I have recently noticed in my videos that I seem to have flat or slightly collapsed hand arch (metacarpal joints) in my left hand. @BartK pointed it out, too. I am showing two video clips here. The scales one shows the left hand clearer, whereas the Downton Abbey piece demonstrates the problem especially with left hand finger 3.

I've been trying to fix this. It sounded simple - just remind myself to hold the arched hand shape and practice slow, right? But that approach does not seem to address the root cause in my case and haven't been effective so far. Maybe every hand is indeed different? And I need to figure out what exactly cause me to do what I do. I have thought about several possible reasons. But I really like to hear what you see and think. I know getting a in-person teacher is probably the best way to solve this. Until then, any help is appreciated.

My potential reasons:

  • My thumb is too short?
  • My thumb is reluctant to extend far down? (This applies to little finger, too. As when they don't extend far down enough, the hand arch then need to lower to compensate)
  • My long fingers aren't playing close enough to the fall board? (For example in Downton Abbey, left finger 3 is playing below the black key causing the 2nd knuckle to rise above metacarpal? In G# minor scale, less so because the longer fingers are playing the black key?)
  • Any relation to finger strength issue? (I am still new to piano playing)
  • Seating height?
  • Hand size? (I can reach an octave only on the very edge. Arching the hand up makes lateral reach smaller?)

I think it's just a matter of going slowly and consciously ensuring you are doing the right movement.

There has to be a certain amount of strength in the finger tips. Everyone talks about arm weight and not using isolated finger motions. That's all true BUT fingers are not inert sausages that only follow the hands. In fact, the tips of the fingers have to be strong enough to support the weight of your whole torso without collapsing.

Here is an exercise that my teacher taught me and which is very helpful. Start with your hand flat and your fingers spread out on a surface like the top of your piano or a table.
Now do a grabbing motion as if you want to pull the table up with your fingers and gradually lift your hand in an arch.


Finally, lean forward so your weight is supported on your fingers. All the time make sure that:

  1. Your knuckes are higher than the rest of the hand
  2. No joints are collapsed
  3. No joints are locked


I did this exercise until I could do half push ups on my finger tips and it has really helped me maintain a strong hand structure. If that's too hard you can lean against a wall instead.

    BartK I think it's just a matter of going slowly and consciously ensuring you are doing the right movement.

    This is great advice!

    A couple of years ago I went to a teacher for ergonomics (he was trained in Taubman and Alexander Technique) and there was a lot of slow, note by note transitions, paying attention to the form of each finger. What I noticed for sure is that I used to have a floating pinky and I've mostly trained myself out of it (noticed the other day in the reflection that it wasn't as relaxed as I'd like, so I'm making an effort to just have it sit on the keys when not in use). It takes a lot of conscious work at the beginning but over time it becomes second nature.

      Pallas "Hmmm. Learning piano a long time takes!"

      I'm putting that next to my piano. 😂

        Regarding this collapsed first knuckle problem @BartK illustrated, I see it partially happening on my left finger 2. It's been a bit baffling because when I test my knuckle on a a flat surface, they (including that finger) are strong enough and don't collapse. Last night I examined it more closely on my piano, and I think I may have a silly, weird, yet plausible explanation. I suspect I was subconsciously collapsing that particular knuckle to avoid hitting the nail on the key. You see I don't have meaty finger tips. And my finger 2 nail tip, as closely cropped (in the pic) as I can without hurting, is still too far forward. This problem is slightly less on right hand finger 2 which explains why that first knuckle do no collapse like the left one. I guess from now on I just need to clip those 2 nails more often. Even this is not the full solution, it should eliminate part of the reason.

        Last night I also tried lowering my seating position by one inch. It seems to have helped somewhat.

        My feeling is that angle of wrist affects hand arch. Wrist slightly bending up makes arching the metacarpal more unnatural and umcomfortable. Wrist flat or even slightly bending down makes it easier. I think I subconsciously keep my palm parallel to the ground, so elbow height dictates wrist bend - high elbow wrist bend up, low elbow wrist bends down. Also when moving from center towards edge of the keyboard, the elbow will rise as arm extends out, so wrist flat at keyboard center becomes wrist slightly bend up at the end of keyboard. That's why to even it out I need to lower my seating a little bit.

          iternabe
          I can confirm that sitting higher is harder on the finger tips, which makes it tempting to collapse the knuckles into a suboptimal technique IMO. Over the years I have been favoring a lower sitting height than before.

