Third Finger

Hi! Long time since I wrote in this forum- here is a question for Alan. Some time ago I tried (as a desperate mesure before a concert) to let go of everything I know and allowed myself to do whatever works even if it's totally against all imagination. I found out that if I keep my (big long) third more or less straight a little bit above the keys when using other fingers and my pinky in a "Horowitzposition" than suddenly the whole mechanism kind of loosenes up and I get a kind of accuracy in some passages that I couldn't dream of. Of course I don't play like that all the time but some passages definitely became duck soap with this approach like the right hand in Chopin sonate#3 4 movement, especially the final where I now can get the acceleration I want. It also solved bar 31-40 in 1mov of Grieg Am and I can now play the Moszkowski studies with more ease etc. I understand that this empowers the hand but I don't understand whats happening? Did try this long time ago and it didn't work at all. My theory is that more or less ten years with Alans teachings has been building up a very strong arch and grasping capacity,now when I lower the knuckleposition in some passages I have the strength to do this described above. I don't feel tension-on the contrary. My hands are pretty big and my third long and barely goes between the black keys. Now with the third more straight and in a kind of "poolposition" the twisting is reduced and the third is way more active. It's by nature a very lazy finger. Finally a comment on the Taubman thread. Everything that takes away tension when NOT "manipulating" a key is good. Bad tension builds up gradually and when you feel it-it's to late. Taubman works because, among other things, you can't do it without standing up.And don't forget that all of the more wellknown performers who says they use the method had extensive training in "mechanics".Edna Golandsky played for Adele Marcus and Adeles technical regime at Julliard was probably the most rigorous finger training and dexterity training you could find in the world. It's all in the writings and clips of Alan. Having said that watching Taubman is a pleasure she was a wonderful teacher and really knew the musical and interpretive side of the literature.She was above all a musician. Best Regards Eric

I'm writing a post that's ALL about what you speak of there, so interesting to read that. Originally, the idea came from watching Argerich lift her middle fingers in octaves, but I stumbled across this new film of Dacic which also links hugely. I'll link the post here once I've made the necessary videos to accompany what I've written. Regarding Taubman and standing up, it's great IF it works, but the sheer indirectness gets ludicrous. What do you think of this film? I feel like shouting at the screen while watching it. She isn't standing up well at all. I have two exercises in my coming post that could cure this disconnect within minutes. Golandsky's going through all the old Taubman jargon (which basically says to stop doing what she's been told to do and see if she can find the way that REALLY works). Even asking her to just listen through the sound more might be enough to make a difference, but I can't imagine a more clear display of a situation where doing as the method asks is actively distracting her from a simple and meaningful technique (which Golandsky frankly does nothing to improve on by the end). Every time she reaches the thumb, she simply fuses into a superficially good position, but one which is static and lifeless. There's no sense of growing out of the keys, as would be required to fill in the missing ingredient.

