Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum What's your definition of curved fingers?

I must admit that people consider me irritating from time to time - but it's always for a good reason in my mind that I am irritating. Irritating is not part of my personality by the way, it's part of what I say that no one wants to hear or deal with.

The piano teachers forum gets diverted by the freedom of anyone wanting to post anywhere. Instead of having topics that are of interest mainly among ourselves, we get demolished by questions that people in general ask of us, but answering those questions is a big effort because the same question comes back, give it a few days.

Everyone likes us as a resource to an important question they have, but the answers are in their own teachers, or in the book, too.

No one likes to have a correction made, or a comment that is well understood by a teacher, degenerated by a learner who thinks he's qualified to enter into a teaching discussion among teachers.

Don't you have a teacher's room on campus and student's don't frequent it? Of is that just in elementary school and junior high from days gone by? Do any visitors on campus come through your private space? Do the students collect there? Who goes in the teachers room, or the teachers bathroom. Is there any unspoken rule to that, or do you have a sign on the door?

In deciding who is irritating I only look at the examples of their path through PWF and the most concern goes to those who interact with me. Monica, you would be at the top of my list.

No sooner do I say my opinion, and there you are, picking on points that I have made and dissecting the heck out of it. And, as soon as you are done, along comes another person who does the same. You work in teams! Do I find that irritating...you betcha.

I have high expectations for piano teachers to do excellent work - if you are not a good pianist - you are not going to have much to teach. Every body and their brother are teaching piano for extra income but what I expect from that is that they will grow in knowledge, self discovery, and abilities and be able to become the best teacher they know how to be. In some postings, it is clear when someone does not have the strengths of a piano teacher - it is even more clear when situations they describe are not being handled according to professional standards - this all counts in our industry. I'm irritated when someone dons the title of piano teacher and then does the minimum of being one.

I know lots of piano teachers who study constantly to learn how to teach - learn about the brains capacity and order - learn how to work with special needs - whatever it takes to meet the needs of our students. Reading, meetings, ambition.

I'd like the piano teachers forum to reflect those kinds of things, and sometimes it does. But we constantly get interrupted, and a topic goes sideways before vering off totally.

Monica, I consider your post part of a long series of expressing your disdain for me. This is again one of those opportunities for you. I am as calm as a cucumber while writing this by the way, it has nothing to do anger. It is explanatory in purpose and defensive in nature. Pointed irritation.

There is no obligation on any of us to answer questions. We don't need to wear ourselves out by trying to do this. If you find it too much, simply ignore the question.

This is not a private space. Anyone in the whole world can read it, and anyone who is registered can post here. If the forum rules are being broken then report the post to the moderator. If a post annoys you, you are free to ignore it. In fact, if a poster annoys you, you are free to put them on your "ignore" list.

If you feel you are being unfairly targeted, then again, report the post to the moderator.

Not only the teachers' forum, Betty Have you spent much time in the pianists' corner? And as for "interruptions" - well, once again, any member is free to post. You can't really have an "interruption" in this forum format can you? These aren't private conversations.

I suppose the main point I wanted to make is that we can't change the rules as they now stand (I personally don't want to, but that's beside the point) - but we also don't have to make a rod for our own backs by feeling obliged to deal with every question that comes up.

I have to say that of all the forums in which I participate, this one has BY FAR the most sensitive, judgmental, and ornery people.

Seriously? What does ANY of this have to do with C.Y.'s question?

Just because one is a piano teacher it does not mean they know everything there is to know about it! That's exactly why people come here, isn't it? To get help/opinions/ideas from other people? Just because we ask a question that seems obvious to some, doesn't mean we are "inexperienced" piano teachers. Just that we have run out of ideas.

Where is the harm in letting students participate? Everyone has something to offer, we don't know which answer is going to help the original poster. A piano student could very well be a master in something else that can correlate and help too.

It is really annoying to try to read the posts and the answers when there is so much "I'm right, you're wrong" going on.

Can't we please just stick to answering the questions at hand, and not pretend we know more than the other guy does??

(This is not a response to kbk. The current set-up automatically is linking to him.)

Let me sum up my own points, in the hope that somehow this derailed thread will get "back on track".

There is absolutely no way to know, for sure, which teachers know what they are talking about, and which do not, and parents looking for a good teacher will always need a good bit of luck along with some very good advice to choose a teacher wisely for their children. The same is true of adults choosing teachers for themselves.

