Hi And My Biggest Problem

Hello Alan. I'm a 54-year old amateur pianist and composer who has been trying to play without pain for 40 years. I discovered your book a few years ago and have found it incredibly useful. I had the good fortune to study Feldenkrais with an old acquaintance of yours, Maria Sara Villa. My training has been spotty and without too much direction in matters of body movement, though I have made some progress in the last coupple of years. My biggest problem is with my right hand in descending scales. Chapter 39 of your book is a pretty good description of what I do when going from the thumb to the 3rd or 4th finger. I swat! Or, more properly speaking, I twack, and it does hurt! I find that I can follow this chapter's advice and have changed my habit for the thumb to 3rd finger switch with good results, but I'm finding it really difficult to implement a rotational way to get the 4th finger over. And for downward arpeggiated seventh chords ala Liszt's 1st Transcendental Etude, it seems all but impossible. I guess it's still a problem with arm motion rather than the hand? Is my arm failing to deliver my hand to the right place in the horizontal plane?

Hello Richard and welcome! Please say hello to Maria Sara if you see her, she is a very dear old friend... And thank you for your question. It is difficult to say exactly what you are doing from this distance, but your guess is a distinct possibility. What I do here is speak from my own experience which in this case is kind of interesting: in my own practicing I focus mostly on the strength and vital movement capacities of my thumb. I find that really inhibiting the old reflex that is still there somewhere (we can never reformat our hard drive) to let my thumb collapse somewhat, thus witholding the needed structural support from the finger going over, helps things to work well. Increasing my thumb's sense of itself as an outrigger to the hand, a real individual entity distinct from the other fingers, empowers all the fingers of my hand to work more easily and effectively. On the other hand in my work with my students, in addition to showing them the same thumb empowerment practice, I am also more likely these days to be guiding their arm to the right place so the potent thumb action happens naturally, automatically. My sense is that if you try using your arm to guide your hand to the right spot, without first having "trained" your thumb to support this fully, it might not work out so well. When I guide the students' arm, I can do so with enough exactitude to that crucial supportive activity in the thumb. Let me know how things develop! AFF

I just spent the evening rewatching your fantastic DVD. As with your book, I find some new shading every time through. I paid particular attention to the DVD chapter dealing with this specific book chapter, Eliminating Swiveling in Scales. Two things I noticed this time were 1) you sit further away from the keyboard than I do and lean forward more than I; 2) you pass the thumb under the palm more than I am doing, since I'd always read that thumb-under was bad. Maybe those are important details that underlie my problem. I'm going to work assiduously on the exercises you demonstrate in this section of the DVD (as well as the others). I should add that I don't have this problem with the left hand, as I can play ascending scales with the southpaw without pain or befuddlement. My old practice routines overworked the right hand at the expense of the left and therefore the right has many more bad habits to unlearn than the left. Thanks for your insightful work!

What the thumb does in a scale depends on what speed you play it at. But as I always say, we are looking for the greatest variety of actions, to create the most global technique possible, so the more things the thumb can do, the better. At high speeds it doesn't go under at all, the hand just undulate/shifts to the next position, there is an actual break in the line of notes, but they are going so fast you don't hear it. Slow motion photography of concert pianists shows this to be true; interestingly enough, the pianists filmed ALL said that they WERE passing the thumb under. Thus the presence of the neuological image of passing the thumb, even when it's not happening in reality, seems to be a key component of having the scale work. At low speeds, really work to make your thumb as active as possible. Do all the exercises from the thumb chapter of the DVD, especially the horizontal translation of the thumb. See how much this can empower its participation in scale work. Whether or not you pass the thumb under, if you stand your four fingers on the board, your thumb should be able to reach all the way under your hand to touch your fifth finger, then wave out to the other side until it's pointing straight away from your hand. Do this vigorously several times, and then play a scale without thinking and see if the vestiges of the neurological image of the new thumb movement had an affect on your scale. All the best, AFF

I'm amazed that you find the time to answer queries so quickly and thoroughly! You're correct that my right thumb is a bit of a mess. The meaty part above the wrist is usually as tight as an overcooked chicken leg. I'll give you a progress report in a few months. My goal is to be able to play the 1st movt. of Beethoven's c minor sonata, op. 10, no. 1 at full speed or nearly so. I can currently play it through at mm 60 to the dotted half and would like to get it up to mm 80 if possible. Thanks again and all the best!

Hey Richard, It's good you let me know about your plans and how you intend to achieve them. Look, these things take place best when you are not under the stress of having to play at a certain tempo. I would practice VERY slowly, a LOT, exaggerating the sense of strength in the thumb by overdoing its movement. Your brain has to have a new image of your thumb and how it works. Pushing tempo (at least at the beginning) is most likely to trigger your OLD image of your thumb, the one you don't want any more. So you're going to have to slow things down if you want long term success. Like Moshe Feldenkrais says, "go slow in order to go fast." Have fun with that! AFF

I understand what you are saying. Comfort, accuracy, and above all musicality trump speed. I promise not to be reckless. I don't play in public anymore and have no plans to do so in the future, so 3/4 of proper tempo is enough for my own private enjoyment. I'll do as you suggest and slow down even further to retrain my thumb.