Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Tense hands in beginners. What's the trick?

Yes. A simple test (not involving a piano at all) will tell you that. Hold an forearm at the approximate place you would playing. Feel the bicep (and the tricep for good measure). Then let the arm rest on a table. Feel the bicep again. Then let the arm hang limp at your side. Feel the bicep.



Notice I said gravity to help you out. I think you are confusing the frictional force with the normal force. Friction is there, but it is not supplying the force equal and opposite to gravity; that's the normal force.

Notice I said gravity to help you out. I think you are confusing the frictional force with the normal force. Friction is there, but it is not supplying the force equal and opposite to gravity; that's the normal force. [/quote]

In this case, surely the normal force is not adequate though? I suppose it depends on seat height and other issues to an extent, but when I let my hand and arm go flaccid, my fingers slip off the keys. Gravity does not stabilise them. Due to the countless levers (notably the wrist) the result of the arm's gravity as a whole does not act perfectly downwards upon the fingertips. It's more inclined to drag them slowly along the keys. This serves to demonstrate that even in the most exclusively gravity-based methods, the hand MUST employ some grip to achieve adequate friction at the fingertips (or the joints in the arm must seize up to compensate again). It's this grip that can serve to channel a substantial component of that gravity in a more productive direction.

Does this not imply then that friction is not enough, but rather it's usage of the upper arm that keeps your hands on the keys? I am guessing that the coefficient of friction of piano keys is rather low, so you can't depend upon friction to keep you from sliding off.

Ah, but that's my very point! Isn't it better and easier to employ a tiny amount of grip from the fingertip itself- in order to stabilise with a little added friction at the very point of contact? Isn't it vastly more effort to try and achieve equivalent stabilisation further back in the arm?

I believe this is the very reason why Horowitz employed flat fingers- so he could grip at the last joint of his finger. Overly curved fingers cannot serve to grip the key. Start with a flat pad and you can 'pull' very slightly from the fingertip, to achieve all the stabilisation you need at the most direct point. I think this is the key to removing the need for tensions further back in the mechanism. I'm absolutely certain that it was my insufficient grip that used to cause shoulder pains, etc.

Well, I vary my finger profile depending upon what I am playing. I use naturally curved fingers for Bach, flatter fingers for Chopin and Romantic music. Octaves in particular work best with flat fingers in my experience.



But you just got through basically saying above that friction is insufficient...



Consciously "gripping" the key is a recipe for more tension. Releasing tension in the shoulders/neck is better. Whenever I get "tense" at the piano, it is always in the shoulders/neck and sometimes even the jaw! I tend to use a natural hand profile (varying as necessary to fit the demands of the music), allow gravity to assist me when necessary (as in when the music calls for a mf or louder dynamic), and release tension in the shoulders, neck, and jaw. The best way to do that is to breath deeply and naturally. Works well for me, and I recommend you give it a try, and forget about this "gripping" stuff.

Well, I did that for years and experienced collossal tensions. I knew HOW to relax (I demonstrate the free-fall drop to students constantly) I simply wasn't ABLE to relax because otherwise the forces did not balance. Since I started gripping the keys so I could support at that end, the tensions disappeared. What more can I say?

I only said the friction is insufficient if you don't grip and allow gravity to act unaided by any muscular activity. If you do grip, you can make plenty of friction against a key. That also helps to channel the effects of gravity more consistently into the plane where you want it to go- rather than partially into the perpendicular plane along which your hand slides over the keys when you go flaccid.

There are plenty of people who've tried to relax their shoulders and failed. However, you have to create a stable contact with the key if you intend to do so. As you said yourself, if grip doesn't come at the key, it has to come further back in the arm. THAT is a considerable tension! How can this rationally be done in the name of relaxation? A little grip in a fingertip (at the direct point where contact actually occurs) is barely any effort at all by comparison. I think it's a real shame that people rarely stop to consider this side of the equation. It makes perfect rational sense. It's not an alternative to relaxation, it's a means to make desirable relaxations physically possible.

Everyone is unique. What works for me, may not work for you. Are you certain you aren't holding your breath while you play? That causes massive tension that tires you out quickly. As to contacting the keys, one does that anyway to play the piano; so for myself I see little or no need to attempt to somehow contact the keys more.

