Weak Left Hand Thumb

Hello all, First I must say that this is an invaluable place for both amateur and pro pianists to find solutions to their problems. Everybody here is so knowledgeable and helpful (a rare combination! ) Thank you all for your time and advice. And now for my question, my LH thumb is very problematic. I think it has become weak because of lack of proper use (I used to play it solely using the forearm because that is what a particular "pedagogue" strongly advocated in her DVD). Now the result of this is that whenever I play the thumb, the middle joint (of the 3 knuckle joints), juts out and the weight/force of the arm falls on it instead of on the tip. Now if I try to correct this by slightly flexing the muscles at the base of the thumb (located in the palm), my arch structure collapses and all the knuckles want to move towards the thumb. I tried doing Mr. Alan Fraser's Thumb exercises but I can't even do those, because the moment I open up my thumb and forefinger, the second knuckle starts jutting out. Even if I do this without in a very relaxed manner without tightening anything. I think there is some sort of muscle imbalance here and I would greatly appreciate any advice/suggestion/exercises to help me rectify this problem. I have come across a number of thumb exercises on the net but I think most of them are not the correct ones for my case and might actually work the wrong muscles and make my condition worse. Thank you so much Kind regards Emma

Hello Emma. This is an interesting post for me, because I've spent the last few months working on the opposite issue - I used to draw that knuckle inwards under the hand, which greatly compromised the mobility. Now that knuckle on both of my hands remains out to the side (jutting, as you described it) whenever I play, though I have to be careful when my second fingers play as I still have the trace of the habit to pull the thumb underneath. I think you might benefit from thinking less about the position and more about the function of the thumb. Perhaps try something along these lines: 1. Provide some artificial support for the arch as your thumb plays by literally propping it up using your other hand. It's worth paying particular attention to your second knuckle here. You want to get the sensation of what it's like to play the thumb without the arch collapsing. Gradually you'll find this educates you thumb and arch and will be able to maintain it without the support from the other hand. 2. Explore the range of movement of your thumb. Swing it through a large arc as slowly as possible. Look out for any jerks or jitters in the movement, and look out for if there is any point at which you notice you arch being pulled downwards. Also, Andrew did a great post about the thumb on his blog here: Hope that helps, Nick

Hello all, From this one, it looks like you could find a fairly simple solution. In the others the joint is curved, but here's it's extending out more? That is good, but I think you need the extension action to be even more exaggerated. Your arm is having to be completely held up, because the thumb is not doing enough to raise your knuckles up. You could use your other hand to open up the space between the thumb and the second. Get the knuckles up and let the arm hang back enough to pull your raised wrist into a straighter alignment. Assuming there's nothing stopping you from doing that comfortably, you'd then just have to feel the sense of continuing to extend lightly out in both thumb and 2nd to maintain it. I have a student who has similar kind of issues. In the past I tried a lot of different things based on the conventional thumb that grips slightly inwards, but nothing had really worked. There's a was always a joint poking out in a way that looked rather uncomfortable When I got him to switch to reaching out with his thumb, his hands improved immeasurably. They look perfectly normal now and operate much more naturally. I used to think of many of positions in the diagrams in the craft of piano as being exaggerated and intended primarily to illustrate a point or a sensation, rather than something to be taken literally. However, increasingly, I've been realising that it's very effective to go all the way. Although I let my wrist hang back more than in some of the extreme diagrams, increasingly I've been finding that the easiest way is to open the hand right up. You're last photo shows that you can open a massive space between 1 and 2, but you're not using that in the pic at the piano. Also, I had some great lessons with Alan recently. I'll have to write a post sometime about some of the discoveries I've made from that.

Thank you "nick_op" and "cziffra" for your advice and suggestions. I will implement them and hopefully they will help me to rectify my condition.

Play a descending scale quickly but just fragments. Play 1-2, hold 2 and place your thumb PAD (not tip) on the flesh of your 2nd finger. The pad presses into the crease of the lowest (nail) joint. Do this many times. Then play 1-2-3 quickly, stand on 3, press the thumb into the flesh of 3. The thumb must intend to do this even before you start, so the sweeping under motion starts instantaneously. Then do 1-2-3-4, same deal. Then play 1-2 and sweep the thumb tip along the 'underside' of the keys - the little vertical space that disappears when the key descends. Then 1-2-3, then 1-2-3-4... Notice that if you start the sweeping motion instantaneously, there's a way of doing it that automatically makes the 2nd finger top knuckle stand up, empower itself. This is the feeling you're looking for. You have to figure out how to activate that part of the mechanism in that way. Let us know how it works out. Thanks for the photos and question, the technological sophistication of this forum is advancing by leaps and bounds! AFF

