Finger school/weight school and articulation

[etcetra]

Hi, this is something I recently noticed i wonder if others have similar problems.  I don't want to go too much into detail about my background, by I started piano with a piano teacher who more or less taught the arm weight school), when i started college i had this teacher who taught in finger strength school, and it nearly crippled my hand.  Right now I am recovering from major tendinitis problem.  I was fortunate enough to talk to several piano teachers and they showed me how to use my fingers in my playing without having all that stress.

I guess what i am noticing is that when I use too much of my weight, i lose control of the individual notes.  It seems like with the arm weight i can get a lot of speed very effortlessly but at the cost of losing control. The playing would be very uneven and it notes tend to rush.  I think a lot of it has to do with how each of my finger is responding to the weight, some fingers seem to "hold" my weighter better than others

It seems like when I use more of the "finger appraoch, I can play a lot more evenly with very good articulation, but I realize that I am more tense when i do so.  And I don't get the same kind of speed.  As far as I know, the ideal would be to use the arm weight but have enough control over my fingers to play evenly.. it doesnt mean more strength just more control. 

I was wondering if anybody have enough knowledge of both who can advise on this. I know at one point I resented use of finger approach so much that i tried to play the piano with just arm weight alone, which was a problem in itself.
 
Also, this is more of a jazz question, but from what I am noticing, most jazz pianists seem to play more with their fingers than arms.. I know Bill Evans plays with flat hand.. and he is not the most percussive/swinging piano player, whereas the more "swinging" pianists like Oscar Peterson or Wynton Kelly tend to play more with their fingers.. i know my assessment may be totally off but what do you guys think?

[hyrst]

Hi,
I have found the same thing - there needs to be a combination between arm weight and finger action.  For a long time I resisted the old school of picking up the fingers because I found it painful (made worse by arthritis) - but never had the eveness of tone or rhythm.  I found that a slight raise in the wrists, always above the top of the hand particuarly in scale type sections, gave enough structure to the hand that it is possible to lift the fingers without straining them.  From that position, weight can be used for volume and voicing.  I think there are differences in opinion because hand shapes vary so much - rather than being one correct way to play, we need to find the basis of what works individually and then what adjustments to make for various styles of music. 

[dan101]

These type of technical questions are always challenging. I was taught to lift the fingers slightly in scale passages (maybe a quarter of an inch). In fact, I barely lift them at all, the result being a singing rather than percussive attack.

Having said that, I do lift them more when practicing finger power. In performance, I take a the technique mentioned in paragraph one.

As for slower chords and cantabile passages, I do sink into them.

Best of luck. I'm sure you'll find your way.

[etcetra]

hyrst & dan 101

Thanks for your inputs, using a little bit of the fingers have been a big revelation for me as far as my playing is concerned, i guess when it comes to articulation, (especially swing feel), it just made more sense to use more fingers.  Like you guys said, the arm weight is great for more cantible playing but it really doesn't give you the same kind of rhythmic drive necessary to play a swing 8th note.

It always scared me when teachers tell people that they have weak fingers and tell them to strengthen then.. I can see how buckling fingertips can be a problem but it seems like the problem is not so much on strength but coordination.. I guess the way I am working on it right now.. I am kind of imagining my fingers 'directing' the weight to a specific finger.. thats the image i have in my head i guess.

[m]

Dear Etcetra,

My advice--do yourself a favor and forget things like finger or weight school. As you can see, so far it did not help you much, leaving with your problems.
Two things count:
1) Playing piano you should feel absolute physical comfort.
2) You should think about how to make music, rather than how to use your weight.

To start you new life:
1) Sit next to your piano comfortably, hands hanging down, feel there is no any ounce of any muscular stress ANYWHERE in your body.
2) Gently shake both your hands just to double check there is no ANY stress there.
3) Very slowly rase your hand to the keyboard, still maintaining absolute comfort and watching NO ONE MUSCLE gets tense.
4) Now your fingers resting on the keys--nothing should have changed in comparison to the "down" position. Make this motion a few times--nothing can be more important than preparing your hand.
5) From the surface of the key activate you finger. Immediately, after the finger reaches key bed, take any residual pressure leaving and your finger should feel like a piece of rope.
6) Remember that the activating the key and relaxation occure in the same motion--it is like a dart piercing the cork--once it stops, any pressure stops, as well.
7) Do everything slowly (exept activating the key), concentrating on immediate relaxation. In a week or so, slightly increase the tempo. Maintain the same feeling of ABSOLUTE and UTMOST relaxation after each note you take. The more you do, the more your body and mind get used to that feeling of ease.
Remember that the physical process of playing piano is 95% of resting (which BTW, leaves quite a bit of room for your internal musical thinking.)

