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Originally posted by ocd: Originally posted by Morodiene:
[b] Chris G: how does one lift the 4th finger high? The only way is to lift the 5th finger with it, which is undesirable.
ocd [/b]Put a stress on "in those situations." Why make a rule for the exception? I've seen people play with a very high 5th finger most of the time. It adds tension where there doesn't need to be, and I'm not going to endorse it on a forum when there is no supervision over what is actually being done or understand by what was said here.
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Originally posted by Morodiene: Originally posted by ocd: [b] Originally posted by Morodiene:
[b] Chris G: how does one lift the 4th finger high? The only way is to lift the 5th finger with it, which is undesirable. Why do you think that is undesirable. If the fifth finger is not playing at the time (holding a high note as happens often in polyphony) why go to the effort of keeping it down? To bring up one of our hobby horses, the Taubman technique teaches that the fifth should be lifted with the fourth in those situations. (This is a specific application of a more general approach.) ocd [/b] If you watch virtually any youtube videos of Kissin, Horowitz, Pogorelich(I just chose them because they have many good close videos of the hands)I think you'll see they raise the fifth finger when they raise the forth finger.
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You'll probably see videos of people sticking their heads in ovens as well.
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Originally posted by Morodiene:
Put a stress on "in those situations." Why make a rule for the exception? I've seen people play with a very high 5th finger most of the time. It adds tension where there doesn't need to be, ... I am not saying to keep the fifth finger high continuously. Instead, move both fingers together: fifth raises and falls with four, five does not play, of course. It is less stressing than isolating fourth. ocd
"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen."
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Originally posted by ocd: Originally posted by Morodiene:
[b] Put a stress on "in those situations." Why make a rule for the exception? I've seen people play with a very high 5th finger most of the time. It adds tension where there doesn't need to be, ...
ocd [/b]I think ocd meant "falls with four". It's virtually automatic except where the music requires holding a note with the fifth while the fourth plays a note.
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Originally posted by pianoloverus:
I think one can improve the strength/independence of the fourth finger but not make it equal to the others. Doing holding exercises (carefully) can help. Even if you can't lift the fourth as high as the others without moving 3 or 5, you can still work on lifting it enough to get it functioning with as much independence as possible. Didn't Horowitz once say he thought the most important in piano playing was developing the fourth finger? Of course, he might have said that to trick his competition into crippling their hands by over-stressing that finger. 
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 I agree with him, though. Focused work on my fourth finger has done more for my technique than anything except double thirds. 
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Nearly every time I have a problem, on closer inspection, it's the fourth finger. Hearing it as the problem usually puts it right.
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This thread has been dormant for a while but I noticed that in the latest edition of Pianist Magazine (#46) there is a whole article discussing the fourth finger and its importance.
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Education – Fingering
What's the best way to improve your fingering skills? Just bring your fourth finger forwards, says John York, who shows you how it's done.
Hmm, maybe I'll look out for a copy.
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It is impossible to lift the fourth finger high without moving 3 and 5, and trying otherwise is dangerous. When lifting your fingers high for Hanon, the lifting movement should be done naturally and smoothly, you should never actually force the movement of the hand, or the fourth finger in anyway. I realise now that the couple of times I have recently pulled my wrist, it was actually caused by the fourth finger being overused. I didnt cause any serious damage, and the hands always recover and are better afterwards, BUT if you try to over stretch and exercise the fourth finger beyond its natural limits, something which I have never done, then judging from the times I have pulled it, you could cause yourself more serious damage from overstretching to fourth finger.
Really, just use hanon and see the results for yourself, but do not do anything more strenuous or overstretching then hanon, it is unnecessary, excessive and could cause worse damage then the minor pulls that I have had and recovered from.
'Its too rare to break a hand from playing the piano ... But playing Hanon as written will break your hand'
- Self proclaimed 'piano teachers' on the internet.
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The 3rd and 4th finger share a tendon ,with the third finger having some dominance .All the other fingers have their own tendon.
. Whats required is to have finger strength and independence.
The weakness of the 4th finger can be compensated for sometimes by clever fingering and sometimes by sleight of hand by way of arm/shoulder weighting .
Sometimes it can be joined with the 5th [or less commonly the 3rd ]finger when additional strength requires it.Think of Federer/Nadal using both hands on an awkward backhand.
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In response to OCD about the Taubman Technique: You are partially correct. Actually what the Taubman approach teaches is that all the fingers lift and fall together by means of a tiny forearm rotation. The forearm and the hand assist the fingers in lifting so that they never lift isolated from the entire playing mechanism. That means if the standing finger is 2, then 3,4, and 5 would lift together. If the standing finger is 3, then 4 and 5 would lift together. And so on. The result is that all the fingers feel completely free, and completely equal. It promotes amazing control of speed, tone, and touch. The ease factor is astonishing. Originally posted by Morodiene:
Chris G: how does one lift the 4th finger high? The only way is to lift the 5th finger with it, which is undesirable. Why do you think that is undesirable. If the fifth finger is not playing at the time (holding a high note as happens often in polyphony) why go to the effort of keeping it down? To bring up one of our hobby horses, the Taubman technique teaches that the fifth should be lifted with the fourth in those situations. (This is a specific application of a more general approach.) ocd Originally posted by Morodiene:
Chris G: how does one lift the 4th finger high? The only way is to lift the 5th finger with it, which is undesirable. Why do you think that is undesirable. If the fifth finger is not playing at the time (holding a high note as happens often in polyphony) why go to the effort of keeping it down? To bring up one of our hobby horses, the Taubman technique teaches that the fifth should be lifted with the fourth in those situations. (This is a specific application of a more general approach.) ocd
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I successfully made my fourth fingers move very independently. Here's how I did it. Away from the piano, starting with the right hand, concentrate, using your knuckle (ONLY YOUR KNUCKLE) move your fourth finger down a millimeter (or an extremely small distance) making sure you aren't accidentally moving anything else, and that you are relaxed. After about 10-20 seconds, another millimeter (still making sure you aren't moving anything else). Keep going until you reach as far as your fourth finger can go down, then reverse the process going back up.