Play a descending scale quickly but just fragments. Play 1-2, hold 2 and place your thumb PAD (not tip) on the flesh of your 2nd finger. The pad presses into the crease of the lowest (nail) joint. Do this many times. Then play 1-2-3 quickly, stand on 3, press the thumb into the flesh of 3. The thumb must intend to do this even before you start, so the sweeping under motion starts instantaneously. Then do 1-2-3-4, same deal. Then play 1-2 and sweep the thumb tip along the 'underside' of the keys - the little vertical space that disappears when the key descends. Then 1-2-3, then 1-2-3-4... Notice that if you start the sweeping motion instantaneously, there's a way of doing it that automatically makes the 2nd finger top knuckle stand up, empower itself. This is the feeling you're looking for. You have to figure out how to activate that part of the mechanism in that way. I've been finding this one extremely useful! I've been trying it as you showed me in op. 10 no 1 earlier, as well for arpeggios in particular. For first inversion arpeggios, I've been getting a lot better with my 4th recently and I think they were going reasonably well when I tried playing through this earlier (see about 3:30 in) However, trying that exercise after, I got a very clear feeling for a collapse that is remaining in the 4th finger. When doing this exercise through the arpeggios, it became very clear that it's a slight preceding collapse in the 2nd finger that is screwing up the fourth. The second moves a hell of a lot better when the thumb goes on to support it from collapsing and then the fourth follows way more easily from this point. The thing I like about this exercise is that it serves to sort out the basic arch functions even if you're not necessarily thinking about them. I'm definitely going to try this out on students who struggle with the hand shape. For myself, I feel as if I've learned all the basic activities that need to be performed, but I'm not always feeling the spots where they're not firing at 100%. This exercise gives such a clear sense of what it's like to have a stable structure (with minimal effort) that the holes are becoming much easier to pick up on. It's interesting how close the final result is to the literal thumb under concept (although I'm dragging the thumb with the arm- not forcibly isolating it). It's totally different to any sense of willfully throwing the thumb "over"- but it can be performed at extreme speeds. I think I greatly favour this kind of intent to go under (which doesn't quite happen at high speed) to deliberately thinking of throwing "over". Incidentally, earlier I was trying a slight variant to the specifics of how you describe there. I've been tending to put my thumb across the uppermost segment of the finger- almost touching the knuckle. Basically I'm getting it as high as possible while touching the 2nd finger. At this point I feel I can really "clamp" it (like the position you speak of in Gekic's hands, but still touching the side rather than going under the finger) with truly minimal effort. Although it doesn't specifically encourage the thumb itself to go into a functionally usable position, the sense of balance in the knuckles is pretty phenomenal from this position. Just one other thought- what would use say is the best counterpart when travelling in the opposite direction? I can't think of a direct equivalent, but I've been tending to stop on the thumb and do an extreme lift of all the fingers- to try to ensure that the 2nd knuckle doesn't droop when passing over.

The corollary for descending in the right hand, ascending in the left: Let's say you play 5-3-2-1 in the right hand. Play 5-3 and pull your 5th in to snuggle against your third. This will also tend to make the hand tilt very slightly to the left. Good. Now play 5-3-2 and pull 3 and 5 in to snuggle against 2. You also pull them up a little, keeping them curled. When you go to the thumb, the same idea pulls the second knuckle up and to the left so far that it's actually over the thumb and to the left of the thumb. Now you are in a position to play the next note very easily. The requisite hand shift is almost complete. AFF

The corollary for descending in the right hand, ascending in the left: Let's say you play 5-3-2-1 in the right hand. Play 5-3 and pull your 5th in to snuggle against your third. This will also tend to make the hand tilt very slightly to the left. Good. Now play 5-3-2 and pull 3 and 5 in to snuggle against 2. You also pull them up a little, keeping them curled. When you go to the thumb, the same idea pulls the second knuckle up and to the left so far that it's actually over the thumb and to the left of the thumb. Now you are in a position to play the next note very easily. The requisite hand shift is almost complete. AFF Cheers- I wasn't sure if there would be a direct equivalent but that makes good sense. I found this a little less easy to get the feel for compared to the opposite direction, but I think I've got it now. In the end it's almost as if the fifth finger knuckle is pushing the rest across from the rear, rather than as if the 2nd knuckle drags from the front? In the thumb one, the movement remains almost entirely literally, but I found that for this direction thinking this way allowed me to keep the feeling of stability, even when the knuckles are no longer being drawn together. I was trying this just now for the fugue subject of op 110. It was extremely useful to do these for every change of direction. Something didn't feel quite right before- even there was no particularly visible droop on the surface. One thing I noticed is that it inspires a slight rotation. This seems to be a way more practical way to achieve the feel for it, compared to the pedantic Taubman style of exaggerated rocking. This strikes me as an excellent replacement for their rather coarse practise method.

Why thank you! Compliment accepted! AFF