Table Of Technical Evils

I wonder whether Alan would agree with this demonstration of how and why it's become the norm for anti-hand methods to be (quite wrongly) assumed as the safest? Starting from the most strenuous and dangerous and progressing to the safest (although I'd be interested in any alternative views on the order): 1. Trying to move fingers powerfully, independently from a completely static and braced arm 2. Pressing the arm with force, into braced fingers 3. Releasing the arm (or moving with it less force) into excessively braced fingers 4. Releasing the arm (or moving it with less force) into increasingly less braced fingers 5. Moving the fingers in a fashion that actively opens the knuckles into greater freedom- with an arm that either complements with added impulse, or simply responds freely to the reactions of the fingers I'd say that most popular methods can take you either to stage 3 or 4. Frankly, Golandsky's rather horrible octave demonstration is more like stage 2, but Taubmanites are generally about building states 3 and 4. Obviously there's some sense of progression from 1-4, yet no obvious sense whatsoever of how you can get from 4-5. Conversely, if you skip all those and simply learn to free up the arm during quality finger action, you could very reasonably transport a student pretty directly from 1-5. It seems to me that the dream of almost all methods today is to go down that line of progression, before stopping into a complete dead end. It's very easy to see why students will feel plenty of development as they continue down the process (compared to their far greater tensions linked to having begun with either stage 1 or 2). However, having experienced the far better alternative, it's also easy to see why the more they continue such training, the less likely they will be ever come near the most effective state (without a complete change of attitude). Due to ignorance about state 5, the incomplete picture makes it seem that using less and less finger takes you closer and closer to the peak, where it actually sends you towards a plateau.

I would agree with you. I watch the teachers at my daughters music school in Belgrade and they make all their pupils hammer the finger into the key, bracing the whole thing with the heavy arm. I think this approach actually might be useful to some at the very beginning. I was watching a pupil recital and noticed that beginners in the first two years seemed to gain a sense of security from this approach. However, already by year three it was becoming a big liability. Unfortunately, the profs continue to teach the technique ALL THE WAY THROUGH TO THE END OF MIDDLE SCHOOL. It's a disaster! AFF

Table of technical evils Starting from the most strenuous and dangerous and progressing to the safest (although I'd be interested in any alternative views on the order): 1. Trying to move fingers powerfully, independently from a completely static and braced arm 2. Pressing the arm with force, into braced fingers 3. Releasing the arm (or moving with it less force) into excessively braced fingers 4. Releasing the arm (or moving it with less force) into increasingly less braced fingers 5. Moving the fingers in a fashion that actively opens the knuckles into greater freedom- with an arm that either complements with added impulse, or simply responds freely to the reactions of the fingers If you allow me, I'd like to add a couple of points too: 1) ("ankles", if you look at the finger as a leg) - these can be made active not by "strengthening" them, but by focusing on them while doing light finger/hand/arm drops a la Neuhaus. Nature will provide with proper "stabilizing" mechanisms for that joint without us consciously locking anything anywhere. A properly activated nail joint will make the finger as a whole strong enough to build the arch we are after. Hand arches built without this joint activated/alert will not do much for satisfying the requirements of the virtuoso literature. 2) - We must be very, very clear about where the work load of activity and the resulting mechanical forces must be felt: - in the fingers it is clearly the metacarpals in the middle of the hand; - in the thumb it is the MIDDLE joint (the MP, I believe you call it in English), surely not the joint of the thumb near the wrist where the thumb actually moves from (CMC)! In my work with injured professional pianists, I've noticed that the MP is very weakly developed in some, mainly those who complain of weak pinky's and pain on the pinky side while playing octaves and chords, even if they have large hands. If you look at video material of the very best pianists, you will see that their MP clearly protrudes (Cziffra in the extreme; Rubinstein just very well) and forms a clear diagonal second arch with the metacarpal of the pinky, the secret to really virtuoso octave and chord work if you ask me. Hope this adds a valuable bit to your topic. Paul

