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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
Control of touch is the alpha and omega of beautiful piano playing. Each finger is a member of a playing apparatus that functions as a multiple lever comprising six segments, from shoulder to fingertips, each of which is controlled by its particular muscles. When a note is played inadequately, tests on the finger and wrist joints usually reveal weaknesses and the need for specific isometric gymnastic exercises to strengthen the muscles that control them. These produce a unity in the functioning of the whole limb, without which complete control is impossible. Such unity is duplicated by the kinaesthetic memory, and confirmed at subsequent practices.
1 Ortmann, Otto, The Physiological Mechanics of Piano Technique (N.Y.: Dutton, 1962), p. 58.Google Scholar
2 The triceps can easily be felt to contract when the tested finger pulls downwards from a high position, say from the top of the opened keyboard lid. The other hand will be able to feel a surprisingly large response in the muscle under the arm between the elbow and the armpit.
3 Woodworth, and Marquis, , Psychology (London: Methuen, 1949), pp. 559 ff.Google Scholar
4 The thumb's exercise consists of striking its note simultaneously with the second finger on a semitone above or below it together with two other fingers on arbitrary notes, alternating with the remaining finger in a slow fortissimo tremolo. The thumb strikes as a solid unit at an angle of between 30 and 45 degrees to the key surface.
The following is an example of the kind of exercise envisaged – in this case simultaneously involving the fourth finger and the thumb on their respective notes of the F major scale:
