Hands Crossed

If you are at the level where you are playing advanced or moderately advanced classical pieces, you may have encountered passages where one hand crosses over the other. A notable example is the third movement of Beethoven's Sonata Opus 53 ("Waldstein"), where the left hand crosses over the right to play the main melody. It continues this way for quite a few measures, and returns again every time the main theme returns. The right hand is busy with an arpeggiated chord pattern, so it's more practical for the left hand to cross, than it would be to keep switching which hand plays the chord pattern. It sounds much more smooth as well. 

Perhaps the very first time you try this you find it slightly awkward, but soon you will be used to it and will have no problem, assuming the piece is at the right level for your general abilities. The first time I suggest it to my students they think I am kidding --- or crazy. But then they find it is a fun challenge.

Although Beethoven and the other composers probably would not have known this, crossing the midline of your body with your arms has benefits for the brain. You probably know that the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa. This is an over-simplification (the brain is far more complex than that), but in general it is true. So when the right half of the brain is sending signals to the left hand at the piano, but the left hand is not where it usually is, but in fact is now on the opposite side, the brain has to develop additional pathways to accomplish the task. If you do an internet search on benefits to the brain of crossing hands, you will find numerous scientific articles which confirm this. It's not just a theory but is borne out by many tests and studies. And who doesn't want a bigger, better brain? It benefits every area of your life, and certainly is important for aging well.

The Waldorf School, a private school for children, has all its students learn a string instrument, such as violin or cello. Of course they want the children to experience the joys and benefits of playing music, but they specifically select string instruments because moving the bow over the strings involves crossing the midline of the body, which has the benefits mentioned above. Unfortunately, brass and wind players do not get this opportunity. Nor do singers.

It is now recommended that parents do games and exercises with their babies and young children that involve crossing the midline with their arms (or legs) to advance brain development.

If you find that you rarely, if ever, have a piece which involves crossing the hands, you can still get all the benefits by simply playing with hands crossed on your own. Select a passage from a piece you are working on that is not too technically difficult, and just cross hands, meaning you will play the left hand's part with the right hand, and vice versa. (You would not be playing each hand's own part but just in a higher or lower register. They each have to play the part they are not familiar with.) Of course you can read the music, and of course you can go slowly. Each hand has no muscle memory for the part it is playing, so it feels like learning it from scratch. However, your ear knows the sound of the music, so it will be assisting you. Don't worry about mistakes; you'll have lots of them. Just continue on.

After you have done this, go immediately to playing it in the normal way, and see if it doesn't feel easier. Don't wait for a later time; do it when the new neural pathways are "fresh." 

To take things one step further, use the hands-crossed method on a passage you are having trouble with. If you have tried other forms of creative problem solving (that is, not just playing it over and over) and it still hasn't improved as much as you hoped, play it hands crossed, and then immediately afterwards play it normally.

I can't promise that every technique I talk about in the blog will work for absolutely everyone, 100% of the time. But I do know that they work. Hands crossed is another tool to have in your toolbox. 

Can Pianists Have Nice Nails?

 

You may think this is a trivial subject, but you will see that it is not.

Even if you are male and have no interest in having longer nails, read on.

When I was a young piano student, my teachers always insisted that I keep my nails trimmed very short, almost no visible white part at all. As a teenager, I was envious of my friends who had longer, lovely manicured nails. If I dared to let them grow a bit, I would get a lecture from my teacher. Alas....

But the reason for needing to have your nails very short is a bogus one. It stems from the idea that you must curve your fingers when you play. Some books say to curve your fingers as if holding a tennis ball. With this curvature, you end up playing on the tips of your fingers. If the nails protrude past the finger at all, they will produce a clicking sound on the keys.

This idea of curved fingers is another example of what I call "300-year-old ideas." It originated with the harpsichord. The harpsichord has a completely different action than the piano. Even then, the idea really had no basis in reality, but they believed it was required to achieve the right sound. And so the idea persisted right up until today, where most teachers will still tell you to curve your fingers.

If your fingers are curved, how can you play an octave or larger? Or a large chord with several notes? With fingers curved you simply cannot open your hand enough to play those. Try it and you'll see. When the idea first arose, with the harpsichord, there simply were no pieces that had the big chords of Chopin, Brahms and Rachmaninoff.

Over-curving the fingers also makes the whole hand tighter and less flexible. We want our hands to be supple and elastic, not muscle-bound and tight. (Once again, another 300-year-old idea says you must build the strength of the fingers, which is not true.)

What we should be doing is playing with the natural curvature of our own hands, which varies between individuals. Turn your hand prone (upside down) on your lap in a relaxed way. Then just turn it over and place your hand on the keys; that is your natural curvature. No one has a completely flat hand, and almost no one has a very curved hand. With a natural curvature, you end up playing on the pads of the finger (where your fingerprint is). 

