Thumb sticking out in fast scales

[furr104]

Lately I've been having problems with my scales on my left hand. When going upwards, my thumb sticks out or it feels clumsy and it makes it difficult to play evenly at fast speeds. I know it should be curve but there's some tension and I don't know how to fix it. There's however no problem at all when going downwards -- which is strange, it should be the opposite! The thumb has no problem at all moving.

There are scales in which this problem hardly happens (scales like G major, F major etc, where the scale starts with the 5th finger), but scales like B flat major confuse my left hand a lot.
I've tried not to raise the elbow (which I've been doing to compensate the movements).
Playing those scales slowly does not help, because the movement they require at slow speed is not the same when going full tempo...
Do you have any advice?

[brogers70]

Something you might try is this. Do the scales that are causing you trouble in all possible 3-rhythms and 5-rhythms, so short-short-long, short-long-short, long-short-short; short-short-short-short-long, short-long-short-short-short, etc. Or equivalently, if you are doing 4 octave scales up and down, just cycle through the 3-rhythm three times or the five-rhythm five times, that way every note in every octave will have had a chance to be a long note in the pattern.

So, play the short notes as fast as is comfortable and then pause on the long note to relax your arm and hand for as long as you need to to feel totally relaxed. I find that because I'm just playing a short burst of fast notes between each pause, it is very easy to pay careful attention to how each note feels and sounds, and because of the way the rhythms cycle you'll get a chance to concentrate on every possible rapid cluster of notes in every octave in the scale. I've found this helpful when I've had trouble with tension or other awkwardness in particular scales.

[timothy42b]

Good advice from brogers.  Also see this old post from 2005 (there's a better one but I haven't found it in a while, called Pearly Scales)

You are welcome.

You are also impatient.

Now bear with me for a moment, so you understand the problem – otherwise, how can you appreciate the solution?

Hold your hand in front of you, fingers outstretched. Let us concentrate on the index finger for a moment. And let us do the right hand only.

There are two – very different – main movements you can do: first, you can bend your index finger at the nail joint towards the palm of your hand. This is an easy, effortless and very very fast movement. Do it repeatedly and experience how fast this movement is. Remember that.

Now for the second movement. This time, instead of bending the index finger towards your palm, bend it sideways (as in signaling “no”). Compared to the first movement, this is quite a difficult movement, and much much slower.

We will ignore other movements for now (e.g. rotating the finger on the knuckle joint) as they are unnecessary for what follows.

The above applies equally to fingers 3 – 4 and 5. Go ahead and try.

When playing the piano with fingers 2 –3 –4 –5 we naturally use the fast, easy (comparatively speaking) up and down movement I first described. We try (if we aim at good technique) to avoid the sideways movement. So it is very important for beginners, not to “reach for the keys” with the fingers since this would engage the sideways movement. Instead we use the arm to bring the fingers into position.

When we get to the thumb however, all this changes. Because the thumb opposes the other fingers, the easy movement actually moves the thumb sideways (under and out of the hand), while the sideways movement is the one that is required to actually press the keys. So ideally, one should press the keys by rotating the forearm, that is, the thumb is brought up and down the keys not by use of thumb muscles (which incidentally are not located in the thumb – there are no muscles in the fingers), but by rotating the forearm and bringing the whole of the hand up and down.

This is the main reason why thumb under for fast scales is a definite no-no: not only you must use the bad movement (sideways), as you must use this movement while the thumb is under the hand, which means that you have two sets of muscles fighting each other: the ones that bring the thumb under and the one that press the thumb on the key. There is no way you make this movement fast enough or smoothly enough, no matter how hard or how much you practise.

This of course applies to the right hand going up the keyboard.

Now we have the necessary background to answer your question: What about the right hand going down?

First you must realize that all the problems above simply do not exist when the right hand goes down, because when it is time for the thumb to play, it is not under the hand, nor does it need to be brought under the hand. Just press the key using rotation.