            Ithaca Are you keeping your elbows tucked in against your sides as you move farther out on the keyboard, or are you letting them wing out?

            @Ithaca My answer is probably neither?

            I watched the Christina Kobb video in your post with fascination. I am definitely not keeping my elbow tucked in as close against my sides as she does. Having never thought about this aspect, I think I just started with where my elbow naturally hangs when I sit, which is maybe with about a fist's gap between it and the side of my body. When my hands moves towards the edge of keyboard, I lean my torso in that direction. In addition, I try to keep my (playing) fingers aligned with the keys, and to achieve that means the elbow does wing out somewhat. This aligning way is something I learned from the Piano Prof (Kate Boyd)'s YT videos. Later, when I bought the Roskell book, I was surprised to see she advocate a completely different approach. Instead of leaning the body, she keeps her torso vertical but rotates it towards the end of keyboard her hands is reaching towards. I think she specifically said do not align the fingers to the keys when playing near either ends? So, it seems to me that Roskell and Kobb are in agreement.

            When I first saw Kobb keep her elbow close and rotate the upper arm to let her forearm swing out, I tried myself and found that motion really tight and uncomfortable. Then at the end of the video, she explained that a hunched postures will cause that problem, and sitting straight with shoulders pulled back solves it. I believe she is correct. On the other hand, I know I have a hunched back problem half a century in the making, so it could be really hard for me to correct. //sigh

            Thank you so much for bringing these information. This is very helpful to me, and most likely will be to others as well.

              Ithaca It's great to hear your experience and the amazing improvement the remedy did to your life quality.

              That being said, for as longs as I am aware of my posture problem, I do not suffer pain, strain, or any mobility problem from it. Or at least that's how I feel, not knowing what I am missing out. Other than it does not look in photos, it does not bother me at all, and I simply stopped minding it after a certain age. Well, now that piano playing bring this topic back, I will keep it in mind and pay more attention.

                Iternabe, probably very loosely related to your thread, but I was thinking. If you are a snob, like me. With a snobby finger sticking up sometimes, like mine 😃 Perhaps this video will help you... I plan to do those exercises too. It might also help you with your tension... anyway. I enjoy his humor and the lesson, hopefully you do too 😃

                This particular post on PW echoed the discussion in this thread about seating height and elbow position.

                I also feel the author summarized “good technique” so well it’s worth being re-posted.

                19 days later

                I'd like to offer an alternate view to the "elbow out" (elbow flare) thing that Kobb mentions. I was uncomfortable with what was presented for a number of reasons but for now have deleted my post. Apparently we can reconstitute deleted posts later on or maybe I can find better wording.

                I found the video that explains what can cause this "elbow out" thing due to what is being rotated outward to get the hands parallel to the keys/floor. That is the elbow-out thing which Kobb criticizes and I just finished dealing with this a few weeks ago. Start at around 5:30.

                "Posture at the Piano" by the same source says similar things to what Kobb says, but not in terms of holding the elbows in (if anything, that might be a result).

                Ithaca but when I read one(?) of your deleted posts

                My apologies. I wanted to be more clear myself before posting prematurely as I did, and am giving it a try now. Let me know if this makes sense.

                For reference, I've made a screenshot where Kobb shows the thing we do NOT want - this flaring out of the elbows, with the idea of "leading with the elbows". This is what I want to start with.

                https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/yni7k6wzix1njn7xygh3g/Kobb-demo.jpg?rlkey=47xjp8hj1jvrn94sz7u38vfit&st=3xwf3ads&dl=0

                By chance I've been working heavily in related areas, and ended up working with what I linked to in the post that is still up. Here is the idea:

                When you stand in decent relaxed posture with arms hanging and then raise your forearms at the elbow as if sitting at the dinner table, the pinky side of your hand will be on the table - your hands are not flat-horizontal to the floor or table / keyboard. We have to turn or rotate the hand for it to become parallel horizontally. The question comes how we do that.

