Horowitz - 5th finger as guide

[green]

https://www.sfinstituteofmusic.org/horowitz_interview.pdf

I was looking for a quote by Horowitz in which he says that he is only interested "in the release of the note, not the attack." Only found the above link and it isn't mentioned, except in relation to playing legato/legatissimo. Has anyone heard this before?

He does mention about the 5th finger being the guide, I never quite know what he means. He says it is his guide in scales and arpeggios,  but the 5th finger only plays once in any scale or arpeggio...Can someone explain?

[birba]

For me, in fast passages, the release is important because it prepares you for the next "attack".  Horowitz was a phenomenon.  Sometimes he spoke enigmatically - in riddles, so to speak.

[j_menz]

There is a reference to the quote you are looking for in an article on meeting Horowitz by the pianist Geoffrey Douglas Madge:

What has always intrigued me is the manner in which Horowitz could, almost by illusion - either by the use of the pedals, accentuations or using the acoustics of the hall and the instrument - make his legato sound as if it were created by non-legato, portato attacks, which in fact was according to Busoni, the basis of piano playing. (Busoni considered all legato to be an acoustic illusion.) With Horowitz it is what happens between the notes that is more important than the commencement of each tone. He once said that he was more concerned by how the notes came up than by how they went down. This, in combination with the dynamic tensions created by his use of the pedals, gives a tremendous potential for colour and contrast within passages in which the pedal was released from duty.

It is not clear whether he heard Horowitz say it or whether he is remembering it from some other source.

I've attached the full article as a pdf. It's freely available from Madge's website in doc format.
https://www.geoffreymadge.com/

[green]

excellent yes thats it. Thanks so much!

Glenn Gould's finger tapping, which he learned from Guerrero, also places as much emphasis on the release of keys, or the 'finish', as it does the attack.

https://www.musicandhealth.co.uk/articles/tapping.html

[keypeg]

https://www.sfinstituteofmusic.org/horowitz_interview.pdf

He does mention about the 5th finger being the guide, I never quite know what he means.

I read the article over a few times.  He isn't thinking mechanically so if you're trying to find a mechanical explanation I don't think you'll find it.  He talks about how you want to hear the music, and that the hands will then follow.  He talks about the fifth finger as having an "extraordinary sensitivity", and that whatever it is that this finger feels (in the music? in the keys? in the music and keys?) will cause the other fingers to follow suit.  That's as much as I can follow it.

Oddly enough pondering this passage helped me.  I was playing a piece where I move down to a low note, play it with my fifth finger, then move up an octave and again play with my fifth and then another note.  I was having a hard time with that.   When I pondered Horowitz words of sensitivity in that finger, like it was the brains of it all, I suddenly played accurately.  If I oriented with any particular finger, I wonder if it's usually the thumb?  Could there be something to this?

[birba]

Glenn Gould's finger tapping, which he learned from Guerrero, also places as much emphasis on the release of keys, or the 'finish', as it does the attack.

https://www.musicandhealth.co.uk/articles/tapping.html

This sounds a lot like vitale's neopolitan school.  The end result, i mean.

[green]

I like what he says about how the 'strength' of the fingers comes from hearing and singing the line, when that is present the fingers follow suit with the correct structural integrity.

Yes I think your right that it is usually the thumb which is given the central role of 'coordinator', it is the pivot around which wrist motion is organized - the stroking circular motions of the wrist/hand most often start from the thumb.

Students with flying fingers (a form of co-contraction) I sometimes will suggest students to keep the pinky and thumb quiet, on the keys, and the other fingers will follow suit.

[timothy42b]

If you watch Michala Petri
https://www.michalapetri.com/

you'll note she keeps her left hand finger 5 fixed on the instrument at all times.  (That finger is the only one that does not normally cover a hole.)

This is a bit controversial and rarely if ever taught.  On the other hand, she has been acknowledged as the world's premier recorder player for decades.  I've seen her in person several times, and though expensive it was always worth it. 

