pianomap : Excerpts from the book: "What Every Pianist Needs to Know about the Body"

By Thomas Mark

Finger Orientation

We play the piano with our fingers. That is obvious to anyone watching a pianist. But its very obviousness has fostered a "finger oriented" approach to playing and teaching which is reflected in countless ways--a ragtime pianist with the nickname "Fingers," pieces with titles like "Dizzy Fingers," and so on.

If we play the piano with our fingers, it stands to reason that we learn to play the piano by training our fingers. Consistent with this opinion, countless exercises have been devised to strengthen the fingers, stretch the fingers, develop independence of the fingers. But vital as the fingers are in playing the piano, we still do not play the piano by finger movements alone. Watch any pianist and you see numerous other movements. Arm movements. Torso movements. Leg movements. Playing the piano involves coordinated movement of many body parts. Overlooking these other movements is harmless in a casual conversation whose only purpose is to mention what is most obvious. But overlooking them in our playing or teaching and concentrating on finger movements alone can actually be dangerous.

That is because concentrating on finger movements can lead to a habit of ignoring (and therefore not training) the movements of the arm and other body parts that ought to assist the fingers. The efficient coordination of fingers, hand, arm and body are "trained out" of the mechanism. The fingers do more than their fair share of the work while other parts are tense. This limits the playing and sets up conditions in which injury can develop.

Saying that we play the piano with our fingers is like saying that we run with our feet. The fingers move when we play the piano and they are the only parts of our upper body that actually touch the piano. Similarly, our feet move when we run and are the only body parts that touch the ground. But a runner who tried to improve his running by keeping his legs motionless and doing foot exercises would be ridiculous. A pianist who keeps his arms motionless and exercises his fingers is similar, although practicing that way has the sanction of tradition. We play the piano just as we run: by complex coordinated movements of our whole bodies.

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