Piano Playing Part 8

What exercise would you recommend for the training of the fourth and fifth fingers of the left hand?

Slow trill with various touches, with highly lifted fingers producing strength through their fall and with a lesser lift of the fingers combined with pressure touch, watching closely that the little finger strikes with the tip and not with the side. Rhythmic evenness should also be punctiliously observed.

[Sidenote: _When the Fingers Seem Weak_]

What kind of technical work would you advise me to take to make my fingers strong in the shortest time consistent with good work?

If your fingers are unusually weak it may be a.s.sumed that your muscular const.i.tution in general is not strong. The training of the fingers alone will, in that case, lead to no decisive results. You will have to strive for a general strengthening of your muscular fibre. At this point, however, begins the province of your physician and mine ends. If you consider your const.i.tution normal, four or five hours' daily work at the piano will develop the necessary digital force, if that time is judiciously used.

[Sidenote: _No Necessity to Watch the Fingers_]

Is it always necessary to watch the fingers with the eye?

In places where the fingers slide, and do not jump from one note to another at a distance, there is no need of keeping the eye on them.

[Sidenote: _Biting the Finger-Nails Spoils the Touch_]

Is biting the finger-nails injurious to the piano touch?

Certainly; biting the nails or any other injury to the finger-tips and hand will spoil your touch. Extreme cleanliness and care in cutting the nails the proper length are necessary to keep your hands in condition for playing the piano.

[Sidenote: _To Prevent Sore Finger-Tips After Playing_]

How can I prevent my finger-tips, after prolonged playing, from feeling sore the next day?

Experience teaches that in such cases, as in many others, cleanliness is the best remedy. After playing wash your fingers at once in warm water, with soap and brush, and then rub them well with either cold cream or some similar fatty substance. In the development of speed on the piano, the rigidity of the skin on the fingers is a great hindrance; it makes us feel as if we played with gloves on the fingers.

[Sidenote: _Broad-Tipped Fingers Not a Disadvantage_]

Are broad-tipped fingers considered a detriment to a man student of piano; for instance, if the finger grazes the black keys on each side when playing between them?

Unless broad-tipped fingers are of an unusual thickness I do not consider them an obstacle in the way of good piano-playing; the less so, as the white keys--whatever shape the fingers may have--should never be struck between the black ones, but only in the midst of the open s.p.a.ce.

Altogether, I hold that the shape of the hand is of far greater importance to the pianist than the shape of his fingers; for it furnishes the fingers with a base of operations and with a source of strength, besides holding the entire control over them. Studying the hands and fingers of celebrated pianists you will find a great variety of finger shapes, while their hands are usually broad and muscular.

[Sidenote: _What to do With the Unemployed Hand_]

When playing a piece in which a rest of a measure and a half or two measures occurs should I drop my hand in my lap or keep it on the keyboard?

If the temporarily unemployed hand is tired it will rest better in the lap, because this position favours the blood circulation, which, in its turn, tends to renew the strength. I should, however, not put it away from the keyboard too often, for this might easily be taken for a mannerism.

11. STACCATO

[Sidenote: _Wrist Staccato at a High Tempo_]

What can I do to enable me to play wrist staccato very fast without fatiguing the arm?

Change your wrist staccato for a little while to a finger or arm staccato, thus giving the wrist muscles a chance to rest and regain their strength.

[Sidenote: _The Difference Between "Finger Staccato" and Other Kinds_]

What does "finger staccato" mean? Is not staccato always done with the fingers?

By no means! There is a well-defined arm staccato, a wrist staccato, and a finger staccato. The latter is produced by a touch similar to the rapid repet.i.tion touch--that is, by not allowing the fingers to fall perpendicularly upon the keys, but rather let them make a motion as if you were wiping a spot off the keys with the finger-tips, without the use of the arm, and rapidly pulling them toward the inner hand. The arm should take no part in it whatever.

12. LEGATO

[Sidenote: _The Advantage of Legato Over Staccato_]

Is it better for me to practise more staccato or more legato?

Give the preference to legato, for it produces the genuine piano tone, and it develops the technique of the fingers; while the staccato touch always tends to draw the arm into action. If you play from the arm you cannot expect any benefit for the fingers. For the acquisition of a legitimate legato Chopin's works cannot be highly enough recommended, even in the transcriptions by G.o.dowsky, which become impossible when tried with any touch other than legato. He wrote them, so to speak, out of his own hand, and his legato is so perfect that it may well be taken as a model by anybody.

[Sidenote: _To Produce Good Legato_]

Should you advise me to make use of a high finger-stroke? My teacher makes me use it exclusively, but I notice that my playing is neither legato nor quiet. It is almost humpy.

Your manner of putting the question expressed your own--and correct--judgment in the matter. This playing "in the air" is lost energy, and will not lead to a good legato. The most beautiful tone in legato style is ever produced by a "clinging and singing" gliding of the fingers over the keys. Of course, you have to watch your touch in order that your "clinging" does not deteriorate into "blurring," and that your "gliding" may not turn into "smearing." If you apprehend any such calamity you must for a while increase the raising of your fingers and use more force in their falling upon the keys. Under constant self-observation and keen listening you may, after a while, return to the gliding manner. This much in general; of course, there are places and pa.s.sages where just the opposite of my advice could be said, but still I think that the high finger-stroke should rather be employed for some special characteristic effects than as a general principle.

[Sidenote: _The Firm and Crisp Legato Touch_]

I am confused by the terms "firm legato touch" and "crisp legato touch."

Wherein lies the difference?

Legato means "bound together," for which we subst.i.tute the word "connected." Two tones are either connected or they are not connected.

The idea of various kinds of legato is purely a sophism, a product of non-musical hyper-a.n.a.lysis. By "legato" I understand the connecting of tones with each other through the agency of the fingers (on the piano).

The finger that evoked a tone should not leave its key until the tone generated by the next finger has been perceived by the ear. This rule governs the playing of melodies and slow pa.s.sages. In rapid pa.s.sages, where the control through the ear is lessened, the legato is produced by more strictly mechanical means, but there should, nevertheless, always be two fingers simultaneously occupied. Do not take the over-smart differentiations of legato seriously. There is no plural to the word "legato."

13. PRECISION

[Sidenote: _Not Playing the Two Hands at Once_]

My teachers have always scolded me for playing my left hand a little before my right. It is probably a very bad habit, but I do not hear it when I do it How can I cure it?

This "limping," as it is called, is the worst habit you can have in piano playing, and you are fortunate in having a teacher who persists in his efforts to combat it. There is only one way to rid yourself of this habit, namely, by constant attention and closest, keenest listening to your own playing. You are probably misstating it when you say that you do not "hear" it when you "limp"; it seems more likely to me that you do not listen. Hearing is a purely physical function which you cannot prevent while awake, while listening is an act of your will-power--it means to give direction to your hearing.

14. PIANO TOUCH _vs._ ORGAN TOUCH

[Sidenote: _How Organ-Playing Affects the Pianist_]

Is alternate organ and piano playing detrimental to the "pianistic touch"?

Inasmuch as the force of touch and its various gradations are entirely irrelevant on the organ, the pianist who plays much on the organ is more than liable to lose the delicacy of feeling for tone-production through the fingers, and this must, naturally, lessen his power of expression.

[Sidenote: _Organ-Playing and the Piano Touch_]