How to Stop Over-Curving Your Fingers at the Piano (Alignment, Part 2)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
- In this video I discuss the problem of OVER-curving your fingers at the piano and what to do about it. I also discuss how to make micro-adjustments with your arm to accommodate different finger lengths, as well as how to adjust to the topography of the keyboard as you play.
👉DOWNLOAD MY FREE PDF TECHNIQUE PRACTICE COMPANION
thepianoprof.com/PracticeComp...
📪Free Weekly Practice Tips: thepianoprof.com/subscribe
🎥 RELATED VIDEOS:
Series Intro: 5 Foundations of Piano Technique Overview: • 5 FOUNDATIONS OF PIANO...
Hand Position: • How to Find YOUR Best ...
Alignment: • Finger Alignment at th...
Forearm Rotation: • Forearm Rotation at th...
Arm Weight: • Arm Weight Exercises a...
Weight Transfer: • Natural Arm Motion at ...
MY FAVORITE PIANO STUFF:
📗 Recommended Books: thepianoprof.com/books/
🎹 Recommended Technical Exercises: thepianoprof.com/technical-ex...
✍️ My Favorite Piano Gear: thepianoprof.com/gear/
👀 Piano Marvel: The online sight reading resource I recommend most often (use my affiliate link for a $2 per month discount): thepianoprof.com/PianoMarvel
OTHER GREAT STUFF I USE AS A CREATOR:
🥰 Notion: My FAVORITE Organizational Tool - thepianoprof.com/notion
📫 ConvertKit: I love this email client and use it for my weekly newsletter: thepianoprof.com/convertkit
🎥 Descript: Hands down, my FAVORITE video editing software: thepianoprof.com/descript
📝 Paperlike: My favorite iPad screen protector: paperlike.com/prof
___________________________
Follow me on social:
👉 Instagram: / kateboydpianist
👉 Facebook: / kateboydpianist
👉 CONTACT ME: Leave a note in the comments or visit www.kateboyd.com/contact
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
1:20 What is over-curving?
2:41 Finger lengths
4:57 Making micro-adjustments
6:35 Playing on the black keys
7:33 Balloon
8:24 Blocking
10:11 Alignment
11:40 Loose wrist
12:04 Using a timer
12:33 Black keys
#pianopractice #pianotips #pianolesson
![Forearm Rotation at the Piano [Foundations of Technique, Part 3]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Cx8wpfFCwms/mqdefault.jpg)
![Forearm Rotation at the Piano [Foundations of Technique, Part 3]](/img/tr.png)
This is an incredible resource. Thank you for these FREE lectures; very generous and appreciated.
Absolutely! Good luck!
You are helping me very well
True story: my Chopin Etudes score has a note inside the front cover from my first teacher with the fingerings for the E-flat major scale, and a note that says, “curve your fingers!!”
SO FUNNY because it’s evidence (1) I had essentially no technical focus for the first 10 years of my piano life while I studied with her - however lovely she was - and (2) she let me have my run of whatever repertoire I wanted to play.
Any student playing the Revolutionary etude should probably NOT be in a place where the teacher needs to write a reminder to “curve your fingers!” (Or to review the fingerings of the E-flat major scale, for that matter) 😂
Ahhh, stories of piano past.
LOVE your channel, Kate!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Ha ha, love this story! Indeed, it's too easy to take the approach of learning scales on an "as-needed" basis! Thanks for sharing! :-)
Thank you for videos! I learn so much from them.
I was initially taught to keep a relaxed but flat wrist and to curve the fingers as if they were holding a ball.
Wonderful!
This is a very helpful series! Thank you Prof.
You're very welcome!
I took lessons in the 1970s, and the only technique I was taught was Hanon - and the instructions in the Hanon book. Wrists high, fingers lifted high and independently. When I was given a digital keyboard for Christmas (2022), I found myself playing the same way, and my back really hurt. TH-cam is an amazing resource for people like me! I've learned about rotation and wrist circles and how to adjust my bench. I also had 6 weeks of physical therapy, because playing piano had revealed, not caused, a spinal injury. My core is much stronger, and the pain mostly gone. I'm really enjoying your channel - thank you!