You've made your point many times over now, so why don't we give this topic a rest?

It's the fact that everyone is unique that is my point. Why keeping pushing the old you-need-to-relax-more on people who have been told that for years but not been able to do so. Why not consider the possibility that activating their hand might be the means by which they could be capable of doing so?

I've well aware of the benefits of dropping and relaxing the shoulders etc. However, it could not provide any assistance until I learned a means by which to maintain that state of relaxation. I have to say that you really don't seem terribly open-minded about the possibility that many people might be better served by learning to grip the keys. Why restrict everyone to the old you're not relaxed enough dogma when it clearly doesn't work for everyone? Perhaps it helped you, but why would you suggest that I should drop what has worked for me- in favour of returning to something I already explained provided me with no benefits at all?

Frankly, after all the rational explanations I've taken the trouble to offer in response to your points, I'm rather stunned that you'd round it all off by suggesting that I just forget the whole thing (for reasons unexplained) and return to the manner of playing that had actually served to cause unwanted tensions.

Seeing as you've evidently dismissed the notion that this approach could possibly benefit anyone (assuming for unexplained reasons that I probably just didn't breathe enough) could you explain what reason there is why gripping slightly from the fingertips should be more problematic than trying to stabilise the fingers by tensing up the arms?

Meh. It's fairly obvious to me now that you believe that your method is the only correct one, and that everyone is somehow "out to get you". And you feel the need to prove something. Furthermore, you are twisting my words; whether it is out of malice or ignorance I don't know and frankly don't care. This discussion is over.

Not at all. If you read my words more carefully, you would have noticed that I didn't say a word against exercises that are designed to release tension in the shoulders (although, conversely, it's abundantly clear that you will not even consider the possibility that there are cases where more grip can be a solution). I'm a firm believer in dropping techniques and in many cases they can fix a problem. However, in those cases where shoulder tension is caused by an imbalanced mechanism (which perhaps you deny might ever exist?) merely having the ability to relax the shoulders is not enough until you can determine what forces them, to start tensing up in the first place. Perhaps I just imagined this personal experience, though and there is never any case in which seeking a more stable position at the keys could possibly be the solution to upper body tensions?

The fact that you would sincerely advise me to drop that which has helped me (after I explicitly stated that traditional relaxation exercises had never removed the root of former upper body tensions) makes it quite clear that you are only willing to consider one single approach. If you'd read my words more carefully, you'd have seen that I have never discounted the value of relaxation exercises. I continue to stand by them. I simply don't believe that they can solve every problem. Having used them on myself and all of my students as standard, they simply didn't work on everybody. When the root of the tension remains, you need alternative approaches. If I didn't have an open mind, I would never have moved on from the solely relaxation based methods that I was brought up on and I would never have made any progress beyond the limitations that they can impose when used as a one-size-fits-all method.

Nyiregyhazi, you said:

Sorry, but physics dictates that there very much DOES have to be a friction involved. Also, if there were no friction at all, there could be no resting whatsoever at the finger end. In other words, you have the sword analogy, where all the work needs to be done from one end- creating a huge workload. If this doesn't happen, the hand slips off the keys and down to your side. However, you approach it, the weight of your arm MUST be supported somehow.

No, there doesn't have to be friction involved, as long as your main joints (elbow, wrist) are producing a torque (i.e., tension). That is why I said the following:

That's just not true. A perfectly good normal force between the finger and key (and some torque/tension generated in the elbow to prevent that from collapsing, as I think you were insinuating) would prevent this "falling off the keys" and provide a static equilibrium. The world is full of perfectly stable truss structures that are supported at one or more points by joints that can't support sliding friction. But you better believe these joints have tremendous normal reaction forces.

Notice how I mentioned having torque/tension generated in the elbow (add to that the wrist and even the knuckle joints). As long as you have all that, which in effect creates a simple little one-dimensional truss, you can be totally supported at the free end (finger) by a good solid, happy normal force, with NO friction whatsoever. No "falling off the keys" will occur, unless you remove the torque at the above-mentioned joints, or lean way back from the piano of course. Why don't you try it by putting some vaseline on top of some keys (unless that is harmful for the keys, which it might be). As Horowitzian intimated, the coefficient of friction between finger and key is SO small that, even if it were required to do what you say, it wouldn't be up for the job.

