• Pianist Zone

  • Robot hand trains speed by wiggling human fingers

Yes,> keystring In practising, in overcoming problems in our practising or reaching toward what we want to do and can't yet do - we have to look at how we're doing it. This also includes the real nature of the problem, and then solutions.

Yes, this is what I was talking about when I said that particular exercise in the video and in the experiment was so unusual in terms of actually occurring in real music that even experienced pianists might not know the right way to practice it. So that could be the reason why practicing it on their own without the device didn't help.

    @pianoloverus - you seem to recognize the passage. Can you name it? It would be interesting to see what kinds of advice comes up on-line for practising it - for seeing variables.

      keystring - you seem to recognize the passage. Can you name it? It would be interesting to see what kinds of advice comes up on-line for practising it - for seeing variables.

      It's a double note trill using the fingers 2-4 and 3-5 on white keys. I doubt there's anything online about practice in it because to the best of my knowledge a drill using that fingering never or very rarely occurs in actual music. 1-3 and 2-4(5), For example, would be the usual fingering to the best of my knowledge.

          pianoloverus It's a double note trill using the fingers 2-4 and 3-5 on white keys. ....

          Sorry - I thought I had remembered you mentioning an actual piece. I scrolled further up and found a reference to the Chopin double third etude and found it. If the demo had been with that etude in mind, I had wanted to compare the type of advice one might find, with what the demo did. Well, the demo isn't about that so that's moot.

              keystring The opening trill in the double thirds etude and a few other places in the piece where there is a trill are played with a very different fingering so I don't think any comparison with that piece would be relevant.

                Yes, I saw that.

                I no longer own my Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach but as I recall the maestro invented a mechanical keyboard 'practicer' which the student inserted his or her hands into and they worked the piece just like your robot. Alas! he also included a fingernail clipper into the Praciticer which resulted in a countess losing the use of her hands.

                  Schubertian2 no longer own my Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach ....

                  lol - Anyone not familiar with PDQ Bach should do a quick google. 😃

                    keystring By letting the device move the fingers, and with a pianist's training to relax the hand, if the fingers are being move passively, maybe that in itself is part of what makes it work for these pianists.

                    TheBoringPianist I think a similar effect occurs when you have e.g. a right hand part with both melody and inner voices and practice voicing by playing the melody with the RH and inner voices with the LH. The mind is better able to reproduce "good" once it has heard what "good" sounds like, and doing this makes it easier for you to hear the actual sound you want and improves voicing when you go back to playing it all with the RH. This device would be like that, but showing you the physical (rather than aural) experience of "good" (many caveats here, not in the scope of this comment) that lets you then reproduce it more easily afterwards.

                    Two interesting theories, and they both jive with the result that there were left hand improvements, even though the device was only used on the right hand.

                    Schubertian2 I no longer own my Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach but as I recall the maestro invented a mechanical keyboard 'practicer' which the student inserted his or her hands into and they worked the piece just like your robot. Alas! he also included a fingernail clipper into the Praciticer which resulted in a countess losing the use of her hands.

                    Too bad he didn't also build in a first-aid kit.