Generally speaking, you can't play well with very flat fingers. This is because they can't transfer the power of the arm to the keys in this position. However, even though I am a petite woman, I can reach a tenth when I let my hand open up naturally, without stretching, and my hand will be practicially flat. But for someone whose hands are that way naturally, that is how they will play. I recommend you watch some videos of the late great Vladimir Horowitz, who was known for his technical prowess. His hands are practically flat. This obviously was his natural curvature. In fact, you'll see that most professional pianists' fingers are not excessively curved. If your teacher insists you curve your fingers, ask him/her how Horowitz managed to have a huge technigue without curving.

Now that you are playing on the pads of the last joint of the finger, there is no problem for the nails to be longer. Of course, there is a limit. If they are like talons, they are going to bump into the keys and the fallboard, and you will end up with a lot of broken nails.

I keep my nails slightly longer, and I get a manicure regularly. My nails don't "click" nor do they chip or break, and I play many difficult pieces.

Once again, beware of 300-year-old ideas. They don't stand up to scrutiny.

Skim or Dive?

 

In many areas of life, especially when learning something new, you may choose to be a skimmer, or you may choose to be a diver. A skimmer would learn the new skill or subject "well enough," but not at a deep level. You might need to give a talk on the subject, so you study it, but you don't intend to become an expert on it. If you're a diver, you want to go deep into the subject and perhaps attain some level of mastery of it. If you're a skimmer, you can expose yourself to a wide range of material, since you'll spend less time on each skill or topic, but if you're a diver, you'll have to be more selective so you can have the time to acquire the mastery.

Regarding the piano, being a skimmer doesn't necessarily mean you learn superficially. However, many people do just that. They start learning a piece, maybe sight-read through it, but then, when it starts to get difficult to conquer the technical challenges, for example, they lose interest and move on to another piece. There could be some valid reasons to do this: perhaps you want to see if you enjoy the sound of the piece enough to actually work on it. If you don't, you can move on. However, virtually every piece of music affords opportunities to improve your skills; if you don't pursue those, you won't get much out of the time you spent on it. And you'll still have to acquire those skills in another piece in the future. Just "learning the notes" is, by definition, skimming. If you don't imbue the music with expression, nuance, and energy, you are just skating on the surface. No one would want to hear such a rendition, and neither should you.

A concert pianist would have to be a diver. They would need to master every piece they perform, not just in terms of notes, but in order to create as much beauty as possible. However, outside the concert hall, they may enjoy skimming from time to time, to explore new music, perhaps.

Those of you reading this blog are probably neither concert pianists nor aspiring concert pianists. That is fine! Piano is a skill that can be enjoyed at any level, any age, any phase of life. It is my belief that people enjoy it more if they improve and make progress as opposed to repeating the same things over and over. So, for the beginning or intermediate level pianist, let's explore how skimming and diving might apply.

I start my students playing by ear, and add reading later. Whether by ear or reading, the pieces I assign necessitate that the student learn some very basic skills, such as just being able to move your hands around the keyboard (not as easy as it sounds, as any beginner will attest). When they basically have it, we move on. It doesn't need to be "perfect." Trying to get each of these very short beginner pieces perfect would mean you will progress far too slowly. Forget about perfection. You've probably heard the phrase "perfect is the enemy of the good." It definitely is true here. (However, having the correct rhythm is non-negotiable. Once you start cutting corners on rhythm, you may never develop a good sense of rhythm.) So, in a sense, they are skimming, but with a purpose.

Once they are out of the beginner books, I assign pieces that hone primarily one main skill in each piece. For example, Bach's C major prelude from the Well Tempered Clavier, Book I, is a piece where every measure has the same technical skill: broken chords split between hands, which need to be played smoothly connected. Just by working on this piece you would get a lot of practice on this one skill. Of course, it's not just a matter of learning the notes: the teacher needs to show and teach the skill of being able to do this in a way which is legato and well-phrased. This would be a piece which I recommend they "dive" into. We would continue to work on it until it had a "long line" (not be choppy), and had meaningful dynamics, and where the student really engages with it emotionally. It would also be memorized. I have found over the years that my students derive a great deal of satisfaction in playing this staple of piano literature really well.

As the student progresses, we select some pieces to semi-skim, that is, to use as vehicles primarily to attain new skills. Of course I still want them to play with emotional engagement and make it lovely to listen to, but they won't spend long enough on the pieces to really master them. We will choose other pieces that we want to take to a deeper level, to really explore the possibilites for nuance and expression. I feel this approach is best for several reasons. Most students have busy lives and need to practice smart, not long hours. This is the most efficient use of practice time. It is also the most enjoyable. You spend less time on the pieces you like but don't love, yet still get valuable benefits from them. And you spend more time on the pieces you really love.

I once had an adult student who told me that when he was young, his teacher had him work on one piece only for the whole year (yes you read that right!) so that he could play it perfectly at the recital. The teacher wanted "perfection" so it would reflect well on her, of course. Do you think the student played "perfectly?" Of course not; he was so bored and sick of the piece it was probably mechanical and dull. She had him do 100% diving and no skimming. He would have acquired a very limited range of skills from just one piece. And of course he hated the lessons and quit right after the recital. 

It's important for the teacher and student to understand the difference between skimming and diving, and when to employ each.