Nyireghyazi, you said awhile ago:

If there is a net force, there IS movement. Whatever force is applied to keys is returned by those keys and cancelled out to zero. Otherwise they have to move. When a person sits in a chair, the chair returns the weight that is applied to it. Otherwise the chair collapses. When you settle down into the keybed, the keybed returns whatever you apply to it- balancing a proportion of your arm's weight.

That's all good. I said what I did about the 3 different "modes" of key depression (including acceleration) because I was never quite clear from your posts if you were talking about forces on the finger during "key-bottoming" or also during the movement stages. You have since made it clear that you were only talking about the former. We're cool there I guess.

You then said:

Sorry, but to achieve an equilibrium, you have to maintain muscular tensions. They may be slight or they may be pronounced, but they are very much in existence. I do believe that some alignments are more stable than others (particularly when there is a good support achieved at the finger end). However, there is simply no alignment in which the wrist will not collapse unless there is muscular activity. Try it. If you are completely relaxed your wrist drops.

Yes, I agree, which is what you see in my quotes I restated above. If you don't have a "one dimensional truss" (i.e., won't collapse in on itself), then it matters very little what may have happened at the finger/key interface. But assuming you do have the truss, created by torque at all the vital joints (elbow, wrist, knuckles), it can be and is fully supported by the normal force between the finger and depressed key. And this allows the shoulder itself to be free of torque (tension), which should make you a happy man, right?

"Notice how I mentioned having torque/tension generated in the elbow (add to that the wrist and even the knuckle joints). As long as you have all that, which in effect creates a simple little one-dimensional truss, you can be totally supported at the free end (finger) by a good solid, happy normal force, with NO friction whatsoever. No "falling off the keys" will occur, unless you remove the torque at the above-mentioned joints, or lean way back from the piano of course. Why don't you try it by putting some vaseline on top of some keys (unless that is harmful for the keys, which it might be). As Horowitzian intimated, the coefficient of friction between finger and key is SO small that, even if it were required to do what you say, it wouldn't be up for the job."

Okay, I see your point. However, there still is at least SOME friction. I see how this approach would reduce the extent of the friction, but it would not prevent it. For zero friction, the arm would have to be locked perfectly stiff (surely not a case of positive tensions, by any definition???), the finger would need to be flawlessly aligned, the movement would have to be perfectly aimed on a downward plane etc. The point is that, even if you intend to avoid this friction, there really has to be SOME involved (unless we are talking of things that are merely theoretical and not possible within any form of reality). In any case, could anyone honestly argue that an arm that is held so stiffly (as to enable the finger to act on the key without a trace of grip) is more 'relaxed' or functional than using a faint bit of stabilising grip from a finger- coupled with a balanced support of the arm's weight? I don't quite see where you're going with this. As you say, it stands that if the finger is not gripping, the arm's joints are having to be 'held' together with some muscular tensions to compensate. Why would that be inherently preferable to the tiny amount of finger grip that can serve to stabilise between notes? Why should the muscular effort needed to solidify an arm be seen as an okay tension, but the idea of a gripping finger would be a sacrilege? Incidentally, before I started actively gripping with my finger, I slipped off keys aplenty, with or without vaseline. Gripping definitely reduced that.

"Yes, I agree, which is what you see in my quotes I restated above. If you don't have a "one dimensional truss" (i.e., won't collapse in on itself), then it matters very little what may have happened at the finger/key interface."

I think I'm looking for something very different to you though. In my own technique, the finger's grip is vital. I'm not saying there are no other possibilities, but the truss you are talking about sounds like a LOT of tension to me. Only by locking the arm to the point of hugely pronounced tensions can the role of this connection from finger to key be reduced. Why on earth would anyone consider that superior to balancing with a tiny bit of friction through a virtually neglible bit of finger grip? I honestly cannot see a single reason how the tension in the arm could possibly be inherently healthier. It's like the sword analogy again. Why hold out a heavy sword from only one end, if you also can settle it down at the other end? The arm is not stiff like a sword, but you can generate a very close equivalent by simply adding a minor bit of grip at the finger end. Then you have the two sided stabilisation. You can get SOME stabilisation with a less gripping finger, but I find that if I don't grip much, I am certainly less beneficially stabilised by the keybed. If you don't get stability there, the only other alternative is to lock the arm. I do not see that as a productive approach. I'm seeking a point of actively connected support at both ends, not an arm that has to be solidified into a single body from forearm to finger.