If you need any aditional help please PM me with your location. I travel in US quite a bit, so if our ways ever cross I will be more than happy to show you some things. 

Best, M

[hyrst]

I find the metrinime great in working on the rhythmic pulse through the fingers.  It allows me to stop worrying about how I am moving fingers and to work towards a crisper feel.  If my hand is well positioned, the accuracy and lift develop if I am listening / feeling for that crispness.  I think I initially used something like you described - and always looking for the moments of 'total' hand relaxation, even for a fraction of a second.

It always scared me when teachers tell people that they have weak fingers and tell them to strengthen then.. I can see how buckling fingertips can be a problem but it seems like the problem is not so much on strength but coordination..

The buckling finger tips seem to come from using mostly the muscles in the hand where the fingers appear to join the hand, combined with wrists too low.  I have come across a student who I would consider had poor muscle tone and coordination.  It has taken her 18 months to be able to get much sound from the keys or to create a strike of the key. 

[etcetra]

hyrst,

I guess the problem i am having is that I have no problem playing in time when I am using the metronome, I hardly get off even if I set the metronome to click on every 4th beat(its a typical thing to do in jazz) But as soon as i turn the metronome off, playing become really uneven, even if i am paying attention to it.  What amazed me was how even i was playing w/o meterome with more 'fingers' but i am still not convinced if its the right way to go.


Marik,

thanks for your detailed response, I live in Asia right now and from my experience it seems like almost every teacher i met are from the finger/arm weight school.. and in asia the finger school seems predominant.  A lot of them would even go far as to say that pain is necessary part of playing.

Also i guess a lot of the problem i am having comes unintentionally and it's only discovered after listening to myself on a recording.  Often times what I hear when i am playing and what is happening after listening to the recording is completely different.  I would find out how uneven i am playing only after I listen to the recording.  This has been a huge source frustration for me .

Its hard to just focus on music when you feel like you can't trust your ears when you are playing.. now i do notice a lot of the problem seems to be tension/nerve is, like the discussion we had earlier, I am somehow "afraid" to play the piano, and I am not sure how to work with that problem.. i remember working on simple rhythmic "comping" patters, and I noticed how much i am rushing..

its almost felt as if I can't help but rush  because I can't relax, or trust myself enough to put notes where it belongs.  I do notice it even when i am playing classical pieces.. I often find myself in a situation where the tempo has sped up so much that it was impossible to play what i was playing at that point. i am really not sure what kind of adjustment is necessary at this point..

Without sound too much like someone else, i have tried everything, and most teachers i met are puzzled about my problem and none of them seem to have an answer for it, most of my teachers i met said that they don't see anything particularly wrong about the way i am playing the piano.

[hyrst]

Hi Etcetra,
I have been thinking a lot about what you are going through - I can relate to the frustration. I have also read through your posts in the 'help, not progressing' thread.  It seemed better to write here because this thread is not yet cluttered.
. 
You queried a motor learning disability.  My 15 year old son has such a disability.  He finds normal everyday skills, like making a sandwich, cleaning teeth, etc difficult to learn and coordinate.  The result of the disability is to make the learning of new movement patterns slow and difficult.  However, once a particular action has been rehearsed enough you would not know he was any different to anyone else. 

You asked if anyone could relate to having to start all over again after an injury.  I developed rheumatoid arthritis and in a period of about 18 months almost lost use of my hands due to pain.  I started from virtually scratch about 3 years ago (I didn't lose any reading or theory knowledge, of course, so it isn't the same as being a beginner).  As a young adult I could play a very high standard.  I worked hard to get my fingers moving again and managed to pass a grade 8 exam 2 years ago (I entered the exam to have something to work towards).  I can finally play again at the level of several of Liszt's etudes.  I still don't play fluently and evenly.  I have had pain and fear to deal with - like you.  It has been a frustrating road, often I have come to the point of wanting to quit because I feel like I am getting nowhere.  At these times I feel miserable for a day or so, but then  remember what I have achieved in 3 years. 

The reality is we know where we want to be because we have an understanding of the music.  The thing we must not forget is that we are on a journey, getting closer and closer to the point we want to be, except that point will probably change as we get closer to it because we are always wanting to improve.  We need to rest for moments with some satisfaction, but it feels stagnant if we don't keep developing and creating new goals. 

