Left hand (finger 3,4,5) WEAK!!!!!!

[jamie_liszt]

Hey

I want to make my trills with fingers 3 + 4 and 4 + 5 faster, stronger, even and more reliable (MAINLY THE LEFT HAND). I am still doing Hanon, anything else you guys can suggest.

I am finding my weakness points and improving on them before i goto this new teacher (possibly)

[casparma]

Have you read Sandor's book on piano practice?

It has pictures as well as explanations on how to move the fingers.....



You can buy it on Amazon.......(I have ebook format though  )

I haven't really read the book myself, because I am busy on another piano book, but it seems a great reference on different piano technique....

[gonzalo]

Hey

I want to make my trills with fingers 3 + 4 and 4 + 5 faster, stronger, even and more reliable (MAINLY THE LEFT HAND). I am still doing Hanon, anything else you guys can suggest.

I am finding my weakness points and improving on them before i goto this new teacher (possibly)

Why Hanon? You're wasting your time... Trust me , the best way, is either to play a left hand etude OR bach 2 part inventions. With the inventions you'll enjoy playing music AND after playing some of them your fingers will be able to play those trills you want to achieve.
I had the same problem , and I also did Hanon, but it didn't help me at all... when I tried the inventions everything became easier.

[casparma]

gonzalo, I have never tried Hanon, because my teacher never even mention it....

Nevertheless, why Hanon does not help? what you say is that a left hand etude may have more interesting music in addition to Hanon......, but does that make a big difference?

[bearzinthehood]

If you want to play a trill, practice a trill...

Just play it at a speed where you have full control and don't lose patience.

[gonzalo]

gonzalo, I have never tried Hanon, because my teacher never even mention it....

Nevertheless, why Hanon does not help? what you say is that a left hand etude may have more interesting music in addition to Hanon......, but does that make a big difference?

With a left hand etude you don't only practice trills but you also practice thirds, arpeggios, scales, which is more useful than ONLY practising trills.
And also , the fact that you try to separate technique from music ( Hanon) , is going to take you nowhere...

[casparma]

gonzalo, what do you mean by seperating technique from music? when you something on a piano, with a rhythm, harmony, melody, or etc...., you are playing music......

[gonzalo]

gonzalo, what do you mean by seperating technique from music? when you something on a piano, with a rhythm, harmony, melody, or etc...., you are playing music......

Well .. It seems that you have no idea of what I'm talking about... Here:

https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,5352.msg50998.html#msg50998

(Speaking of Hanon: list of links by Bernhard)

Anyway, I suggested the left hand etude because that will add a piece to his repertory, apart from enjoying music.
Apart from that, Hanon's instructions to practice trills are completely wrong. They should be done HS, with arm movement, etc...  Just read what Bernhard said  don't want to say it all again

[bernhard]

Hey

I want to make my trills with fingers 3 + 4 and 4 + 5 faster, stronger, even and more reliable (MAINLY THE LEFT HAND). I am still doing Hanon, anything else you guys can suggest.

I am finding my weakness points and improving on them before i goto this new teacher (possibly)

Fingers 4 – 5 will always be weaker, and there is nothing you can do about it. Fortunately, in order to play the piano it is not necessary to strengthen fingers and other such non-sense. Have a look here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2502.msg21594.html#msg21594
(Independence of the 3rd and 4thfinger – it is impossible, one should work towards the illusion of independence: it is all arm work)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2507.msg21688.html#msg21688
(Round fingers – the role of fingers)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,5034.msg47829.html#msg47829
(The finger strength controversy – some excellent posts by xvimbi)

https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,7887.msg79326.html#msg79326
(why the lifting of the 4th finger is a non-problem)

https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,8335.msg84684.html#msg84684
(circular movements to avoid co-contraction)

https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,8322.msg84686.html#msg84686
(speed and muscle tension – 3 important components of speed playing)

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,7341.msg114168.html#msg114168
(repeated note-groups for difficult passages – correct technique is never uncomfortable – rotation as the solution to 5th finger weakness – criticism to misguided technical exercises – trusting the unconscious)

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,7175.msg114163.html#msg114163
(wrist action – the movements that should be avoided when playing and the movements that should be used).



To deal with left hand weakness, have a look here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2106.msg17587.html#msg17587
(developing both hands equally – repertory - why the LH is generally weaker – website for left handed pianos)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4144.msg40259.html#msg40259
(improving speed of LH – move the whole LH not only fingers)


I hope this helps.


Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[faulty_damper]

What is the point of performing a trill with 3+4 and 4+5 when a 1+2, 1+3, 1+4, 2+3, 2+4 (best combination on most white key trills), 2+5, & 3+5, are significantly easier to do?

Strengthening these fingers to trill is futile unless you want to spend years practicing it.  And after it has been conditioned to trill, it must be constantly maintained or else the abilty to trill with these fingers will degenerate rapidly.

The links Bernhard has posted are very helpful.

[jamie_liszt]

umm maybe to improve your playing, or some pieces require 4/5   3/4 trills

[jamie_liszt]

So could Hanon cause injuries, I find i get a dead wrist after playing through some exercises and repeating like he says. Should I avoid Hanon then ? I also heard some students lost the use of their 4th finger from Exercises like Hanon where it strains the wrist/fingers.

more information ?

