How do you...?

[ongaku_oniko]

Hi, I have a few questions regarding how to play.

1. How do you loosen up your hands?

For me, especially when I play fast and when there are large leaps and/or octaves, my hands get really tense and tired. This is especially true for my right hand.

2. with jumps like in pathetique, and black keys etude (the going up part in the beginning), do you use your fingers or your wrist/arm?

When I play those parts, my fingers become tense as a rock. So to press down on the keys, I have to make huge movements with my wrist.

3. This is really hard to explain.

You know how there are three sections to your fingers? And when you bend your fingers it should usually look like this:
    __   
   |
   \

like, the first bend bends, then the second bend bends.

But when I play and reach far, or play anything with my pinky, it goes like this:

 __ __
/

So only the last bend bends. Does that make sense? But because of this, I can't put ANY power into my playing, especially in my pinky, at all. And I also can't play a trill with my pinky because it is really stff when the finger is in that position since the first bend of the finger is essentially broken. Any way to fix this? It's not like there's something wrong with my fingers, it's just that it has no power, I think. I can bend it normally when I'm not on  piano.

[bleicher]

First of all, for the general tension, I can recommend Alexander Technique. Many musicians have Alexander lessons as they help you to learn how not to tense up your body. There are other things that will help to release tension, such as yoga or pilates.

The things you describe about your hand position and finger tension are things a good teacher should address. I started with my current teacher just under a year ago and she started off giving me extremely simple exercises to play while concentrating on keeping my hand and wrist free, not tensing up my arm or shoulder, not tensing the fingers I'm not using, and keeping a good hand position. I started off with just single notes, then very simple exercises to work on moving my fingers faster and strengthening them.

I can't really describe several months of lessons in a post, so my advice would be to find a teacher who will be able to concentrate on technique and on preventing tension building up. But I do recommend Alexander Technique, too.

[jimbo320]

As far as getting your fingers/hand to loosen up, I run warm water on my hand before playing and even sometimes rub them with Ben-Gay or Icy Hot.
Count your knuckles from the finger nail. The one nearest to a finger nail is knuckle #1. Use your #3 knuckle as the pivot point keeping your fingers curved like holding an imaginary ball.
Play the black keys by straightening the needed finger. Also stretching the pinkie requires this straight attack too.
To build up agility in your 4th and 5th fingers takes a simple exercise. The reason that the 4th and 5th fingers are the least agile is that they're the least used. So just use them instead of your 2nd finger when pushing buttons or pointing.
This unorthodox method sounds silly but it works...

Jimbo
 

[bleicher]

Jimbo - that's such a good idea about 4th and 5th fingers. From now on I shall be pressing buttons with 5 instead of 2!

[keyboardclass]

You could try my trill exercise quite gently:

Here's the notes:

[ongaku_oniko]

Thanks for the advice guys.

@bleicher:

I don't blame my teacher. She's a great teacher. It's just that I wasn't a good student. I never really listened to her. I never practised, and I was basically sightreading my pieces during my lessons. It's not like she didn't say anything, it's just that I never listened so she can't go into the deeper issues.


@jimbo:

At least I know the basics of piano playing. I'm not talking about how my hand should be, I'm talking about how it is, and how to change it. When I stretch out my pinky, by default it goes into that weird position. I can't press down my pinky like holding a ball. I don't have enough strength in my pinky to do that. I'm asking for a way to fix this. Sorry if I sounded rude, don't really know how else to explain it. I definitely appreciate your help though.

[bleicher]

It's probably made you into a better sight reader than me though!

Can you work out how to move your finger from the knuckle nearest the hand and keeping the others bent at all? Or do you just not find it possible to do it without the others collapsing? If you can do it even a little bit then you can start to build up very slowly just from single notes, even if you don't have the strength at first for the note to make a sound. This is what my teacher gave me to do when I started with her, although I couldn't have done it on my own from instructions without her supervision.

[jimbo320]

No apology necessary. Didn't sound rude at all. We just have different perspectives. I understand what you're saying and I know if you do the agility exercises that you'll gain the 5th finger ability needed.
That's what you need to happen. Don't change the natural bend of your 5th finger. Make your 5th finger stronger. The body only works a certain way....

Jimbo