(46) Stretching and Other Exercises
Palm Spreading: The hand has two sets of muscles that spread the fingers/palm to reach wide chords. One mainly opens the palm and the other mainly spreads the fingers apart. When stretching the hand to play wide chords, use mainly the muscles that open the palm. The feeling is that of spreading the palm but with free fingers; i.e., spread the knuckles apart instead of the fingertips. This will reduce both stress and fatigue when playing chords, enable faster play, a more rapid relaxation, and improve control. Spreading the fingers helps to widen the palm but it interferes with the finger movement because it tends to lock the fingers to the palm. In the end, you will use both sets of muscles, but it is useful to know how to spread the palm independently of the fingers.
It is more important, but more difficult, to stretch the palm instead of the fingers. One exercise is to place the right palm over the left palm, right arm pointing left and left arm pointing right, with the hands in front of the chest. In this position, thumb meets pinky; interlock the thumbs and pinkies so that fingers 2,3,4 are on the palm side and 1,5 protrude on the back side of palm. Then push the hands towards each other so that thumbs and pinkies push each other back, thus spreading the palm. Also, exercise the palm and finger spreading muscles while simultaneously applying the pushing force. This spreading is not an isometric exercise, so the stretching motions should be quick and short. Regular (daily) stretching from youth can make a considerable difference in the reach when you get older, and periodic maintenance will prevent the reach from decreasing with age, as it normally would.
The webbings between fingers can be stretched by jamming them against each other using the two hands. For example, to stretch the webbings between fingers 2 and 3, spread those 2 fingers on both hands to form Vs. Then jam the vertices of the 2 Vs (the webbings) against each other to stretch them. For maximum effectiveness, use the palm and finger spreading muscles to stretch the palm with every jamming motion. Again, don't perform these like isometric exercises but use quick spreading motions. Most people have a slightly larger left hand, and some can reach more by using fingers 1,4 than 1,5.
Finger spreading: In order to test whether the fingers/palm are fully stretched, open the palm and fingers for maximum reach; do this on a flat surface with the wrist touching the surface. If the pinky and thumb form a almost straight line, you can not increase the reach any more. If they form a "V", then the reach can be expanded by performing spreading exercises. Another way to test this alignment is to place the palm on a table top at the edge of the table with the thumb and pinky down the edge, so that only fingers 2, 3, and 4 are resting on the table top, and the finger tips of 1 and 5 are touching the table edge. If the thumb and pinky form a triangle with the edge of the table, the stretch can be expanded. Perform a spreading exercise by pushing the hand towards the table edge so as to spread the thumb and pinky apart; when fully opened, thumb and pinky should form a straight line. There is no need to be perfectly straight; once you get close, any extra stretch buys you very little reach.
When playing wide chords, the thumb should be curved slightly inwards, not fully stretched out. For those who have thumbs that can bend backwards, pay attention to this thumb position for maximum reach; if you form the habit of bending the thumb all the way backwards, this habit will be almost impossible to reverse and make TO difficult. It is counter- intuitive that, by bending the thumb in, you can reach further; this happens because of the particular curvature of the thumb's fingertip.
There are a few exercises that may be helpful for technique.
Finger independence and lifting exercises are performed by first pressing all five fingers down, e.g., from C to G using the RH. Then play each finger four times: CCCCDDDDEEEEFFFFGGGG; while one finger is playing, the others must be kept down, to the bottom of the keydrop. Do not press down firmly; that will create stress. The gravitational weight of the hand should be enough. Beginners may find this exercise difficult in the beginning because the non- playing fingers tend to collapse from their optimum positions or lift involuntarily, especially if they begin to tire. If they tend to collapse, try a few times and then switch hands or quit; do not keep practicing in the collapsed or uncontrolled condition. Then try again after some rest. One variation of this exercise is to spread out the notes over an octave. This type of exercise was already in use during F. Liszt's time (Moscheles). They should be done using the curled as well as the flat finger positions. Some piano teachers recommend doing this exercise once during every practice session. In the curled position, practice shooting the 4 th finger out straight in addition to its small lift. This exercise can be performed on any flat surface. Do it slowly at first in order to avoid creating bad habits, but speed it up gradually as you improve, which may take months or years. Do not over-do these exercises, just a few minutes each time, and take advantage of post practice improvement (PPI). Once you can do it satisfactorily, there is no need to keep doing it every day.