You're welcome! Thanks for sharing your story - it's really inspiring to hear how much you've progressed. Keep it up!
What did YOUR piano teacher tell you about curving your fingers when you started playing the piano?
Thanks for one more great video. Your comments and advise have been helping me get back to playing after a pause of more than a decade. I am learning a lot about the health of my body though your videos, something that was never a concern in the past despite my many complaints of constant pain. Your advise on the board to let go of the instrument was particularly important to me, as I remember being praised for over extending my hands as much as I could, as if it were a good thing! Somehow my many teachers of the past thought that was a sign of having "big piano hands", which is not the case at all, I was just tense and causing myself lots of pain with no musical benefit whatsoever. I also remember seeing one of my teachers play, who had very tiny hands, and noticing how much more fluid and delicate she was while playing but she would say she needed to do so due to her small hands! How I wish someone would have advised me better back then and how grateful I am to your content!
Thanks so much for your comment - it means so much to me that you have been finding these videos helpful. Yes, it's absolutely important not to over-extend your hands, because it causes tension and in some cases also injury. I'm so glad you're playing the piano again and that you are able to play without pain. Good luck with your piano journey, and thanks for watching!
Every video I watch has given me the right stuff. Outstanding information.
Great! So glad to hear it’s helpful!
This is fabulous. Just as Chopin pointed out: everythng depends on suppleness, and for sure tightly curved fingers destroy suppleness. Over curving the hand and over flattening it are equally destructive.
Absolutely! A supple hand is not possible if the fingers are over-curved or the hand is too flat. Thanks for watching!
Thank you so much, Professor Kate. You never fail to be deeply informative and precise. Love it.
Aww, you are so kind! You are so welcome - glad you're getting value out of these videos!
I agree that over-curling introduces a degree of unwanted tension. Your explanation of the overlap of opposing sets of muscles engaging simultaneously at 1:30 - 1:50 is correct. In your second example (overcurving -- at 4:48), your wrist is a bit low and there's a great deal of rigidity and tension in your hands which inhibits the transfer of weight to the fingers. I'm supposing that is for purposes of demonstration. Leschetizky resolved this issue with his "close touch" in which the upper muscles (extensors) are not actually (or, are only minimally) engaged. That is, the fingers are not actually "lifted" -- they are simply "released" and allowed to return. Thus only the flexors are used -- a near 50-percent reduction in physiological overhead! I had an epiphany in my playing my 2nd year in college when my piano prof rebuilt (completelly!) my very fingery Hanon-esque technic, easing and eliminating just about 100-percent of the tension in my fingers, hands, wrists, and forearms. Taubman also addresses the tension caused by simultaneous flexing of the opposing pairs of muscles by using rotation to transmit the downward transfer of weight into the fingers without engaging the extensors. In your third example at 5:10, the forearm is at a more appropriate height above the keys to better allow transfer of weight through the fingers into the keys. This higher arm position also works well with more curved fingers using the Leschetizky approach in which the extensors are not engaged.
I greatly enjoy and appreciate your videos -- very complete, accurate and helpful for anyone wanting to develop reliable and musical pianist skills! 🙂
Thank you so much for this detailed and thoughtful comment! Great insights and summary of various schools and approaches. I agree that it's so important not to flex opposing pairs of muscles and cause them to work against each other. Best wishes! 😊🎹
Thanks Prof. Your lesson is helping me a lot. I completely changed my way of playing piano using the harm instead of curving the fingers. I am 10 and I started with classical music in my mother womb. I started playing piano at 4. See ya
Thank you! I'm so glad you found this helpful. Good luck, and happy practicing!
Increíbles consejos, muchas gracias , me suscribo ya mismo , saludos desde México, amazing work!
Thanks so much! Welcome!
I just started last week with private lessons. She has my rolling my hand on a ball. She allowed me to video her position, and I have to submit a video of my progress.
