Developing the 4th and 5th fingers

[fnork]

Lately, I've devoted some of my practicing to developing and strengthening the weaker fingers, and I'm just curious about if anyone else spends time with this and if you have some useful excercises that you'd like to share. I have a few:

One excercise, I think it was Mark Wescott who recommended it (in the book "Pianists at play"), is to play the chromatic scale, up and down for two octaves, using either the 1rst, 4th and 5th fingers, or 1rst, 3rd and 4th fingers. Do this at different speeds with different articulations - it will tire you at first but after a while it builds up a lot of endurance for those fingers, and at the same time you'll get better at using the thumb under technique frequently.
I've found a few Brahms excercises very useful too - there's one where you are constantly trilling with 4-5 in triplets while playing quarter-notes with 3-2-1, up and down the keyboard.
Chopins op 10 no 2 is great, and becomes easier to play if you've played the excercices I recommended for a while - doing Godowskys left-hand arrangement is also very good.

[bench warmer]

Not sure if you already need 4/5 developed to play it, but Liszt's Paganini Etude #3 (La Campanella) will certainly help one gain control with the RH 4/5.

Liszt also wrote Technical Exercises (not the T. Etudes) which will address specific targets for developement.

[elevateme_returns]

tankard exercises

[virtuosic1]

Poof. Bye bye!

[fnork]

tankard exercises

never heard of them, can you explain what they are about?

[virtuosic1]

Poof. Advice retracted courteosy of Jake

[mephisto]

http://h1.ripway.com/Virtuosic1/R1_0017.MP3

 

I think everybody is able to press the speed up button on an electric piano.......

[virtuosic1]

Poof. More info gone, by request from Jake and cronies.

[virtuosic1]

Poof

[thalbergmad]

Before going on about speed up buttons, quite possibly, you should contact Michael Haberman, the great Sorabji performer and noted scholar (he has a web site with email contact) and ask his opinion on whether or not his old acquaintance, Dan, from Nassau and Hofstra University needs a speed up device to traverse the piano up and down in 8 seconds and change. Tell him it's the Lennie Tristano disciple he met in 1979/1980, the fellow that played all of Lennie's music in every key, that used the unheated practice rooms in the old barracks and performed the Left hand Chaconne and La Campanella in concert there on the same program that he played Sorabji on. The jazz pianist that he had mentioned as his "being in total awe of technically". I'm sure he'll remember me. This way, before you go on about arguing how this is sped up, you'll have the golden opportunity to save yourself from the embarrassment of compounding further erroneous conclusions with more false accusations and snap decisions.   

You are modest, i'll give you that.

Thal

[ronde_des_sylphes]

There are a couple of tricky passages in Liszt's La Somnambula transcription (where the right hand trills with 45 and the thematic material is in the rest of the hand) which might be of interest.

[cloches_de_geneve]

I've found a few Brahms excercises very useful too - there's one where you are constantly trilling with 4-5 in triplets while playing quarter-notes with 3-2-1, up and down the keyboard.
Chopins op 10 no 2 is great, and becomes easier to play if you've played the excercices I recommended for a while - doing Godowskys left-hand arrangement is also very good.

Is the Brahms excercise you are referring to from the 51 excercises? If so, do you happen to remember the number?

With respect to Chopin, personally I found 25/6 to be more useful for progressing on independence of the fingers (including 4,5). After playing 10/2 for a couple of months, I needed to see a doctor. Part of the cure consisted in suspending my work on 10/2 and after a few weeks my pain disappeared and never returned. 25/6 never caused me any pain.

[cmg]

I found 10/2 to be pretty irritating.  Musically, that is.

10/1 is a great strength builder for the entire hand.  25/12, too.  But 10/1 really provides a workout for 3-4-5.  Watch out for stretch marks, though.  Unsightly.   

[klick]

Or just do Hanon? Most of the excersizes strengthen the 4th finger, and Hanon has strongly improved my 3-4 trill, and hopefully my 4-5 when I finish the book.

From what I have found in my pieces is that sure they work my 4-5 fingers, but the problem is that   the section that requires the 4-5 playing, usually slows down my practice on the piece by a large factor. Hanon on the other hand is there to be taken slow and worked up, and will strengthen all the fingers.

Klick

[clavicembalisticum]

Or just do Hanon?

STOP. Everything and anything but that.

[houseofblackleaves]

Well, just for the sake of STUDY, I would reccomend this:

My suggestions:

First: Chopin op.10 no.2 - for first developing the independence of the weak fingers.

