We have discussed this in another thread, and although there are muscles in the fingers, they're so small to be inconsequential. (I could do the same blinking Search I did previously and endup with a llink to an anatomical diagram which shows the muscles in the fingers (one muscle per finger, if remember correctly. But I'm too lazy.)
Yes, you are wrong.
The diagram showing muscles "in the fingers", had already been shown before and I had already pointed it out, and I was sort of tired of repeating myself so I let it pass.
If you look carefully at the digram, it does not show any muscles in the fingers (no, not even small ones to be inconsequential).
It looks like the fingers, but it is
actually the hand. Because the bones of the hands are a continuation of the bones of the finger (the falanges), it looks like the fingers.
Those small "inconsequential" muscles are the interossei and the lumbricales, and they are far from inconsequential, in fact they are fairly important for piano playing.
But they are not located in the fingers, they are located in the hand - as the diagram clearly shows. As I said, this confusion has been made before.
For a full accout of the importance of these small inconsequential muscles, I direct you again to this thread:
https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4145.msg38568.html#msg38568(beginner’s muscle development – anatomy of the hand forearm – true reasons for extremely slow practice).
What irks me, though, is that people then say, in effect, you don't make your fingers stronger.
Well, you do — sort of. Playing Hanon, Czerney, or pieces, you strengthen the muscles in the forearm that control the fingers, which, in effect, is strengthening the fingers. Over time, you feel the reults by your more authoritative spanking of the keys (when it's called for), and the improved control of your fingers, as well.
Every single one of you has experienced this - maybe a long time ago, but I see it at least once a week during to practice. You go to play a series of notes and chords, and ***! you're embarrassingly anemic at a certain place. So you repeat, repeat repeat, and voila! You become strong where previously, you were weak and awkward.
But then again, I could be all wet. Prove me wrong and I'll capitulate.
As for finger strength:
Playing the piano requires very little strength.
You already have all the strength you need from simply going through normal daily life activities. There is absolutely no need to do any finger strengthening (that is, forearm and hand) exercises, and even if you did, it would make no difference at all to piano playing. Arnold Schwazzenegger and a seven year old kid will play the piano equally well and powerfully. Most virtuoso pianists are weaklings (Kissin, Yundi Li), several of them were frail old men who could barely walk to the piano (Horowitz, Arrau), and yet at the piano were veritable powerhouses of sound.
Besides, muscle strength comes from tearing and rebuilding the muscle in a systematic way over several months (it takes average six months for muscle to grow). Which is why I can not go to the Gym looking like Yund Li, and come out at the end of a session looking like Arnold.
So, if finger strength was the main factor, you would not see results in less than six months to your piano playing. And yet you yourself say that after several repeats "you can feel your fingers stronger".
No. What you feel - and mistakenly verbalise it as strength - is
co-ordination. Strength does not make one less awkward. Co-ordination does.
Does it matter to make this sort of distinction?
Yes, it very much does, because then you will direct your efforts in the correct direction. Practising for strength requires a very different approach than practising for co-ordination. If you practise for strength, you may even get some co-ordination (which is really what you want), but it will be mostly a hit and miss affair. We do not have much time left for hit and miss.
I rest my case.
Best wishes,
Bernhard.
(I was going to add few winks here and there, but now I have been repressed by Inga´s comments)