ouch d*mn beethoven he's killing my finger!

[Tash]

op.27 no.1 the 4th movement with all its octaves and trying to bring out the top note with my poor little pinky is killing it. problem being that i can't bend the 2nd joint (the one not closest to my nail) and it's putting a lot of stress on it. well that's my thought anyway. so i can't practice this piece as much as i need to which is annoying cos it needs a lot of work!! so how do i fix this problem? i'm giving it a rest at the moment so i don't go giving myself some kind of RSI but i can't go on having limited practice. and ditching the sonata is not an option! maybe if i practiced it more in sections would help...

[sonatainfsharp]

Sounds like you are simply trying too hard? I know it sounds simple, but maybe it is...

[Tash]

no it's not i swear! well if i tried any less it'd sound like cr*p because you wouldn't be able to hear the melody.

[abell88]

Could you play the octaves with finger 4?

[JP]

Try using a high or very high wrist position. If you're able to stretch a comfortable octave, then it should be easy for you to do.  I didnt look at  the score, so I cant say more..

[Tash]

nah high wrist position my finger's still not bending, maybe i should try taping it into a bent position...yeah i was thinking of playing finger 4 instead of 5 cos i can do that. thanks

[JP]

Its not supposed to bend.. But you should be able to play a louder note under your pinky..

[quantum]

Try playing the octave by placing your hand above the keys (with a higher wrist position) with your fingers centered on the keys, as opposed to playing with your fingers off the edge of the keys and a lower wrist.  Doing this will utilize the force of gravity being over the keys, and therefore you won't need to exert too much muscular force in order to get more sound. 

If you can successfully do that, next try lean into the 4th and 5th fingers more to transfer more body weight, this will help bring out the melody. 

You don't really need to bend your finger joints that much in order to play the octaves. 

[cellodude]

Hi tash,

Why don't you try playing the octaves as broken octaves when practicing? After say a week of broken octaves play them as written and see what happens.

My daughter is facing a similar problem on the violin. She is learning the 'Autumn' of Vivaldi's Seasons and in the first movement after the introduction the main theme is repeated double-stopped (thirds). In stringed instruments double-stopping is to press on two strings and to draw the bow across both to get two notes to sound.

She was having the greatest problem with that and I was helping her with practice off and on (mostly off) without success. She could play the first third correctly but she couldn't move from one third to the next without playing out of tune.

Finally, earlier this week I got fed-up with her non-progress and decided to sit down and see what the problem was. She had difficulty stretching her fourth finger (in stringed instruments our fourth finger is the third) to the correct position. I thought she needed to condition her finger to move to the correct position immediately and Chang's chord attack came to mind.

I thought why not use the reverse of the chord attack on this problem? So I got her to practice broken thirds on the problem passage amidst much protestations from her. After 10 mins of broken thirds I got her to play the passage as written and bingo! perfect intonation. I realize that the conditioning will not last and so got her to practice the broken thirds for the next week or so. After that I think she should have no more problem with the passage.

I don't know if this would work for you but your description of your problem does sound awfully close to what my daughter was facing so I think it's worth a try.

All the best,

dennis lee