Once Again About Thumb...

Hi Alan and others on this forum! A BIG thanks for this fascinating new view to approach piano playing!!! I have studied this method the whole summer with Alan's books, DVD and YouTube. I am a jazz piano player and teacher and I strongly believe think Alan's ideas are perfect for that kind of playing too. For example, It can be used for making your improvised phrases more solid and nuanced or give a new more active way to play left hand voicings etc. I think many jazz piano players are searching for "bigger" sound and Alan's method gives tools for that. Now there's still a question about thumb and its basic position: Alan has said in his DVD that thumb should be played straight, not curved (like many teachers teach). This thumb alignment clearly seem to bear weight most efficiently (on thumbstands) like Alan says on the DVD. But what does this "straight" mean exactly? Does this mean literally that its distal joint should be kind of locked to its "outermost" position and we should play with this structure as often as we can? This thumb standing position feels skeletally powerful but compared to slightly curved way, it seems to generate some tension to this quite big muscle which is around thumb's metacarpal bone (palm side). In my opinion question is also about playing with thumb's tip vs. more sideways. When you with tip you'll get more solid or "standing" feeling but same time this tension. In fact I remember that my teacher was advicing me to curve my thumb slightly inwards when I am NOT playing it to teach it to not tension this muscle. I believe that's a good advice because many beginners tend to have this thumb tension when they play with fingers 2,3,4,5. I remember that quite soon I did not need anymore to curve my thumb and it stayed much more neutral when I played with other fingers. To sum my little confusion about the thumb: this new straight and standing position seems to give me more skeletal power but same time it takes me little back to tension which I learned away. Am I missing something relevant here? Hopefully I could describe my question well enough because I am not very familiar with these anatomical terms Greetings from Finland, Pekka

Thanks for your kind comments about my books - glad they can be of help. The thumb should almost always be straight, but not ramrod straight. The "tension" you are experiencing in the big thumb muscle (the thenar) may not be tension at all but empowering tonus. Try to keep that distinction clear. Sometimes we do need to curl the thumb but that curling motion is what generates more tension in my experience. AFF