Octaves With Center Of Arm's Gravity Over The Thumb

Hi, I've purchased the DVD and teh book of Mr. Fraser and I'm working in legato and the hand structure. But in the chapter of octaves, there's a application that explains the position of the hand when we've to play octaves. Mr. Fraser recommends line up the thumb and the inner edge of the forearm. But this position is called "ulnar desvitaion" in the Mark Thomas's book, and Mr. Thomas says that it may produce injury or crhonical pain. Can anyone explain me this apparent contradiction? Thanks P.D: sorry for my English, it isn't my native language.

Dear Freddy, Welcome to the Forum! You certainly know how to make a great entrance! That question is something I address in my second book, , to be published later this year, and it is very controversial! When I wrote , I was firmly convinced that avoiding ulnar deviation only limited you, and that the hand is more flexible in its function than people like Thomas Mark like to admit. When I lined up my 5th finger with my arm as he advises (it's called "5th finger orientation), I felt awkward. My thumb stuck out to the inside, and it was pulled away from the keyboard. It just didn't seem right to me, and it certainly didn't seem to work very well. I saw some very fine pianists using 5th finger orientation and they too looked awkward and hampered in their physical relationship to the keyboard. HOWEVER: to quote Barack Obama, "I screwed up." Well... I didn't screw up entirely. But I had an "enlightenment experience" last year that showed me how my over-reliance on over-reliance on 5th finger orientation! The "aha!" moment came while watching section 12B of Seymour Fink's film, . Suddenly I saw his hand doing something I realized mine needed to do too, but wasn't. In my film, Chapter 1, you can see me demonstrating the hand's transverse, or lateral arch, BUT MY HAND SLOPES DOWN FROM THE 2nd KNUCKLE TO THE 5th KNUCKLE. This disempowers my hand! To correct that, I would need to do what Seymour did, pull my hand up by the 5th until it stands fully ON the 5th. And when you do that, lo and behold you are more 5th finger oriented and less thumb oriented. This experience led me to change and refine many aspects of my playing. So you see, nothing is written in stone. My approach aims to be investigative and deductive rather than dogmatic - and sometimes I even succeed in that! Now I have come to the conclusion that the ideal hand position for playing octaves is dead center, more or less half way between thumb orientation and 5th finger orientation. Most important is that the thumb and 2nd fingers be EXTREMELY well-differentiated, and that there is NO HINT of the 2nd knuckle collapsing down into the empty space next to the thumb, and NO HINT of the thumb tensing or pulling itself upward into that same space in any way. You be able to play totally thumb-oriented OR totally 5th-finger-oriented, because sometimes you need to. So: learn each of these and apply as needed! The second edition of will be out soon, and I am happy to say that I have amended the passage you so astutely brought to my attention to reflect these new insights. I have also written about it in my blog (unfortunately temporarily offline because of a virus), my review of Thomas Mark's phenomenal book at , and in even more expanded fashion in my second book. So: thank you so much for posting this question! AFF