please help with my unusual pinky!

[pianostudent]

I am an adult beginner. I have unstraight pinkies at both hands. When I play piano for a while, I hurt my pinkies. I ask my piano teacher about this, but he cannot give me an answer how to deal with that.





You can see from the pictures that when I press down the key, my pinky go down by its side way with strange looking .

What should I do? Should I give up playing the piano?

[Kassaa]

I can't see a picture.

But, never stop playing. If you like it, why stop?

[whynot]

Well, my short answer is that no, you should not quit playing!  I have seen this pinky shaping before, so it doesn't look too unusual to me, except as it applies to playing piano.  Actually, my own pinkies do this a little bit too.  But yours are painful, which is of course a problem.  Even in the most extreme outcome, in which you'd stop using your pinkies altogether, I would still say you should not quit.  But I don't think it needs to come to that, anyway.  I think you need a few options:  physical hand stuff and mental planning strategies. 

1.  First, the planning strategies, where you figure out how much you could get away with not using your pinkies, in case it comes to that.  So I'm thinking, how do we use our pinkies?  This is a fascinating question.  In fast running passages you don't need them at all.  You only use the pinky for the first or last notes on the outer perimeters, so who cares if you use a different finger for that.  Octaves, you could do with ring fingers; your hands are big enough.  That leaves unaccounted for:  bigger intervals, biggish chords, and some miscellaneous things that will come up in your pieces.  Even some of these can be dealt with by rolling, jumping, or respectfully re-writing little bits.  Now you may not wish (or need) to strike all these responsibilities from your pinkies, I'm just saying that there are many possibilities for success and beauty, even in strict parameters.  Just in case!     

2.  Physical stuff:  forgive me if you've already tried this, it's always hard to know
from a person's writing what's really happening, isn't it?  You can play with how you shape the hand and bend the fingers.  When any finger is bent, it's more supple and  can better absorb the shock of playing (to illustrate:  imagine the opposite, that you jump several feet down and straighten your legs before landing).  Try bending all your fingers to be just a little more curved.  My aim is specifically to curve the pinky more, because in the last photo, the joint closest to the fingertip looks tightly locked, and it will get more pounding that way and become sore fast (and thank goodness, because that's hard on the joint, and the pain forces us to stop).  It's possible to curve just the pinky, but it also makes it really tense, which is the opposite of the goal, so perhaps better to gently curve everything more and let the pinky go along with it.  When you go to play a chord, keep this curved shape as you push down into the keys, and push forward a little as you're going down.  You'll end up with even a little more curve at the end of this motion.  Watch that you don't end up with the fingertips bending back underneath the fingers--that's too much curve.   Anyway, I'd be very interested to see if that feels less stressful to your pinkies.  For default amount of curve, stand up and let your arms hang down, relaxed, and look at your hands.  If your hanging hands are more curved than you normally play, start with the hanging amount first (and do the little push forward) and see how that feels.  I'm sure other people will have much to say.  I'm hoping for one in particular!  Very best wishes, and don't quit.                   

     
 

[i_m_robot]

Try playing with a more pronated wrist with elbow out a little more so the pinky doesnt bend as much and you can use the tip of it instead of the knuckle

have you ever broken your pinky before?

[aajjmb]

lol my pinkies are both kinda like that too (not as curved thou) and my left hand pinky is slither more bent then my right one because some loozer kicked me in the hand when i was playing soccer and broke my finger!!! its actually alrite thou because i can reach 1 more note in my left hand than my right hand!!  Im in grade 10 piano and im 16 so it hasn't held me back at all
unfortunately yours looks almost painfull!  Try to play with you elbow higher or you could try playing at different hights by adjusting your bench....
(lol i made myself out to look like a freak or soemthing lol... don't worry..im just a typical soccer jock / try hard piano fanatic lol )

[sznitzeln]

First of all... unusual hands are usual!

I have to confirm this:

Try playing with a more pronated wrist with elbow out a little more so the pinky doesnt bend as much and you can use the tip of it instead of the knuckle

have you ever broken your pinky before?

Its exactly what I wanted to say

In your second photo it looks pretty much ok... but perhaps you could pronate some more... (twist your right fore arm counter clockwise , or left clockwise).

Ill post a picture of my hand soon, its just as unusual as yours