Piano Forum

Something to think over is the feel of the flow .. internal regulation of the muscles both large and small that is a combination of technique and ways of playing the scale. It’s also understanding the problem of thumb by design. I recall in one of my friends programming project that he had this flicker on the screen when he was trying to make balls bounce off the borders.  It’s smooth in general but his code never able to get rid of this glitch where for 1 instant in time it just flickers like a candle. I find similar analogy to the thumb being permanently a distortion in the smoothness of the piano play. One can only come very close to removing the flicker but it will only reach the desired smoothness of play asymptotically but probably will never be perfect. You would have to have 10 fingers per hand to be more perfect than you hope to achieve.

I try not to overthink it. I consider the case where fingers do all the work, the wrist does all the work, and in the same manner of the forearm. The right answer is the one where the fingers do the lightest work and spring back to its natural position while using just enough force to hit those keys. The arms-wrist to carry my fingers to desired point within reasonable distance of pressing piano key. Along that thought, I learned to use gravity whenever the motion goes down (make sure u don’t move your arms down when it can drop and relax). I also standardize the same target point on the keys to press (one-half inch from the edge of white keys and one-fourth inch on black keys - as close as one can get but not at the black corner). That requires the aid of the elbow-wrist to adjust for the five finger’s different length. After creating some rules to abide by, I don’t think about them. I listen to the notes in my head and have the arms-wrist-fingers figure out how to execute to emulate the sound. I know that i seldom move my thumb .. more like stiffen it when the wrist drops or moves sideways. I also avoid crushing the thumb with my wrist-firearm.. making sure to levitate them enough to avoid thumb pushing against that.

The biggest point is to create some simple rules of what your shoulders-fingertips can do then make them slave to “singing”. There’s an intelligence at first but you kind of know it’s right when u *feel* the process and hopefully it works with the suggested fingering. I think twice if I find something comfortable that doesn’t match the recommended finger number. When your eyes, ears, and touch harmonize in your brain.. it’s kinda magical and feels great.