When we look at vidoes of young prodigies, it is easy to be impressed by the fact that they sound good. It is easy to discount minor weaknesses in their performances and simply attribute them to youth. In some cases weaknesses are indeed reflections of a "work in progress" and will be taken care of. In other cases, we are already looking at fatal flaws that will magnify over time and may cut a potential playing career short due to physical injury.

Some people play with glaring physical problems and yet have long careers because they are exceedingly lucky. They just have good genes. For instance, we can look at Richter and assume that his physical habits are what made him a colosal virtuose, a true titan, and when a human being can produce the results he got, it is pretty hard to do anything but just watch and listen, open-jawed, and figure that if we could just play as he did, we too might sound like him.

But I think Richter is a bit like a very old man who, when asked the secret of his longevity, answered: "Two packs of cigarettes and a fifth of whisky each day."

Before anyone even thinks I may be saying anything negative about Richter, the player, I'm not. But I think that anyone who tries to play the way he played would destroy his body. Gould? Even more so. I think that about half of the greatest pianists around play *in spite* of some very bad habits, not because of them. Or at the very least, they have personal habits or quirks that work for them, as individuals but that would not work for anyone else. We all know about how many young pianists ruined themselves trying to imitate Horowitz, and I'm totally convinced nothing in Horowitz's playing did anything to harm him, personally. Now think about people imitating Lazar Berman, who already looked like a hunch-back as a fairly young man. Think of any of innumerable young artists immitating any number of players who sound great but play with contortions. To me this is terribly frightening.

In a thread like this we are concerned about what will enable young players to play very well, now, but we should be even more concerned about what the habits they are absorbing now will do to them in 10, 20, 30 years, and that means avoiding physical habits that do damage.

In light of that, we have to consider any amount of finger curvature—or lack of it—by looking at each student as an individual, then watching, almost every moment, to see what is happening, then we have to watch the rest of the body. Of course the goal is to get great sound, which means speed, power, lightness, control, a million other things, but I suggest that there are many ways to get all the things that we value in the greatest of players either with a terrible phyiscal price, or without it. So at any moment, what that fingers are doing, what they look like, is just part of a much larger picture.

This is *huge* and is fundamentally beyond the scope of a forum such as this to explain in a practical way. The best we can do is to link to videos of people who play in a way that is extremely efficient, sane, non-damaging to the body and that enables these players to get beautiful results, point these people out as possible examples of what and what not to do, and hope it gives people who are learning some clues.

But even here we run into a paradox. Would it help to watch Tiger Woods win a major championship in order to develop an idea of a basic golf swing? Should we watch a famous home-run hitter to develop a mechanically sound baseball swing? How much can we learn by watching champions?

I think the answer is that champions learn from watching each other, but if the rest of us need to "take a lesson" from them, we have to get them to show us elementary movements. But even if they consent to do this, are they still doing the same things right? Or might they "dumb-down their own skills", in an effort to make things elementary, in a way that no longer authentically represents what they do best? How often do great players (athletes or pianists) have a talent for transmitting what they know to people who are working on an elementary level?

So can we learn a lot from watching great performers? In general, I don't think so, not if we are not on the same level, or close to it.

Should anyone here trust me, or anything I'm saying here? None of you have heard me play. None of you have seen me play. You haven't seen or heard my students. Maybe I really know a lot. Maybe I am full of wind.

Finding a good teacher, in the end, is largely a matter of luck. I would only say to the OP that when a young player seems to be doing very well with a teacher, when there is a fit, when reading is taking place, when there is enjoyment, when a whole number of positive things are happening, moving to another teacher because of advise given in this or any other forum not only may not result in a better teacher, it may very well result in trading a fine teacher for a much poorer one.

That's so right. Good teachers learn from each other and are also quick to spot a fake. Sadly those that are all full of wind blow the inexperienced off the map!

Wow...this thread really got derailed...

To answer the original question--

The pictures in the Piano Adventures book show the index finger touching the thumb. To me, that is curled. I do not play with curled fingers, nor do I teach curled fingers. I teach a relaxed, natural hand shape/position.