So, position your right hand on F(1) – G (2) – A(3) – B(4) – C(5). As you start playing the descending scale [C(5) – B (4) – A (3) – G(2)], when the time comes to play F with the thumb, there is no problem, because the thumb is already there. You do not need to bring it neither over nor under the hand.

What you need to do is to bring the 3rd finger over the thumb in order to play the E. This is a completely different problem than the thumb problems discussed above, and it requires a different solution. In fact the problems are not even related.

This is also the bit that most people do wrong. Most people at this point will use a motion of the hand to bring the third finger over the thumb and press the E with the third finger as natural continuation of that motion. They are basically reaching for the E with the third finger.

So, pay a lot of attention now, because I don´t know how much sense one can make of a written account of these movements. It is best if someone who knows shows you this stuff.

Once you play the F with the thumb, rotate the forearm using the thumb as pivot. Do this movement slowly and exaggerated. You want to turn the thumb on the key until the nail is touching the key and the thumb is “upside down”, so to speak, nail on the key, pad facing the ceiling. Such extreme rotation, will bring the third finger right over the E key.

Now, resist the temptation to keep going and pressing the E key. Instead, with your third finger in the air, hanging right above the E key, rotate the forearm back, in the opposite direction. When you do that, the thumb will come from under the hand at the same time that the 3rd finger presses the E. It isa beautiful movement, very precise, very firm and will guarantee perfect, pearly descending scales. The passing of the fourth finger is accomplished similarly.

Experiment with this movement, and once you are satisfied you got it, gather speed not by moving faster, but by making the individual motions (rotations) as small as possible. In fact, at full speed, it will be impossible to know that you are moving in this particular way (the main reason why watching even slow motion videos of people who have mastered this technique is not going to be helpful).

I hope you can decipher the motion from the description above. 

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[timothy42b]

Wait, maybe this is it:

Bernhard Pearly Scales
Re: I hate scales
« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2005, 02:46:24 AM »
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Smooth, pearly, flowing, fast scales (with slow scales you can get away with murder) depend on the co-ordination of four basic movements:

1.   Lateral shift of the hand/forearm
2.   Rotation of the hand.
3.   Slanting the hand in relation to the keyboard.
4.   Backwards and forwards movement of the arm