For finger lifting exercises, repeat the above exercise, but lift each finger as high as you can, then quickly and immediately relax. The motion should be as fast as you can, but with control. Again, keep all the other fingers down, but with minimal pressure, just the weight of the arm. As usual, it is important to reduce stress in the fingers that are not being lifted. Practice rapid relaxation immediately after the fast lift.
Everyone has problems with lifting the 4 th finger. There is a mistaken belief by many that we must be able to lift the 4 th finger as high as all the others and therefore they expend an inordinate amount of effort trying to achieve this. Such efforts have been proven to be futile and even harmful. This is because the anatomy of the 4 th finger does not allow it to be lifted beyond a certain point. The only requirement on the 4 th finger is not to depress a key inadvertently, which can be met with only a small amount of lift, especially for the flat finger positions. Therefore play at all times with the 4 th finger barely off the keys or even touching them. Practicing difficult passages with inordinate effort at lifting this finger higher can cause stress in fingers 3, 4, and 5. It is more productive to learn to play with less stress as long as the 4th finger is not interfering in any way.
The exercise for lifting the 4 th finger independently is performed as follows. Press all fingers down, CDEFG, as before. Then play 1,4,1,4,1,4, . ., with the accent on 1 and lifting 4 as quickly and as high as you can. Then repeat with 2,4,2,4,2,4, . . . then 3,4, then 5,4. You can also do this exercise with 4 on a black key. Both the finger independence and lifting exercises can be performed without a piano, on any flat surface. Again, do not over-do these exercises; it is more effective to wait for PPI.
One way of lifting the 4 th finger is to straighten it out into the flat finger position instead of lifting it. Try the above exercises by using the straightening motion instead of the lift. You should notice that the finger tip lifts higher than the lifting motion. Practice the lifting and straightening motions separately but, in actual playing, you will use both.
Stretching the flexor muscles and tendons: We mainly utilize the flexors for playing the piano and the extensors are insufficiently exercised. This makes it difficult to lift the fingers, especially the 4 th , against the over-developed flexors. One way to alleviate this problem is to perform stretching exercises for the flexor muscles and tendons. Form a flat LH and place all the LH fingers against the RH palm and use the RH to push the LH fingers backwards towards the forearm. A person with very flexible flexors will be able to push the fingers all the way back until they touch the forearm (not many). Most people should be able to push the fingers past the point at which the fingers are at 90 degrees to the forearm. Push as far as you can (without pain) for six seconds, then release for four seconds; repeat several times. Do same with the RH fingers. Perform this once daily and you will be amazed at how much more you can stretch in just a few months. This will make it easier to lift the fingers and prevent them from curling up completely when not in use.
Even "mindless exercises" might have some uses, such as just before a strenuous performance, when you need to conserve as much energy as possible.
Historically, exercises were invented for a good reason: to solve specific technical problems. Misuse of exercises started when they replaced knowledge based practice methods, enabling teachers with little knowledge to "teach" piano.
During the periods leading up to the "exercise craze" of the 1900s (Cortot, Alfred,,), and even today, there is belief that the best techniques require practicing extremely difficult exercises, many of which never occur in actual music. Thus the most difficult exercises were created with the belief that you aren't an advanced pianist if you can't play them. This belief also influenced the piano culture in which certain difficult pieces of music had to be mastered in order to be considered an advanced pianist, whether those pieces were to be performed or not. This culture was partly accepted by Chopin, Liszt, etc., who wrote Etudes for the purpose of developing technique. Such "technical pieces" are now a part of advanced piano culture and certainly contribute to better technique. Practice methods for such advanced technique, for which there is presently no documentation, should be researched and added to what is in this book.
Conclusion: using daily finger exercises to "strengthen the fingers" for technique acquisition is obsolete. We now understand the role of efficient practice methods and most of them have been documented. There are a few stretching exercises for increasing the reach and reducing the natural deterioration with age. There are etudes, technically difficult pieces, etc., that are needed for demonstrating advanced technique.