About hearing yourself on recordings and being disappointed, perhaps now is not a good time to be using that often helpful tool.  I find my playing is dysfluent on recordings - and I use that to punish myself mentally because I desperately want to hear a nice sound and I don't.  That simply feeds the tension and performance anxiety.  You have to first be able to distance from and objectify the results of the recording before being able to use it constructively.  Don't be hard on yourself - give yourself a kindness.

I have found 2 things are helping me improve fluency and even tone.  (I can now play semiquavers in 160 beats).  Once I have the finger action and hand position, I only think directly about fingers every now and then during a practice.  It seems that evenness would come from treating the fingers as a unity within the rhythm - does that make sense?  I focus on the pulse coming from under my wrists rather than from my fingers.  This also counteracts the stiffness or stillness in the wrists.  I feel my wrists pulsing up and down, although it is not necessarily visible that I am moving my wrists up and down.  The fingers help carry out the fine aspects of articulation and clarity - like the lips when speaking - but the source of movement is higher up - like in the diaphragm and throat when talking. 

Another thing that has helped is moving my attention further away from the note/s that I am playing to the ones I am goign towards.  I have been so worried about getting the right movements on the note I am playing that it interrupts the movement forward - like driving in a fog instead of being able to see up the road.


I hope  some of this is encouraging.  You haven't come to the end of your journey yet - but you have been able to look back far enough to see you are well and truly on your way.   

[m]

Also i guess a lot of the problem i am having comes unintentionally and it's only discovered after listening to myself on a recording.  Often times what I hear when i am playing and what is happening after listening to the recording is completely different.  I would find out how uneven i am playing only after I listen to the recording.  This has been a huge source frustration for me .

Well... yeah, same here. That's why I prefer not to listen to my own recordings, or at least to listen to them much later, when I have already well forgotten what I heard during playing...

From what I hear, many even greatest artists had the same problem... so relax, you are not alone.

[etcetra]

Thanks both of you guys for the help, I guess, this has been a issue for me for such a long time, and well, having these inputs definitely helps me to find different approach to what i am doing. 

I guess I got pretty obsessed about listening to my recording recently because I was so "off" in my playing that i had to quit playing.  When i came back I had a lot of pressure to perform and make a living, I played a lot of gigs.. alot of them were horrible, I think the good musicians found it very difficult to play with me because I was "off" I would play so out of rhythm that it was hard for anyone to play with me.  It's understandable since it was only 2 months after my surgery.. and i didnt play for an year after that.  It's a lot better now that it was last year, but the progress has been slow

I guess what i am finding is that I sacrifice a lot of my tone for relaxation.  when I play with relaxed hands the sound i get out of the piano is very thin and even, and i can only achieve a descent sound/articulation  through tension.   It seems like I have been struggling with the same "wall" since college.. 

I remember right before I started college, my piano first teacher wanted me to start working on Bach's Italian Concerto, and I am still having trouble playing that piece or any piece in that diffiuclty.  I can't begin to imagine how much damage was done in my early college days..

It wasnt just the lessons, i remember being in jazz combos', they had this really crappy upright, the band director wanted me to play that thing and match the sound of the rest of the band.  He told me that it was good for me and musicians back then used to do that.  Looking back it was such a ridiculous idea, since the drummer and trumpet player played really loud and I cant imagine how an upright piano could match a sound of a drumset.. and i realized that whenever you go to a jazz club, the piano is always miced, noone in the real world was playing an acoustic piano without any form of amplification.
 
I remember i was constantly told to play louder and I was assinged a lot of finger strength exercise, and well i think that was how I started having major tension problems.  It wasn't only after I studied with a different teacher that i realize how important to develop your playing before you can play loud.

Anyways i didn't mean to tell my life's story about the piano but i took me a long time , and i am still adjusting from all those things that happened 8 yrs ago.  At least I can say that I am starting to build a healthier way of playing.. in some ways i am glad to know it doesnt have to be like what it used to be, its just matter of  finding the right feelings on my hands..

I guess a big part of what keeps me going is what I accumilated... no so much in technique by in other areas of music.  My compositions are very well received by my friends, my teachers, and even some of the musicians that I look up to,  pretty much everyone i meet tells me how far i can go with the music "if i had chops".. looking back it was probably not the best advice, because it gave me a pressure to overreach myself as far as technical progress is concerned. 

I know I've worked out so many things for jazz, conceptually, and a lot of stuff are in my hands, i just don't have the ability to let any of that come out.  I know a lot of musicians including john Coltrane go through that phase where they need to sort out everything they know..

anyways I didn't mean to write a long long post, so thanks for reading in advance.  I will work on the stuff you guys suggested.