I’m visiting for a few days at my friend and colleague Jens Schlichting’s studio near Heidelberg where I will be giving a master class next month (last weekend in February). He’s been telling me about some of the posts on one of the German piano forums which are rather amusing. Apparently there has been a big kafuffle because I say in my film that monkeys cannot oppose their thumbs, but actually some of them can. Some people on this forum are ready to dismiss my whole approach because I got that one detail wrong. Some ask why am I talking about monkeys at all because monkeys obviously have nothing to do with playing piano!
Actually, whether the statement is accurate or not, I said it to make a valid point – that thumb opposition is a key hand function, and that although it doesn’t appear to apply to piano technique (the keyboard is flat, how could you grasp it?), the function is actually present virtually all the time we play.
Finally one scientist wrote in with a detailed list: many monkeys can’t oppose their thumbs at all, some can to a certain extent – one species can oppose 17 degrees, another 28 degrees, another 35… but none of them can do as much as humans. He was really great, extremely precise and complete in his account. So as it turns out, I was indeed more or less right when I said it in the film!
Jens also mentioned his gym teacher who told him to “grasp the parallel bars not like monkeys, thumb and fingers together, but to oppose the thumb.” Again, whether monkeys can oppose or not, they do use their hands differently in one of their fundamental actions…
Fun and games…
I am reminded of a similar “missing the point” in a couple of emails from pianists who’ve said, “When I rotate my hand sideways I can’t stretch an octave, my hand is too small!” And I’ve had to spell it out for them in my response: “Yes, but could you reach a larger interval than you can with your fingers splayed horizontally the way we usually do?”
“Oh yeah!”
How about that?
AFF
Tags: classical piano technique, craft of piano method, craft of piano playing, Feldenkrais & Piano, piano forum, thumb and piano technique