Here's a preview of the main exercise I've been developing. When simply trying to stand up on fingers, there's always some danger that they're working against too much weight or arm pressure. It easily feels like an ordeal, rather than the easy movement it should. When you involve the non playing fingers like this, they help to lighten unhelpful weight- but the waggling also protects against lightening up so you much that you as to lose the clear grounding in the keys. You get all the potential benefits of connection that have been attributed to arm weight, but can very easily dispense with all the risks of compression. "With your thumb and fifth, depress an interval of a sixth from E to C. Whatever quality you started from, I want to show the journey into a quality of the utmost poise. Rather than try to explain how to find it through words alone, what you really need is a task that cannot properly be performed without discovering this state. So, take your three non playing fingers, lengthen them out (nb. don't try to go beyond the point where they extend in a line with the back of your hand!) and wiggle them gently from the knuckle, within a comfortable range of motion. Pat the surface of the three black keys, to feel their resistance. That may already be virtually all you need to get the idea here. However, to make sure you don't misunderstand, if you're indeed getting it right it will feel as effortless as breathing. If it feels like anything in your hand or arm is working remotely hard, you have certainly NOT found poise! To try to be sure that can discover it, I'll address a few typical problems. Firstly, if you have that habit of holding your weight forwards and over the playing fingers, you won't have an easy time. You must let the wrist hang back more while the knuckles bulge. Flop your wrist back and down first, to feel what a genuine release of weight will do. From here, if you have a habit of literally relaxing your fingers, you will doubtless be comfortable at first- but I'm afraid you may still get into a mess when you begin to waggle the fingers. Your hand is going to have to get off its backside and be proactive. A relaxed state is frankly pretty easy to get into, when your only other concern is to succeed with keeping two keys down. It's not necessarily so easy now, however. A "relaxed" state that turns out to be a tense one (as soon as you have such a simple task, to expose all the tension) is frankly pretty useless in the majority of situations. After your wrist has been allowed to gently sink, try again from this lower point. Some people will just "get it" from here. If not, the specific problem is that without opening out your hand, nothing but tensions can stop the knuckles from falling that bit further into a cluster chord. That same tension will also stop other fingers waggling freely- making this an excellent test. If relaxing down into a passive thumb and 5th, you're ALSO having to pull back up, to avert disaster. Rather than struggle from such a disadvantaged position, you need to learn to stand out of the keys on your finger and thumb. They must become twin pillars which support the other knuckles. Once you achieve this, those other fingers can dangle freely, from a stable knuckle. Can you yet find the position that is open enough to simply let them dangle- without any risk of them pressing a key down? If not, use your other hand to physically open the space between your thumb and second finger. If there's any sense of physical resistance to the rising of the knuckles, you need to release that. This won't work if your arm weighs heavily down or if your hand is stiffened. The hand must engage to open itself out, and the arm must lighten up enough to go with the fingers. When they extend, you should sense a slight "pull" upon the forearm- which ought to be free to follow along with the movement. If the arm stays put, you are trying too hard to stay heavy. Let the wrist float up with the fingers by a few millimetres, to take away the effort caused by weighing down. Let the elbow drift out by a few mm too, so it's not slumped into your torso. An involved arm will now be subtly wobbling when the fingers waggle. The arm should feel suspended between shoulder and fingertips, with no sense of "holding" anywhere in between. Think how a plucked guitar string vibrates from end to end. Let the vibrations pass freely back up the whole arm, without any point of blockage.This requires length in the wrist- and will be impeded if the wrist is either held high, or weighing right down. Only length can suspend the hanging "chain" without forcing the wrist to become a point of muscular stiffness. Do you also feel the subtle responses in your thumb and fifth finger? To appreciate why this works, try standing on one leg and waving the other about in the air. Find a sensible place though. If you do happen to topple over on to the mantelpiece and smash all of your best Princess Diana commemorative plates, I accept no legal culpability. Anyhow, there's not a magic position that you can lock the standing leg into. Rather, it must continually adapt to the feedback in highly instinctive ways, to keep you in balance. Wiggling the other leg sends reactions back through your body that challenge your standing leg to keep refining its organisation. By practising balance in response to other movements, you're triggering the brain's unconscious- in a completely different fashion to what happens when you simply look to find a position and then consciously try to hold it. Oh, and while we're on this, try relaxing the standing leg into a bent position and then having another go. As I said, the more you allow weight to collapse an alignment, the harder you have to work the muscles and the more complex it becomes- unless you are willing to collapse like jelly and sink all the way to the floor!"

