Natural hand position, hand weight and over-pedaling.

[yooniefied]

I am on a quest to find the proper, natural hand position while playing the piano.

Due to flexible wrists, fingers, etc., I'm able to play the strangest fingerings and bend and contort my hand into such odd positions. I honestly don't pay much attention to fingering, my mind is somewhere else.

I've even once had a world-famous instructor/concert pianist tell me on our first lesson together, "When I close my eyes and listen, I honestly cannot give you any corrections, it's lovely, but when I open my eyes and watch your fingering..." He proceeded to pull his hair from his head and make a horrified face. "I don't even know how you do it," he laughed. "It looks unhuman!"
Ever since then, I've tried to devote time to learn each pieces' appropriate fingering. It's not really a big deal, since I am a quick learner.
But, whenever I sight read a piece, for instance, or when I am first learning the notes to a piece...I immediately fall back into my crazy habits. I can't seem to ever instinctively use the "correct" fingerings.
Especially when I accompany voice students, I am very selfconscious of my mutant hand positions. It all makes me feel very..dyslexic.

**Are there any pieces with tricky fingerings, not too simple or hard (maybe somewhere between grades 4-7) that would FORCE me to become comfortable? I really want to make it become second-nature. I can't imagine doing all of these funky positions repeatedly would be beneficial to the anatomy. Maybe a Scarlatti sonata?

I'd also like to work on my hand weight on the piano. I believe I've fell into a nasty habit of playing too lightly over the years, because I try to practice quietly.

**Are there any pieces (again, grades 4-7) that would help me with this? Again, maybe a Scarlatti sonata?

And last, but certainly not least, I would like to work on my pedaling technique. I overpedal, constantly. When using the pedal, I like how little pressure is required to make a sound on the keys, and how legato the piece seems with the slightest of effort.

Should I just force myself to play pieces without any pedal? Belt my foot to the bench? 


Thanks in advance for any advice.

[counterpoint]

Your massive pedal use may be the consequence of your strange fingerings. If you don't have an adequate fingering, you could not play legato without pedal in many cases. So using a better fingering will also improve your problem with over-pedalling.