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Peter Feuchtwanger talks briefly in an essay about trying and rejecting the "curled" or "cupped" finger approach to playing (i.e., like you are holding a ball), in favor of using more of a "flat finger" approach to playing (I read this about Horowitz at one time too) and treating the piano keys as an extension of your fingers. This results in somewhat more than just the very tip of your finger coming into contact with the keys. Is this an area of debate among pianists and piano teachers?

Hello and this is a very valid point Deerwood Guy. I developed hand problems, tendonitis in my palm, returning to classical piano, after 40 years. I read this on the net. The article said," The old cupped, curled approach, as though holding a ball, to playing piano is known to cause hand problems. The article went on to say that the "Rubenstein-Rachmaninoff" method of the more flat fingered approach results in much less stress , less hand and finger problems. I have changed to this method of flat fingers,etc and the pain has disappeared over time. A medical professional wrote to me on this forum and told me that to cup and curl the hand is not natural and that the flat handed approach is correct and why. I can look up this post if you want for you to read from him... as... it was quite a while back... maybe a year? Sandy B

depending on music, as my teacher said, you either use flat fingers or don't. in general, Bach or Baroque music should be played with more curled fingers, because curled fingers produce the desired sound for such music. my teacher kept asking me to curl my fingers more when playing Bach inventions.

however, some music may require flatter fingers, such as Chopin pieces or most of Romantic music, because the extension of hand position is usually required in many passages. but it's not set as stone sort of thing, and again, it depends on music and passages (and even your hand size). when i was playing Rach's op.16.4 for my teacher at lesson, he asked me to curl my fingers more on some passages for more efficient finger movement, while keep my fingers flat with the octaves.

note that curled or flat fingers would create different sound when playing over the same passage, and therefore, you need to use either accordingly for the sound you want, not just for technical reasons.

btw, in respond to what Sandy mentioned, hand position itself doesn't cause injury, but acumulated tension in hand would. you just have to learn how to play efficiently and with minimum effort to avoid injuries.

hmmm... I wonder why he/she said that. Let your arm fall loosely at your side and relax your hand and arm completely. Then look at what position your fingers are in: they'll be slightly cupped/curved. That's because the tendons in the arm are always slightly contracted and it takes conscious effort to straighten out the fingers. (As a macabre side note, I've read elsewhere that this contraction disappears when you die, so the fingers of corpses are more often straight.)

Monica,

Your "macabre side note" cracks me up. Since I posted, I did a bit of Googling on the subject, and the "consensus" (if there is such a thing) seems to be your naturally relaxed position but with the wrist approximately level with the knuckles. I was fine with that advice, and then one particularly articulate author said something like " . . . all that being said, the finger and hand position will vary greatly with the nature and speed of the music being played", which is what Signa says.

Bottom line -- this is an analog to my "relax" thread, and all this overanalysis is making me tense.

The greatest Bach player of all time (in my opinion of course), Glen Gould, played with flat-fingered articulation, but with an almost supernatural technique. He also broke every positional rule you can name about how to sit at the piano (he often played crossed legs!). All my children, like myself, play flat fingered - and do just fine, even thought they have been repeatedly told that they shouldn't achieve the results they do. Everyone's physiology is different - so I think this is one of those cases of, parden the pun, 'different strokes for different folks'.

As several have pointed out we cannot always keep the flat handed postion. We will always be open to keeping the composer in mind, etc and changing accordingly. Sandy B

You need to be flexible. Your body will intuit what the composer wanted. Here's an illustration of going from ultra flat to ultra curved:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw4pZtKCP5s
In my youth I was impressed by Gould. I now realize he lacked intelligent sensibility - the one thing you MUST have for Bach.

I've wondered if Gould didn't do some of that just to **** people off?

