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Topic: the third finger (Read 1717 times)

hazypurple21

PS Silver Member
Jr. Member
Posts: 81

I've found that in playing some scale passages, I have a tension problem. The good news is that this is only in my left hand, and only when I'm moving from my third to fourth finger. When I go to my third finger with the intention to follow to the fourth, it's almost if my fingers anticipate this and tense up just before I use my fourth finger. I've been trying to fix this by practicing this kind of movement very slowly, but it hasn't seemed to be working.

Sorry, I know I've had a few threads on tension already, but I don't have a teacher for the summer, and I'd really like to fix this now.

Thanks,
Steve

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"There is one god-Bach-and Mendelssohn is his prophet."

dikai_yang

PS Silver Member
Jr. Member
Posts: 78

Re: the third finger

Reply #1 on: August 05, 2005, 06:48:35 AM

trust me, your third finger is alrite... it's the 4th finger that's playing some tricks on you...
well, they share the same muscle, and the 4th finger is usually the weakest of all....
(unnatural, if not "weak")...
i remember how i overcame this barrier....
it's about the motion of your arm that carries through the scale....
watch out for the direction....
when you play (continuous from first to the 5th finger)
you hand arm should be moving upward away from the keys... like a "U" motion....
another way to practice is.....
only play note by note...
ie. suppose you wanna play g,f,e,d,c on the left hand....
put your 5 fingers on the keys (without pressing down obviously)
when you play g, only your thumb goes down the others remain stationary
and so on for every note, such that each note is clean...
that way you can get to have a feel of using the same amount of force by every finger

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chromatickler

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 560

Re: the third finger

Reply #2 on: August 05, 2005, 03:13:40 PM

what you need is a masterclass with this guy:

https://www.msk.tsi.ru/~ruden/Rudenko1MP3.wav

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jeremyjchilds

PS Silver Member
Sr. Member
Posts: 624

Re: the third finger

Reply #3 on: August 06, 2005, 04:24:21 PM

Do the 345 excercise (Don't overdo it though...)

take your outer three fingers and play three notes on the keys, then play in triplets an ascending pattern as follows...

CDE,DEF,EFG etc.

You will have to move your 3rd finger up one every time you start. Set your metronome and play triplets. Be smooth, and do not allow any smearing...
Reverse this for the L.H.

I used this excercise to help myself gain good tone through the numerous "outer finger" areas in Bach's Prelude in D Book one.

Good luck

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