But assuming you do have the truss, created by torque at all the vital joints (elbow, wrist, knuckles), it can be and is fully supported by the normal force between the finger and depressed key. And this allows the shoulder itself to be free of torque (tension), which should make you a happy man, right?
[/quote]

Well, I differ about the point about the normal force. As mentioned in an earlier post, the normal force does not keep a flaccid arm and finger on a key. It cannot therefore entirely explain a stable connection betweeen key and finger. However, if you can create a stable point there, then yes- you have the basis to operate in the most 'relaxed' (or perhaps better, the most 'comfortable') way possible. Some may achieve this state through intentions of relaxation alone. However, I think it's very important to realise that (in reality) this state can only be achieved with the inclusion of certain tensions (whether the player is conscious of them or not). A flaccid arm cannot ever achieve that.

Of course, a rigidly locked arm that suffers tensions that serve no function. However, for those who do not succeed in learning a balanced position through the intention to relax as much as possible, there needs to be an alternative. In effect, we're (almost) all looking to converge on the same ability to maintain a neutral position without excessive effort. However, it's important to realise that for some people (myself included) achieving relaxation is not necessarily the issue. For some people, they need to learn how to improve the support within certain areas, before they can relax other muscles. Apparently this is quite a heresy, but the truth is that negative over-relaxation can be a source of compensatory tensions. I learned HOW to relax years ago. What I only just discovered was how to integrate everything in a whole where it is POSSIBLE to relax. In my case, the shoulders weren't the problem. They were a symptom of the problem.

Whether such cases are in the a minority or not, it's important to realise that problems are not only caused by excessive tensions. As long as people retain the blanket fix of- you need to relax more (regardless of the specific symptoms) a whole of students are going to remain at dead-end. I my case, it didn't matter how much I was told to relax until I learned supportive fingers. That was the link that finally permitted my arms to relax. For some people, no amount of flopping around will necessarily take you there.

(My own bits are in italics, by the way, although I probably ought to have done it the other way around)

BTW Perhaps I should just stress that I grip from a position of very flat fingertips- with a large surface area on the key. I don't play with especially flat fingers as a whole, but the type of of grip I'm using is not possible with traditional playing on the very fingertips. I like to stabilise with a large surface area on the key. At this angle, gripping reinforces the contact. Start with a pointed finger, however, and any gripping is obviously not going to achieve anything.

EDIT Actually, I've been thinking about various issues including those you raise, and I now think that even a very pointed finger requires grip. Do your knuckles collapse in a standard position? If not, there's certainly an element of grip involved from the finger tip. It's very slight in some positions, but I just realised that my knuckles collapse entirely, unless my finger is pulling slightly on the key. Once aligned, this force is very small indeed. However, when I sense it and release it, my knuckles instantly sag under the impact of gravity. This instantly robs my hand of all form or support and imposes a feeling of far more exertion that which is involved in the grip that keeps the knuckles standing. Small as it may be, the fingers are involved with a very real force- even in the traditional pointed finger position. Some people may not even realise the force exists, but something has to make the knuckles stand up, in the face of the gravity that acts upon that joint.. What else could serve to do that (in the overwhelming majority of great pianists who do not allow their knuckles to collapse) other than grip in the hand? Even if the arm were to be solidified into a single joint, what else could possible explain what is going on in a hand that does not collapse?

