Question About The Triceps Role In Playing A Note

Hi Alan, In the film you show how your tricpes flex when you press a note, while the rest of the arm remains loose. Is that an intentional movement or is caused by the graping action with fingers? I never see any movement in my triceps no matter how I move my fingers. On the other hand, when I do a movement like grasping or one hand clapping, I can see some movement in the lower forearm - is it something I should try to eliminate and is possible at all? It feels to me like it's an extension of the same muscle that moves the fingers in their top knuckle. Zack

If you place your bird beak hand on the table and feel your triceps with your other hand, when you press the bird beak into the table you can obviously feel the triceps working. This demonstrates their stabilizing role. I did it differently in the film because I had to do something more suited to the visual medium. When I talk about pain I dare to make a generalization: any pain in the upper arm or below the wrist in the hand itself is probably a sign of some muscles waking up that need to wake up and activate. On the other hand, pain in the forearm is probably a sign of strain, of muscles overworking because others above or below are underworking. I write elsewhere of my student in Wuhan whose upper arms almost doubled in size the year she learned Tchaikowsky concerto. She learned it well and used good technique - the enlarged arm was a natural result of increased healthy muscle activity. The effort in your forearm could likely be, as you say, an extension of the right work of the lumbricals - and perhaps we shouldn't try to eliminate it entirely. But we need to keep the amount of effort it expends in balance with other muscle groups. Does this help clarify? AFF

Hi Alan, I think you clarified it for me. I tried the bird beak and I can feel the tricep moving even with the slightest pressing against the table. When I play a single note though I just initiate the movement from the finger knucle, and then I don't feel the tricep. There is no pressing in this case (at least not in soft dynmics and slow tempi). I assume that I should not feel it on every note, but learn to use the tricep for stablization when I need it. Regarding the second issue, I don't feel pain in my forearm, I just feel some kind of muscle activity there for every note. It feels stiff and high speeds but I watched the film again and the excercise of moving the hand forward and backward while moving the fingers quickly in the air really helps to learn to reduce the stifness. So if I understand correctly, I need to learn tp balance the lumbrical "grapsing movement" (the movement that originates from the knuckle) with the "bird beak pecking" movement so that no single muscle group expends to much effort at once.

Exactly. Just because I point out that the triceps works doesn't mean you should always feel it. However it's good to know about it, because when things AREN'T working so well, that's one thing you might take a look at improving. And yes, the forearm muscles do work a lot. Take a look at Martha Argerich's forearm for instance, it is really muscled. My teacher Laurie Milkman also had this extremely well-developed forearm. But both of them don't exert any strain on the forearm - that muscle bulk is simply an indication of the right work of those muscles in activating the fingers. On the Master Video Thread there's a clip of Martha playing a Scarlatti sonata that illustrates this very well... All the best, AFF