Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Thumb over versus thumb under

I was reading Chuan C Chang's book "Fundamentals of Piano Practice", particularly the section on thumb under vs. thumb over.

Reading about those techniques makes me wonder if I may be inadvertently using the "thumb over" technique already without even thinking about it.

I tried looking up videos on playing scales on YouTube, but notice most seem to describe the cross over (i.e. E to F) as:

1) Play C, D, E, move thumb under hand, press F

These videos tend to keep the hand parallel with the keys, moving only the thumb during the crossover.

What I notice I've been doing, however, is pivoting my hand prior to ever getting to E. I start pivoting when I hit D and continue as I hit E. By the time I've despressed E, my hand is at a 45 degree angle relative to the keyboard and my thumb is already positioned above F. There's very little side-to-side movement with the thumb; most of the movement is in the arm/wrist. Then I just keep moving my hand down the keyboard as I press F to line up my fingers for the next notes.

I'm still working on the crossover from B to C, but I'm finding this approach feels very "natural", while keeping the hand stationary and trying to move the thumb under the hand feels awkward.

So is this the "thumb over" technique?

From what I gathered Chang is a scientist who wrote a book on how to practice the piano by observing the lessons and practice of his two daughters who became pianists. I maybe doing him some dis-service by this short description, but I would probably prefer the book be written by a pianist rather than a parent who doesn't play the piano. (Not completely sure whether he played a little or doesn't play at all.)

In any case, you should watch Rachel Jimenez's instructional video on how to practice scales. She's very clear and quite to the point. She's releasing lots of video on how to play the piano that is really helpful to beginners.

Generally, yes. Changs says that all good pianists use TO, but many don't realize it or even know the term (which BTW is inaccurate in my opinion, it should be "thumb not under").

Also, see the thread
Gaps in my scale playing



Chang is an accomplished amateur pianist. His daughters' lessons gave him inspiration to write the book, but it is based on his research of the literature and of the method of the daughters' teacher (who herself was a student of Cortot, Debussy, and Saint-Saëns). The book contains findings by great pianists, teachers, and authors. The contribution by Chang himself is that he has compiled the materials into a single package available on-line.

Chang's recommendations are endorsed by my teacher (who BTW graduated from the same Academy as Krystian Zimerman).

That's interesting to know.... Thanks.

shponglefan,

Welcome to the forums. Based on your description, I would tend to say that you are playing using thumb under but with excessive rotation. Motion at the piano is generally best if you focus on economy of movement and not putting the wrist or other joints in extreme positions.

Think of "thumb over" as describing the process of the thumb pushing or pulling (depending on direction) the rest of the hand over and you should have a better understanding of what Chang means by that motion.

I would suggest that you really need to work on mastering thumb under so that it is a natural motion. Start with simple motions of 1 under 2 and back and then add 1 under 3 and 1 under 4. A simple exercise C D E played 1 2 1 will let you focus on just the thumb under motion. You can also play with fingers 2,3, and 4 on black keys at first to give you more space for the thumb to move until you get comfortable with the motion. B Major is an easy scale to learn at first because your thumb plays on B and E and all other notes are on the black keys.

Rich

I really enjoy reading these threads. They are interesting and educational. It is rare that I have anything positive to contribute since I have never had any formal training or lessons. However, it is my observation that when it comes to scales, ascending and descending arpeggios and the like, it is speed and accuracy that counts, whether thumb over or thumb under; I watched a tutorial once demonstrating the thumb over and thumb under method, and I honestly couldn’t see a difference. I don’t know, maybe the demonstrator was doing it too fast…. which brings me to my next comment… it has been my observation that really fast arpeggios are usually done using only the thumb and one or fingers (1, 2, & or 3). I have always wanted to be able to play really fast ascending and descending arpeggios. It is a goal of mine.

Interesting thread, by-the-way.

Rick

Thanks for the link. Since i'm new at all this, I'm trying to pull from as many sources as I can. Can't hurt to learn!

Thanks for the welcome!

I spent some more time reading his description of the technique and I think I'm somewhere in between the techniques. The rotation I mention only really happens if I start from perfectly parallel position. I notice if I flare my entire arm out a bit (thus my keeping my hand at a slight angle), then there's very little rotation and the movement is very quick and smooth as I ascend up the scale.

It's probably not perfectly TO, but it doesn't look quite like the TU videos I've been watching.



I agree, but the problem I find (at least from what video tutorials seem to depict with the TU method) is that the motion of the thumb underneath the fingers feels very unnatural to me. It feels like it's being stretch inappropriately and takes two seperate motions to crossover (thumb over followed by thumb down). OTOH, rotating the entire arm slightly and moving sideways so the thumb barely moves left to right feels very natural. By the time I hit "E", the thumb is already in position to play "F".

shponglefan,

I'd strongly recommend that you look into finding a teacher, even if it is only for a couple of lessons to get some feedback on posture and hand motions. The amount of motion you are describing is pretty much never used in playing scales. If I'm interpreting you right, I'd actually describe it as "flapping your wings." (Note that motion this would be much more appropriate when playing slow legato arpeggios, where the thumb has to cross under a much larger distance.)

I'm also concerned that there might be other problems that a teacher could locate and correct quickly. In particular, you might be sitting too close to the piano or too low and a simple change of position may help with some of the uncomfortableness of the thumb under motion.

Yes, thumb under does start out as multiple motions choreographed into one. So do many many other motions in piano, it just takes time to make them smooth, natural, graceful motions.

The key of thumb over is to make playing a scale at a fast tempo easy. When you describe moving your arm out 45 degress and back, that is just way too much motion to be using when playing fast. Start by playing just C D E with your thumb and first two fingers. Then pick your whole hand up and move it over to put the thumb on F without any rotation of the arm away from the body. Now play F G A B C. Increase the speed on that and minimize the gap between playing E and F and you have thumb over.

Rich