Happy Fingers

I want to clarify that I posted the link only to enrich the discussion (as TheSimon also did), I don't gain anything from it ... otherwise I would want more.

But it's okay, there wasn't even a need to say it. In a forum you discuss, otherwise what kind of forum is it?

I agree with Maestro Ferrarelli

hooray for the muscular association!!!!!!!

Thank you Titti! This conviction of mine is very close to my heart. If a two-year-old child did restrictive exercises every day to learn to run like an adult... they would not achieve good results. Gradually, their way of walking improves until they reach a straight and natural posture (Assuming they haven't acquired bad habits!!!!... And "restrictive" exercise can even lead to this) ... What happened? The child has acquired perfect muscular coordination. Everything becomes natural and the stronger muscles help the weaker ones. Even during play, they can allow themselves small jumps and acrobatics, calling upon energies that they have learned to develop with maximum "economy"

Something similar happens in the acquisition of piano technique. It takes time and one must be content with small successes without extreme forcing and "restrictive exercises": Coordination will tend to grow only if the muscles are kept as much as possible "tension-free". Gravity must help, just as it helps us walk on our legs. Never be afraid to gravitate "naturally" and to

in my opinion when they talk about muscle dissociation, it just means using the right muscles necessary to play and not activating useless muscles like the triceps of the arm or the palmar flexor which would prevent the pianist from playing; I believe that coordination is ultimately also this, or not?

Playing while contracting the triceps is about as exhausting as it gets. The triceps contract to carry the weight, which reflexively affects the shoulder and thus the trapezius muscles. 2 hours like this and it becomes necessary to stop to avoid hurting oneself with very strong muscle pains behind the back and subsequent headaches, since the trapezius muscles start from the attachment of the cervix...

henry wrote:

... use the right muscles necessary for playing and not activate useless muscles ...

exactly... we should learn to have awareness of our own body while playing to achieve, gradually, the naturalness that pianoexpert speaks of in his beautiful metaphor.

Yoga helped me a lot (which I practiced without being an expert, let's be clear)... Yoga meditation (to simplify) aims to achieve full awareness of every one of our muscles in order to relax them by fighting all those muscular reflexes, those negative interdependencies that cause wasted energy, bad posture, and pain.

In practical terms, how can this be done with the piano?

Personally, for a few minutes before starting to play, and once a week for at least half an hour, I perform very simple exercises with hands separate (five notes C-G, one-octave scales in C major, first ascending and then descending; or drops, finger by finger, starting from a relaxed position with arms resting on the thighs) trying to concentrate as much as possible on the behavior of the shoulder, the arm, and the hand, first with eyes closed, and then observing how the fingers move, taking care to avoid any stiffness, keeping the shoulder relaxed, and especially seeking a beautiful sound.

All this with a metronome, starting from very slow speeds up to flying across the keyboard. Varying from pianissimo to fortissimo. But always without forcing and, if necessary, stopping to slow down.

It might seem trivial, but none of my old teachers had used a similar approach, and it is only thanks to these simple exercises (which I would define as concentration exercises rather than technique) that I managed to make a leap in quality, gaining much greater benefits than from many Hanon-type exercises (which, in fact, had caused me problems in the past).

Simon wrote...

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Playing while contracting the triceps is about as exhausting as it gets. The triceps contract to carry the weight, which reflexively affects the shoulder and thus the trapezius muscles. 2 hours like this and it's necessary to stop to avoid hurting yourself with very strong muscle pains behind the back and subsequent headache since the trapezius muscles start from the attachment of the cervix...

i fully agree!!!!

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I am using Happyfingers. It is indeed very expensive, but as far as I'm concerned, it is doing its job egregiously: it involves doing a series of exercises daily (in total it's not ten minutes as the website says, but about forty, though many exercises are given as optional). The important thing is to read the instructions very carefully and follow them scrupulously. The guy who invented it is available for various clarifications in any case.

Anyway: the result (I am speaking of my experience) is a much more agile and strong hand, and above all increased sensitivity and control over movements. Obviously, it's not that you wake up one day and suddenly you are Michelangeli: it simply happens that your hand functions better and better; as for the rest, it depends on the talent each person has.

Furthermore, I want to specify that I am particularly happy with the device because I had developed a series of wrong positions that I just couldn't correct, and thanks to these exercises, they went away quite quickly. This means that if, on the contrary, someone is satisfied with how their hands function and manages to make steady progress with piano practice (and I suspect that is the case for most of you...), I believe Happyfingers can at most save them one or at most two hours of study per day.

In short: if you are not satisfied with your hands and cannot change the situation in any way, I recommend it to you; otherwise, I don't think it is a necessary tool.

Thank you for the testimony Cenica

2€

http://www.cremonamusica.com/2017/08/27/tecnica-pianistica-6-studiare-con-il-fidget-spinner/

..maybe it's because I am old school