Thank you so much for your video! I am so glad to have finally found someone to explain the technique so well. My piano teacher doesn't explain too much and my arm and hands and fingers began to hurt after a few months because I always want to do it too right. :-)
Wow - that's great - I'm really glad you are finding relief after watching the video. Thanks so much for letting me know. Good luck! 😊 🎹
I remember my teacher telling me to cut my nails shorter (they weren't very long!) instead of teaching me to curve my fingers less... which would have been way better, so thank you for the video! :)
Sure thing! Unfortunately, you still need to have short nails even when playing more on the pads of your fingers. But, as you said, yours weren't very long! So, maybe this IS the solution! 😊
Hello Professor Kate. First of all let me just say how grateful I am for your videos. As an adult beginner, without a piano teacher they are trully eye opening. Your technique approach is the simplest and most intuitive out of everything I have found so far, with no unnecessary motions to complicate the piano playing experience.
I do have a problem that I am facing. You see I am a bit chubby and my fingers are a bit thick. One problem I'm having is that when I play the C Major 5-finger pattern for example, with my default hand bridge my middle finger and ring finger can't fit comfortably between the E flat and G flat black keys. I can squeeze them in but I don't believe that they are gently resting in that position. It's almost like they are taped together and held in place by the two black keys. Naturally, as you have mentioned in this video my tendency is to curl the fingers so I avoid this situation alltogether.
Are there any adjustments I can make so that I can play with a healthy technique? When I practice many hours I do feel some localized pain in my forearm so definitely I'm doing it wrong.
I do hope that my hands are capable of playing the piano. I would be heartbroken if I were to give it up.
Thank you for all your hard work and best of luck with all your future endeavors
Hello! I have seen this before - this is more common than you might think. Hands come in many shapes and sizes! 😊
If your fingers don't fit between the black keys you will have to make more lateral (in and out) adjustments with the arm as you play. Your default playing position might need to be further out on the white keys than you are used to. So, you'd play the thumb in the "normal" position, and then as you play 2-3-4, pull your arm back toward your body (without twisting the hand) to adjust where the fingers fall on the key (and bring the fingertips out from the black key zone). I hope this helps - good luck! 😊
@@ThePianoProfKateBoyd I just wanted to tell you that your advice has helped me a great deal. Yesterday I have experienced my first pain-free piano session ever. 😁 I have managed to successfully incorporate in Hanon's first exercise the arm weight transfer, the hand allignment and the in-out motion. I'm still having trouble sometimes incorporating those in the piano method pieces but I'm confident I will get there one principle at a time. Thank you so much for your help and best of luck to you too! ☺
Thanks very much Dr Boyd😊😊😊!!! I often struggle with a twisted wrist and sometimes feel pressure build up around that area, so here i am trying to find alignment for each key attack. Thanks for pointing out that there are micro adjustments in between each key and to always make sure the finger is straight to the center of the key before pressing down. I know it sounds obvious to most people but are really helpful to me😅, because I was only focusing on keeping my wrist straight instead which wasn't working 😂😂😂.
Glad to be helpful! I know what you mean: making those individual adjustments makes all the difference! 🎹😊
@@ThePianoProfKateBoyd thanks again for putting all these valid information out there so people (amateur beginners) me can access it easily. Feeling so privileged!!!
Question: how do the considerations about avoiding curling, keeping parallel fingers, and adjusting position along the key using the arm carry over to chords, rather than single notes? Isn't it impossible to avoid curling and keep all fingers parallel for most chords?
Yes that’s true! The fingers cannot all be parallel when playing a chord. Instead of trying to make all fingers parallel (which is impossible) , focus on creating a straight line through the middle of your hand, while avoiding a sharp angle created by your thumb or pinky.
Thank you, Dr.Kate, this video is very informative. But here's my question, my hand isn't that big, so when I only play the white keys, all of my fingers are actually far away from the black key area, do I still need to use the in/out motion to adjust my finger position? I don't understand why this is necessary since I can play every white key easily without any adjustment. It would seem to me that in/out motion is an extra move when I only play the white keys.
You don't have to make the in-out motion if it's not comfortable. The idea is to try to play the fingers at approximately the same part of the key, and since the fingers are different lengths, you'll move your arm in and out veeeeeery slightly in order to avoid compensating by over-curving your fingers. So, it's not so much about how far you are from the black keys. But, if you are more comfortable playing every white key without adjustment, and you aren't over-curving your fingers to do so, then it sounds like you're doing fine! 😊
I’m curious why you advocate initiating in/out movements from the upper arm rather than the forearm and elbow? Has the work of Dorothy Taubman informed any of your teaching? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this approach.