Nyiregyhazi said the following:


I think I see the problem here. I'm not suggesting that whatever it is that you are doing to achieve this so-called "grip" is not helpful. I am now starting to see that what you consider grip is not what I would consider grip at all. Again, I'm not saying that what you are doing in your own hand is not helpful. I'm thinking that what you are doing is producing the torque in your knuckle joints (which I referred to in my previous post or two), which necessarily puts your final digit or two in an orientation that you want. You are "sensing" it as grip, and calling it grip, which implies to me as an engineer that friction is suddenly and miraculously created/improved. But in reality you are simply finding a way to orient the last inch or two of your playing apparatus in a way that feels extremely stable and comfortable. I think it's all simply about what you are doing at the last joint or two, while you choose to call it "grip". That may be about as far as we can go with this from a technical viewpoint. From a practical viewpoint, as a player, and as one who you probably remember in the other thread has problems with my fingers slipping off the black keys, I am still very open to making some changes.

What's wrong with referring to it as 'grip' though? I don't follow what your problem with that word is. I've certainly seen plenty of students who 'grip' in a negatively excessive manner. In that case, I'd probably refer to it as 'clenching' rather than 'grip'- which I consider to be a basic requirement from any hand that is capable of fulfilling what is required of it. Why should this be referred to as a 'sensation' of grip, rather than as a very literal example of gripping with the hand?

When I rest on a chord, I feel a very literal 'pulling' from the final joint of my fingers against the surface of the keys- as well as from the knuckles. I've used exercises recently that activate one or the other independently, so I'm certainly aware of the different sensations. I experience grip at both places, without a shadow of doubt. This is what achieves the stable support on the key and the stable knuckle. I cannot think of any sensation that is more literally one of 'gripping' within the hand. Years of being told to relax more did very little for me and my collapsed knuckles placed a huge limit on my progress. The gripping function of the hand is one of the major things that started things working. No mere sensation of gripping makes my knuckles stand up and support. Actual grip in my hand is what causes that to happen. Some people may have that instinctively but, whether they know it or not, a hand that supports from the knuckles is a hand that is gripping in the most literal sense conceivable. There's no other plausible explanation for it. Just because an excess of grip can cause problems, it doesn't follow on that grip should never be regarded as a positive. It's vital to a balanced whole as a free upper body.

PS Just to prove how literal the grip is, if I start with depressed knuckles and squeeze inward from every finger, my knuckles stand up and balance. That is how I form the most natural hand position, without any excess of tension. I grip from a neutral point until the knuckles stand up. From this point I use no more continued grip than is necessary to maintain that position. However, there certainly is still a literal grip. The moment I release this grip, everything collapses again. I cannot think why this could or should be regarded as anything other than the gripping function that it so evidently is. It utilises all of the same muscles as my powerball- a 'grip' training device. It could well be that some shape hands require considerably less active grip to formulate a stable position. However, my own hand does not balance without the most literal kind of gripping. Look at Richter's hand or Horowitz's and tell me that's a hand that does not use grip! Why the stigma?

Nyiregyhazi responded:



Well, again, what you are doing is creating torque at those last couple of joints, which necessarily causes your knuckles to rise and your final digit or two to increase from their initial horizontal angles. If it were truly "grip" (i.e., a forward-acting horizontal force acting on your fingertip), it would not even be in the proper direction to do this knuckle-raising job.

If you sketched a free body diagram of this situation, this alleged "frictional/gripping force" would have to be acting back toward your body in order to cause raising of the knuckles. And that is exactly 180 degrees opposite of the direction of the true frictional force (however tiny it may be). Just to help explain the force direction problem, imagine you place a curled piece of paper on a flat surface, where it ends up "concave down" (standing up in the middle). And then let's say you fix one of the contacting edges, and say "I want to push or pull on the other contacting edge to make this piece of paper stand up even more (i.e., more convex as viewed from above)". Well, you can probably see that you would have to push that opposite edge back toward the fixed edge in order to make the paper more convex. If you pull it away from the fixed edge, it becomes less convex and stands up less. So back to your hand, the frictional force is acting away from your wrist and body as you perform the squeezing motion you describe above, and simply can't result in the lifting of knuckles. Another culprit must be involved.

If you simply acknowledged that this squeezing involved inducing torque at your final couple of knuckle joints, then everything falls into place, including the summation of forces and moments in your hand which cause your knuckles to rise. Your fingertip has to slide inward toward your body until you sense that the torque is sufficient, and everything is at an equilibrium. I think this is just a very common case of a person describing something in one manner, because it is very difficult to discern what is really happening. This is very common in all kinds of activities and sports (like golf, where teachers say to accelerate the clubhead through the ball, when in reality the clubhead is decelerating there). Doesn't mean the sensation or ill-formed description is not helpful.

