Point at something in front of you with your index finger. Now flip an imaginary rival the bird with your middle. Now stick out our pinky, like you would to tell your primary school teacher you need to pee.
Notice the difference? Ever wondered why that is? Try stretching all your fingers out and then bending them one by one. To understand why this is, you first need to know a little more about the musculature of the hand and forearm. Your thumb has the most flexibility of all the fingers on your hand, and you can shift it irrespective of how the other fingers are place, because it has independent muscles serving it.
The thumb has multiple little muscles around its base that aid its movements, and another set of muscles in the back of the hand and forearm to help straighten it from a bent position. The little finger actually moves easier than the middle and ring fingers. However, it also relies on muscles shared with the other three fingers for some actions, thereby limiting your control.
But the reason your index finger has the best movement of the lot is because one of the forearm muscles has a separate tendon connected to it. Basically, the same muscles bends all the fingers, but this tendon lets you bend your index or straighten in independently. Playing became much, much easier after that. Now, my problem seems to be tension in my shoulders and upper back.
And yes, I have noticed that this tension affects my playing. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to really relax my shoulders and upper back. It's very true that it's not the exercise itself, but how you play it, that makes the difference. How did your teacher get you to relax? Interesting to hear about the neurology involved. However, I'd bring it back to the physical mechanics with your student. The boy has a very flat arch and doesn't really stand his knuckles open over each finger. In such a position, it's a natural reflex to have to pull back to stop everything falling down into a big heap.
Open the arch by pointing the thumb down and by standing the playing finger up higher, you can remove the entire workload from the other fingers- because the other finger has stabilised them. They will become able to dangle down, rather than pull back. You can't fix these issues through relaxation alone, as it's a lack of action to elevate the knuckles which is causing the need for all those tensions, to save the hand from falling down.
Try the exercise from here of "waving" the fingers while standing the hand open over the thumb, maybe. It gives the initial sense of connecting through an activity out of the keys, rather than by simply slumping passively downwards via unsustainable relaxation. This problem is deeply discussed in Taubman approach. In this approach they are not teaching about the independent finger movement, but about the combination of upper and lower arms and hand movement.
I hope this helps. Great post. Tuesday, 1 March Finger movements and tension. Now bend your middle finger, trying to keep the others standing straight up. What you probably see as you move your middle finger is that your ring finger also moves out of place, no matter how much your try to keep it still.
Your index finger probably moves a little too. The thumb moves quite independently, but when we move each of the long fingers, other fingers also try to move. There are two main reasons that this is true: first, each finger is connected to adjacent fingers by skin webbing, tendons, and muscle fascia, so that when we move one finger, it pulls on its neighbours. The second and more relevant reason is that our muscle control of our fingers is not completely separate.
You might think that motor control of our fingers works like this: a certain area of our brain is responsible for each finger. Beastly Gerbil Beastly Gerbil 1 1 gold badge 8 8 silver badges 19 19 bronze badges. Very interesting though! Show 3 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. OK, So coming to the main question.
In simple words, They are all interconnected. See the image [Source: Google Images] They share flexor tendons The flexor tendons allow you to bend your fingers , If you try to move one, other is objected to come along. Improve this answer. Does pianists can move that individual fingers up to palm? I play piano and moving my pinky does influence my ring finger, but it is not at all an issue since they are independent enough.
Playing the piano is essentially the same as typing on a computer keyboard, which all of us apparently can do fine, even with our pinky fingers. Add a comment. Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile.
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