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

Let's finish the wrist first. The first joint of your stick will be perfectly stable as long as it is held by a rope something like a draw bridge? Yes?

Indeed, but the problem doesn't lie at that end.

How do you propose that a complex series of 'loose' hinges can possibly serve to transmit energy to a key? They cannot function without their own individual controls. They would be of no use whatsoever.

I challenge you to find an engineer who would be willing to attempt to build such a structure and use it to transmit energy to another body.

Even if you put the whole of the workload at the elbow side, you have no rational explanation of how slack fingers can funtion. With no active input, the fingers would go absolutely flat, before slipping off the keys. The fact that this does not happen literally proves that the fingers are supplying a force that has nothing to do with gravity.

I'm not going to repeat myself any further, as you're clearly neither willing to listen nor to think about these fundamentals.

If you don't believe me, ask an engineer to build that structure for you...

Hold on! Now is there a pull on the distal end of the stick?

I'm not going to go back over it again. If you still don't get the idea that gravity acts upon a free hinge, go and find a physics teacher. If a hand were ever truly devoid of grip, it would be like trying to play the piano with a foam hand. If a hand grips too much it needs to be freed. If a hand has a much function as a foam hand, it needs to learn how to grip more in a healthy manner. Simple...

Don't forget to ask an engineer to build that structure for you. You might as well ask for a perpetual motion machine.

Yes or no would do. But we do need to finish on the forces acting on the wrist first. I have done it in image form:

So presumably your hand can drop from the wrist, but cannot extend upward of horizontal? You ought to work on your flexibility.

What an absurd diagram! You seriously seek to claim that those forces would be balanced- under the action of gravity! Or is your elbow truly held rigid? So you're an advocate of the gyro school of technique now? A still forearm and solely finger based action?

What kind of ludicrous purpose is served by a diagram that either OMITS the freedom of the hinges or requires a completely fused elbow! Is this what you're referring to when you speak of the importance 'relaxation' within your method? Can you honestly not see the contradictions?

Incidentally, if your simulation is anything to go by, you play with a perfectly flat hand? This must cause some interesting palm-based harmonies, when you play full chords.

Your physics coursework receives a score of E-

One diagram at a time please. The elbow is held in place by the elbow extensors (rope). So, where are the pulling forces on the wrist?

So this is indeed the basis for your relaxation method? Hold the forearm solid at the elbow? Rigidly? And channel energy into the keys by allowing the fingers to bend right back to the extremity of their joint's limits? That is what is stabilising the wrist in your diagram. Does that sound healthy?

Tell me, what force would prevent your knuckles from collapsing down into the keyboard, within this arrangement? Is that also the product of a locked elbow? Or perhaps it comes direct from God? Or perhaps it's a small force that the fingers apply to the key, beyond that of gravity?

No, hang on, that would be an insane suggestion...

Where is the force pulling on the wrist? Elbows/knuckles later if you don't mind.

It's GRAVITY you numbskull!

Are you telling me your forearm really is LOCKED into position? That's your best explanation for the missing link? The idea that a SOLIDLY HELD forearm is the key to 'relaxation' technique?

Even with that, your hand has not been explained. How do your perfectly flat fingers operate? They are thing sthat can prevent the hand from dropping at the wrist (even with your elbow of granite). But how do you play, with a completely flat hand that has no curve whatsoever? Of course, it's perfectly relaxed, not gripping.

Or then again, maybe there IS a curve because your hand GRIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's the only explanation.

Name-calling now, are we?

Gravity pulling sideways!?

WHAT? I have no idea what misapprehension you're under this time, so please explain. However, gravity DOES pull sideways, when you have an array of joints. Tie a weight to something light and pop it on a table. Does the weight pull it off the table? Is that not gravity? Gravity acts on the string and the string acts on that which is being pulled. In effect gravity CAN act sideways (when properly channelled), yes.

However, I'm still rather more interested in your explanation of how you propose to justify a method that demand a rigid forearm. You haven't even attempted to deal with this.

If you're interested in furthering your understanding (rather than in trying to win a failing argument) you can't just walk away from such a fundamental issue.

I'm sure you don't play with a truly rigid elbow, so it's pretty clear that your very flawed diagrams are offering a very poor representation. If you care to stop trying to 'prove' your approach and consider what role a small stabilising grip at the finger would play, you might realise that the diagram could actually add up- without the absurd idea of a locked forearm.

You're kidding right?

The fact that you would say that, shows how little you know. If you someone tied a long rope to both your and a boulder and pushed the boulder off a cliff (that you were 10 m away from) you'd soon realise how gravity can be channelled into a sideways force.

I asked you about the fused elbow though. Please continue to elaborate on how this fixed forearm fits into your 'relaxation' method...

If he isn't, it's no wonder he found vector math above him.

So you've studied vectors, but never moments or pullies or resultant forces etc.?

From wiki, nothing here about sideways.

So you wouldn't mind if I tied a boulder to your leg and threw it off a cliff? As long as you were some distance sideways of the drop, it couldn't pull you on a sideways plane...

Why both with a handbrake on a car eh? It's not as if gravity could result in a car moving in any direction other than perfectly downwards?

If you are going to claim gravity pulls sideways, and God knows what other directions, what can we do?