Question Regarding Hand Positions

[nicko124]

Hi. I have a problem with my playing at the moment which is starting to get to me about whether my technique is good.

Recently i have been working on a Scarlatti Sonata for my grade 7 exam (Sonata in F Major, K367)- not the most well known but still a great piece. There are a lot of scales in it and also a lot of demanding leaps linking each scale together.

In the past, my teacher has told me that occasionally i have a flat fingered approach to my technique (is this like Horowitz?). However with this piece I have constantly been hitting my nails against the keys during the leaps. So this seems contrary to the flat fingered technique and more to the conventional method. During the piece the sound of my nails hitting the keys is really quite loud and can put me off a bit.

I have tried cutting my nails but they still get in the way. Has anyone got any advice about this problem. My nails do not have a chance of hitting the keys when i play more flat fingered approach.

Also could somebody tell me about Horowitz's technique and whether it was a flat fingered techniqe or not. How did he get his technique to work well?

Thanks

nicko124 

[cadenz]

apart from your thumb, unless your finger nails are long, i can't see how you're really hitting the keys with them in an ordinary hand postition. if you put your fingers flat on the table, then slowly raise your hand up until you find the angle where fingernails touch the table you should find its at a pretty steep angle, near the verticle. playing with your fingers so curved that they're nearly verticle is probably a little unnatural and i would lower the angle a little. i tend to play with the finger tips at about a 45° angle, and at this the nails don't hit the keys, unless i forget to cut them for too long, then they start getting trapped between keys more often than tapping them.
a little different is the thumb, since the thumb tends to hit the keys with the side, its much easier to tap the nail on the key, but if you keep it short it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

[nicko124]

I just identified today that it is mostly the thumb-nail that is hitting the keys which doesen't appear to be too much of a problem. Basically with the Scarlatti sonata there are repeated descending scales with the left hand and so for each leap my thumb-nail was hitting the keys. I'll probably just try and be a bit more delicate with the leaps.

You mentioned that having your fingers curved so that they are almost vertical is unnatural. I agree with you on this and that is why I was suprised to see Kissin adopting this technique. However he was playing a lot of staccato which makes it easier to do.