Scales, Octaves And Arm Weight Focussing

My first new problem is related to R-L hand coordination when playing scales at a faster tempo. I played them at 40 bpm for a very long period of time, then switched to 50, 60, 80 and even 104. When playing faster my left hand seems to fall behind...What I'm trying to say is that a lag between the two appears, especially when reaching the high register. The keys are not pressed at the same time. This happens only when playing in parallel motion. My second question would be how can one avoid hitting the black notes when playing octaves with the thumb and the 5th using rotation. I want to do this for safety and aesthetics. The black notes are hit with to little force to worry if some sound might accidentally be produced by this "error". My first teacher used to "unify" the 3rd and the 4th and he succeeded avoiding the black keys. He was bringing them together while playing octaves. It seems impossible for me. I did not ask him at that time how could he do it. After meeting Alan and applying his exercises my wrist and shoulders relaxed almost completely. It seems that the tension moved now somewhere between the shoulder and the elbow. Maybe a little towards the neck too. To get rid of this I sometimes have to exagerate the distance one needs to maintain between the forearm and the trunk and to move the forearm even more to the outside. What I have seen is improvement but I perceive this tension as the main reason for which the weight of the arm is not fully transmitted to the finger and key. Before having lessons with Alan my elbow was pressing the entire forearm and hand downwards and the wrist locked itself. Now it's something like my shoulder and underarm would say: "oh...I have to carry this whole mass of bones again". How can this be solved?

My first new problem is related to R-L hand coordination when playing scales at a faster tempo. I played them at 40 bpm for a very long period of time, then switched to 50, 60, 80 and even 104. When playing faster my left hand seems to fall behind...What I'm trying to say is that a lag between the two appears, especially when reaching the high register. The keys are not pressed at the same time. This happens only when playing in parallel motion. My second question would be how can one avoid hitting the black notes when playing octaves with the thumb and the 5th using rotation. I want to do this for safety and aesthetics. The black notes are hit with to little force to worry if some sound might accidentally be produced by this "error". My first teacher used to "unify" the 3rd and the 4th and he succeeded avoiding the black keys. He was bringing them together while playing octaves. It seems impossible for me. I did not ask him at that time how could he do it. After meeting Alan and applying his exercises my wrist and shoulders relaxed almost completely. It seems that the tension moved now somewhere between the shoulder and the elbow. Maybe a little towards the neck too. To get rid of this I sometimes have to exagerate the distance one needs to maintain between the forearm and the trunk and to move the forearm even more to the outside. What I have seen is improvement but I perceive this tension as the main reason for which the weight of the arm is not fully transmitted to the finger and key. Before having lessons with Alan my elbow was pressing the entire forearm and hand downwards and the wrist locked itself. Now it's something like my shoulder and underarm would say: "oh...I have to carry this whole mass of bones again". How can this be solved? I found my shoulders used to get very tired so I worked for a long time on releasing them as much as possible. However, I realised that I went too far in releasing. Practising with 1 kg wrist weights gave me a feel for a balance between witholding and releasing at the shoulder- where you still feel it 'hanging' rather than holding, but without totally releasing the entire weight. I might not recommend trying to play with wrist weights, unless you know exactly how to go about it. But why not trying simply wearing them for a period each day, while doing other activities? To hold back the weight of my arm no longer feels like the slightest exertion for the upper body and I think the weights did a lot to contribute to that. If you're used to balancing a slightly heavier arm, the shoulder should not be troubled by taking your natural weight. Doing lots of dumbells in general has probably also been an issue, for me, but I think that the wrist weights gave me a particular feel for how to both withold some weight, yet still hang from the shoulder. Also, if you use the fingers more for octaves, there's no reason why you'd come anywhere near hitting the other keys. Why not start from there for a while, before adding arm impetus. As long as the wrist goes up while you squeeze, there's no great danger of locking up .

You mean try to activate them even more than they are now? To make it more clear: when I play D1-D2(1-5) for instance my 4th finger lightly hits the C#2. How can I avoid this? If I maintain the natural shape....the 4th just disturbs the black keys. Except B-C and E-F where one doesn't find black keys. And regarding the arm-weight debate I would prefer to work "naturally"(without wrist weights) for a while. On a more closer and thorough analysis I found out that another problem appears at the left hand, when playing non-legato(Tchaikovsky - Album for the Young, no.15). The elbow locks and starts making efforts to maintain the "flow" position of the forearm and arch.

