Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner I'm getting very irritated... thumb

Please, if anybody has any thumb exercises, help me!!! Or direct me to something (please, no Hanon)

My thumb has always been retarded, but this time I feel like it's actually getting worse. I'm playing op. 90 and the few scales going down are a complete nightmare. They're not even and it's definitely my thumb. Even my teacher was like, "You can play Rachmaninoff second sonata impressively, but a scale...? Come on now". But I can't I can't!

Help?

Haha, I actually have the same problem, and it has caused me more trouble than I'd like to have in the Mozart sonata I'm currently playing. Which opus 90 by the way? I assume Schubert Impromptus, Schumann Lieder, or Beethoven Sonata...

Maybe move your thumb during the cross-under a little sooner? (Once again, I assume it's your left hand, because descending scale in the left hand has a thumb cross-under.)

Oh sorry!! Beethoven, hahahahah.. I always call it just "op. 90"

And nope, right hand!!!! that's how crippled I am!

Take a break and watch The Piano. Thumbs up!

The Piano? Like, sit there and watch the instrument? Hahaha

No, like, sit there and watch the film The Piano.

Maybe I should do that. I was planning to see "The American" next..

But, I need to perform op. 90 next week! I HAVE to get the scales right!

Maybe I'm just playing it too fast. I'll have to just sit down and figure it out today, away from the piano.

I know this sounds stupid and you've probably done it already. Try dotted rhythms and displaced accents. It usually works for me. BTW, my thumbs are retarded also.

"The Piano" is quite depressing. Instead you could watch "The Legend of 1900", about a great pop pianist who lives his entire life aboard a cruise ship. It's available online here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUaBEpItb5Q

Here's the trailor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA8v9MamhJE&feature=related

I think your teacher should do more than express her "shock" about some technical difficulty.

Oh trust me she did. We spent at least 20 minutes on that scale. I'm just incapable. I also keep forgetting to ask her to give me thumb exercizes, which is what my initial question was here. I won't see her until I have to perform!

have you considered chopping it off?

I have a suggestion, Angelina, believe it or not! At first, I thought you were talking LH, but now I see you mean RH. Either way, this worked for me:

When you get to the passage in question, open up slightly the space between your elbow and torso. It might give you just enough of whatever you need at that point to pass smoothly. You will have to experiment to find how slight or not slight to do this, but I think it helps with the angle of the wrist or something, right at the point of passing. It worked for me on Op. 79 on a downward LH scale. I discovered it by accident. My teacher never let me move my elbows when doing scales, and when I discovered this little maneuver a few months ago, it really freed things up!

During undergrad my teacher found my thumb crossings during scales deficient, and she prescribed me a set of exercises that are helpful.


C major scales up and down (in one hand only) with:

Exclusively a 1-2-1-2 fingering (do as many octaves as you like). The emphasis is not on speed of course, but on very carefully analyzing your movements and making your thumb cross under as efficiently and in as relaxed a manner as possible.

Exclusively a 1-2-3-1-2-3 fingering (do enough octaves to end with 3RH or 1LH on C and come back down). Same emphasis on thumb analysis and relaxation.

Exclusively a 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 fingering (again, do enough octaves to end with 4RH or 1LH on C and come back down).


When you're doing normal scales, you are alternating the fingers involved in the crossing over/under. These exercises allow a repetition of the same crossover/under many times for more careful observation and more concentrated practice.

Could you possibly post a video of the you playing the passage in question? Then I could give specific information on how to fix it.

This may be due to an overdevelopment of thumb strength in the gripping, grasping direction. This is the main motion of the hand in everyday activities, grasping, and thus the muscles of the hand are typically overdeveloped in that direction. And piano playing seems to also be a grasping type of motion; but, in a seeming paradox, it is actually the opposite motion that is important in piano, that is, the motion where you open your fingers from a closed fist. Try putting your hands in a bucket of sand or underwater and exercise the fingers--the rt. thumb especially--in the open-the-hand motion.

no no no don't watch 'The Piano'.. ick. I would watch your movie tho.

Funnily enough, I'd actually agree. Only with regard to the thumb- although I believe that is what Gyro means too. Have you tried Alan Fraser's thumb push ups? They are extremely useful and made a colossal difference to my ease of thumb movement. I know it sounds odd to "strengthen" something as strong as the thumb, but it really loosens everything up and gets it supporting with no effort.

Personally I use the action for each thumb in slow practise of scales (as well as on a table, as suggested). If you want to save time, only play the thumb notes of those scales going down plus the 3/4 that follows each one. With every thumb, use the power of the thumb to slowly lift every finger in the air and open the whole hand. Lift them right over the top of the thumb and then make a very good legato connection to the next. I wouldn't do too much of this in one go, but I can't overstate how much this improved my ease of movement. I used to have truly awful scales. My thumb didn't used to offer any proper support.

EDIT actually, I don't agree that grasping tends to be overdeveloped at all. However, the act of opposing the thumb certainly tends to be underdeveloped.

Without seeing the OP's thumb in action, I can only offer the following common sense advice - the thumb is a thumb and not a finger. You play with the side of your thumb and don't treat it as a finger.

Well, no offence Dave, but unless Angelina's thumb problems are truly spectacular, I can't immediately see that little insight as being likely to provide much in the way of assistance. Personally, I'm guessing that she did not use the pretend-the-thumb-is-a-finger technique of playing on the pad for Rachmaninoff's 2nd sonata.