Thumb Pass

Dear Pasquale,

To understand the shift and the "thumb over," try playing a fast scale, even with broken chords. You will see that you will have trouble passing underneath. It will come naturally to move and lower your wrist a little. One can experiment and notice that the transition time is reduced so much... that the thumb no longer "passes" through. Try it. Good luck

P.S.: You must not forget the other part. Thumb over is a synthesis. You never start from scratch.

I think it is a mental cognition that, by force of having understood and experienced it, will come naturally to you.

I will try to practice to see what happens.

Thanks, anyway, for the answer.

I hope that in the next video lesson it is explained better.

See you soon.

Dear Paolo, I am also gradually resuming piano studies using your tutorials and reading Sandor carefully. I only have one doubt regarding the "thumb-under" method. If I understood correctly from the video, one must perform a lateral shift aided by an outward arm movement... but by doing so, it is practically impossible to "legato" the note played by the thumb with the previous one, right? In your video, the detachment is practically imperceptible, but if the execution speed of the scale were more moderate, wouldn't there be a risk of making the detachment audible?

Thank you and compliments on all the videos

Andrea

No, because the movement also corresponds to a slight lowering of the wrist. In any case, one shouldn't think of separate "operations." Today I was rewatching a report on Sky dedicated to the great violinist Menuhin. He said he wasn't a virtuoso and didn't know how to do certain things, except through naturalness. When a concept "changes your life," you must persevere and wait for it to mature within you. He said he despaired over vibrato. He was absolutely incapable of doing it, but bit by bit everything came. He said that even during a period of success in his studies, he took a year of absolute rest. When he started again, he said to himself: "...but where should I begin?" Then, gradually, everything came and he acquired—rather, new things, new conquests, new speeds... everything had matured. So, yes, strive to understand and experiment, but also give time its due. You will discover that you won't have to think so much to play a scale and that your passage will become as natural as if you were speaking. Everything must become like a "second nature."

In particular, you can use the thumb over legato even slowly, moving the elbow outward and lowering the wrist a little. You can also try to lift the second finger when you need to pass after the third. This will habituate you to having a visual exclusion of the fingers that seem to hinder, but only apparently, the "over" passage of the thumb.

Thank you so much for the advice Paolo! You are right, I am currently in a phase where I still have to think about the transition because it doesn't come naturally to me. In fact, I have always played scales with the thumb underneath and I actually perceived that there was a certain hindrance, but I didn't know how to overcome it... now I understand and I will give it time to "metabolize" the thumb-over transition.

Thanks again, compliments on the lessons and.... we are waiting for the next lesson on scales and arpeggios!

Andrea

Perhaps the next one will be about rotation, but I will also talk about other things. Sorry for the delay, but at the end of the week I am going to Frankfurt for the exhibition.

I am revisiting this old discussion because I too have realized that I have always played scales using the "thumb under" method.

I am trying to apply the correct method but, even after rewatching the video tutorial and reading the relevant section in Sandor, I cannot grasp the right dynamics.

On page 38 of his fine manual, Sandor writes that "the thumb must be alongside the hand, and able to descend vertically". There is an explanatory image, but it is not applicable to the case in question unless one wants to move the hand obliquely in a clumsy way. When playing a scale, this would involve moving the hand in a zig-zag manner, exactly the way that is discouraged in the video tutorial.

Lowering the wrist helps to decrease the thumb's travel, I imagine.

And yet, in my opinion, the real point to clarify in the technique of the "thumb over" passage is whether the weight transfer must be done in a canonical way or if one can turn a blind eye.

Let me explain better.

If one wants to transfer the weight correctly (at least as far as I know), the finger acting as a pivot (the 3rd or the 4th) must not be lifted before the thumb has fallen onto the next key.

This implies that the thumb will go under anyway. And it is precisely an anatomical issue of the hand. If the "pivot" finger stays in its place before the thumb "falls", the thumb must necessarily go under it. It cannot be alongside the hand as Sandor writes.

I hypothesize that a small rotation of the hand helps. Just a minimum, however, especially in the case of passing under the 4th finger. And I ask the experts if this is a legitimate practice.

The discussion changes, instead, if the logic in the "thumb over" passage is as follows:

Since the thumb passage must be applied to a scale played at speed, such that the movement is extremely rapid and imperceptible, then it is permissible to lift the 3rd or 4th finger an infinitesimal fraction of time before the thumb "falls" onto the next key.

In this case, the movement results as coherent. However, the "canonical" weight transfer is lost (at least I imagine). It is a bit like what happens in the demonstration made by Paolo in the video tutorial regarding Cortot's exercises preliminary to using the "thumb over" technique. At least that is how it seemed to me.

EDIT: the page of Sandor's book I was referring to is number 99 (not 38, which is the figure)

It is a matter of micro-movements. And these are acquired over time. Everything must be internalized and "physicalized." Thinking: "now I shift the weight then... move... the thumb... then etc." becomes a superstructure that prevents the natural acquisition of movement. The more mature one becomes, the more analytical one becomes, and the more these structures act against us, preventing us from learning with naturalness. "We learn the rule and then we forget it" (G. Verdi). Therefore: know the principle and then apply it naturally. Acquisition cannot be immediate; otherwise, knowing all the rules of movement, after one month of studying the piano, we could play a Chopin étude.

Responding to Fulvio, in his penultimate post: It is obvious that weight transfer encounters a limit with various lightened touches to gain positions. Chopin's advanced technique, for example, is "stuffed" with passages, even repetitive ones, with the thumb on the black keys. He carried out a technical revolution that, however, allows for the realization of certain passages that would otherwise be impossible. How could we manage to quickly gain those positions if not through shifting and absolutely forgetting the "thumb under"? His two piano concertos, as well as the Ballades, Scherzos, and many of his études, propose these mandatory solutions. In that case, regarding advanced technique, one learns to move the hand rapidly to positions with various quick lightened touches and re-engagement of weight... it is not easy... in fact, it is an advanced technique.

So Sandor, from whom I take my cue, says: the student should be freed as soon as possible from the obligation to pass the thumb under, because this will be an impediment to speed and more.

I always use the example of skiing: Why learn the snowplow with skis apart if we will eventually have to ski with parallel skis? As soon as balance is acquired (and the same applies to the hand), it is better to learn and insist on skiing with joined skis... Of course, sometimes you fall... but little by little, by insisting, muscular coordination leads us to the result.

All of this must be constantly supervised by a Teacher—I repeat, by a Teacher. The most beautiful manual and the best remote advice do not replace the TEACHER!