"make it more clear: when I play D1-D2(1-5) for instance my 4th finger lightly hits the C#2. How can I avoid this? If I maintain the natural shape....the 4th just disturbs the black keys. Except B-C and E-F where one doesn't find black keys." Are you dropping from above? If the fingers are providing the action, I don't see why the fourth would be any issue. Do you have a very small hand? Do you have great difficulty in lifting the fourth? It only needs to come a tiny way from the keys, for any sympathetic movements to be of no concern, in my own hand. "And regarding the arm-weight debate I would prefer to work "naturally"(without wrist weights) for a while." No need to do anything at a keyboard, if you're worried by the idea. Simply put them on and practise moving your arms around. Also, you could try merely aligning over the keyboard and moving from side to side, without playing anything. Doing various slow movements gives a very clear feeling of what it is like to withold more weight at the shoulder than you normally would- but without achieving that by resorting to any kind of locking. It showed me how to hold back weight up at the shoulder itself (rather than collapse it), while still keeping plenty of freedom and slack in the lower joints. In fact, if I hold my shoulder a little outside from my body, my elbow eases up much more easily. I found my shoulder naturally drifted to the outside by itself, when I added a small extra weight. In the shoulder, it's all too easy to veer straight between overly limp or overly held. Changing the weight and trying to move very slowly and freely is extremely useful for feeling what actually goes on in the shoulder. Alternatively, you could even think about how you carry shopping. I always used to have my shoulder overly inwards. Does your shoulder drift comfortably to the outside, or is it relaxing too much and slumping right against your body? A little bit of space in the armpit seems to make everything work much better. Adding extra weight makes the quality of the alignment much clearer.

I see. It seemed so strange that increasing the weight that the arm is already exerting on the arch can actually improve shoulder relaxation. As for the octaves(I am not dropping from above, I am rotating) you can see how small or big my hands actually are. Those videos do not show me executing that particular drill. There are 2 options....either I straighten my 2nd,3rd and 4th fingers(to avoid the black keys) thus my 5th also straightens. Either keep the fingers curled in the arch shape and try to get the 4th on a trajectory between the black keys before it even reaches their top. I think the last option is far too complicated. Maybe I will post a clip to make things clearer.

Regarding Octaves: From the video clip your hand size seems quite average or even above average. You don't have a big stretch to reach an octave - your arch is quite high - I bet you can reach a 9th or even 10th at maximum stretch. When playing octave the shoulders should be as loose as in any other form of playing. To help loosen everything up - do the "mash the keyboard" exercise from the DVD chapter on octave and gradually introduce grasping to generate the arch. Don't worry too much about the positioning of the middle fingers - they can float in the air and the wrist can remain low too. In time you will familiarize with this position and be able to play octaves in many different positions, but at first you need to loosen everything in the system - so don't even worry if you feel you have too press some black keys by accident. I think that maybe the fear of hitting the wrong key with your 4th finger makes everything else tense in your system and your fingers are over-stretched. When everything is as loose as possible and your hand is literally "mashed" against the keyboard (playing most of the white and black keys in that range) you can start discovering that even at an octave stretch your fingers have individual control and you can easily hit a key with the 5th while keeping the 4th loose and not hitting any key. Also, note that the recommended motion suggested in the DVD is not "down" - it is a grasping motion - your thumb and pinky want to meet each other and as they grasp the keys they generate an arch. Regarding fast scales: If you lose accuracy at a certain speed - go back to a slower speed, preferable more than 25% slower. I personally find that to practise fast runs it is more beneficial NOT to practise as fast as possible, but to practise as accurately as possible - in another post Alan told me to use a metronome and imagine that I am creating the metronome click by pressing the key. It is not easy to do. Many times with think our rhythm is "fine" because it is more or less with the metronome, but you have to be focused to make sure that your are as much exactly on the beat as you can on every note - this level of accuracy will guarantee the evenness of the scale at high speed. Also, try practising hands separate for that in a tempo in which you can be super-accurate 95% of the time before you try hands together or increasing tempo. Finally - you might hit "speed walls" when trying to gradually increase tempo. This is not an easy problem to solve - it indicates inefficient movements. Use the DVD and the books to examine how you can make your movements more efficient while maintaining good sound and try to practice this new coordination in slow motion. I hope this helps. Zack

