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Yes, no muscles in the fingers (I had to point this out once to the head of a world-famous surgical pathology laboratory). I don't think it makes any difference where the muscles are. Your mind thinks about moving a finger, not about a forearm muscle, even if one of the forearm-located finger flexors or extensors is the thing that contracts.

And those muscles mentioned in wikipedia are in the hand, not the fingers.

With regard to the difficulty of lifting the 4th finger, it's a result of some connections between the extensor tendons on the back of the hand:




I learned this long before I studied anatomy in medical school from a book by Otto Ortmann on the mechanics of piano playing:

Ortmann book.

You learn every day! Now that we all know that the muscles for the fingers aren't actually located there, we don't want to make the mistake of thinking that the fingers aren't reliant upon muscle control. Just because there's a linkage invoved that many of us weren't aware of doesn't negate the value of finger specific control and strengthening exercises.

No, but you see all those wonderful tendons? When you overuse them (repetitive exercises), they swell up. When they swell up, they put pressure on the nerves in a cavity called the carpal tunnel. Guess what syndrome this leads to?

carpal tunnel syndrome?

The risk of carpal tunnel syndrome in pianists can largely be eliminated by ceasing to play piano...

Seriously, are you suggesting that exercises should be discarded?

My own experience is that exercises have dramatically improved my ability to play difficult (for me) passages without as much laborious practice. In my experience on piano and guitar exercises are the quickest and most effective way of gaining true finger independence and dexterity.

Adrian

For finger independence, talk to your teacher about Pischna. These (exercises/activities/repetitive motions/whatever don't want to get into a fight here ) really helped me with finger independence.

Talk to your teacher. Some folks have had a cow when I've suggested Pischna, saying it could damage your hand, you need supervision, blah blah. All I can say is that they helped me noticeably, and I'm still here living a carpal tunnel syndrome-free life. Pischna isn't like Hanon, where you're encouraged to play them repeatedly, getting faster and faster. You do them more slowly and deliberately. A poor analogy might be to think of Hanon as cardio, Pischna as weight-lifting.

And did you know there are no muscles in the fingers?

Now for the reason why Hanon (and like exercises) should be avoided:

1, Hanon, basic anatomical premise is totally false: “The central problem of piano playing is to make the fingers equal and independent”.

Not only this is most definitely not the central problem of piano playing, as it is impossible to achieve it. Therefore Hanon is a waste of time in an absolute sense because you will be employing your energies trying to solve a non-existing problem by pursuing an impossible procedure.

For instance, the fingers have different sizes. How are you going to make this equal? The thumb opposes the other fingers. How are you going to make them equal? The hands are symmetrical. How are you going to equalise them? The fingers 3/4/5 share tendons, how are you going to make them independent? Any method that promises to make your fingers equal and independent (Hanon's basic - and clearly stated - aim) is already showing such basic ignorance of the fundamentals of anatomy that these exercises are likely to be useless.

2. Hanon’s instructions are wrong. He tells you to:

"Lift the fingers high keeping everything else immobile."

Why is this wrong? Because lifting the fingers high is the wrong technique to use and leads to injury. The correct technique is to use – for instance - forearm rotation to bring the fingers up. Pressing the fingers down is never a problem and your fingers can already do it (from daily living) without any need for any further exercising.

Always acquire technique from repertory – that is, whatever technique you are acquiring it should always have a direct import and be guided by the pieces you are working on. Your technical range will increase with the increase of your repertory.

Interestingly, my teacher, though not decrying Hanon o rteh otehr exercises available, agrees with some of what Oleo says.

She does not agree that lifting the fingers high when doing exercises or playing, is a good idea. She instead seeks economy and efficiency of movement.

I agree that "equalising" the fingers is a pointless goal. What matters is being able to use the fingers at will in the most efficient and effective way.

But I do think that exercises help with dexterity in a marked way.

I believe that they have helped me with my repertoire and that they speed up my abaility to play new repertoire both more quickly and better. Perhaps this is an individual thing.

Nina - I loved your "have a cow" remark. I choked on my drink when I read that!

Kind regards

Adrian

Okay Guys...i am about level 5 or 6 and i do my Hanon every day (my teacher says its like drinking milk. you drink it every day to grow up big and strong). I tried Czerny once, his school of velocity. It was okay. I still love Hanon more. Right now I am still in school and piano is limited to 45 minutes a day (makes me sad). On weekends i play about 2 and 1/2 hours and leave about 1 hour for Hanon (yeah!!!) I am working on Le Petite Negre by Debussy also i'm working on L'orage by Burgmuller. I have a tight Scheldule but i continue to put piano first.

