Piano Forum

You are welcome.

You are also impatient.

Now bear with me for a moment, so you understand the problem – otherwise, how can you appreciate the solution?

Hold your hand in front of you, fingers outstretched. Let us concentrate on the index finger for a moment. And let us do the right hand only.

There are two – very different – main movements you can do: first, you can bend your index finger at the nail joint towards the palm of your hand. This is an easy, effortless and very very fast movement. Do it repeatedly and experience how fast this movement is. Remember that.

Now for the second movement. This time, instead of bending the index finger towards your palm, bend it sideways (as in signaling “no”). Compared to the first movement, this is quite a difficult movement, and much much slower.

We will ignore other movements for now (e.g. rotating the finger on the knuckle joint) as they are unnecessary for what follows.

The above applies equally to fingers 3 – 4 and 5. Go ahead and try.

When playing the piano with fingers 2 –3 –4 –5 we naturally use the fast, easy (comparatively speaking) up and down movement I first described. We try (if we aim at good technique) to avoid the sideways movement. So it is very important for beginners, not to “reach for the keys” with the fingers since this would engage the sideways movement. Instead we use the arm to bring the fingers into position.

When we get to the thumb however, all this changes. Because the thumb opposes the other fingers, the easy movement actually moves the thumb sideways (under and out of the hand), while the sideways movement is the one that is required to actually press the keys. So ideally, one should press the keys by rotating the forearm, that is, the thumb is brought up and down the keys not by use of thumb muscles (which incidentally are not located in the thumb – there are no muscles in the fingers), but by rotating the forearm and bringing the whole of the hand up and down.

This is the main reason why thumb under for fast scales is a definite no-no: not only you must use the bad movement (sideways), as you must use this movement while the thumb is under the hand, which means that you have two sets of muscles fighting each other: the ones that bring the thumb under and the one that press the thumb on the key. There is no way you make this movement fast enough or smoothly enough, no matter how hard or how much you practise.

This of course applies to the right hand going up the keyboard.

Now we have the necessary background to answer your question: What about the right hand going down?

First you must realize that all the problems above simply do not exist when the right hand goes down, because when it is time for the thumb to play, it is not under the hand, nor does it need to be brought under the hand. Just press the key using rotation.

So, position your right hand on F(1) – G (2) – A(3) – B(4) – C(5). As you start playing the descending scale [C(5) – B (4) – A (3) – G(2)], when the time comes to play F with the thumb, there is no problem, because the thumb is already there. You do not need to bring it neither over nor under the hand.

What you need to do is to bring the 3rd finger over the thumb in order to play the E. This is a completely different problem than the thumb problems discussed above, and it requires a different solution. In fact the problems are not even related.

This is also the bit that most people do wrong. Most people at this point will use a motion of the hand to bring the third finger over the thumb and press the E with the third finger as natural continuation of that motion. They are basically reaching for the E with the third finger.

So, pay a lot of attention now, because I don´t know how much sense one can make of a written account of these movements. It is best if someone who knows shows you this stuff.

Once you play the F with the thumb, rotate the forearm using the thumb as pivot. Do this movement slowly and exaggerated. You want to turn the thumb on the key until the nail is touching the key and the thumb is “upside down”, so to speak, nail on the key, pad facing the ceiling. Such extreme rotation, will bring the third finger right over the E key.

Now, resist the temptation to keep going and pressing the E key. Instead, with your third finger in the air, hanging right above the E key, rotate the forearm back, in the opposite direction. When you do that, the thumb will come from under the hand at the same time that the 3rd finger presses the E. It isa beautiful movement, very precise, very firm and will guarantee perfect, pearly descending scales. The passing of the fourth finger is accomplished similarly.

Experiment with this movement, and once you are satisfied you got it, gather speed not by moving faster, but by making the individual motions (rotations) as small as possible. In fact, at full speed, it will be impossible to know that you are moving in this particular way (the main reason why watching even slow motion videos of people who have mastered this technique is not going to be helpful).

I hope you can decipher the motion from the description above. 

Best wishes,
Bernhard.