1.   Lateral shift of the hand/forearm

Start by placing fingers 1-2-3 on C-D-E. Now play these three notes together as a chord. Next, shift your hand laterally to the right so that your fingers 1-2-3-4 are on top of F-G-A-B. Play these four notes as chord. The fingers do not move at all. The arm does all the work by positioning the appropriate fingers in the corresponding keys. Do that all over the keyboard to get a feel for it. Soon you should be able to displace your hand sideways with great precision and accuracy. This will also teach you the scale key pattern, that is, which keys (notes) belong to the scale and which do not. This visual pattern is very important, so use the practice of this movement for that secondary purpose as well.
Now, break the chords (C-D-E) and (F-G-A-B) by “rolling” your hand to the right. Again , you are not really pressing the fingers, but rotating the forearm and using this movement coupled with the arm weight to depress the keys.  Incidentally, you have just slowed down from infinite speed (what could faster than together) to ridiculously fast. However, although playing C-D-E and F-G-A-B fast is easy, moving from E to F and from B to A is another matter altogether. So, the speed of your scale playing will always be limited by how fast you can accurately shift your hand from the C-D-E position to the F-G-A-B position.
As you can see, there is no thumb movement (under or over), the thumb stays quietly there and the arm repositions it.
The next step is to speed up the shift between E-F and B-C and slow down the fast C-D-E and F-G-A-B groups to the top speed you can manage the shift accurately. And this is one of the paradoxes of piano playing: in order to sound even you must move unevenly. Get used to it. It happens all the time.
So rather than practise the whole scale, it makes sense to practise only the difficult bit: the shift. So, put your 3rd finger on E and press the key. Now shift your hand and press the F with the thumb by using the arm to move the hand to its new position. This is not a jump, but a glide. Your hand should be so close to the keyboard as you move that it touches it lightly. Then do the same with the B-C shift. The temptation at this stage is to put the thumb on the F, the 3rd finger on the E and just switch between them. This is really practising thumb under. You don’t want to do that. Keep the thumb quiet in its normal position and move the arm/forearm/hand.
Now comes a very important step:  as you move from E (3rd finger) to F (thumb), when you press the F, fingers 2-3-4 should already be in place, on top of G-A-B. You want to avoid them landing in any random key, and then having to shift them around to find the G-A-B. Avoid this “finger reaching” by practising the accurate placement of these fingers as you shift from E to F and from B to C. I call this preparation, and without it no one can ever play fast and smoothly.
Now you have mastered the rolling of the hand (CDE and  FGAB) and the hand shifting (EF  and BC). So now start putting it together by playing CDE (123) and shifting the hand to F (1) but do not play GAB (234) yet, just prepare by placing the fingers on the keys accurately and without pressing them. Do the same for FGABC (12341), but do not proceed to DE (23), just prepare by placing the fingers on top of the keys.
Finally, just do the scale at top speed. If you have followed all the steps above and moved to the next only after you were satisfied that you have mastered the step you were in, you should now be playing the scale at unbelievable speeds, evenly and without fatigue – and with never passing the thumb under. (or over – although this hand shift is sometimes what people call thumb over).
One problem with this movement is that there is an audible break in the sound when you shift the hand. To achieve a legato sound you either will have to use the pedal in the spots where the hand shifts, or you will need to play at a very fast speed so that by the time the damper returns to the string you have already sounded the next note.
Which is why at slow speeds, many resort to thumb under to achieve a legato sound.
However, this is just one basic movement. The only reason to practise it in isolation is to understand the movement. In real life you are not going to play like this (there is no need to limit oneself unnecessarily). In isolation, this movement requires a huge hand shift. What we need is to combine it with another movement that will allow a physical connection between the relevant keys. And this is our next movement: rotation