                • to turn the hand, you can raise your elbows. Many people do that. This also gives the type of posture that Kobb is showing. It also contributes to rounding the shoulders, and per my source, creates strain in the body.
                • to turn the hand, instead of this, you can rotate your forearm at the elbow joint. This way the elbows are not raised, the upper arms stay hanging relaxed.

                My source says that many people do the first way of turning the hand and that it's a source of tension. In my own experiments, I found that it also tends to round the shoulders. At this point it became chicken and egg: did a person start with rounded shoulders, or did a person end up with rounded shoulders by the way they turned their hands to be horizontal with the keyboard? That's when I deleted my 2nd post to check a bit more.

                When I experimented with this, because I was indeed doing the wrong first thing, there was suddenly also a lot of new freedom of movement in my arms, because this raising of the elbows affected other things.

                The things that bothered me primarily was the idea of restriction. If you stop yourself from doing things, then you are restricting yourself, putting on the brakes, which creates tension, and I had some bad experiences with that before knowing more and finding alternatives. There seemed to be the idea of stopping your arms from going out, stopping your elbows from going out: an idea of restriction. If by chance instead of this there is a thing TO DO, instead of things "not to do", which will give the same results, I'd prefer that.

                Maybe this part I managed to get out with some clarity. Does it make any sense?

                  Ithaca .....I was thinking that I'm not sure that what you describe as being desirable is necessarily different from what Kobb describes.

                  I think there's a lot of crossover. The one difference is a chicken-egg because if you try to get your hands horizontal via elbows you get a hunch in your posture: if you hunch your posture, you get the elbows out that way. Which side do you address to get past this problem?

                  The source I have cites Chopin, who was born in 1810: Kobb specializes in music of the 1800's. Both of them talk about leading with the hand rather than leading with the elbow (does anyone teach leading with the elbow?)

                  I think Kobb in her videos isn't advocating for a rigidly upright position, but more what I think of as a balanced upright position. I did the hunched-forward-weight-on-arms position growing up because that was all I was capable of - I couldn't straighten my shoulders and upper back enough to attain a neutral/balanced back posture. But now that I can attain neutral, everything is very different - I can move more fluidly with ease, as opposed to being constantly tense from my hips to elbows.

                  I also don't think she is advocating rigidly upright; but I fear that an attempt to be upright might lead some to become rigid. The word "posture" has all kinds of reactions and approaches, and my experience years ago was not good. It is also how we follow and interpret any video or demo; it sounds as if this one hit the mark for you. I like your definition of "balanced upright position" - the word balance - and also "fluidity" - are things I have been after and gradually reaching.

                  I'm curious about what (I think) you said that you'd just been trying to deal with recently - an overly tight mid-back? Forgive me if I misunderstood.

                  That part of my one deleted post was probably a fail. It happens that what she did at the moment of showing a straighter back was too reminiscent of the lordosis I've undoing and I had a reaction. I shouldn't have commented on that part and it was knee-jerk.

                    a month later

                    I have the "Fundamentals of Piano Technique - The Russian Method Book" by Leon and Olga Conus. Today, I found this James McKeever, editor of the revised edition of that book, video on the Russian method. What he demonstrated in fact alleviated some of my concerns. Specifically, he mentioned arching make the hand smaller, which is very true for my already small hand. One thing I am taking to heart is to sit lower. It turns out I was sitting way too high, and even I have been trying to lower my seat height by small steps, I keep finding I can still go lower and even lower.

                    Pallas iternabe What changes for the better when you sit lower?

                    The ranges of motion of the wrist. And keeping the non-playing fingers resting on the key surface in a neutral state.

                    In the video when he demonstrates the exaggerated up-down motion of the wrist, I could not get my wrist as low as shown until I lowered my sit to be a lot more than I expected.

                      Pallas BTW I am not practicing anything in the Conus book. In fact, I am not sure if that's a good idea without a good teacher watching over what I do. It's just I am doing a lot of research into the technical side of the playing motion recently. More than a few sources are all converging on the principles similar to this video.