By the way, I performed your squeezing/raising action on several different surfaces, some rougher and some much more slippery. I get the very same sensation on all of them. Would you try this? This also implies that friction is not really at play here. Of course, I can't be 100% sure that this sensation is the same one you have been trying to describe. But my bet is that you would arrive at your same "gripping" sensation on any surface, even with vaseline added into the mix.

Rick

Well, again, what you are doing is creating torque at those last couple of joints, which necessarily causes your knuckles to rise and your final digit or two to increase from their initial horizontal angles. If it were truly "grip" (i.e., a forward-acting horizontal force acting on your fingertip), it would not even be in the proper direction to do this knuckle-raising job.

As I stated, I grip both from the fingertip and from the knuckles. Why is it so hard to believe that I would actually be doing that? No, offence, but I think you could open your mind a little more. I'm not discounting techniques that don't use the final joint to any great extent. However, I can assure that mine does involve it. In any case, aren't the knuckles the primary source of what we refer to as grip? Even a solely knuckle based grip is very much that- a grip.

If you sketched a free body diagram of this situation, this alleged "frictional/gripping force" would have to be acting back [i]toward your body in order to cause raising of the knuckles. [/i]

EDIT I just changed this bit after going to the piano. Why would it have to act that way? I think you're mistaken Pop a fingertip on a tabletop and drop your wrist. Pull a little from the finger. Does your hand get pushed aways from it or pulled towards it? Doing this raises up my knuckle. However, try the same thing without resting on anything. Only your finger moves, obviously. It shows the importance of that stable contact and which way the forces are channeled. When you have a component that acts towards your body in the finger, the friction pulls your arm the other way- towards the piano. That raises the knuckle. I really don't follow your point on why a return force towards the body should raise a knuckle. You can easily observe in practise that the reverse is true. Pulling with the finger is the equivalent of pushing the paper IN- not of pulling it away. The friction draws the hand in, towards the point of contact, not out.


By the way, I performed your squeezing/raising action on several different surfaces, some rougher and some much more slippery. I get the very same sensation on all of them. Would you try this? This also implies that friction is not really at play here. Of course, I can't be 100% sure that this sensation is the same one you have been trying to describe. But my bet is that you would arrive at your same "gripping" sensation on any surface, even with vaseline added into the mix.

Doubtful. While the force my finger tip exerts is rather direct into the key, nobody is going to manage that force so perfectly as to ensure that there is no perpendicular component whatsoever. I can say from experience that sweaty keys now cause me less slipping than ever before, but I'm still not immune to slips. Gaining the support in the arm may raise the possibility of greater solidity, but the way I used to have to fuse my arm before my fingers started to get involved was most certainly NOT a healthy form of muscular activity. Maybe the constant of your own fingertip is the issue here? Maybe your skin balances more easily. Unless the force is aimed perfectly, there is some horizontal component that needs to be stabilised by friction. Perhaps my own fingers are inherently a little smoother and need to induce a little more friction to be stabilised?

Anyhow, regardless of the fine details of the fingertip, I really struggle to see why can't get past the stigma about 'gripping'. Any knuckle that supports does so through grip. Literally. Nothing else can provide that. Does the muscle that can draw the finger towards the hand not count as a gripping action in your book? I think any doctor would be rather quick to disagree. Honestly, why try to pass off the idea that something so literal is merely an impression? On the contrary, I would say that anyone who has a supportive knuckle and who thinks are their hand is relaxed merely has the impression of relaxation. If the knuckle is raised, this illustrates that they are employing grip. There's no other rational way to look at it. Without grip, the knuckle joint drops. What else do you think could possibly do that? A few months ago I'd have likely taken the same stance as you, but it just doesn't stand up to rational scrutiny.

You said the following:



I didn't actually say that a return force towards the body would necessarily raise the knuckle. I said that an outward force from the body (which is the direction friction is acting when you perform your squeezing motion) cannot raise the knuckles. Sudden initiation of torque (i.e., contraction/tension) in those last two knuckle joints certainly can though, and will. I don't know exactly what would happen if, for some reason, you put a force on your fingertip toward your body, but I do think it might hurt a bit.

