated up until now. It has actually been CREATING a difficulty because of a PERCEIVED difficulty. You also have to do my "small hands" exercises A LOT. I mean the ones where you mash the hand into the board, intentionally letting your arch go completely, then building it again by micro-degrees. Your hand has to learn "inner let-go" bigtime. When you do this well, your hand actually physically gets bigger, you can really see the difference. But you have to really let it go. You all may be interested to know that in my recent lessons with Phil Cohen, my guru-genius teacher in Montreal who is the real source of much of what I write, he had me SWIVELING as much as possible to get the left hand pattern at the opening of the Chopin B flat minor sonata!!!! I guess I was overdoing the rotation thing and causing myself problems. So: DO WHATEVER WORKS. AFF

Thanks everyone. Sorry to take so long to reply. the dentist and I have had a run-in over a broken tooth: I run-in to his office, but then try to run-out. I guess for the hockey players (Alan) it's a common occurrence with a high stick? I will keep trying to do what I can to open my palm. The feeling of rotation instead of swiveling, even though I can't do the 8va, is a very freeing one. Just wish I could do what you do. that'd sure make those octaves easier. Rats Alan! Now you are talking about swieveling. That's something I can not do. -- I have a TFCC (tendon tear--unrepariable) in my left wrist, which makes sideways motion very painful, especially at full extension. that was from an accident. I lifted something that was fairly light (16#) but there was a lot of torque required to turn it over & when I did, the tendon let go from the bone. Ouch. And some 15 years later, sill ouch. And the other hand, because of the same work (which I no longer do) is just barely holding together. Does anyone know of the TaubmanGolandsky method? Think it might be any help? Anyway, no swiveling for me. And now Alan you tell us we are going to learn to swivel? Well, if so, makes sure you give an alternate method for rotation as well! I would really like to open up my palm and do those stretching exercises. Unfortunately, I misplaced my book and only have the DVD to go by. I think you went into more detail in the book? Having a small hand is the pits when trying to play Rachmaninoff, Liszt, even Chopin and some Beethoven, but at least I can easily get between the black & whites, even when right up against the fallboard. --off topic) Right now I'm working on some Gottschalk: Mr. Banjo & La Savane. Talk about skips! Some large hands would be an asset here. Gottshalk writes in several places running triplets, with fingering indicated. Often the middle fingering is marked with a simple "x." Does anyone know what the x means?--I've tried a number of things. The only thing that may seem to work is the thumb, but even that is awkward and an impossibility in some passages. It might even mean bringing the left hand up from a couple of 8vas below for that one note? He was a real showoff. Bob

Hello Bob, Sorry to hear about your injury, what a drag. As for the dentist, touch wood, with all my years of hockey I still have all my teeth! About swiveling/rotation: it's not that "I am going to make you swivel now!" My whole schtick is that we become capable of doing things one way OR another - to have all the movement repertoire available so we can always find the optimal solution. So: learn the one you don't know yet! If you've lost your book, wait a little while - the Revised 2nd Edition will be out VERY soon, and it really is improved. Also my second book, recently published, may help with some of these issues. Let me repeat here: the experience of one's self as small-handed is a perceptually imposed illusion. You can open up your hand and find ways of playing even Rachmaninoff where you won't even notice the size of your hand. In fact we can say that if you do notice the limitation, you have yet to discover full functionality in your hand. THere's something to chew on! Happy Easter everybody, AFF

thanks for the hope, Alan. That is really encouraging. You mean you still have all your teeth, even with hockey?--what luck. and you escaped again when you had the broken finger: but did high-sticking do anything to your hair (ha)! I'll look forward to the new edition of your book. I just picked up a couple of different ones: the Chang and the Fink. Both seem pretty good. Yours is better of course. I'm just now discovering using thumb-over versus thumb-under when going at speed. I was always taught TU--didn't know a thing about TO. Now, trying TO, I find it really works better for me. But I've certainly had a few heated discussions with pianists here, masters in piano performance who say they would NeveR use anything but thumb under--and that's the way the local school of music teaches, too. I'm outcasting myself. It seems to me that it's good to have every technique that's valid, that's available to us, to use as needed. I was really shocked by how many people disagree with using anything other than thumb under. I'm glad you are on my side on what can be done for small hands. That gives me hope. Of course there are physical limits (unless you were Rachmaninoff) and I want to find that limit for myself. I think if I can learn to open the hand, instead of stretching the fingers, I'll be getting to where I need to be. --sure wish I could have learned that when I was 6 instead of 60. This website and your contributions really help. & are very much appreciated. (I wish there were some Feldenk. practitioners here--I can't even find anyone who teaches Ti Chi.) Hope you and all had good holidays. It's been snowing here. Bob

I think I managed not to write about Thumb Overa anywhere in my musings... what an oversight! I agree totally we should all learn both. Letting the hand choose whichever it prefers in the moment is so liberating! Seymour Fink likes to say that our two books together pretty well cover all the bases and I like to say so too. The Chang I don't know. Enjoy the snow, God's great 'cleaning' gift to humanity! AFF