If you are doing it correctly, after about the third one (on the way down), you should feel "a weak tingling feeling"......CONGRATULATIONS!!! YOU'VE JUST DISCOVERED YOUR FOURTH FINGER, the reason it is so weak is because you've never used it like this.
Last edited by sislermi; 10/12/13 01:52 PM.
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The 3rd and 4th finger share a tendon ,with the third finger having some dominance .All the other fingers have their own tendon.
. Whats required is to have finger strength and independence.
The weakness of the 4th finger can be compensated for sometimes by clever fingering and sometimes by sleight of hand by way of arm/shoulder weighting .
Sometimes it can be joined with the 5th [or less commonly the 3rd ]finger when additional strength requires it.Think of Federer/Nadal using both hands on an awkward backhand. Finally, it takes an architect to explain the concept of structure to you good folks. As Morodiene has pointed out, you can really cause yourself grief by trying to do things with the fourth finger that it was never intended to do. When I ascend in the right hand, and descend in the left, if the 3rd finger precedes the fourth, I always make sure that the 3rd is properly grounded. This is especially true if the 3rd is on a white key, and the fourth is on a black key. Further, if it is an arpeggio, there is no law that says you cannot end on 5 instead of 4. Also, when the reverse movement is called for, I always use what Taubman calls the "over" rotation. And, finally, I do not play with an outstretched hand, because, among other drawbacks, you can really bung up your fourth finger, if you land on it the wrong way.
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It is impossible to lift the fourth finger high without moving 3 and 5, and trying otherwise is dangerous. When lifting your fingers high for Hanon, the lifting movement should be done naturally and smoothly, you should never actually force the movement of the hand, or the fourth finger in anyway. I realise now that the couple of times I have recently pulled my wrist, it was actually caused by the fourth finger being overused. I didnt cause any serious damage, and the hands always recover and are better afterwards, BUT if you try to over stretch and exercise the fourth finger beyond its natural limits, something which I have never done, then judging from the times I have pulled it, you could cause yourself more serious damage from overstretching to fourth finger.
Really, just use hanon and see the results for yourself, but do not do anything more strenuous or overstretching then hanon, it is unnecessary, excessive and could cause worse damage then the minor pulls that I have had and recovered from. Strange to see this as his afternoon I just happened to dig out my old Hanon and look at the 6ths exercise, number 59. Although I am at best not a very good piano player, and have small hands I can easily raise my 4th finger a couple of inches on both hands while maintaining contact with a smooth surface with all other fingers. I would recommend Hanon to anyone but as for the lifting the fingers high, I have always ignored that, it seems unnecessary, a bit foolish, uncomfortable and time-consuming while producing no noticeable benefit to me.
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My piano teacher always tells me that the piano is played downward, toward the floor, etc.
According to this (and I trust her), what is the point of consciously raising your fingers ? As far as I know that's not an useful pianistic movement. I believe finger independance can be worked on without this finger raising thing - and I don't understand how you can develop a good tone if you learn piano by hitting the keys hard from high in the air.
I remember a readio broadcast with french pianist Phillipe Cassard where he basically said that Hanon was an absolutely dumb way of working on technique. He seemed to like Brahms exercises, and always stressed the importance of being relaxed, proper posture and proper listening if I remember well (hence the cricticism about the harsh, finger-breaking, in parallel octaves Hanon).
Last edited by Praeludium; 10/12/13 04:11 PM.
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To take an oblique view on Hanon, whose exercises I personally love to try to play, it seems from the statement, "Lift the fingers high...."
I thought about that a lot, away from the book and the piano. Suddenly I thought I had it, a masterstroke, EVERYBODY ELSE WAS READING HANON WRONG!
Only I knew the secret, When he said, "Lift the fingers high", he meant from the hand end!
This fitted with the comment I had read and been told many times, "Do not drop your wrist below the keyboard level".
I was so excited, I understood something nobody else did.
I rushed home to review the book, "Lift the fingers high and with precision, playing each note very distinctly", it said.
From that it seems he does actually mean lift the finger tip end, not the palms end.
But I find that I raise my wrists above the keyboard and I CAN play better.
Obviously, this is not a thing to take to extremes, but I find it helpful.
I still can't believe Hanon isn't meaning lift from the hand end though.....it makes sense... to me!
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My piano teacher always tells me that the piano is played downward, toward the floor, etc.
According to this (and I trust her), what is the point of consciously raising your fingers ? As far as I know that's not an useful pianistic movement. I believe finger independance can be worked on without this finger raising thing - and I don't understand how you can develop a good tone if you learn piano by hitting the keys hard from high in the air.
I remember a readio broadcast with french pianist Phillipe Cassard where he basically said that Hanon was an absolutely dumb way of working on technique. He seemed to like Brahms exercises, and always stressed the importance of being relaxed, proper posture and proper listening if I remember well (hence the cricticism about the harsh, finger-breaking, in parallel octaves Hanon). I'm with Praeludium. Aside from the awkwardness and pain, I have less control when raising the fingers high. For me, far better to keep the fingers flat and/or very close to the keys so that the "attack" distance for the 4th finger is minimized. I also find useful the 3rd-over-4th technique of Chopin (ascending in the right hand), so that any stretching is carried out by the strong 3rd instead of the weak 4th. He advocated many nontraditional fingerings (even noted in the score) as an alternative to forcing the hand into unnatural contortions.
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