Peace , Debussy20

Seriously, are you suggesting that exercises should be discarded?

I don't do them. At all. I haven't played a scale in probably nearly a decade. I still have yet to play every single scale that exists (in "standard exercise repertoire") on a piano and in 'scale-exercise' format (versus playing it in a piece).

Exercises tell you to "hit the right note". So you practice and practice until you can. But you can circumvent all this blah-blah-blah if you learn how to move between the notes, and discovery why you can't hit the right note in the first place. Once you do that, exercises are virtually useless (in the highly-repetitive, grind them to the bone environment in which most pianists seem to employ them).

I've never understood it, and I never will. AND this is coming from a guy who tells every martial arts student who walks through the door that 'basics' are the most important thing to learn. (So, naturally, what I'm saying is that what most people do is not "learning" the exercises. You'd think, after a few months, you'd learn them. But people insist on taking their entire lives to pound them into the ground, leaving very little left for their pieces.)

Here's another one: A runner must balance well the distance he/she runs with the damage they're inflicting on their body. If they don't, they'll either lose the race or injure themselves from either under or over-training, respectively. The same applies for pianists...except in this case, you don't need exercises to build/keep up your endurance, so after you've learned them, you should rarely need to go back to them.

"I still love Hanon more. Right now I am still in school and piano is limited to 45 minutes a day (makes me sad). On weekends i play about 2 and 1/2 hours and leave about 1 hour for Hanon (yeah!!!)"

People do love Hanon - they seem to have a seductive comfort, pander to the work ethic, and of course they make a promise. I don't think they are much good, especially compared to several other sets of exercises - Brahms,Dohnanyi, Pischna. When I assign technical work it is with a partial intention of it taking no more than 15 mins lesson time to go over and reassign - that includes scale/arpeggio work too. Exercises are for developing technique. I haven't needed to do e.g. Dohnanyi since mastering them 30 years ago - I know this because I can always demonstrate them with ease. I see no point of keeping on with them when the job is done.

John

Exercises are supposed to do much more than "tell you to hit the right note." They can help develop facility, teach you to listen, how to practice, rotation, the correct motions, how to use arm, shoulder, wrist in conjuncton with the fingers (yes, those bony bits at the end of your hand do have a role to play in all this).

These "play exercises and scales vs. exercises and scales are a waste of time" arguments can go on and on. Keep in mind that the person asking the question - getting all this conflicting advice - is a beginner, and looking for some advice on the 4th finger problem. To say exercises should be discarded, or they just tell you to play the right notes is not the best information to give a beginner.

I don't tend to play exercises or practice scales anymore, but I credit them with a lot of my development as a beginner to intermediate to advanced. I started playing piano from scratch when I was 15, and played a lots of Hanon - the right way with a good teacher - scales, Czerny, etc. That balanced with a lot of the right rep. and theory was a very efficient way to learn.

I find that a lot of people in the "exercises should be discarded" camp forget about how they developed their own playing.

My advice is to keep an open mind, and get (and listen to) a good teacher. Regarding exercises, if something works, use it. Don't close your mind to an approach because someone said "it's a waste of time." The problem with the 4th finger can't be solved overnight, and you shouldn't rush it. It won't be solved 100% anyway because of anatomical reasons discussed above, but it does get better. Finally, it's not always what you play, it's how you play it.

I agree completely with Oleo that Hanon's description of the problem and his instructions are all wrong. I disagree completely that the exercises are, therefore, a useless waste of time. Many people have created systems that achieve something empirically valid even though the theory behind it is false.

I have always found that a few minutes (that's all!) of some Hanon exercises provide a good warm up. for my son, in his first two years he went through perhaps the first twenty exercises. The effect on his dexterity and control were amazing. Of course this is not a scientific experiment. We have no control case and the counterfactual (how would he have done without the exercises) is unknowable.

He does very little Hanon now (maybe one or two a day on average). He does more Czerny, and he's playing around with some Tankard exercises. The latter two are better in my view. The Czerny is more musical (and geared toward specific classical issues) and the latter works specific useful techniques. He also does scales and arpeggios now, though with less dedication than I would like

Simple scales and arpeggios are great exercises and they internalize theory as well.

What do concert pianists do? Well, they're all over the map in their views. Some never go near an "exercise," prefering to get their workout from the music directly. But many do keep up their basics. My teacher used to put on headphones and listen to other music while running through a half hour of Hanon every day. There is no single path to heaven here.

Since everyone else is sharing I guess I will as well.

