Clunky right hand

[jamesaknight]

Several pieces I am playing at the moment (roughly Grade 6 standard) I am having the same issue - namely that the melody in the right hand is too weak when using fingers 4+5 and fingers 1,2 & 3 which are providing harmonies/accompaniment are consistently too loud and clunky - particularly my thumb.

One obvious example would be the Moonlight Sonata, where I'm struggling to balance the right hand correctly - but I'm getting the same issue all the time in Mozart Sonatas, Chopin - you name it.

Anyone got any tips or suggested exercises on how I can strengthen fingers 4+5 and get a much more delicate action with my thumb?

[michael_c]

So many pianists have thought like this: my 4th and 5th fingers sound weaker than the others, therefore I must strengthen them. It seems logical enough, but it's based on a false idea: that you only play the piano with your finger muscles. You play the piano by coordinating hand and arm motions. Here's a good quote that explains this, from Healthy Hands:

It's not a question of building or developing strength. The thing is, you have the requisite strength already. What equalizes all the fingers, (and makes them feel equally strong) is the fact that the arm participates with each finger equally. You have the weight of the hand and forearm to help each finger overcome the resistance of the keys. Since it's the same forearm/hand behind each finger, each finger feels equally strong. With a coordinate technic, the 4th finger will feel just as strong as the 2nd or 3rd finger.

Don't waste your time and energy trying to strengthen certain fingers. Learn to put the weight of the arm behind the finger that's playing.

[brogers70]

That's a problem begging for a good teacher. I completely agree with Michael; strength is probably not the issue. On thing you can try is making sure that your arm and wrist are positioned so that there's a straight line from your elbow to the tip of your 4th or 5th finger. All else being equal, that will increase the volume produced by those fingers and reduce that produced by 1-3.

[pianoplayer002]

I disagree with the "weight" school of thought, it has never worked for me. It is true that the fingers already possess all the strength they need, and that it is a matter of coordination. "Strengthening the fingers" should mean to strengthen the coordination of the fingers, rather than their weightlifting ability. The description that fingers are made equal by using the weight forearm to depress the keys is prone to misunderstanding; the fingers still need to move independently of the arm, and are perfectly capable of pressing down the keys to generate a loud forte on their own. The key is to not tense up anything in the hand or arm as you do this.

As for OP's question. Are you able to play with different dynamics with the same finger? Then you have what it takes. You don't need any special exercise. In the moonlight sonata for example, you say you have trouble playing it without making the accompanying triples too loud. Is it the same thing if you play it extremly slowly, with outmost focus on producing the sound you want? You should play so slowly there might be only one note every 10 seconds, with your full attention on moving each finger, including the thumb, correctly, not allowing yourself to continue to the next note until you've produced exactly the sound you wanted. My quess is that you hold your thumb stiff and use your arm to press down the key, which results in much poorer control than if the thumb is allowed to be soft (but not wobbly or collapsing) and to move on its own.

[jamesaknight]

Thanks - some food for thought here.

Will certainly try playing much slower and trying to find the desired touch.

[indianajo]

Several pieces I am playing at the moment (roughly Grade 6 standard) I am having the same issue - namely that the melody in the right hand is too weak when using fingers 4+5 and fingers 1,2 & 3 which are providing harmonies/accompaniment are consistently too loud and clunky - particularly my thumb.
Anyone got any tips or suggested exercises on how I can strengthen fingers 4+5 and get a much more delicate action with my thumb?

I had worked through this normal priority of the first three fingers in my second year of piano study.  I ground through the Schmitt exercises, where the goal is to make all notes even in volume, and evenly connected or disconnected depending on which technique you are studying that day.  This exercise book is available for download on Piano Street or you can buy the Schirmer edition from online stores.  
Most piano teachers won't give a student anything this boring to work on, but working on the one normal problem alone, without worrying about hand span, chord structure, expression, or any of the other topics of an emotional piece allows you to focus on this physical skill.  Piano teachers are afraid the student in this distracted world will find piano practice inconvenient, the parents the lessons too expensive for no result.  I had a choice of vacant lot  baseball, which I was horribly unskilled at, or watching 20-30 year old cartoons at 3 to 5 PM on three channels of black and white television.  Those Merrie Melody cartoons were so bad nobody reruns them anymore. 
After I started lessons with a professional teacher, she moved me to the Edna Mae Berman exercise books, that actually say whether an exercise is to be legato, normally detached, or staccato.  
Making the strength of all the fingers even was an issue with me, I had to work on making the melody louder than the rest, which most cases means the fourth and fifth fingers right hand have to be louder.  Using the thrust of the properly angled forearm was just the start of the techniques I used to achieve this goal.  Conciously backing off fingers 1,2,3 was part of my group of skills learned.  
Good luck on achieving these important aids to artistic playing of music.