No, "pulling with the finger" (which is likely better described as torque generation at those last two joints) is NOT the equivalent of pushing the paper in, referencing my earlier example. Coulomb friction always acts in the opposite direction of the motion. So during your pulling/sqeezing motion, the friction is acting away from your body. That would correspond to the unfixed edge of the paper being acted upon by a force away from the fixed edge, not towards it. The friction can't "draw the hand in", because it is acting in the opposite direction.

And you said:



I think maybe if you opened your mind just a bit, instead of just apparently only caring about winning an argument, you might see that those couple of sentences you just wrote could very easily correspond to the torque generation in the last two knuckles I keep talking about. "Aren't the knuckles the primary source of grip", you say? Yes, I think so, and that is what I've been saying. And YES, even a solely knuckle-based grip is very much that - a grip! I am simply trying to show you how this "gripping sensation" or "gripping movement" you keep referring to has nothing to do with friction between the key and finger. If anything, I think it would work better with less friction.

Well, with so many different joints in action, obviously such an explanation is an oversimplification. What can be said for definite is that the gripping action (from both fingertip and knuckle) both helps to raise my knuckle and stabilises the point of contact on the key. I think the real point is not so much about friction but about the fact that you need a stable contact on the fingertip for the muscular activity to either draw the hand into shape or for it to maintain that shape once formed. It doesn't happen the same way when you use those muscles with the hand in the air. Equally, if you do not achieve friction at the key, use of those muscles can simply makes the finger slide along the key- rather than affect the hand as a whole.

Once you have a stable point at the end, the whole mechanism serves to draw the rest of the hand in. I didn't say friction alone achieves that. However, remove the vital cog of friction from the complex machine (at least, the one I'm employing, even if you are going a different way) and the whole thing falls down. If I do the motion in the air my fingers move. If I put those fingers on a surface, my finger remain rather still and my knuckles get raised instead. That is why you need a point of friction. I didn't say it accounts for the whole equation, but that it is an integral part.


What I'm talking about certainly comes from gripping and it's no illusion. To analyse every detail of such a complex mechanism would require a vastly expensive computer simulation. The problem with the paper analogy is that it's oversimplified and doesn't reflect the sheer complexity of a hand. For a start I'm pulling from at least two differnt joints, where the paper is a single piece of very flexible material. The details may be different but the net result of gripping at my finger is equivalent to pushing that paper in. My physics may not be up to a full analysis of every component and the force exerted by every single muscle, but I can say for definite that the forces do balance out when I utilise these gripping muscles. What are you suggesting is actually happening, if not gripping- when I go from a slack hand at rest on the keys to one that stands up? I can not only feel the grip, I can feel the change in the event that I should slowly slacken that grip- either at the tip or the knuckle. You have my assurance that there is no illusion. I'm not saying this is the only way to play, but it is very much what I am doing.

On the other hand, whatever level of detail you go into, there is no possible explanation for a hand that purports to have found stable knuckles without employing those muscles that grip. So can we simply agree achieving a balanced whole through grip (coupled with upper body freedom) is perfectly real and perfectly possible? If not, you seem to be suggesting that I am just imagining each and every one of the sensations that involve both the ability to grip and the ability to confirm it was there by going on to observe the effect of releasing it.

As I already said, my hands slip off the keys when I do not acheive friction. So how is less friction going to help? As I suggested, some people have rougher or smoother skin the others. You may well be lucky enough to have skin that makes achieve good contact more straightforward. In my case, the friction that I gain from an active grip is vital. It's either grip from my finger, or lose the quality contact at the key.

I'm glad that you concede that (what was formerly merely "so-called") grip is indeed real thing that can be of benefit, not a mere illusion. That's all I was really suggesting before. I would far sooner lose an argument if it made me realise something I had not considered before. All I'm interested in is increasing my understanding of the elements that are involved in finding stability and function at the keyboard. I'm taking your points on board and I'm grateful to you for inspiring further thought, but I haven't yet seen anything to convince me of a gaping hole in my approach.