I do perhaps 10 or 15 minutes of exercises to warm up at the beginning of practice. That means the first 8 Hanon, perhaps some Dohnanyi and maybe a scale or two. Then maybe a 2 part invention or two and then get down to work. Having said that Hanon helped me years ago to develop finger independance and make the 4th and 5th fingers more adroit. However my point is that for me, exercises really work to warm up my hands and get them ready to do real work. Thus I also subscribe to Derulux's concept that you don't want to work your hands to death on exercises as it'll keep you from important work on repertoire.

Having said that I worked longer than usual on one particular piece yesterday and my right thumb is a bit sore today on the top of the joint at the base. I can't believe it's taken 18 hours for me to remember the wonder of Ibuprofen. I just took one and we'll see if it works.

Czerny is 100x better than Hanon.

1. Do not read Hanon's notes, they are completely "wrong".
2. Hanon is very unmusical and that's why Cznery is better. Although Czerny isn't very musical as well, it's always better to at least HAVE a melody than only scales etc.
3. But with Hanon you know exactly WHAT you are learning, it's all a nice overview of nearly all important techniques.

Personally I think Hanon is just a waste of time (I don't like Czerny as well, but it's not a real waste of time to me). Well ok, if you really ENJOY Hanon, GO ON!!! If you practise these things on the RIGHT way, they can't only improve your technique. But I prefer the same technique in a melodic piece, or even a Czerny etude. Just don't keep in mind that it is technique, but make music (with Czerny that IS possible, although not very good, but it is).

Any exercise that furthers one’s playing is useful. Unfortunately I do not believe that you can start from the exercise side. This is turning the whole issue on its head. You must start from a piece. The technical difficulties (for you, for that piece) in the piece will guide the choice of useful exercises.

Although Czerny is better than Hanon (which in my opinion is not only useless but also completely misguided ) the sad truth is that as music, Czerny studies are crap. Would you perform them for friends and family? Would you like to share them with anyone? Actually there are a couple of them that I actually like, but I never played them for their “study” value, but simply because I like the music. Compare with Chopin etudes. Yes, they are studies, but they are also superb pieces on their own right (and in fact you probably need easier studies to acquire the technique to play them). And if you want easier studies, then go for Burgmuller, Heller and Eggeling which are actually musically satisfying.

As for strength, it is never about strength. If you want to develop (totally unnecessary) finger strength, work in a bakery making bread dough by hand. I doubt it will improve your piano playing though.

The fourth finger is pretty much impossible, and no amount of exercise will change that in any appreciable way.
Bringing the fingers down (from the knuckle koint) on the other hand represents no problem. All fingers are equally adept at it. They are already perfectly trained and developped from ordinary daily activities. Therefore there is no need to exercise bringing down the fingers.

So the situation here is very simple: You do not need exercise to bring down the fingers, and exercise will do no good to lift them. So no need for exercise!

What are you going to do about lifiting the fingers? Don't. Lift the hand and the hand will lift the fingers. In fact, you are not really going to lift the hand. the arms/forearms will lift everyone. The most important movement in this respect is forearm rotation. From forearm rotation everything eventually comes. Unfortunately Hanon does not want you to rotate your forearm (try with a coin on top of your hands, and you will see what I mean). He wants you to lift your fingers in isolation. without anything else moving. But this is impossible. And even if it was possible, it wouldn't make much of a difference anyway.

"Any exercise that furthers one’s playing is useful."

I wouldn't look at any other kind. I'll turn your idea on its head. I would rather have a hand and ten fingers that will cope with just about anything music can demand of them. My fourth fingers, as a result of a regime of exercises 30 years ago can cope with any reasonable demands. I don't need to avoid fourth fingers - I would hate that handicap. And I have never had a piano-related injury nor have any of my students.


John

john,

which exercises in particular would you reccomend for the 4th fingers?

In short, if you regard the 4th finger problem (if it is a “problem”, that is) as weaker and less independent than the others, then you may try (as did many of the 19th century pedagogues) to remedy the problem by submitting the poor 4th finger to all sorts of weird gymnastics and unnatural movements in order to “improve” its strength and independence.

If then you learn that it is actually anatomically impossible to do so, you are in a dead end: the 4th finger cannot be made stronger or independent – logic tells us.

But then you see pianists which clearly have overcome the problem: their 4th fingers seem to be as strong and as independent as the other ones. So clearly there is a way to deal with it. Unfortunately if these pianists have been raised in a regimen of Hanon/Czerny/Pischna/Dohnanyi/whoever for several hours a day – which is a very common pedagogy – they may attribute their success to such practice regimen – when in fact it has nothing to do with it, as we shall see.