I am not a student of the Taubman approach, so I can't speak to how this idea relates to the work of Dorothy Taubman. However, if you make a "sawing" motion with your arm and look at how the arm actually moves away from and toward your body, you can see that the muscles that actually move the arm are in the upper arm and chest. (You can also look at a "chest press" machine at the gym to see what I mean.) The elbow hinges as this motion happens, but does not initiate the motion, and the forearm goes "along for the ride" but does not initiate the motion. Imagine if you were sawing a tree branch: you probably wouldn't be trying to initiate the motion from the forearm. But since our work involves playing with individual fingers there is often the feeling that motions should be initiated in the lower arm/wrist/fingers, but in my experience that results in the hand/fingers "dragging around" the arm and causing unnecessary tension.
For more on this topic, I recommend checking out Seymour Bernstein's book "20 Lessons in Keyboard Choreography" where he talks about the "upper arm roll" and the Thomas Mark book "What Every Pianist Needs to Know About the Body," where he discusses the idea of "body mapping" and how helpful it can be to have a deeper understanding of how the joints hinge and which muscles initiate which movements.
Thanks for your question - I hope this is helpful! I enjoy exploring this topic; let me know if you have any follow-up questions! 😊
Regarding body alignment, where should a person sit laterally to the piano? As I watch a few of your videos, it appears you tend to center on E4 and sometimes F4 rather than middle C. Also, is it appropriate at times for a person to scoot left and/or right on the bench while playing a piece? I hope this isn’t a dumb question. It just seems that for a few pieces I feel more comfortable centering on middle C whereas for other pieces it feels better to be right or left of it, or even shift on the bench for different passages. I am interested in your approach to this lateral positioning. If you already have a video on this, would you point me to it? Thank you.
Actually, I do recommend sitting in front of the center of the keyboard (E4/F4) and leaning, rather than scooting left and right. It helps stay oriented to your relative position as you move up and down the keyboard. I made this video on sitting that might be helpful: th-cam.com/video/Bbl_kd_Ym8k/w-d-xo.html Good luck!
hello thanks a lot for posting this video my pinky/little finger cant maintain an arch shape unless I overcurve my finger. My second knuckle straightens out when I press a key. Is this normal what would you suggest?
The pinky will be straighter than the other fingers. Make sure to support with your arm and align your wrist so it's not twisted. The arch shape should be in the hand bridge. This video on hand position might be helpful: th-cam.com/video/cBuC89ApQtM/w-d-xo.html
Good luck!
Thanks professor, the video you shared was exactly what I was looking for.✌
Hi, Kate. I am 61 years young, that picked up teaching myself piano during pandemic. I am a tall guy 6'1" that is experiencing fatigue pain in my upper back area around the shoulder blade area left side. I have tried to ensure proper posture based on all my research but after about 30mins practicing this pain sets in. Tension is getting in the way, but I cannot identify why. I need your advice. Thanks in advance
Hi Dave, thanks for your note! Sorry you are experiencing pain. When you stop practicing after 30 minutes, do you stretch your shoulders and back or do anything to release the tension? My first thought would be to try to pinpoint tension in the left shoulder. Sometimes when I have seen similar things in my students it's because the student is holding their shoulder up with a small amount of muscle tension that's hardly visible.
Another thought: playing the piano is very physical, and I find that as I get older I need to do more stretching and core-strengthening exercises. Doing some yoga poses or core exercises might help give you more support in your upper body, especially since you are tall. Those are a couple of thoughts - let me know if this is helpful. Do you have a teacher? If so, hopefully they can give you some hands-on insight.
@@ThePianoProfKateBoyd Hi Kate, thanks for your prompt response. I do appreciate your thoughtful advice and I will definitely try the stretching and some core strengthening exercises. Unfortunately, I don't have a teacher nearby to assist. The journey continues.....🙂
Are there any mistakes I'm making? Despite trying everything in the video, I still cannot play without my fingers over curving
Sorry to hear you're finding it difficult. Feel free to send me an email at kateboyd (at) thepianoprof.com and I'll see if I can help!