Finger Independence is Impossible

[@PIANO_LAB]

Link to the full article here 👉 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2636901/

[@kozokinartoh4203]

Thanks for sharing

[@patrickwells4014]

It is about time that someone gave a good plausible explanation into this mystery (to me) of finger independence. Thank you sir. I appreciate your efforts.

[@kpunkt.klaviermusik]

Every piano student should watch this! Could prevent so much frustration and finger/hand injuries!

[@barbarasmith6005]

Appreciate your non-mythological approach to piano playing.

[@michaelharvey702]

Great video and really well explained! You know, a lot of people with great technique have discovered this after slaving away at finger independence for years. A lot of people with second rate technique have studied this way from the beginning. Practicing finger independence disciplines the hand to find it easier to play when letting go of finger independence after a certain amount of practice. The issue is when a person believes that finger independence is the only technique that they should be practicing and then practicing this way until they sustain an injury or realise that they cannot play as well as the great pianists no matter how many hours they practice each day. Even if you minimise movement in other fingers, nothing compares to the training of independence which disciplines the other fingers to move only as much as necessary when it comes to letting go of the idea of finger independence after a limited amount of practice. If you train finger independence for 2 hours a day this is foolish but if you train finger independence for 5-10 mins a day then this can contribute to less unnecessary movements in the hand AS LONG AS THE PIANIST UNDERSTANDS THAT TOTAL FINGER INDEPENDENCE IS NOT ONLY IMPOSSIBLE BUT THAT ITS ENDEAVOUR IS DETRIMENTAL IN PERFORMANCE.

[@kiara4345]

Thank you!!! Amazing work, as per usual

[@matthewchang7252]

Great video on breaking myths about finger independence! ❤❤❤

[@lizweekes8076]

Thanks for this Craig 🎉

[@AS-jm1lw]

best piano youtube channel.

[@DavidMiller-bp7et]

Certainly the best overall technical training channel, for a variety of levels.

[@henrykuppens9097]

Very helpful video when one starts studying piano.

[@roxitube2]

Thank you.... As a beginner I need to be informed... ❤

[@DavidMiller-bp7et]

Helpful long and short term, get the stuff right in the beginning, will save lots of time and energy.

[@roxitube2]

@@DavidMiller-bp7et yes I'm a beginner... Not found a teacher who explains this... Very disappointed 😔 with past teacher... Piano Lab is great ... Just watched is current video... I'm a bit anxious if I raise my hand the fingers might miss keys... Suppose I have to keep practicing like juggling and catch the right notes 🎶

[@DavidMiller-bp7et]

Good in person teachers are in short supply. I never had one out of 6 in my first 10 years. I had a bad hip injury from sitting too close to and too low to the keyboard. Found Craig's channel a year and half ago, did every tutorial from the beginning , dozens, some more than once and applied that one lesson to what I was playing. It took about 6 months but it allowed me to advance into more higher levels of complexity in the music, with command. Do Craig's tutorials slowly from the beginning, hundreds of lessons and don't move on till you get what this one lesson is about. This requires discipline. His teaching is sound and reliable. I have a few others who I follow now as well. Feel I have mastered all of Craig's technique after years of combined work. Also, pick up some primers on music theory to understand harmony, shords and score notations. I am a music academy graduate in voice, so I already had that when I started studying piano as prime focus 6 years ago. It is essential that you discipline yourself to very slow playing in the beginning, and this goes for whatever level. Learning the neuromuscular coordination is only possible at very slow tempi; then break up the piece into focused segments, one bar, one phrase of one section, hands alone slow then combine them slow. Be happy and self satisfied with small sections mastered. This is an ego issue, watching and imitating more advanced players can be discouraging and perhaps damaging. Y@@roxitube2 You won't play like that for many years but it can enjoyable and rewarding every step of the way if you have the right orientation. if you don't believe me, see Edna Goldansky on this topic of slow and heed Rachmaninoff who advised, "Practice like a snail, play like a cheetah" and Itzhak Perelman who always signed his autograph with "Practice slow!" There is some tempo, even a snail's pace where you can do the right things slowly, then speed up, SLOWLY very. Craig's tutorials are a great way to start. There are so many different styles and genres of piano music to enjoy, classical is a very minority slice of that pie.

