Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Collapsing nail joints

Maybe you haven't read my posts too well. The knuckle player and the wicked witch player can be indistinguishable to the untrained eye.

How? In knuckle motion there's no gripping/curling motion towards the palm. There's just a downward motion, the fingertips don't slide.

In a 'grip' the fingertips don't slide.

It happens to me too, but I think it's because of the size of our hands. I'm probably wrong, though. For me it happens when I can't reach the right notes while my hand is holding the rest of the notes down--usually in chords or running-notes passages. This is when my joints collapse into flatness and it's bad, but I'm learning how to prevent it.

Hope I explained it okay. =D

It's not bad. Round arched fingers are usefull in certain passages and flat fingers in others.
For example over the black keys the fingers should be flatter. And if you must hold a key down and play a 7th or 8th up it's normal and benign that your fingers and hand will flatten. The correct position is a basis to maintain and return to as often as possible but you can devert from it when needed. I wouldn't try to play octave with the same round arched fingers and high palm. I would instead opt for long flat fingers and palm.

I'd like to reinforce what Danny Niklas wrote on 2/17 about the importance of proper seating. You might explore the photos demonstrating how to make some adjustments at TheBalancedPianist.com.

sunshine: welcome to the forum. Could you expound a little on the proper posture and seating for pianists?

You claim to understand the physiology of piano playing. Could you please, in less than 2,000 words, explain the mechanism for this? It is one of your more bizarre statements.

Danny!?

I missed this post. I don't know of any "specific" mechanism for that nor I claimed there's a "specific" mechanism for that. It is just empirical observation. The reason is probably that is far easier to compensate by collapsing the nail joints when the hand is not in the proper position, actually when the whole body and arm and wrist are not. A very low wrist for example helps the collapsing of nail joints. In other words there are positions that direct the pressure in a way that it doesn't promote the collapsing of joints. It seems to me like joint collapsing happens when pressure is put on the nail joint itself and the knuckles are let free to collapse. The finger is somewhat divided in two units when this happens: the nail joint and the other two phalanges. When pressure is directed towards the knuckles and the finger contract as a whole unit and no individual pressure is put on the nail joint it doesn't collapse that easily. In fact a conscious redirection of contraction and pressure must be then used to allow the nail joints to collapse.

That's not quite physiology is it? Thank god you aren't studying medicine - "It seems to me the heart should be round the..."

No it is not. I don't think this can be explained by physiology being a completely different mechanism involving balance and alignment.I don't think you can provide a better explanation either. And your example with the heart is clearly absurd. We're not dealing here with correct anatomical information but with a multi-factorial mechanism.
For example an uncorrect height promote the collapsing of the wrist which promotes a different kind of use and different focus of pressure of the playing apparature. It is compensation when balance is lacking. Have you found a reason yet as to why you can't tolerate pulses or just resort to sensations and observations?

Would you relax a moment? You seem always to look for a fight or to suffer from an excess of pungent sarcasm. Find a way to control your emotions and your mood swing. I feel sorry for you. Maybe you should remove also dairy and wheat.

Danny, I'm not quite sure anything calls for getting personal.

The problem is you are handing out advice left, right and center, which, frankly, you just make up. I'll ask just once more - What is the physiological mechanics of body alignment wherein 'it's hard to make the nail joint collapse even if you want to'?

Why you are looking for an anatomical tendon-ligaments based mechanism? It is simple.
Compensation by wrong posture and alignment creates a different conscious use of pressure and of contraction. The collapsed nail joint belongs to a person who is collapsing the knuckles and putting pressure on the nail joint rather than treating the finger as an unit and directing the pressure on the knuckle. There's no reason to hypothesize predictable and specific physiological pattern. If you sit too high you will compensate by collapsing the wrist. The person sitting too high might focus on preventing the wrist from collapsing but it will be very hard to prevent.
Once the person is put on the correct posture the wrist in such a balanced position that it's very hard for it collapse. It's a bit like cables above and below keeping something balanced. As long as the tension is even there's an extraordinary balance which is hard to disrupt. If you change the tension from the cables the tendency is not anymore over balance but over compensation in one direction with weight and pressure directed toward that. This is not a specific anatomical principle of the fingers or hand skeleton so stop pretending I should explain anatomy to explain this observation of mine. Don't look for tubianan pertinence when there isn't any.

Because it is the tendons that support (or don't in the case of nail-joint collapsing) the structure. No amount of sitting high/low/'on your head' is going to change that.

This is total nonsense. For over 200 years piano teachers have wrestled with this problem. Suddenly a Swiss teenager just thinks up the answer? Get real.

You're wrong on this matter. What I said, and someone else confirmed, is that how you sit makes a difference in the way the whole playing apparatus feels, function and compensate. Hence how the muscles contracts, how our mind control contraction and release, how and where we apply pressure and whether we develop a correct kinestetic sense and body map of our fingers, hand, arms and their position is affected by how we sit and balance at the piano. This is not to say that IT IS the only solution. You are a poor example of balance and good posture so don't seem like you should comment with such arrogance.
If you want my opinion I'm happy to spend time writing it and you are free to disagree or agree in a civil manner. If you just want to harass find someone else who wants to play this pathetique game of yours with you. Stop acting like and old frustrated bitter man with misanthropic tendencies.

So this is a different Danny Niklas?

I confirm that a proper position of the playing apparatus makes nail joints collapsing hard because it changes the whole control of the whole playing apparatus. I confirm that this is not everything there's to it and the only solution to the problem. In fact I said it is worth checking this aspect. I confirm that there's no excuse for your obnoxiousness and rudeness and that there's nothing sane or normal on you reacting like this to my claims as if your personal honor is being threatened. **** your honor, is there anything more useless?

Civility, as Tony Hancock once famously observed, costs nothing my man.

Yes, indeed in regards to civility. Could those of us reading silently be permitted to consider the suggestions by merit, without being peppered with words such as "total nonsense", sarcasm, or non-pertinent information in regards to the contributor's age or nationality, as though that were a factor. It is unfortunate to see the other party then goaded into responding in kind. It is distressing to watch people with contributions of merit water down that merit through a style of argument. Others are watching on the sidelines, hoping to learn a thing or two.

I suggest the following: two sides of a same puzzle. While some participants may consider it to be a debate of opposite, I am busy collecting the Commonalities, tossing them together with a grain of salt, and I am feasting on a delicious Common Sense Salad. Want to join me? Look at each other's contributions again - look for what makes sense rather than what refutes your point of view - and enjoy the expanded perspective.

I would also suggest that if one tends toward intellectual argument, and the other toward the method of having something tried out physically, to adopt each other's style. If the argument is in the doing, then "do" to find out. I am no expert in this field, but in those areas where I am expert, I have yet to cease learning from others.

The principle of posture, height of the arm, are not the new inventions of a young man who in his particular environment must have spent almost a young lifetime with excellent teachers. I have ben taught some of these things by someone much older. It's also on page 3 of my grandmother's piano book, printed in something like 1895. That book holds a bit of what both of you are saying - a point to ponder. In fact, it begins with a drawing of the structure of muscles and tendons which I would like to scan when I have my equipment working again, in case it is of interest. That book would tend to encompass the viewpoint embraced by either of you, in one lengthy treatise that precedes the exercises.