Dear Members, A tribute to our Piano World educators... Our Piano World Teachers Forum is so outstanding. I often read their posts and sometimes chat with them. They are our ultimate role models. To read their posts to each other, members and vistors is inspirational. They treat everyone with respect,in all areas. Never in combat always at peace with themselves and the world around them. They have acquired music academic intelligence and nothing to prove is their approach always. They are our future in the continued world of academic music and I embrace them with my respect. They are never vulgar always first class behavior. Thank you Piano World teachers. Sandy B

Monica puts it right. Not flat, but that natural curve. There are some pieces, or places in pieces, where you need a real curve, or even a claw. But you have to relax or your fingers will tense, your accuracy and speed will drop...not pretty. It's a good basic position, which has to be varied according to piece and sound. I found that adopting it in favor of the more traditional "curve" made any number of speed bumps vanish, and accuracy increase geometrically.

Hm. I thought I'd seen some fairly, er, heated discussions in the teachers forum just recently. And several of them have been in rather heated discussions on other forums. Folks seem to be just folks, whatever their life-styles or careers or circumstances .

On the other hand, you, Sandy, seem to be someone who hands out compliments a lot, so kudos to you! I'd love to hear some of your popular and jazz improvisations sometime, too. Any chance you could figure out a way to get an inexpensive recorder you could plug into your computer and do something for the next recital? Maybe you could even borrow one from a friend? And how about a chopsticks improv?

Cathy

Well. To be rude and condescending is not my way of treating people. I avoid these type of people. We cannot dimiss the fact the teachers in our forum are very special. I am into composing again as a result of the composers and teachers forums and will in time send a recording of my humble music to them. Sandy B

I believe in playing with curved fingers, if needed I'll stretch out my fingers and simply curved the ends and no matter what you still have to have a certain curve to it.

I played with flat fingers for almost 16 years before I moved and got a new teacher. My playing was simply horrible ...

Learning all the time from our members. Sandy B

Generally, I prefer slightly curved fingers, as I can move them quicker and with less tension.

this seems to me to be the only solution for certain passages, too, given the fact that I have small hands. Call it a compromise between spanning necessary distances while curving as much as possible.

However, at the moment this technique seems to cause discomfort in my arms. I was wondering whether it might be anatomically bad? Stretching and bending fingers are done by antagonist muscles. So trying to do it at the same time might overtax one party?!
Am I completely wrong here? Maybe we have some experts who could tell ...

I think you could be right. Either stretch OR flex.

If by flat fingered playing you mean that the first knuckle of your finger is bent inwards, then I'm going to have to disagree with that.

However, I will agree that there are times where a flatter hand is called for, and when it's needed I'll advocate a flatter hand, or flatter fingers, such as when looking for a specific sound, or reaching for a large chord.

Like Monica K. said, our fingers curve naturally because of the tension in our tendons. If you let your hand go limp, then put that on a flat surface, you'll end up with a pretty good approximation of a "piano hand".

Lastly, the reason why I favor fingertips over flat fingers is because, like everyone else, we want to be energy-efficient. The flat of the finger has a disc shape, versus the tip of the finger, which is a simple edge. As PSI goes, we do less work when playing with our fingertips than our finger pads. I'd rather ice skate with a thin blade than on snowshoes!

Here's a link to what I'm talking about. <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/107/Images/large/image234.gif">You can see that the finger pad, or the flat of the finger, is supported by a disc of bone</a>, whereas the finger tip, which we play on when the finger is curved properly, is the edge of the disc.

it's not so much about whether the whole hand is curled/bent, but whether the tip of finger is verticle enough when hitting keys. so, when my teacher asked me to curl my fingers, he meant to curl the 1st knuckle to vertical or near vertical position at moment of key strike. i protested however, because i cannot bent my fingers to exact vertical without hitting keys with my nails, while my teacher's nails are way back from finger tips so that he can hit keys with vertical finger tips without keys contacting his nails.

so, i ended up making my finger tips almost 45 degree angle from key surface as my best curled position.

There is no point 'banning' any shape from your technique. There are times flat is called for and times curved. Essentially you must start from a natural (non-tense) state. You then have the choice of either at any time. What DOES cause unnecessary tension is shaping your hand BEFORE playing a note. The shape is formed as you use your muscles. Shape is dynamic.

I do a fair amount of extremely straight just for the exercise - it reaches muscles that are otherwise neglected.

Signa, are you scratching the key or hammering the key? Why the long nails?