I'm not sure what your question is.Relaxed-hands and touch-from-the-key-surface are always fruitful for practicing. The purpose of finger-tapping is for students to develop the feeling of what it's like to play with relaxed hands. Too often, when attempting to relax the hand, students unwittingly allow the natural structure of the hand to break or collapse. Some people's 5th finger naturally collapses at the last joint without it causing any significant barriers to their piano playing, e.g. my girlfriend and the famous Polish pianist, Rafael Blechatz. Not sure if I answered your question: can you be any more specific?
If the hand is relaxed, nice form, fingers on the keys, why not staccato instead of finger tapping? Won't one get more out of it since the feeling of relaxed hand is present and yet one uses ones small muscles to depress the key?
Sure! As I said before, finger tapping is more about developing the imagination rather than the actual playing apparatus.
If the hand is relaxed, nice form, fingers on the keys, why not staccato instead of finger tapping? Won't one get more out of it since the feeling of relaxed hand is present and yet one uses ones small muscles to depress the key? Finger tapping one does feel relaxed but the small muscles of the hand are not involved. I can understand it if one really has no idea about being relaxed when playing and just briefly doing it to get the idea. Other than that I don't get it. yes?Maurice
You're coming at this from too much of a disconnected logical point of view, yet the logical side is compromised by the fact that you're only the looking at the very surface of what actually goes on.Your argument is little different from saying why do x (where x is anything other than a technically perfect final execution of a piano piece) when you can just do a perfect execution of that piece instead. That's a obviously silly extreme, but it's no less silly really, to assume that if you intend to be relaxed, you'll necessarily be doing everything efficiently. Just because a single staccato note is not going to fall on its arse as obviously as launching right into a whole Chopin Etude unprepared, it doesn't mean that your action was perfect or even "relaxed" in any of the right places, simply because you intended it to be. Incidentally, what I learn most from tapping is that my fifth is usually TOO relaxed in certain places- and disconnected from the key. When tapping, I learn to bond it with the key better- which neither means stiffness nor a state that merely trying to be "relaxed" could ever lead me to.Look up Feldenkrais. There are things called "parasitic contractions"- where doing one thing automatically triggers totally needless muscle contractions elsewhere that are generally not perceived at all- which is exactly why merely trying to be "relaxed" does not magically separate them from the movement they become attached too. When you are moved passively by external forces, these are no longer triggered by the intention to move- as the whole idea is NOT to intend to move. The brain gets a new experience of the movement without the wasted efforts. Then it gets better at actively instigating the movement, with the bare minimum of contractions that actively contribute to it. Functional Integration lessons are based entirely on these issues, in Feldenkrais. A rational person (which I am myself) tends to be tempted to call bullshit on this sort of thing, but you really need to experience one of these yourself, to have any concept of how much freer the body can become- literally instantly after the lesson.On another level, it can actually be rather complex to rationalise the best way to move the finger. Scraping back in a scratching motion forces wrist tension to stop everything getting forced out of alignment by a reaction force. There's a particular path where the finger lengthens out just right to move the key without any indirect quality- and hence no reaction dragging the wrist forward and up. I've given exercises for feeling this path for yourself in my first core technique post of my blog, about basic finger movements. However, it's perhaps easiest of all to learn the simplest movement by experiencing it passively- rather than having to figure out how to make it happen. You then just learn the "feeling". I like to tackle these things from both angles (with a condensed rationale behind the path of a finger movement, as well as various means of going by "feel") but some stuff cannot be learned merely by deliberation. You have to create conditions in which to merely experience something in the right way- like when a teacher actively manipulates you into performing the right movement. You can be your own teacher with these kinds of exercises.
You're trying to be ultra-logical, but some of the things that are neglected from consideration make your assumptions actively illogical. You might as well argue that there's no benefit to a boxer to lift weights or to run in the park- because in the ring he only needs to block, punch and take punches.
You're right that movements of other fingers show these parasitic contractions, but that's only the obvious surface. Stopping the movement doesn't mean necessarily stopping the contractions. When you deliberately try to prevent them by mere willpower, there's a high chance that you do so not by releasing them but by tightening additional muscles. Only tapping gives the true experience of taking them out of the picture, by eliminating the neural signals that they are associated to. Human perception is woefully inaccurate and misses all kinds of needless efforts- that are not removed by intending to relax. These kinds of exercises train it to get better and expose what we otherwise miss- thus improving our ability to both perceive superfluous efforts and to genuinely relax them
I was afraid of this direction. There are many boxers who instead of jogging for cardio, do.... more boxing, bag hitting etc. We could go on back and forth for days if we go in this direction.I do not use force, exertion, to prevent other fingers from moving. I use awareness. Can't we just move on!!!Let's leave this thread alone and go to my other thread which is more relevent.Nick
PS. I'm not dismissing awareness by any means, but my favourite exercises reduce the need for awareness in the end product.
Look up Feldenkrais. There are things called "parasitic contractions"- where doing one thing automatically triggers totally needless muscle contractions elsewhere that are generally not perceived at all- which is exactly why merely trying to be "relaxed" does not magically separate them from the movement they become attached too. When you are moved passively by external forces, these are no longer triggered by the intention to move- as the whole idea is NOT to intend to move. The brain gets a new experience of the movement without the wasted efforts. Then it gets better at actively instigating the movement, with the bare minimum of contractions that actively contribute to it.
Why is stuff like this never, ever put into a physiological perspective? It's indecipherable when put in this way and depends on metaphor and colorful language instead of physical movements and joint positions (i.e. reality). Has the word involuntary been removed from the English language? Or the words joints and tendons? The only real part of what you wrote is the last sentence, the rest is pretentious goggledegook. Bending of the last metacarpal joint due to an adjacent finger bending their last metacarpal joint can not be removed or "fixed" completely. All you need to say is "use a lighter touch" not any of this nonsense. Anyone is free to test by holding their hand about 1/4 (or less) inch off a flat surface and pressing just their fourth finger onto the surface. As you hit a certain amount of force to the tip of the 4th finger against the surface, your last metacarpal joints will begin to bend in some of your other fingers. You will never and neither will anybody else get rid of this action at all possible values of downward force you apply from the last metacarpal joint of the 4th finger to the surface(barring genetic abnormalities in tendons or hand structure). You can get around it by attempting to hold your other fingers straight while this happens but that is not a light touch and it's not relaxed either. If anyone wants to contest this with a video they better have a way to measure the force being applied by the 4th finger for the viewer to see so they are not cheating.
I will always choose awareness. thanks for the input!Nick
A good musician will select key highlights to put awareness into, but they can't be aware of every finger action.
Awareness is a huge part of the learning process, but a pianist needs to be equally capable of being aware of details...Awareness is massive in the training process...
This is exactly why fast and slow should be regularly compared in small chunks. You can have all the awareness in the world, but if you don't have a movement that works fast, it's useless awareness.