Flat Full Finger Flexion

This is directed mostly towards Alan and I was going to send it as a personal message, but I decided that it might be useful for other people and that any other feedback would be helpful for me. Alan, In Bonn you showed me a flat, full finger flexion which included lifting the fingers up and slapping the keys for the arpeggios in Grieg's Wedding Day (to generate an dynamic). I think I understood the principle behind the movement, but I also think I've missed something. When I do the movement I still seem to be engaging the muscles in my forearms for a lot of the work, to the point that the tendons in my left arm are aching after any vigorous finger work. But what you described to me was about making the lumbricals and interesseous muscles do most of the work. I was hoping you might be able to shed some light into my confusion. While we were in Bonn I was fine with the movement, which leads me to think I've changed something since then. I don't have access to a video camera at the moment, but if a video would help then I'll get hold of a camera as soon as possible. All the best, Nick

As usual, putting my thoughts into words on this forums has clarified a few things for me. Though I still look forward to hearing other opinions on the matter, this is what I have discovered so far: Due to the vigour of the movement mentioned in my previous post, I've tended to get caught up in the 'down' aspect of the motion, to the point that I'm engaging in some elaborate form of what Alan calls 'blocking'. I've been exploring the idea of 'finger down, everything else up' today and feel that this may be the way to overcome the problems that I've been experiencing. I still have a lot more exploration to do, be I feel like I'm on the right track. Also, I believe the vigour of the motion came as a huge shock to my system - Alan described my touch as 'tentative', so this is the complete opposite of that. By the way, Andrew, I found your latest blog post useful in this situation.

I guess this thread is serving as a diary for my thoughts on playing with flat fingers. Yesterday I was applying the use of flat fingers to the Clair de Lune (particularly the section). It allowed me to really subdue the arpeggio figures while bringing out the lower and upper melodies. And then it hit me - this is what playing the piano is about: orchestration, orchestration and then more orchestration! Sure, my old Kemble upright won't sound as good as a decent concert grand, but I found that once I was able to put each voice in its place I was quite pleased with the sound I was generating. All of this flat finger work has really given my extensors a work out. As such, I'm very much aware when I'm using them. At the moment I'm not yet sure if this is a good awareness (i.e. I'm noticing them for the first time due to reduced tension elsewhere), or if it's more the case of them being overworked and fatigued. I'll have to carefully observe over the next few days.

Many good things here. The reason you are feeling fatigue in the forearm: though the interossei originate in the metacarpal bones, the lumbricals actually originate in the deep flexor tendon. The solution: try a lighter whole-flat finger slap. This will help in two ways, giving you more 'up' in your 'down' and getting the interossei to shoulder more of the load for the movement, giving the lumbricals a rest. As for the extensors, glad indeed to hear they are waking up. Go slow, wake them up gradually, don't overwork them, and everything should develop nicely! Good work! AFF

Thanks Alan, I'll give that a go and let you know how I get on.

How about posting that other question????

Ok, I was going to wait until I'd resolved the issue, but perhaps it may be useful to others before that. It's indirectly related to the issue in this thread as it involves extension, so I'll post it here. Here's my question to Alan: Hi Alan, I hope you're well. I'm writing to ask for some advice regarding an issue I'm having with my thumbs at the moment. Normally I'd post a thread on the forum (or wait for your next book, since you mentioned that it would be published fairly soon), however the issue is rather pressing as I feel that I might be doing some damage to myself. The problem is very simple - it happens in any situation that I have to extend my thumb away from my hand, though it usually shows itself if I have to do extended passages of octaves or chords. Basically, the tendon that helps with this outward movement of the thumb starts to ache. I've noticed when playing octaves that after I've moved the thumb into place and have actually grasped the keys this tendon will relax. I'm guessing that I need to be able to relax it in between every octave/chord, but I haven't been able to achieve this in practice. And since I play in a rock band I tend to get sustained passages of repeated chords. If you could let me know your thoughts on this I'd be very appreciative. The stuff that you taught me in Bonn has been very useful, partly because resolving some of my other problems has allowed me to see the issues buried deeper. Thanks in advance, Nick and Alan's response: The thing you need to do in this situation is actually minimize that movement. Instead of stretching your thumb out to the inside, try to move your wrist so far to the inside that you don't have to extend your thumb at all. You may not succeed entirely, but every reduction in extension will reduce the aggravation to your thumb. You have to completely change the entire organization of your hand to do this. You'll find you can take even quite big chords this way once you've figured it out. Good luck, that's a bit worrying! AFF

It seems the issues with my technique are more complex than I'd initially thought. I'm not entirely sure how many of the problems are related - there seems to be quite a few of them. Hopefully I can clarify them here and figure out some kind of solution. 1. The aforementioned thumb problem. I've been experimenting with bringing the wrist further to the inside, which helps to a certain point, but then hinders beyond that. I'll move on to that shortly. Making sure I grasp inwards seems to help - if I'm grasping in I can't be pushing out. 2. If I bring my wrist too far in I get a quick build up of tension along the outer edge of my hand and arm. This seems to be a resurgence of a problem I thought I'd solved, mentioned in a previous thread of mine about ulnar deviation. 3. The awareness of what is going on in my arms is still something I'm not sure about. At the moment the sensation is rather uncomfortable and rather too obvious. Also, today I started to notice the tendons in my forearms in a way reminiscent of when I had tendonitis a few years a go. Needless to say this is all rather demoralising, particularly since everything had been going so well recently. I'm planning on booking myself in for some Feldenkrais lessons soon, a decision I made unrelated to this problem, but hopefully a new perspective will allow me to sort it out.

Hey Nick, Let's try something simple which may help the problem immediately. You remember I made you sit higher in the master class? Try sitting even higher now. If I put you up 2 cm, now put yourself up another FIVE! Sit extravagantly high for awhile and monitor what happens to these issues which are resurgent. Let me know... AFF

Hey Nick, Let's try something simple which may help the problem immediately. You remember I made you sit higher in the master class? Try sitting even higher now. If I put you up 2 cm, now put yourself up another FIVE! Sit extravagantly high for awhile and monitor what happens to these issues which are resurgent. Let me know... AFF It's funny you mention sitting, as I had come to the same conclusion myself. I downloaded Scott Clark's Feldenkrais Sitting Series from iTunes and worked through some of that. Although I haven't been sitting higher in the sense of raising the height of the stool I know that I've been sitting differently. I got through a day of teaching and a band practice with only a very slight strain on one thumb. I've been changing a couple of other things, too. I'm monitoring myself a lot more, and making adjustments with my wrist much more actively than I did previously. I've also been making sure to squeeze inwards on chords and octaves - maybe not a permanent solution, but I had noticed and 'out' component in the organisation of my thumbs, when they should have just been moving down. I do recall that at the workshop, one of the first things that you mentioned was that I tend to project my thumbs out sideways a little too much. In retrospect I should have seen this coming, as I had settled on the idea of protruding thumbs as the ultimate solution to collapsing thumb joints. However, my solution was no better, as it lacked movement - it was static. So I've been working on allowing my thumbs back in slightly, which is making thumb stands possible now. I'm firmly out of self pity mode now, and prepared to tackle the issue systematically and intelligently. This time I'm not going to get stuck in one "right" way of doing things. Of course, when I previously dealt with tendonitis I had no idea what I was doing wrong and what to do to change it. This time I'm much better equipped with knowledge to deal with it. I'll experiment with the sitting height as you suggested and let you know. Nick