Why Your Little Finger Feels Weak at the Piano
1. The Hand
One of the biggest complaints from those beginning to learn the piano is that their fingers don’t want to do what they are asking of them. This is particularly true for the weaker fingers on the hand, the 4th and 5th fingers. Most people assume that this is a strength or an independence problem that will get better with time and practice; however, that isn’t strictly true.
The fingers towards the outside of our hands are actually quite interesting. The 5th finger shares a tendon and connective tissue with the 4th finger and therefore has much less leverage. This alone makes it a much harder finger to control, and this isn’t something that can be solved with practice. No matter how much you work on your finger strength and independence, the little finger is always going to be at a disadvantage and be much harder to move.
But this isn’t really what we are trying to improve with practice, and it’s also not really what is meant when we say “improve finger independence” anyway.
Typically, when a pianist starts playing, they try to treat each finger as equal and expect the little finger to be able to operate in the same way as the rest. Many players will try to force the little finger to work harder to try and get a similar sense of control as they have with a finger like the index finger. This means that they might try to “press harder” or lift the finger higher to get it to work. This actually makes control and tone often much worse than if you were to learn to support the little finger rather than expect more from it.
2. What It Should Do
There are actually 3 leverage points that we typically use as pianists: the finger, the wrist, and the arm. Each one of these points enables you to move around the keyboard in slightly different ways.
The finger: typically, fingers will be required to move more when you are playing fast runs of notes on the piano.
The wrist: this is for moving chord shapes or playing a note repeatedly.
The arm: this tends to be for larger jumps on the piano or to create particularly loud chords.
However, each of these leverage points is rarely used in isolation. You might be mostly using your finger for fast notes, but you could also be using your wrist to work your way around the keys or to play long runs of notes in groups.
When many pianists first learn the piano, they spend a lot of time playing in one hand position (5 fingers on the notes and only playing those 5 notes), but this means that you tend to only practice the one leverage point: the finger.
The little finger, however, is inherently much weaker when trying to rely solely on finger leverage. So, it requires the use of the other leverage points. You can actually try this yourself. If you try to press a key (or on any surface) just by moving your little finger, it feels slightly less stable and not that strong. Whereas if you try to use both your wrist movement and your little finger movement at the same time, you can get much more control and power behind it.
This means that when you are using your little finger on the piano, you shouldn’t be trying to force it to play strongly or trying to overly control it when it is not cooperating. Instead, you need to try and adjust your mechanics so that you are supporting the finger much better and using your other leverage points.
3. What To Do
So, how do you do this?
Well, this is where the practice and training comes in. Experienced players don’t really have stronger fingers; they have just learned how to move in order to get that finger to do what they want it to.
An exercise you can use to begin this process is firstly lining your forearm up behind your little finger. This means you will slightly turn your arm so that the underside of your arm is facing inwards very slightly. This will line up your arm so that it can support your little finger. Then try dropping your hand on the key rather than forcing the finger movement. You want to rely more on your arm and wrist to produce the movement while using just your finger to make sure you actually hit the note and get your other fingers out of the way. Because the little finger is shorter than the others (usually), you will also typically play this finger with the pad of your finger rather than with your nail touching the key.
If you are playing chords on the piano, this means that you might tilt your wrist more towards your little finger to support that side of your hand. And if you are playing runs of notes, your wrist needs to be there ready to support that finger when it has its moment in the spotlight.
Here are two exercises you can try to start practicing these positions.
Firstly, place your thumb on a C and your little finger on a G. Then “see-saw” your hand between the first and fifth fingers. Your aim is to make sure that each time you play the fifth finger, your wrist moves over to support it and away from your first finger.
Secondly, keep your hand in that same position, but hold your fifth finger down. Now try and play finger 4, then 3, then 2, and then 1 while still continuing to hold finger 5. Your aim here is to still support that weaker side of your hand while also needing to play other notes.
Learning to build technique on the piano is rarely a case of not being able to do something due to strength. Most of the time, it’s about building movement patterns into your hand so that you can do it without thinking. So, no matter what the technical problem is, try to think about what movements help it feel more natural and try to build those into your playing.
Matt
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