If you drop your arm freely to your side, your fingers are naturally curved, but your thumb is about an inch away from your index finger. I keep that natural shape when I play the piano. Most of the time, I play with the "pads" of the fingers. I come closer to fingertips when I play scale passages and fast runs.

Thanks for that. Now I see. Agree with you 100%.

The point of the index finger touching the thumb is simply as pedagogical exercise for avoiding collapsed joints.

Something missing from the current discussion is that many people do not have the strength or muscle tone necessary to maintain the kind of slight curvature we value. In the early stages, investigating a slight curl can be helpful in building up the muscles necessary for a slight curvature.

The authors of Piano Adventures are not suggesting that you play with curled fingers as per their diagram, they are simply suggesting that it may help build strength in the finger joints.

It's not lack of strength (the long flexors are made to hold your body weight) that breaks joints but lack of coordination. Will somebody please post the pictures?

Kreisler,

I'm not grasping why strength or muscle tone would be necessary for the slight curvature. I thought it was the default conformation of the hand at rest or in repose, and as such wouldn't require any special effort. (I imagined that it's curling the fingers or flattening them that takes work!)

Could you elaborate?

Steven

I don't have the books in front of me right now, but I don't think the pictures in 1 and 2A books show the tip of the index finger touching the thumb's tip.

Actually for my hand, it is also about 1 inch between the index finger's tip and the thumb's tip, this is how I feel the relaxed, natually curved fingers are like. (The finger's second joint is about 110 degrees open)

keyboardlklutz's curved fingers (looks flat fingers to me) is at least 2 inches between the the tips of the thumb and index finger. (The finger's second joint is at least 160 degrees open)

Hi Gary,
Thanks for your suggestion. I have said I was just kidding about the changing teacher thing, I think I know better than that, please don't worry about it.
I have to say your other post about your personal experience dealing with tension is great, thanks for sharing it with us.
Do you think by posting video clips on youtube and ask teachers in the forum to evaluate would be helpful? I will never encourage him to be a pro musician, just want music to be part of his education. I certainly don't want my son to have tension problem that could bother him when he is older.

Keep in mind, people that every has different lengths of fingers & thumbs. My thumb comes up to the 2nd joint in my index finger, and I noticed a student of mine's only comes halfway up the first half of her index finger. So talking about curvature with regards to relation to the other fingers is somewhat erroneous.

Also, speaking of curvature in degrees is not a universal thing. I play with flat fingers sometimes, a slight curve with others, and still more of a curve in other passages. It really depends on the context as to what is appropriate.

Lastly, when dealing with beginners, it is better to err on the side of more of a curve, because they will tend to collapse the fingernail joint and/or play exclusively flat fingered. Asking them to play with more of a curve can help counter this. This is *not* damaging because one can curve the fingers without being overly tense, and I am careful to be sure this is the case. As the ligaments in the fingernail joint get stronger and the student becomes more aware of playing without collapsing the joint, they are just about at the point of playing larger intervals (6ths & higher) which require a flatter hand to execute.

And that includes ligaments.

Oh, my, I've been missing all the fun.

I see we've extended the curved/curled discussion and thrown in a peck of controversy and attitude.

Please carry on. I was definitely interested in the "technique" question in the the other thread as there seems to be many schools of thought regarding technique and piano action adjustments.

The hand at rest doesn't have to support the weight of the arm. While playing, however, the fingers and hand do have to support the weight of the arm (albeit for very short amounts of time), and that requires a certain degree of muscle tone and strength.

There's no beginner that needs that kind of strength.

To clear up some things, I've started another post in which I link real pictures of the Piano Adventures method along with some commentary.

All are welcome to voice their praise, approval, disapproval, or disgust under that topic as well!

I think it's fair to say that an "ideal" yet natural "handshape" is very dependent upon the pianist. Further, we can identify changeable wrist-, hand-, and finger- attacks which are purely situational and which will surely influence his or her "optimal" handshapes (now plural).

When beginning, I prefer to emphasize the point on the fingerTIP from where the key should be struck - being sure the student is playing neither on the pad of the finger (flat) or on the nail (over-curved or curled).

Ask the student to support his or her arm-weight on the tip of one finger and they should easily realize the advantage of NOT playing on the pads. This is especially important on the 5th finger which many beginners will strike from the side (despite having ostensibly curved fingers).

"Handshape" or "curvature" will follow from this naturally - frequently with no further emphasis.