2.   Rotation.
This means forearm rotation. Do not bring your fingers up and down on the keys. Instead use a rotation of the forearm to bring the fingers down. Put your right hand on a desk top. Keep the thumb in touch with the desk top, and now rotate the forearm towards your body (to the left) so that the four fingers go up in the air (the thumb remains in the desktop). Think of your hand like a door and the thumb as the hinge. The whole forearm/wrist/hand should be inline and move as single unit. Now bring the hand down by rotating to the left. Now go to the piano, press your thumb in middle C (keep it pressed) and use the rotation movement I just described to play D (2nd finger) rotate back, play E (3rd finger), rotate back , play F (4th finger) rotate back, play G (5th finger).
The only contribution of the fingers is to brace themselves at the moment they touch the keys so that they do not collapse under the weight of the arm.
There, you have just got rid of the need for any exercise whatsoever to develop the 4th finger ability to lift. All this stupidity with Hanon about lifting fingers high! First, you do not play the piano up, you play it down. And as far as going down, the fourth finger is as good as any of the other fingers (just try it, bend each finger in turn at the knuckle joint and see/feel if there is any particular disadvantage in bringing the 4th finger down). There is no need to equalise fingers as far as going down goes because they are already equal in this regard. But surely, in order to bring the 4th finger down, one must be able to lift it some will say. Well, first of all, no matter how many exercises you do, you will never be able to equalise the fourth finger as far as lifting is concerned because the 4th finger shares a tendon with the 3rd finger. So that is that. Don’t waste time. But most importantly, you do not need to lift the 4th finger independently: your hand can do it for you by using the rotation movement.
Now let us see how to play a scale using this rotation movement. Do this slowly to understand the movements. I will describe the right hand. The left hand is the same in reverse. Start by playing C with the thumb. Rather than pressing down with the thumb, keep your hand and fingers quiet and rotate the forearm to the left in order to bring the thumb down on the key. Brace the thumb and use the forearm/wrist/hand as a single unit to press down the key. With this first rotation, you have brought the second finger up as well, so now bring it down on the D by rotating to the right. For the moment exaggerate this rotation so that the second finger is almost on the side and your palm is facing your body (left). Now keep the second finger depressing the D, and rotate (pivoting on the second finger) back to the left in order to bring the 3rd finger up. Now your palm should be facing the right (outside). We are exaggerating these movements to understand what is going on. Later these movements will be so tiny you will not be able to see them. Rotate back to the right bringing the 3rd finger on E. Your palm should now be facing towards your body (to the left), and the weight of your arm should be resting on the 3rd finger which is slightly sideways and resting on the (depressed) E key.
Now look carefully at this position because here lies the key to everything. Your thumb should be in the air nail up, pad down, in line with the 3rd finger which is sideways resting on the E key. If you now rotate back the hand to the left (palm goes down) and do a minimal shift to the side (it is so minimal that you may not even need to do it) this rotation will bring your thumb right on the F with it never needing to be brought under the hand
As you bring the thumb down on the F, by rotating the hand to the left, the 2nd finger goes up again in readiness to press the G on the next hand rotation.
In the typical “thumb under” movement, you must rotate the arm (usually with the elbow shooting up in the air) to the left, so that the thumb can go under. Your palm will be facing away from your body and your thumb will be bent under the palm – a very inefficient and injury prone position.
In the movement I just described, exactly the opposite takes place. When the time comes for the thumb to press the F, the palm is facing towards the body, the hand/arm is rotated to the right, and the thumb does not need at all to go under the hand. Quite the opposite, the thumb is in a free, highly efficient and injury free position.
This is the basic thumb over movement. But as you can see, it has little to do with the thumb going over the hand.
As you get used to this movement, you will notice that to use it by itself is going to demand a lot of back and forth rotations. But, you do not want to use just that movement. Why should you? Never practise these movements isolation: They will destroy your co-ordination (the reason why any exercise that aims at training isolation – usually they call it “independence”, which is a very different thing – like Hanon, Pischna, Dohnanyi and the like, are to be avoided like the plague). The only reason to isolate rotation is to understand the movement. The moment you understand it, there is no need to practise it. Instead, move on to the next basic movement and master it. What you will be practising is the co-ordination of these four movements, not the isolated movements.
So if you now combine the hand shift with the rotation, you will be able to make both of them much smaller. The hand shift means that you do not need to rotate so exaggeratedly, and the rotation means that the hand shift does not need to be so large.

By successfully co-ordinating both movements your scales should start to sound amazing.

Now we must add a third movement: hand slanting.
3.   Start by working on this movement by itself, just so that you know what is it that we are talking about. But the moment you get the hang of it, immediately co-ordinate it with the two previous movements.
Place your 3rd finger on E. Now, keep your forearm/wrist/3rd finger all aligned (the 3rd finger should be in line with the bones of the forearm). You must keep this alignment at all times. Now slant your forearm in relation to the keyboard by pivoting on the 3rd finger, so that your 3rd finger/hand/forearm are not parallel to the keys anymore, but make an angle to the keyboard. Explore the range of “slanting” that you can do comfortably. It is very important that you keep the forearm/finger alignment – don’t let the hand twist at the wrist. Now as you slant your hand so that your elbow goes away from you, you will see that this brings the thumb to the F without any need to pass it over or under. So now start playing CDE (123). On C, the fingers will be parallel to the keys. On D (2), start slanting the hand, on E (3) the hand should be slanted enough so that the thumb is out of the hand (neither under nor over) and yet on top of the F. As you play the F, the hand goes back to parallel with the keys (do not break the alignment).
Now if you combine this new movement with shifting and rotation, each movement should have become so small as to be virtually undetectable by the eye: All you see is finger movement, but actually there is no finger movement at all! It is all rotation, slanting and shifting done by the arm.
The main problem at this stage is to keep the forearm/wrist/finger alignment. Because the thumb is shorter, there is a huge temptation to “reach” for the F/C with the thumb breaking the alignment (and increasing the risk of an injury).
So we need one last basic movement.