Initially I was going to say that it sounds more like a subcategory of developing the last one, but I think I'm with you now. Although most people are limited by the earlier approaches, there are certainly ones where you start trying to use the fingers properly but don't have all the details down. A couple of things though- can you clarify what you mean about the mid thumb joint? The smaller finger joints are like knees and can contribute through lengthening. I don't see any tremendous function in the thumb though. I sometimes use slight lengthening with the thumb aimed diagonal. However, I find it works well horizontal against the key. In my right hand I cannot even move that joint of the thumb (I think it's linked to the bone cyst I've discovered) but I've never felt limited by that. Generally, I haven't found it does anything truly important that one longer bone couldn't do. Also regarding, dropping- I'm increasingly skeptical compared to standing up out of the key. Picture if you jump in the air stealth up. To fall safely, you cannot lengthen your knees into a second jump while also landing. You'd hurt yourself with such a direct reversal. All you can do is let the leg fold inward to absorb the impact. It's sensible to land your body that way but the pianistic equivalent is what I call negative movement. The speed doesn't arrive into the key but primarily compresses. However, compare to springing out forwards. You can actively lengthen your leg into the ground and push straight out of the landing, equivalent to positive movement at the piano. There's both less impact and more efficient key movement if we apply this premise. I find whipping movements of the arm far better at creating the desired indirect landing than dropping ones. Falling very easily results in the buckling joints, just like the buckling knees required to land a direct downward fall of the body.

OK. When you give energy to the key, you'll get something back. Where do you want to feel this mechanical force? In which joint do you want to absorb what the key gives back? For the fingers it's clear that the metacarpals are ideal for the purpose. For the thumb, though, it's the middle joint, a conclusion I drew a couple of years ago empirically. Your left hand does that already, by the way, from what I've noticed. That's why your octave work in the LH looks and sounds more natural. It's also most likely the reason you don't have any pinky problems in your LH. To make it clearer for your personal purpose and limited to octave technique: with your size of hands, it's not difficult to imagine an octave as an object between the metacarpal of your pinky and the middle joint of your thumb; I think it fits or almost fits factually in size. If you now focus on the energy coming back from the instrument after violently sounding the first 2 octaves in Chopin's second sonata in Rubinstein fashion (the famous Moscow concert of the sixties), you have a choice where to lean: either on the pinky side or on the thumb side. Clearly, the thumb side is stronger, but you don't want the shock to reach your wrist. That's where that middle joint of the thumb comes in to take the "fall" (pun intended). At the same time, the pinky is freed up for voicing and no longer feels weak anymore. This principle works for all octaves, especially in the more athletic types of passages. P.S.: I had a girl 3 weeks ago who had severe pinky problems in octaves - at least that's what she had thought. 3 weeks of thumb standing/dropping and octave practice with the above described principle made the pinky problems go away and liberated her octave technique completely. Dropping as I mentioned it in my first post is a didactical tool, although I wouldn't reject it as an artistic tool either. The resulting sound has something of "inevitability" in it and can work very powerfully in Romantic music. Some of the most impressive effects in Alan's rendering of Rachmaninoff's sonata, for example, are indeed "drops" (possible unconsciously, I don't know) with the left hand. P.S.: Some parts of the body are just not afraid of dropping onto the keys, for example the hand palm (when you suddenly fall over on the street in winter, they're immediately ready to take the burden), the pinky side of a closed fist, the metacarpals of the fingers and the middle joint of the thumb (provided it has been trained for the purpose). It must be clear that the dropping we do on the instrument must be controlled and can be applied lightly or very, very heavily, depending on what exactly it is we want to achieve and how trained/prepared our playing apparatus is for the purpose. Caution is therefore advised. Paul