[@DavidMiller-bp7et]

Find a piece of music you want to play and work on that; I can give suggestions if you like. What kind of music turns you on?@@roxitube2

[@72-bit]

you provide insightful and in depth helpful content

[@DavidMiller-bp7et]

Another extremely helpful tutorial. You're hitting bullseyes. Michael below is right on the money, in agreement with you. More than ever now, so much of my learning is watching/processing great players, international artists and very fine local performing artists. Good stuff. At speed might be very different from slow tempi. These are the kind of specifics that people really need, clearing up confusion and the mushy mentality that goes with it, add hand tension and bad stuff can result. There are individual differences in great players depending on several factors, hand physiognomy, personality, body distribution, etc. But they all play off a basic technique that is as you describe. It is the only way they can get to the levels at which they play. You have demo-ed a number of supremely great artists, I can another dozen or so great players, they all show this to be in common. There is so much bad teaching out there, which retards players' progress and often results in injury if the player is unaware of what they're doing. I'm past this confusion but practiced badly, like this, for many years before an injury forced me to either quit or remediate my technique. This is a solid extra base, long, hit delivered by the mild and well mannered CW. Your credibility rises like cream to the top. It is about credibility. Thank you.

[@BartoszPussak]

good job!

[@MilAS829]

I really enjoy these videos. Do whatever you want but this one and the one how you didn’t like hanon were great and it’s really how I’ve discovered your channel. I saw on KZbin lots of teachers recommending hanon finger independence exercises- you know keep all your fingers down and lift one at a time-stuff like that. Bunch of people preaching that finger independence is key and how you should implement it in your practice. Then after this I would analyze some pianists- for example Hayato Sumino a big inspiration of mine, and I saw that he would lift his fingers up and that left me wondering like- wait, does Hayato Sumino just have bad technique? Guess I have better technique than Hayato Sumino because I can move my fingers independently 😎. Thankfully I’m really a sucker for having good technique. If I didn’t stumble across this video I’d probably still have that same mindset that finger indep is the way to go. Of course a little finger independence is probably good but I see some of these teachers preach it like it’s a necessity. Now let me go revise my 10 minutes a day of finger independence exercises. It’s ridiculous. Imagine being a self taught beginner reading hanon books and you sit there and drill finger independence just to realize that the majority of that time was wasted. Really I’m glad I found this. I was looking at these finger independence exercises and I noticed that yea, my pinky came up just a little bit when I played, even though I had basically no tension, I was told that finger independence is the key and I would drill in the shitty exercises 10 mins a day just so that my pinky would stay down, after hearing about finger independence I thought that every time a finger would lift up ever so slightly when I played, it was just a result of poor technique. It would probably serve as a benefit to some self taught pianists like myself (especially those that are beginners or intermediate) to make more videos like this going over things in hanon-or what some online teachers teach that take away from the naturality of how your fingers should be used.

[@pjbpiano]

I think the general problem here what the misconception of what finger independence actually is and what finger independence exercises actually are. The lifting of the fingers whilst keeping the others down is to train the mind and body to connect with each individual finger when they are needed and not have other unneeded fingers join in the activity you are trying to do. This does not mean that when you actually move from finger independence exercises to actually playing, you will be lifting your playing finger and keeping the rest down. It means that when playing, you can choose to only depress the needed fingers and keep the others off the keyboard.

[@MilAS829]

@pjbpiano when you do type in on KZbin “finger independence piano” the majority of the results are actually talking about your pinky or other fingers rising. From what I see at least. What you typed actually did open my eyes a little about this though because at first I completely thought as well that it was simply just when another finger lifts when a key is pressed. If what you say is true, which it might actually be, then I find it absolutely crazy how many people, myself included are misinformed and are probably drilling independence exercises to try and remove their naturally lifting fingers. Again from personal experience, I was drilling some of these hanon independence exercises and my pinky was still rising every so slightly in certain pieces, even after these exercises, and then I’d start to ask myself if the exercises were even working. You’re probably gonna have to spread that comment around more haha.