Tag: technique

Finger technique: why you should keep fingers close to the holes on your recorder

A few posts ago I talked about holding the recorder. Today I want to tackle the subject of finger technique, and why it makes sense to keep your fingers close to the holes on your recorder. I’m sure everyone knows that it makes sense, but I’m guessing that many of you will have found it easier said than done! I’m going to try to explain it from an anatomical point of view, and I’m hoping that it will be helpful.

The problem: the ‘attacking spider’ look

Does your hand look a bit like this on your instrument?

Tendons of finger extensor muscles visible with poor finger technique

If it does, I’m guessing that you probably do the same when you use a keyboard or mouse. When you play, I am guessing that your fingers rise a long way above the instrument. If you’ve done an exam, the examiner may have queried your finger technique. You may well have difficulty playing fast passages accurately; sometimes people sitting close to you might even hear your fingers hitting the instrument as you’re playing. You may also feel your fingers to be quite tense; maybe you miss holes when you are playing, or sometimes have trouble covering them properly.

I’m also guessing that your arms and wrists get tired if you’ve played for a while. You can see in the picture why this is: note the angulation between the hand and wrist. Also take a look at the tension in the back of the hand – you can see all the tendons sticking out. Not a good look!

Most of the major muscles that operate your fingers aren’t really situated in your hand; if they were, your hand would be too meaty to move effectively! Instead, the belly of the muscle is in your forearm, and a tendon snakes down your arm to connect to your finger.

A diagram showing the belly of the muscles that extend the fingers are in the forearm.

When we lift our fingers away from the instrument, we’re engaging a whole series of finger extensor muscles in the forearm. That’s why your forearm might get tired or sore.

Taking advantage of the anatomy of your hand.

The big problem with using finger extensors so much in the ‘attacking spider’ posture is that it works against the natural shape of our hands. A resting hand looks like this:

A resting hand

Note the shape of the hand here – it has a lovely soft curve to the dorsal surface, and the fingers curl naturally in towards the palmar surface. It’s a beautiful shape, It’s also the perfect shape to fit a treble recorder. You only need to move your thumb slightly, and the body of the recorder slots right in:

Showing good hand position for good finger technique

So if we take advantage of the natural curve of the hand, your fingers should already be sitting beautifully just above the instrument. You only need to use the muscles between your fingers (engagingly called lumbricles) to extend the gaps between the fingers slightly, and you should have your fingers neatly over the holes of the instrument. Then, it’s just a tiny movement downwards to make contact and play notes.

Sometimes we have the idea that we need to lift our fingers away from the holes on the recorder so that we don’t unintentionally change the tuning, or because we were taught when younger to keep fingers well away from holes. Actually, the opposite is true: our hand is naturally curved to keep the fingers just above the holes, and we just need to move them down a tiny way to cover them. Good finger technique just takes advantage of the natural anatomy of the hand.

What to do next

I would advise spending a bit of time in the next few practice sessions just looking at your hands. See if you can relax the back (dorsal) surface of your hand and allow for that lovely natural curling curvature. Then try slotting the instrument into your softened hand. Try moving your fingers down to the holes, and let them almost spring back up. If you’re curious about the details of the finger movement, check out my previous blog post.

Good luck!

Photos of arm and hand by Jennifer Mackerras

Diagram of Extensor Digitorum Communis from Stone, R.J & Stone, J.A., Atlas of Skeletal Muscles, 4th ed., NY, McGraw Hill, p.135.

Fingers: where do they move from?

To play the recorder, you have to move your fingers to cover and uncover the holes. But how do you do it? Where do your fingers bend?

I have played recorder since I was six, but it wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I started getting RSI-like wrist pain. I did all the usual obvious routes: doctor, physio, specialist, osteopath… Nothing really helped. In fact, it got so bad that I stopped playing.

Even after I started experiencing improvement in my arms after studying the Alexander Technique, it took a while for me to pluck up courage to start playing recorder again. And when I did, I got some help from an experienced and very wise teacher friend, Jill Tappin.

Jill quickly became fascinated with the way I was using my hands. We discovered together that I had a very odd idea about the way my fingers moved. I believed that they should bend where the crease line is at the bottom of my fingers, here:

 

Of course, that isn’t right at all. They flex much lower, at the knuckle. That’s where the joint is:

 

But even though it wasn’t anatomically possible to flex my fingers higher up, I had managed to create a set of complex and exhausting muscular contractions that had the net effect of moving my finger where I believed it was correct.

My brain power overrode my anatomy.

Changing my idea of where my fingers flexed had a dramatic difference upon my recorder playing. I found I was able to move my fingers more easily and more quickly. I found I could play the fast passages faster, and do cross-fingerings more cleanly.

So…

Today as you play, I want you to take a moment to think about your fingers. Where are you flexing them – at the knuckle, or at the skin crease? What would happen if you did it differently?

Tennis lessons: what playing tennis has taught me about learning recorder

When I decided to take my Youngster out to buy him something as a reward for a really good school report, I didn’t expect him to choose a tennis racquet. But he did.

And then I didn’t expect his enthusiasm for it to last beyond a couple of days. But it did.

So a trip to a charity shop later, we have two racquets, and have been out to our local park every day to hit a tennis ball around. Every day. For at least an hour.

I was terrible at tennis at school – couldn’t even get the ball and racquet to connect – so was a bit apprehensive about playing, especially when the Youngster demonstrated that he was able to hit the ball very effectively from the off. But the outcome of nearly two weeks of going to the park has led me to a couple of surprising discoveries.

Firstly, tennis is good fun.

Second, I have learned some really good stuff about learning skills. Learning this new skill has reminded me that the principles that I believe to be true about learning in music are true for other areas too. Here are some of the ones that jump out most strongly.

  • In the beginning, you will almost certainly stink. You will play badly. Accept it. Enjoy it. There really is fun to be had in being joyfully bad at something.
  • If you enjoy doing something, you will want to do it more. That’s why the Youngster and I have been out playing every day. We’re poor players, but we’re having fun, and that’s what counts.
  • If you do something a lot, you will get better. At first, I was pleased if I could connect the racquet and ball. Then I started to do that reliably on the forehand, but with no directionality. Then I got directionality on the forehand, but couldn’t hit a backhand. Then I started connecting the backhand, but with no control. Then I started developing the beginnings of control on my backhand. Over two weeks, I have seen improvement.
  • There will come a point where you will need to think about technique. The Youngster and I have enquired about tennis lessons. We’ve both improved a lot, but we realise that our rate of improvement will start to tail off, because we don’t really know what we are doing. We need to learn about how to hold the racquet properly, how to properly play a forehand and backhand shot, how to gain accuracy in our hitting.
  • When you gain some technical knowledge, your ability, your enjoyment, and your fun will increase. A friend of mine recently had a piano lesson with a very accomplished teacher, and came away enthused with all the new ideas and technical things she had to experiment with.

Moral of the story?

Have fun. Practise. Play around. Then get some technical help, and play some more. It’s as true for recorder as it is for tennis. If you’re at the ‘get some technical help’ stage, find a local teacher, or contact me for a lesson via Skype. Get enthused, and get back out there to play some more!

 

Image by Suat Eman,  freedigitalphotos.net