Actually, it could be related in a way, but I think I've got this one largely figured out now. The bone cyst basically limits my ability to lengthen out down the fifth finger side. There are times when I can do it virtually normally, but at other times it puts me in a kind of ulnar deviation that disconnects my 5th from the line of the arm. Something about length breeds stability. I notice the same in swimming- where a lengthened wrist drags the water very well, but even a tiny bend in the wrist has you bobbling about and not accelerating smoothly. When my 5th finger can lengthen well, it's capable of functioning almost the same as my left, but it's freedom to enter the right starter position that tends to determine success. The cyst is on the thumb side, so in that sense there's certainly a relationship between the sides, but I don't think anything really changes directly in that thumb joint when it's going better. It some kind of a blockage right at the base of the thumb, that restricts the range of wrist alignment. Could you just clarify what it does? I can see what you mean if you're talking about lengthening out from a slight bend? I don't think it's absolutely essential though- as you can use either fingers or thumbs as a long lever to swing momentum in an upward arc, if the mid joints are already lengthened. I find that in some situations I like to use a slight bend to lengthen out, as per the running analogy. It's like an overspill on a reservoir. You don't need to suddenly stop and pretend that will avoid impact, but can use it to push out of it. However, it can also work with no use of them at all. If I compare my thumbs alone, I do detect a very subtle difference in my right, but I don't really feel poorer for the lack of movement in that joint. I'd only be worried if people started with it bent and held it bent. I'm pretty convinced that lengthening or pre-lengthened can both be fully functional. By the way, I've been using a very effective exercise based on Argerich/Horowitz octave technique of extending all non playing fingers forwards (and often waggling them to check for freedom). It's made a very big difference to the habits, although consistency is still my big issue. I've often experimented with consciously aligning more to one side or the other, but this approach feels really centred, rather than like it involves having to choose either. The lifting of the fingers brings in a really active "overspill" that makes it incredibly easy to avoid collapse. I find this to be the missing link to making it effortless, more than the mid-joints of the playing fingers. If they're already at length, I just need to bring in the non-playing fingers, to keep the arch elevated. The work is shared out, rather than left to the playing fingers. You're not just pushing it up from beneath, but actively pulling it up from above, in a way. Hopefully I'll have my blog post on this completed very soon. It's the simplest and most instinctive approach I've found yet. Yes, I do agree. I'm just finding that dropping is easier to get wrong than whipping, or approaches based on pushing forwards with the arm, and getting the fingers to push the knuckles up. I've been finding various approaches that are useful for encouraging this, without the classic problem of also raising the wrist up. I find virtually all students lift their wrist, far more than knuckles when first trying to push out, as described earlier. I've found a good way to cure this now. I'm thinking of it as a forward and under for the wrist- rather than the classic forwards and over that is normally taught. The knuckles can grow, without destabilising the arm connection via a crooked wrist that takes over the bulk of the upwards movement (often squashing the knuckle down all the more). I'm using dropping exercises as part of the picture, but I find these very specific approaches to growing OUT of the keys are the most important ingredient. I have to get these right first, before I can do a drop and spring out of it safely, rather than squash myself. I think this is a very important point. The worst approach to dropping is when we aim to place weight over the fingers. It demands serious tension and causes really unpleasant efforts. The dropping that works involves the base of the palm as the thing that sinks (I'm writing some exercises that show minimal weight will naturally pass to the fingers without major efforts). You have to spring out of the landing (to stop it drooping while the key moves) but I think the whole problem with weight is the sheer level of manipulation that must be made to send it at the fingers- usually causing severe impact. When you feel the descent is focussed in the heel of the hand (with a reversal of direction, a split second before arriving at the key) the hand can do explosive actions without burden and explode lightly into freedom.

I'm sorry, but I'm a bit pressed for time right now. I could try tomorrow. In the mean time, please watch the Rubinstein clip of Chopin's second sonata at 0:19 and further (the two octaves only) and think through what may be happening, paying particular attention to the thumb joint under discussion. It simply takes two magnificent blows in a functional way: Paul

I'm sorry, but I'm a bit pressed for time right now. I could try tomorrow. In the mean time, please watch the Rubinstein clip of Chopin's second sonata at 0:19 and further (the two octaves only) and think through what may be happening, paying particular attention to the thumb joint under discussion. It simply takes two magnificent blows in a functional way: Paul To my eyes, it's a slight lengthening when moving the key, although the camera isn't close enough to be ideal. There's a slight bobbling after and he lets his hand collapse after the second, but to me these are just red herrings after the real event. Which aspect are you singling out? I often do the lengthening aspect, but I also find it effective with the thumb starting at full length.

I see an oblique whole arm movement, combined with a slight rotation towards the thumb (the latter is probably the "lengthening" you think you see). I also see a focus on that thumb's middle joint to take the blow (the FORM of the thumb is clearly prepared for that function while coming down). The muscles that control that joint have good tonus, but are not tensely locked. The thumb is simply alive, alert, certainly not passive. As far as I can see, he makes no corrective movements with his thumb, neither during or after the action. The considerable forces are simply absorbed in a functional manner. The problem with analyzing such clips is, of course, that we can only guess Rubinstein's inner organization, but since he was never exactly afraid of either dropping or compression, I trust I'm not too far off in what I think I'm seeing. Paul

Remember that "exercise" I wrote about cpl of years back for the thumb? I think that the aim of that exercise was to get the thumb in a Cziffra/Rubinstein position that is being able to resist the key with the second joint of the thumb a sort of thumb knuckle".