[bernhard]

So could Hanon cause injuries, I find i get a dead wrist after playing through some exercises and repeating like he says. Should I avoid Hanon then ? I also heard some students lost the use of their 4th finger from Exercises like Hanon where it strains the wrist/fingers.

more information ?

I suggest you look through most of xvimbi´s posts, since he regularly wrote (very well) on these issues.

It is nor easy to get an injury. You must insist on doing the wrong thing for a couple of years before you are doomed.

The body is clever. It will tell you very clearly when you are doing the wrong thing. The signs are progressive and you ignore them at your own peril. Here they are, in the progressive order they usually appear:

1.   Playing does not feel natural. The movements do not come easily. Playing is labored and usually your audience can tell you are struggling. At this point some people just stop practicing, so nothing worse happens. In my young days I was told to do Hanon the orthodox way. I did for about a month, after which I just packed it.  After one year had elapsed, my teacher remarked how much my technique was improving and attributed it to Hanon. You see, I lied to her. I did not tell her I had stopped the darn thing. I wonder how many pianists do the same. And Hanon (or whatever other exercise regimen) gets the credit for an improvement that would happen anyway. Then you have the obsessive types who will keep at it even though it feels all wrong. They are convinced that if they keep practicing, it will become easy and natural. And this is actually what happen: the wrong movements now feel “right” and “natural”. But they are nothing of the sort. So this will lead to the second stage.

2.   Now fatigue sets in, and perhaps some subtle pain. One would not dare to call it yet pain. Again, the lazy ones may just drop the whole thing and just get on with the business of playing what they like (I was like that). Meanwhile, during the lesson the teacher is satisfied that so little progress has been made in certain pieces exercises because they are “advanced”. Little does s/he know that the student is simply not going near them, since s/he is playing the pieces s/he loves and not showing them to the teacher. (Just see how many people here are asking advice on how to play pieces that their teacher disapproves of and has no clue the student has probably already mastered by him/herself). Then again you have the conscientious and serious student who will play through pain. “No pain no gain” “Mu finger muscles must burn to get stronger!”, little realizing that it is not the fingers that are burning. Soon these hard working souls have learned the art of blocking out pain from consciousness. They become insensitive to it. They have successfully self hypnotized themselves into general anaesthesy. Their palying sounds terrible, but the teacher is happy; the inappropriate movements s/he has been insisting upon (“drop the wrists!” “curl the fingers” “relax” “play with your shoulders”) have now become apparent – even though they look awkward – in the student´s playing. A bit more of technique and the student will be ready to work on musicality, and surely s/he will sound much better, not the unmusical mess s/he is at present. So the third stage comes in, and it always comes as a surprise even though the signs had been there all along.

3.   One beautiful day, halfway through that virtuosic piece that the student is murdering, something dreadful happens. Sometimes is a pain so unbearable that even the physical stupor the student has anaesthesised himself into cannot stop it. More often there is no pain (the student has successfully made himself insensitive to it), instead, the fingers may curl, and the hand will not open. Or the fingers just refuse to obey slowly going into a stage of total paralysis. The student will claim to feel nothing, just a weird sensation of ants crawling. Then again sometimes the pain will come with a vengeance. Once this happens, piano playing is out of the question. And if the student is on his way to become a famous pianist, or is already one, the injury becomes a source of the greatest shame and humiliation. It is very rare indeed the student/pianist who will publicly admit that s/he has/has any sort of debilitating injury.

4.   Now the good and bad news. Good news: Most  - if not all – piano injuries are temporary and quickly healed if one knows what one is doing. Piano playing with the appropriate technique is actually therapeutic. Bad news: If you do not know what you are doing the injury may become permanent or take a long time to heal. Doctors love to operate (something one must avoid at all costs since this is almost sure to make the injury permanent), and most do not have a clue on how to treat pianists injuries (there are exceptions though). It is not easy to find a piano teacher / therapist who can guide an injured pianist back to health while using the piano itself as therapy. All that inappropriate technique the pianist spent years making second nature will have to be discarded and s/he will need to learn the piano form scratch. Fortunately this not difficult: One year is time enough provided one knows what one is doing

5.   Finally, I doubt anyone will have a serious injury form paling Hanon, unless you are doing it in a completely radical way (Pischna and Dohnanyi however will cause injuries with greater facility). You should not do Hanon, not because of injuries, but because it is waste of time. Not only it will not improve your technique, as you better use your time learning the repertory you love. There is a whole mythology in regards to the 4th finger, and it can all be traced down to Schumann. Rest assured, he did not loose the motions of his fourth finger by over-practising or by using some apparatus to stretch his fingers (neither theory will resist an examination of the facts). Most likely he lost his 4th finger by trying to do some surgery in himself in order to cut the tendons apart that link the 3rd and 4th finger. He was probably drunk, performing the surgery on himself, and cut the tendons too much, thereby loosing the motion of the 3rd and 4th finger. It did not help that at the time antiseptics were not known, so he most likely had a serious inflammation of the hand that persisted for several months. Not the kind of thing you should try at home.

6.   Injury prevention is dead simple: Listen to your body. If it feels difficult and awkward, change the way you are moving. If you feel fatigue, rest. If you feel pain, stop. And always change the way you are doing things after you get one of these warnings.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.