"I see. It seemed so strange that increasing the weight that the arm is already exerting on the arch can actually improve shoulder relaxation." Ah, that's the odd thing. Although that weight makes it far easier to work the hand, it also makes the shoulder inclined to withold a little more, instead of release all the weight into total collapse. If you find a comfortable way to do that, it makes it easier for the shoulder to 'float in regular playing. It was only through doing that exercise that I came to realise that shoulders can easily be overrelaxed as well as held stiff. It made me differentiate properly- instead of go between held or relaxed. I was forced to find a comfortable way that involves resisting weight, without stiffening or removing all slack. I can feel way more possibilities now, rather than simply 'held' or 'released'. If you can find a functional balance when your arm is a little heavier, it makes it vastly easier to do the same when you play normally. I wouldn't advise playing with the weights (unless you have a pretty effortless arch and finger action) , but I'd definitely advise practising a variety of slow arm movements with a kg wrist weight (or just hold a plate of a kg or two). Raising the elbows away from your sides like in a chicken impersonation is very good. I think this involves the exact muscles that I discovered myself to have underused. I feel like I need a slight space in the armpit. I'd actually gone too far away from 'elbow out'. When the shoulder releases too fully, the elbow gets stuck too close into the body. "There are 2 options....either I straighten my 2nd,3rd and 4th fingers(to avoid the black keys) thus my 5th also straightens. Either keep the fingers curled in the arch shape and try to get the 4th on a trajectory between the black keys before it even reaches their top. I think the last option is far too complicated. Maybe I will post a clip to make things clearer." Yeah, I can't quite picture it, to be honest. A video would certainly help. However, I'd definitely start with an isolated 5th finger pull and then move to an exaggerated grasp (starting totally flat, but progressing upward to a big arch) and practise standing on that. I can't see any reason why the fourth would sound, unless you have excess downward movement. Unless you have problems with your fourth when playing the fifth alone, it suggests to me that there's too much collapsing and not enough active motion from the fingers. Are the fourth and fifth collapsing downward as a single unit? Is this what you mean by rotation? I can't understand what rotation could really add here. I'd think of lifting away from the keys, not collapsing outward.

By the way, your wrist looks like it is being held back way too much to aid the fingers to me. Have you seen any of the posts I wrote about the idea of the finger acting in tandem with a counterweight (via proportioned release at the elbow and wrist)? It strikes me that your counterweight is so much held back, it gives the fingers little opportunity to activate or support against anything. The arch is largely very good, but I can see how the knuckles do not always fully go into position- not because of the finger itself, but because there's not enough counterweight for it to respond to in the balance. Have you tried releasing the wrist more, but trying to feel how a slightly greater pull from the finger will pretty much balance out? I'd be interested to know whether this helps at all. Careful not to release the wrist 100% because that would suddenly work the fingers considerably harder and might be too much. But I think you definitely need to release a lot more there. With so little weight acting down through the wrist, I can easily imagine that you would be repelled very easily in faster passages. By releasing a little extra, I think you might have an easier time stabilising in the scales. If you get it right, the release of the wrist is balanced by the pull of the fingers- so the wrist neither bears down heavily nor feels held back. It just floats on top of the forces that every finger action sends back at it. I'd feel how releasing the wrist and elbow pulls you backwards, as well as down- until you slide off the keyboard. When the finger tries to pull you forwards and up, these cancel out and the wrist need not be held with any effort. At the moment, the forces aren't balancing out in the simplest way, so you are having to compensate by holding more solidly.

Sorry about the footage "instability". I had to play with the other hand. This is how I USED to play octaves when I noticed that the 4th almost always touches the black key and decided a change is needed. However when playing chromatically the 4th should be in the vicinity of the black key(I play with 1-4 on the octaves on black keys). So this idea seems perfect, especially when playing octaves chromatically.

Sorry about the footage "instability". I had to play with the other hand. This is how I USED to play octaves when I noticed that the 4th almost always touches the black key and decided a change is needed. However when playing chromatically the 4th should be in the vicinity of the black key(I play with 1-4 on the octaves on black keys). So this idea Ahi, I see. That makes sense now. I didn't realise you meant broken octaves. If coming from above, I'd try to involve the 5th much more actively. I think you're relying too much on the rotation and leaving the fingers a little dead. With more activity to at least 'catch' the key with the 5th (or ideally be more active still), the fourth will not have the chance to come anywhere near. I'd also try starting with an exceedingly low wrist and standing upwards from the fifth, with no willfull down action. I'd also align much more from the 5th. A pull from the 5th would involve a notable sideways force- when it extends quite so diagonally across the key. So you're putting yourself in a position where the fifth is basically forced to stay inert, or pull the whole arm and thumb offline. I think your thumb has plenty more reach in it, so you can get a lot more behind the fifth, without compromising the thumb's stability. The thumb is much more versatile than the 5th, so I'd always start with the 5th and make adaptations to the thumb, rather than vice versa. It may not be able to go 100% parallel, but you could certainly make it work better by going a lot closer to that.