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Finger strength is required in both cases, whether you mainly use weight or utilize grasping motion, or sometimes striking motion. When you're using weight fingers must be strong enough to support it without collapsing. Nahum calls it finger stability. The stronger the fingers are the more body weight they can withstand, the more powerful sound can be produced at tempo. This is especially valuable for pianists playing in big halls. Many famous Russian pianists were known to have very strong hands. Some pianists have fingers so strong that they can withstand tremendous weight sent into the grand. I remember someone on the forums noticed how a full-length concert grand had moved for an inch after Matsuev's final chord. I have not saved the video link unfortunately.

It is more noticeable when watching and listening live than on a video, so if your in-person teacher tells you this it's more valuable than my opinion.

I doubt this little girl has the fingers as strong as Matsuev and yet she can obviously get enough volume, clarity and control over the grand that she is playing. It is a matter of technique and finger dexterity.

Nothing against the girl, but she is actually not playing at a professional level imo. I can sort of tell that either her fingers aren't strong enough, or hands are too small to provide adequate leverage. I used to fall for this propaganda that it's all arm weight in the past, too, until I experienced the difference for myself. I now curse myself for falling for it because it hindered my progress. At least to me, her notes in the fast passages smear together more than they should. And it is because while she has the finger dexterity to move her fingers fast, she doesn't have enough strength to produce a distinct tone for those notes, as far as I can tell. I'm pretty sure because this is something I spent several months trying to train. Earlier, I could still play the piece but it sounded much weaker.

Even among the prodigies I've seen, the youngest I've seen who had the finger strength to get that kind of articulation were 10-11. Alexander Mafoleev, for example at around 11, or Benjamin Grosvenor at the same age.

Just compare her recording to Daniil Trifonov, and see how clearly you can hear the individual notes in his passages.

I've also looked into what I could regarding flexor, lumbrical and interossei muscles in the hand and have somewhat experienced their different functions, but am not sure how exactly to develop or utilize them. From what I've learned recently, Iaroslav is very right. But unfortunately, I've found it very hard to get proper information on this, because it is a bit of a controversial topic, and most beginner pianists (<grade 8) don't need to worry about it.

So, here's what happened: At the beginning, everyone said I had weak fingers. After a few months of playing a few hours a day, it's now 50-50. My teacher says it's ok, but another pianist I respect who follows a more finger-centric school says it's not enough. This second pianist also started relatively late, which resulted in him explicitly having to develop finger strength apparently. I'm trying to figure out if I'm in the same boat.

On the other hand, it's strange because at the start my teacher said it's very hard for adults to develop finger strength, but now he's saying I'm ok. I think I developed some finger strength by practicing pushing against the key from the surface, but this is something controversial which many teachers will not recommend. Overall, I'm just incredibly confused due to all the conflicting opinions.

Well, the girl is 7 years old, so lets not compare her with Horowitz. Her playing is not flawless, but the point is that with what is probably finger strength equal to close to not much (especially for kids at that age), she still can play at full volume (actually more than in your version) and close to what a pro would do. Her scale are very smooth and regular. Of course her hands are extremely small so some mouvements are not obvious and yet she alredy plays better than most amateurs in this forum.

It just happens that I have been doing rock climbing for many years and extensively training my hands strength. I can tell you it had zero effect on my pianistic abilities. Maybe I already had enough strong fingers.

So my opinion is that even though finger strength is important, its effect is limited past a certain level. And it is not the main limiting factor.

It won't do any harm if you train your fingers a little more for some time. What helped me very much is playing finger independence exercises on a stretch. You may get some exercises (e.g. from Cortot's introduction and chapter 1) where some fingers play while the others hold down notes, but instead of playing 5 adjacent notes play it forte on the 5 notes of the widest chords that you can reach. In the beginning you may feel your interossei muscles burning when doing that. Exercises of accentuating individual notes of wide chords is also good.

I would not agree with this. Playing using intrinsic hand muscles, that is playing "from the knuckles", is something that should be internalized from the very beginning. Re-learning something is always more difficult than learning.


I attended quite a few children competitions and rehearsals. I can say that difference in sound fullness between 7 years old and 14 years old is usually pretty obvious. It may not be obvious on a Youtube recording, I have this difficulty, too, because sound from my laptop is subpar, but in live performance it's noticeable.

I agree with that.

Thanks for your reply!

Quickest and safest way to improve stability, I've heard and experienced, is practicing chords, let's say in F sharp major, with an added octave. And you use the weight of your arm to drop, and try to make the chord sound as big as you possibly can. 5 minutes every day. Worked for me!

Thank you everyone!

I've been continuing to take lessons and practice. My left hand strength and mental connection has been growing too. I've been using the mouse at my computer desk with my left hand for one-two days a week, and that's been slowly helping. I add in extra warmups for my left hand. Been using a metronome to even out my playing and focus on my fingers. Also have been keeping an eye on the curve of my hand when playing.

I backed off focusing on it and just enjoyed playing so continue my activities to strengthen it without overfocusing on it.

These are important points.

I played bass and cello most of my life now piano. Also was a rock climber for many years. Thinking about playing with finger s alone is a flawed concept. We play from our torso,shoulders arms wrists. Fingers merely transfer the energy to the keys. Please read Abby Whitesides wonderful book "On Playing Piano" solid chords are played with the entire arm arpeggios with wrist.

That is why a small 7 yo can make wonderful sound. Certainly not finger strength.