So I've started playing that way, and I think it stabilizes and guides the left hand, but you do have to be wary of creating tension. 

[keypeg]

If you watch Michala Petri
https://www.michalapetri.com/

you'll note she keeps her left hand finger 5 fixed on the instrument at all times.  (That finger is the only one that does not normally cover a hole.)

This is a bit controversial and rarely if ever taught.  On the other hand, she has been acknowledged as the world's premier recorder player for decades.  I've seen her in person several times, and though expensive it was always worth it. 

So I've started playing that way, and I think it stabilizes and guides the left hand, but you do have to be wary of creating tension. 

I could only find sound clips there.  Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.  Here's a clip of her playing that I found. 

She seems to be playing a tenor recorder.  Is that what you play?  (Size makes a difference).  I just tried it on my tenor.  It seems to work if you distribute things along the arm - let the wrist take up some of the motions (I tried a trill with the ring finger).

But I don't think this applies at all to what Horowitz is saying.  He is feeling the sound in the little finger, and that finger, being sensitive, leads the way for the other fingers in that musical sensation.  It is an active, alive, almost thinking finger, if I put myself in that mindset.  Michala Petri's finger isn't musically active at all.  It stabilizes the hand so that I guess the other fingers can easily find the holes from a predictable and close position.  We also don't create expression with our fingers on the recorder as we do on the piano: that part is done through breath.  So is it the same thing?  Like, do you think it creates a sense of "connection to the instrument"? (a possibility)

[iansinclair]

I am mildly fascinated by this thread... and am reminded of my grandmother, who was every inch a lady, and watching her holding a cup of tea, fifth finger elegantly extended...

More to the point, I thought about the three pieces I am currently working up to concert level: Schubert Op. 90 #s 1 and 3, and Chopin Nocturne Op. 15 #3.  In all three of these -- perhaps most notably Op. 90 #3 -- the singing line is often in the top of the right hand.  And the observation which I made was that to the extent possible consistent with legato etc. was that I was using the 5th finger almost exclusively for that singing line.

Perhaps this is due to the fact that almost all my musical training was on the organ, which uses a very different hand technique to the piano (my organ teacher loved it -- she didn't have to unlearn my piano technique, since I didn't have one!) and so I don't know any better than to really use that finger...

For what it's worth.

[timothy42b]

Like, do you think it creates a sense of "connection to the instrument"? (a possibility)

I really don't know what it does.  It struck me as possibly being similar.  (I'm also not sure what Horowitz means by it).

On the surface, anchoring the little finger means you've firmly established the geography for the purpose of putting the other fingers in the right place, or for mechanical stability.  (guitar players sometimes anchor the little finger of the strumming or picking hand) 

But it's possible that the little finger is also sensing or controlling the instrument more directly, rather than just assisting the "working" fingers.   I dunno, I'm speculating.  But I also take brass lessons from a Reinhardt trained teacher.  As you may know, Reinhardt analyzed the very fine changes of angle and pressure of the mouthpiece in different tessituras, and that control and sensing is done by the support hand rather than the fingering or playing hand.  That was one of the struggles for me a couple years ago when a rotator cuff injury forced me to convert to left handed playing. 

I prefer the smaller recorders.  I have a tenor, and play a bit of alto because people I play with like it.  Given the choice I play 'nino, and I actually own a garklein, though I've so far refrained from performing on it.   If only there were more time in the day! 

[nyiregyhazi]

I read the article over a few times.  He isn't thinking mechanically so if you're trying to find a mechanical explanation I don't think you'll find it.