4.    Backwards and forwards movement of the arm
Put your 3rd finger on E at the edge of the key. The thumb should be out of the keyboard, and the 2nd finger almost off. If your piano thinking is finger oriented, you are going to twist your hand in order to play the C with the thumb. I call this “reaching for the key with the finger”. Never do it. You are setting yourself up for injury. And it is a very inefficient movement. I recently saw a recital where the pianist played like that. It was painful to watch and you could see he was really struggling.
Instead. bring the arm forward and in this way place the thumb in the C key. Don’t curl your long fingers as you do that. Keep them in their natural curvature. Once you play the C, pull the arm back again so that the long fingers don’t need to play too much into the keys. As you play there should be constant forward and backward movement of the arms to negotiate the different lengths of the fingers and the geography of each scale. B major requires the least amount of back & forth movement, C major requires the greatest amount. Before tackling any scale you must figure out the pattern of back and forth movements for that particular scale.
Finally add this movement to the previous three, and you will be amazed how invisible they all become since each movement helps the others.

continued ....

[ego0720]

Are there sources or references for techniques with pictures anyone can recommend that addresses tension in general? I feel the thumb and pinky are the common problems. Looking for a treatise on this subject (tension).

Personally I think it’s the industry fault. The push for weighted keys without the black box warning.

[timothy42b]

Personally I think it’s the industry fault. The push for weighted keys without the black box warning.

Google Wickie-Hayden.  (spelling?) 

[anacrusis]

Playing those scales slowly does not help, because the movement they require at slow speed is not the same when going full tempo...
Do you have any advice?

If your thumb is sticking out it's because you have a habit of doing that, whether you are conscious of it or not, so you need to break that habit by stopping yourself from tensing and sticking your thumb out. You can practice the movements you require at high tempo at slow tempo. Make sure your thumb and wrist are totally relaxed. If you have to go ridiculously slow and check your thumb after every note, then so be it.

[furr104]

Thank you to everyone to replied. My problem is a little more complicated than that.
I recorded my hand at a slow speed.

eature=share
This is what happens when I try to keep my thumb relaxed-- as you can see my index finger curls inward and makes the entire hand unstable.
I'm afraid this might be related to focal dystonia -- please, no!!
Any feedback is welcomed

[brogers70]

It looks like the downward scale is mostly OK, but on the upward scale, when you come to pass your fingers over the thumb you are doing a forearm rotation to carry your fingers over the thumb. When you do this, the thumb is essentially turned upside down and it's the flat of the thumbnail that is in contact with the key. It certainly looks uncomfortable, but I have no idea if it has anything to do with focal dystonia.

A couple of things you can try. First, to get rid of the desire to roll your thumb, you could try stopping when the thumb plays its note, without moving on to the next note. Then shift the whole hand laterally until the desired finger (3 or 4) is over its note, and then continue. Obviously you won't play like this in the end, but it might help as a way to break the habit of rolling the hand the way you do. Next, try depressing a note with the thumb in the most relaxed way you can imagine and try to just "toss" the rest of your fingers over the stationary thumb without rotating your forearm. In effect you are just shifting your hand position as you did in the first exercise, but you are keeping the thumb in contact with the key for a little while while you begin the shift. I'd suggest playing around with that for a little while and seeing if it cannot feel more relaxed and natural than what you are doing now.

I've been playing for a long time, but I'm not a real teacher, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

[xdanielyj]

Broger has a great response. I would like to add on that you might want to pick 4 notes of the scale where you have that problem and just work on those 4 notes without moving on for 20 minutes. This practice has proven very effective for me. Going extremely slow and legato making sure you listen for good tone and consistent articulation and rhythm. I believe Wilhelm Backhaus also practiced like this for hours a day in order to perfect his legato scale.