Need some advice

[plasticstudent]

Hello, im a 20 year old and just started learning the piano a few months ago. i've been having problems preventing my middle,fourth and last finger playing notes smoothly,unable to keep them moving individually well..as if they were sort of muscle-binded together to slight extent. just wondering if there are any ways to overcome this or is this just my hand's anatomical problem or sth. appreciate help, thanks

[mezzo piano]

I had that problem also. I practiced scales, patterns, arpeggios using only those fingers. Make up some drills and repeat them endlessly until you develop coordination and strength. Be hard on yourself and do the drills right.

I also had a finger exerciser made for guitar players that helped.

[nanabush]

Try doing 3-4-5-4-3-4-5-4-3-4-5-4-3-4-5-4-3, with a metronome; increase it a notch every few days or so.  It's killer, but it's a really simple exercise that works the fingers.

Trills help too:  exercises such as 1-2-1-2  3-2-3-2  3-4-3-4  5-4-5-4  3-4-3-4  3-2-3-2  2-1-2-1

And 1-5-1-5-2-5-2-5-3-5-3-5-4-5-4-5, etc.

Be creative; make up some little patterns that involve those fingers, and you'll get very comfortable with them.

You can also kill yourself over:  13 - 24 - 35 - 24 - 13   (13 being played together, then 24 together, then 35, so groups of two notes, etc) . I give the young students this to puzzle over for a week or too for fun.  It's really amazing when they come back in a few lessons and they are pretty damn good at it 


Another one that I do, because I'm coming across more music that used those fingers extensively, is this:

35 - 4 - 35 - 4 (35 played together, then 4, same as above example)

34 - 5 - 34 - 5

54 - 3 - 54 - 3

All of these are just random things I've come up with, and I'm sure someone somewhere else has done something similar at one point in time .  Repetition is good; don't avoid a 5th finger and replace it with your second finger; encourage yourself to use the outer fingers - it's the best way to make them as comfortable as your index fingers.


Also, if you don't already, learn to type with all of your fingers.  Typing out a super long sentence with your fingers in the right spots is like playing a 40 or 50 note passage on the piano lol.

[ramseytheii]

Remember that fingers are different lengths and builds.  If you try and play "with fingers" alone you will be tense and uncomfortable.  You have to involve movements of the elbow, and in fact the whole arm, in order to accomodate the hand in various positions on the piano.

That sounds general but it is intended to be.  This can't be dictated; you have to play piano imagining your arm is moving in small circles as it plays.  In other words be free on the keyboard.
You may find this is not a problem with individual fingers, but with the lack of connection with the whole body's mechanism.

Walter Ramsey

[Bob]

Working on using them.  It takes awhile for the body to adjust too.  It could be a little work each day over a few years, and then you have what you want for finger control.

Two of the muscles, I think for the fourth and fifth fingers, are intertwined.  Something like that.  So when you move one, the other will probably move. More difficult to use them independently because of that.