Are you sure? Consider how he cocks his 5th so often while playing. I recently discovered that many of my problems are about a habit of drooping my 5th knuckle. It's what Alan Fraser calls "inversion", but it's often only my 5th that does it in a bad way still. This can spoil the performance of the other fingers, even when they form a decent enough arch. I have to very consiously avoid it to do a good trill between 1 and 3. If my 5th knuckle droops, the fingers can't perform a trill with anything like the same intensity, in the run up to the coda of Chopin's 2nd Ballade. I have to cock my 5th like Horowitz to get a really burning intensity, or it points out and destabilises.

I believe Horowitz cocked his 5th to stop this unwanted inversion from creeping in. There are good and bad ways to do it, but Horowitz always curls it into the position where the knuckle is pushed OUT and not into the position where it droops IN (which you see from many competition players who are pretty solid but who rarely have a big effortless sound). This is the key difference. The fifth can achieve this either by pointing down or by cocking like Horowitz, but whatever it takes to avoid allowing the 5th finger knuckle to droop while the other fingers are playing is proving vital to my technique.

In short, the thumb and 5th finger sides of the hand are intrinsically linked. Go wrong one side and the performance of other side gets screwed up too. Get both sides of the hand working well together and the rest of the hand will sort itself out.

[keypeg]

Are you sure?.

I was talking only about what the article says.  Not what he might actually do. (Clarifying).

[nyiregyhazi]

I was talking only about what the article says.  Not what he might actually do. (Clarifying).

The article does not reference that quote at all and is altogether separate. I recall hearing Horowitz say the thing about the 5th in something else. As I recall, it was a short article that was specifically about technique, from Horowitz's earliest years (before he became too "cool" to admit to consideration of pianistic mechanics, as well as musical issues).

Edit- sorry, my mistake, I was looking at the other one.

[nyiregyhazi]

I disagree entirely with your analysis though, I must say. When speaking of the fifth finger in scales, there's no way that he's using a coded euphemism for the fact that you judge things from the melodic part. It seems abundantly clear that he's talking about something specifically physical in relation to his 5th finger- even if he fails to quantify exactly what he means about it. He may not have been explicit about it himself, but I believe that he's alluding to things I speak of in relation to the cocked 5th finger- and how avoiding the instinct to allow that knuckle to invert itself has a significant physical bearing on how all of the other fingers function. Regardless of the vaguery in his language, there's no logical way in which I could reasonably interpret his words as referring to something purely musical and not at all physical. The choice of words wouldn't make any sense at all in that light.

[keypeg]

I didn't analyze anything.  I paraphrased what that passage says.

[birba]

I seem to remember him always curling his 5th finger when not in use.  Whatever significance that may have, I don't know...

[keypeg]

Timothy43b - by coincidence I was watching a documentary about Victor Borge and came upon a skit with Michala Petri that you might enjoy!     Here she is playing a descant recorder, and sure enough, that little finger is resting on the side of her instrument.  It makes more and more sense to me.  Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHL3yLLFdYo

[nyiregyhazi]

I didn't analyze anything.  I paraphrased what that passage says.

Yes, a subjective paraphrase. Your interpretation makes no sense to me. Horowitz is clearly not saying that scales depend on the musical intensity of the fifth finger (which would play the low note of left hand scales and the high note of right hand ones, or frequently not even that in many keys). It's abundantly evident that he is referring to a specific mechanical issue in the pianistic mechanism, whether he attempts detailed mechanical analysis or not. I think you're making the mistaken assumption that because he talks so much about music in the same paragraphs, this must be interpreted in the same light. I don't think his comment on the 5th relates to anything but an issue of technical mechanics though and his words don't make any logical sense unless viewed that way. He's talking about a physical issue of how that finger contributes to technique in general, for certain- or his reference to scales would make no sense

[nyiregyhazi]

I seem to remember him always curling his 5th finger when not in use.  Whatever significance that may have, I don't know...

It stabilises all of the rest of the hand and prevents any possible urge to invert the fifth knuckle (if done in a particular way). There are good and bad ways to do it, but I find it highly beneficial to deliberately do the same in scale practise, some of the time.