Beepster


That's what I'm saying. The human hand is a very intricate and amazing design. You get those complimentary muscles up to task and you can do a lot more with your pinky. I know you aren't necessarily saying this yourself but when people imply that there is nothing that can be done to improve strength in their pinky because of a physiological technicality it kind of implies that trying is pointless so don't bother when in reality that limitation is a reason to focus on it even more. Know what I mean? And yes... "ungluing" the pinky from the ring finger is very important.

My left pinky is totally unglued from the ring finger, unlike on the right hand. I don't think I've ever done any pinky-specific exercises, it's just from using the pinky in your everyday playing. It happens naturally. It's amazing how much longer my left hand fingers are, too. Mine are about a third of an inch longer. 

Well actually an easy exercise that crosses all instruments that can be done to unglue the pinky and the rest of the fingers is doing the "Spock" but with all your fingers one at a time and in various configurations. 

Put your hand flat, palm down with your fingers pointing straight out away from your body with all your fingers together touching each other including your thumb.

Start by separating your thumb from the rest of your fingers without allowing the rest of your fingers to move. Extend it out as far as it will comfortably go then just a touch further to feel a slight stretch. Your fingers will likely try to move away from pointing out directly straight. Do not allow them to do so. Do this slowly at first then build up speed. It should look kind of like those old 80's workouts women doing their leg scissor exercises. 

Now do it with your index finger but keep your thumb glued to the index finger so it moves along with while again keeping the rest of your fingers perfectly straight and immobile... this will be trickier. 

Then do the Spock live long and prosper move but this time keep you thumb, index and middle finger point straight and extend your ring and pinky glued together to the opposite direction.

Then do just the pinky while keeping the rest of your fingers straight and immobile. 

Now take your hand and point it upwards with your palm facing your face and do that entire series of exercises again. Totally different, isn't it?

Now do it with your fingers point up but your palm facing outwards.

You can also try it like the very first set (fingers pointing straight out away from you) but have your palm facing toward the ceiling. 

Once you get comfortable with those you can start mixing it up. 

For example... keep your middle and ring finger point straight and extend your pinky and index/thumb simultaneously. This will be quite tricky. There are a ton of variations of this I could type up and maybe I will a little later but you get the idea. These are just simple things that can be done anywhere to unglue your fingers from each other.

You can also try doing these exercises with both hands at once which is relatively easy but then try doing two completely different exercises on each hand at the same time. Doing that helps make your mind and hands be able to work independent from each other. You can literally spend hours doing different configurations.

Hope that helps some folks. Cheers.

Oh, and as far as getting used to the piano and your hands doing different things at once.  I think that just comes from practice, like most things...just start slowly and it will come.  I think you should have tons of talent in those fingers of yours, so I can't imagine it will be a problem...just teach them to move a different way.  :)  

I little bit of icing with a gel pak can work wonders. They actually have ones specially designed to wrap around the wrists, forearms and wherever else you need and then you can toss the gel pak into the microwave to get the heat action after. Better to use two sets though. One for cold and then one for heat so you don't have to wait for the heat.

Cold draws the old blood away which is causing the pain then the heat draws fresh blood to the area.

Best to ya. :-)

I'm looking for a body pak.  

The little time I get to practice (and just play) these days is mostly fun, yes.  In fact, someone wants to do a piano duet of one of Mannheim Steamroller's songs for our Christmas program at church.  At first it seemed pretty tough, but it's coming along now, so that feels good. :)  

:)  I can't imagine learning a whole set in a week...well, not memorized 7 page pieces anyway.  :)

Crazy works too.  :)

I'm so glad I had to learn to play by ear several years ago.  I'm still not as good at it as I could be, but at least I can sometimes.  Still ticks me off that some piano players don't teach their students to do that, but that's another story.  

So true!  I've got the basics down but still have far to go.  I find I can find most intervals...unless I'm in the middle of a song and trying to find one!     But like you said, you start doing things naturally, and that's cool.  What started this whole thing, though, is your post about exercising and then being able to try new things. Ior something like that...)  That sounds interesting.  

I can't even imagine having time to focus on any one particular thing at this time.  I can't figure out if the diversity is enough to keep me sane or is actually contributing to the insanity.  :)  I suppose it does keep me off the sidewalk though.  :) 

I'm pretty capable as far as fingerpicking (appoyendo/tirando) and do have a couple light classical pieces under my belt. It certainly isn't my forte though and intend to work more on it at some point.

However even that the fingerpicking is usually directly tied to what the left hand is doing. What I mean is being able to play two totally different parts with both hands on the keyboard. On guitar your right hand will almost always be doing something to sound what the left hand is doing. On piano that's not the case. Even trying to lay down left hand chords and tap out a melody with the right hand messes me up... knowaddimean? It's gonna take some work to break 20 years of guitar habits. 

I'll get it though... if I can ever get my damned studio set back up. Soooo burnt out. :-/

Well you know how moves go. I'm just annoyed that a bunch of work that was supposed to be done didn't and now I've got a screw around with that. 

And yeah... sorry, Marcus. Epic threadjack is epic. lol...

;-)