Unfortunately (and in other aspects, fortunately) piano learning is a master-apprentice relationship and therefore highly authoritarian. Independent thinking is frowned upon. The student has no time for investigation – after 300 years of piano playing everything has already been mapped out and we do not want to waste time trying to rediscover the wheel – or so our teachers may tell us, and since this makes sense and since we are paying for this advice we tend to follow it unquestioningly.

But the human body/mind/spirit does not work this way. We are crafty and sly. We never truly “obey” to the letter our teacher’s instructions (and this goes for everything, not only piano). We may even consciously try to do so, but unconsciously we do not. And this is ultimately our saving grace, for any teacher’s instruction – no matter how good - is always defective and incomplete and if we truly followed to the letter we would never raise above mediocrity level (in any subject, not only piano).


Now to go back to the 4thfinger problem.

What frequently happens in regards to the 4th finger is that although you may be trying hard to achieve the goal of equal strength and independence by following your teacher’s misguided approach or practising Hanon with lifting fingers high and not moving the hand, unconsciously your body may be doing something very different and usually invisible to the eye (so that your teacher cannot catch you doing it).

In fact, if you become a true believer in the wrong methodology, your unconscious may make it invisible to you as well. So after a while you start progressing thanks to your unconscious efforts, but since it is unconscious (and since the unconscious never bothers to claim merit) you (and your teacher) attribute the success to the pedagogy (whatever it is) being used. This way the “tradition” (so important in teaching that follow a master-apprentice model) is not only safeguarded from criticism (“I’ve been doing it for 30 years, and look at me! I am living proof that it works! How can you argue with that?”) as it is empowered and vindicated generation after generation, even though results are accrued in spite of it, not because of it

But as Mahler once said, “tradition is laziness”.

So what is the answer? The answer is surprisingly simple. The forth finger lacks strength and independence only if you try to lift it. If you press it down, it is as strong and independent and the other fingers, and you play the piano by pressing the fingers down, not up! And of course the way to lift the fingers is to lift the hand.

Now have you ever heard that 5th finger is the weakest and needs to be “strengthened”. Well, consider this little fact that no one seems to realise:

As you stand up with your arms relaxed by your side, what is the position your hands are in? The thumbs are pointing forward, right?

But when you sit at the piano and get ready to play, you rotate your forearm so that your hands are now at a 90 degree angle to the relaxed position above. This way the thumb is brought to rest on the keys. If you were to keep the hands in the same relaxed position you had them when standing up, the fingers would all be in the air, with only the little finger touching the key.

This means, that – although people are mostly unconscious and unaware of it – when you play the piano, you are constantly making a rotational effort to keep the hand in its playing position.

Have you heard people say that you should relax when playing the piano? Well, if you truly followed this instruction to the letter, you would end up lying on the floor. What I mean is that you should relax only the playing apparatus – arms, shoulder, forearms, wrists, hands and fingers, and only in between touching the keys. When pressing the keys surely you use your musclses, but otherwise relax”Now next time your teacher tells you to relax ask for a demonstration. And notice if as s/he relax at the appropriate moments his.her hands rotat back to their resting, natural position. You see, you cannot keep the hands in playing position fi you relax the muscles that keep the hand in that position. As you relax you naturally rotate back towards the little finger. And you should do that. Because this back rotation that relax the rotating muscles makes the 5th the finger the strongest of them all. The other fingers, and especially the thumb need to fight this tendency of the arm to go back to its relaxed, resting position, but the 5th finger benefits and takes advantage of it. So the 5th finger is actually the least in need of “strengthening” exercises, as long as you are aware of the very natural rotational movement I have just pointed out.

Yet a whole platoon of misguided Hanon lovers will tell you to keep your hand rigidly immobile (use coins on top of it to make sure) while lifting the 5th finger high in order to “strengthen” it. So, at the same time they tell you to do a movement that cannot possibly result in any strengthening, they stop you form doing the very naturally movement that guarantees the maximum strength of the 5th finger – a strength that is already there as your birth right.

So how come so many people claim that Hanon strengthened their 5th fingers? Well, the unconscious is crafty. It goes after results, not after merit. The unconscious is quite happy to let the conscious mind claim the merit for the improvement and justify it with Hanon, while the unconscious is doing all the work through micro rotations that are invisible to the eye (but they can be felt if you observe and are honest with yourself). But eventually, even the unconscious may not be enough to prevent a nasty injury if one insists on misguided and unnecessary physical movements repeated for hours a day.