Lowering The Hand And Stand On The MCP

Hi again Question i had that i cant figure it out: Let's say I am playing notes c-g left hand,I am moving the arm in a half circul upwards towards the thumb,now the hand needs to come down at a certain point otherwise it will be too high up.I find that the beginning of lowering the hand and the forearm occurs afer playing the second finger (f-note) and continues on the thumb after it has already being played,so at the thumb note (g) the hand is the lowest.The problem is that when i play the g note with the thumb it means that i lower my hand on the key itself (meaning the thumb is playing downwards),thus i find it is impossible to play the note and make the MCP of the thumb to stand up even the slightest at the same time! How can i lower the hand (cause i dont want to make the hand too high up at any frase) and rise the MCP (of any finger for that matter) at the same time? Also very importnat-the finger that I am lowering my forearm and hand at (in the example i gave it is the second finger),can't feel weighless because the wrist is down and not up (there is no standing of the MCP of that finger),is that wrong/bad? -On that same topic-saw you give a lesson on Chopin C sharp Minor Mazurka Op.41 #1-the melody at the beginning of the right hand-again the playing was with the palm touching the keys but it doesnt seem like there was a standing up motion in the MCP of the fingers at times ,especially sliding in the keys. Is that a correct observation? Thanks a million!

Are you only practising one way? Circles can also raise at the thumb end and sink at the 5th finger end. When practising them a different way, I always find the original direction improves too. Basically, the downward part connects the arm to the finger but risks letting the finger be lazy. The upward part means the finger has to move the key but risks disconnecting the arm. By reversing the direction, you ensure that get better both at moving the finger AND at connecting to the arm.

I will try to indeed pay attention to make different motion as suggested-but still,if i lower my wrist down ,because it cant always go upwards, i find it impossible to to the stand up motion of the MCP with the finger that the hand is lowering at ,due to the fact that it is two contrading actions-lower the hand from hight and stand on the MCP joint, which makes the hand rise. What am i doing wrong?

Ah, I'm with you now. You must be using the finger as one long lever? It doesn't work while sinking the wrist. I remember being baffled by those who drag the wrist down in loud chords for many years. I discovered a few years years back that you absolutely must add the lengthening element for any chance at real volume or control. See here for the analysis of what I call positive and negative movement. You need to use the second style of movement when sinking downwards. Dragging back from the main thumb joint alone only works during an ascent. There's also a post all about the thumb on my blog somewhere that compares use of the thumb as one lever with a touch of lengthening.

The problem i still dont understand though is,yes the rising up of the MCP is very clear to me and i do all the time,but i still cant figure out -if I am going downwards with my hand towards a certain finger then i find it is impossible to do the MCP stand, Am i correct? For instance, taking notes g,f,e,d,c -righ hand,i am starting with the fifth finger upwards and coming down to the thumb,the second finger goes only downwards,there is no upwards direction becuase she goes to the thumb and it is the end of the circle motion of the hand.Then on the thumb there is a rise up again to the fifth finger. Am i correct?

The downward ones are harder, but shouldn't be any real problem if you practise the lengthening action. The up and down is for the wrist. My knuckles are scarcely different in height whichever way my wrist is going. This isn't the place to be thinking of sinking even a little, usually. With the fingers as one long lever the down of the wrist is close to impossible to distinguish from the finger. But when the fingers start with a slight curvature and lengthen out, there's no reason why the wrist movement should interfere if the fingers are moving freely and standing up. With this style of motion, the wrist movement is entirely incidental and merely for freedom. It plays no active role in moving the keys. If the fingers are doing their job ups and downs only feel very slightly different at all. In the knuckles, the difference is close to zero. It's totally separate from any wrist descent. If they stop standing up, they need to stop letting the arm take over from their job.