THEN: op.25 no.6 - The reason that people have trouble with thirds (in my opinion) isn't that they lack the coordination, but lack the raw "hand power."  First of all, you need to be able to do trills with combinations between the third, fourth, and fifth fingers as fast as you can with your first and second.  Why bother coordinating the fingers if you can't play equally with your weaker fingers?  So... you study this for developing your hand coordination.

and then/or

Lizst: Feux Follets - In my opinion, this peice is like a combination of the technecal difficulties of the above two, and more.  People may be critical of it, but it is still one of the best etudes ever.

Like I said, I suggest to study these, not learn the whole peices and then work it up to performance level.  But hey, that could be great, too.

[virtuosic1]

Pooferooni

[virtuosic1]

Poof  FU

[elevateme_returns]

never heard of them, can you explain what they are about?

technical exercises by somebody harrison & geoffrey tankard

[virtuosic1]

POOF!!!!!

[cloches_de_geneve]

Depressing keys doesn't require much in the way of "hand power". Closing a Captains of Crush #3 or #4 hand-gripper does. The production and use of finger power at the keyboard, which can only be generated by increasing the tension of the soft tissue that activate the fingers, is counterproductive to velocity and finger independence. Extreme velocity and dexterity require extreme relaxation.

I agree with you, but at the same time your comment raises an important question: What are we talking about we talk about "finger strength"? Maybe this is a misconception and what is usually meant by finger strength is finger mobility+dexterity+independence.

Pollini played the Chopin Etudes already at 14 years of age effortlessly -- so, "strength" couldn't have been the explanation (same thing for Kissin, Horowitz and other teen-virtuosos whose forearms look like spaghetti).

[zheer]

Pollini played the Chopin Etudes already at 14 years of age effortlessly --

   Flipping heck.

[virtuosic1]

Poof again

[zheer]

  Is that why your user name is virtuosic1.

[virtuosic1]

You guessed it; POOF!

[nicco]

Tristano started me on the Chopin Etudes in my early teens as well. We would sometimes deconstruct and isolate motifs based on the stretches as the impetus, a cell for improvisation. Within a year, I was playing them in every key, fluently and at least up to concert level tempos.

Ok, lets hear winterwind in d sharp minor.

[virtuosic1]

Poof

[nicco]

Forward will be fine.

[virtuosic1]

Poof

[nicco]

  Nicco, you sure you wouldn't rather hear Summer Wind:

http://www.amazon.com/Very-Best-Frank-Sinatra/dp/samples/B000002NFI/ref=dp_tracks_all_1/002-9248904-9085649?ie=UTF8&qid=1174818223&sr=8-2#disc_1

Disc 2 #14

It's been such a miserable NY winter the past 2 months that I figured I'd ask before I unleash a wintery blast.   

No, the winterwind will be fine. Cant wait to hear it.

[virtuosic1]

Poof

[daniel patschan]

Dear virtuosic1 !

Impressing sound samples that you posted ! Do you have any tips on how to optimize Chopin 10-1 ?
Let´s say one could play it with 120, how to learn it faster ?

Thanks in advance

D.

[virtuosic1]

Poof. Gone in 60 seconds!

[daniel patschan]

Daniel, First off, I would need some technical data. Are your hands small, medium, or large? Can you easily span all minor tenths? Ninths? Octaves? Fingers slender or thick? When you play rapid arpeggiations (now this may take thinking about some aspects of your playing that you haven't considered), do your fingers reach and stretch to the notes, carrying your hand; or does your hand carry your fingers to the targets? Have you been playing this Etude with elbow rotation, hence fanning out the 4th and 5th fingers without much vertical finger motion aiding the depression of the keys? Have you tried altered fingering that requires more active lateral hand motion?

Thank you very much !

Mmh, let´s see: my hands are big enough to span a minor tenth, my fingers are relatively thick so sometimes it´s difficult to get between the black keys. I guess my fingers are carrying my hand not vice versa. Elbow rotation ? Hard to tell. An essential problem that i have seems the idea that it´s an extension study (is it ?). Cortot suggested it is - other people state it´s a contraction etude !? Whatever - i feel too much tension. Should i practise more extension exercises then, like the ones by Philipp or is the study of broken conventional chords (e.g. C-E-G-C) of greater advantage ? Is the playing of legato double sixth scales helpful ? I am simply not orientated since i don´t have money for a teacher at the moment.

[virtuosic1]

Poofery