Hi Eric, It sounds like what you think is happening is indeed what is happening. Very nice news! AFF

Hi Thank's Andrew and Alan for your answers. Yes Dacic definitely do use the third (and sometimes 234) as a "tail" raising them in a relaxed way. I think I understand your exercise and that confirms what I thought. Another aspect is that I think this slight raising of 3 (or 234) makes grasping easier. Like if you play a chromatic scale in thirds and when you come to 1-5 position. Looking forward to see the video with your exercise. By the way I have doubts that the Horowitz Steinway is exactly as it was when H played on it. As for the Golandsky-clip I really don't know what to say. The "shaping" is not there as the teacher points out but on the other hand there is nothing to shape if the fingers are badly connected in a scale. And the pupil hasn't found out yet how to use the thumb. A little staccato playing from the knuckles and trying to play from the escapement and some key bedding all in different rhythmic patterns etc etc would probably fix the problem. There is no "sceletality" at all here. I think but I'm not good at identifying what goes on difficult to see.The student has otherwise a remarkably fit and powerful back which she really doesn't use.

Yeah, it's very much like the movement in the chromatic thirds. Another thought is that the Horowitz curled 5th finger can have a similar effect (despite being very different visually). Again, it brings in something that actively elevates the knuckles, without leaving the playing finger alone to do all the hard work of opening up space. I've also heard some people advise curling the middle fingers while playing octaves, although for me that's a little riskier. I like the Horowitz style fifth, but I wouldn't wish to curl upo all the fingers during the larger forces of octave playing. I've heard rumours about the condition having changed substantially, but it's very close to the Horowitz sound. I've got a recording of Horowitz's pupil Halim playing on Horowitz's piano too (not certain it's the same one though). Agreed on the video. Adding shaping simply means she can't depend on rotation to move keys any more. It's just a way of making sure she stops doing as exactly as she had been told to do. But seeing as her fingers aren't proactive in making any connection, stripping away the rotation leaves little behind. It's a good point about staccato. Once the fingers experience their natural range of motion, they have much better instincts to stand up. I once tried this with a student who was horribly collapsed and her hand opened up considerably better than when I tried to get to her to concentrate directly on standing up. It made for complete transformation to aim through, rather than stop at grounding the key. I suppose you have to be able to overdo something in order to be used to definitely doing enough- contrary to the Taubman mantra of aiming for barely enough and thinking that will stick. I agree with the disconnect from the body too. I'd get her to do some gentle press-up style exercises against the keys, to connect things up better.

I'd rather call it squeezing the pinky into the palm-what Horowitz (and many others) does at times. Doing that with 234 in octaves I wouldn't but having them curled in a relaxed way may be helpful like in the Chopin heroique LH octave passage. I guess squeezing 234 can inhibit the free wrist movement? I guess the question is if Frans Mohr wants the Horowitz piano to sound exactly like it did or not (why give it all away) but probably I'm just paranoid....

Yes, exactly. There's a notable stiffness in my wrist when they actively curl up. Maybe some people feel extra security from this, but it seems insensitive to me, compared to lengthening. When curled I also feel as if I'd easily start hitting extra keys if I let go even a little by mistake. When extended it seems to me that there's a far bigger range of positions in which I feel safe, so it doesn't need to be anywhere near as precise (and there's room to be in movement rather than fixed). I feel like I can properly whack at the keys now- in something like the way Gekic does as an occasional special effect, with no sense of being at risk of accident. Even when not doing it to such extreme, I think a bit of the same action is outright essential to avoiding accidental smears from those fingers. In a lesser version, I think it still needs the sense of raising from the knuckle, although the secondary joints can let the rest of the finger dangle slightly. I've been applying the principle all over the place outside of octaves by the way. In Wild Jagd, my fifth finger is usually really poorly set in the five finger groups at the start. If I play thumb and fifth and then waggle the three inner fingers, my hand form a properly poised position from which to start- in which every single finger is already standing out of the key. I'm starting to think of the arch primarily from 1 to 5, rather than between 1 and 2 now. With this approach, all the middle fingers very easily sort themselves out whenever 1 and 5 stand up properly. If I concentrate on the 1 and 2, my 5th finger can fail very badly even when really well open. Particularly on things like broken chords, it's incredibly easy for the 5th to start squashed and disconnected. Working from 1 and 5 first (and tapping the inner keys to stand those up) is sorting this habit out really well.