Quick Fix Episode: Fumble Free Fourth Finger - PHH 071

Welcome to Practicing Harp Happiness, the Harp Mastery Podcast. My name is Ann Sullivan and I'm a harpist, teacher, and founder of Harp Mastery. I'm all about creating more harp happiness in the world by helping harp players like you play the music they want the way they want. But as a harpist who nearly flunked out of one of the most prestigious music schools in the world, I although later not only graduated, but I went on to teach there. I know from personal experience that learning the harp is way harder than it looks. Here, each week on the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast, I show you how to solve the challenges of practicing and playing the harp. Whether it's about making your fingers behave or learning music faster, or getting your piece's performance ready, or just learning to enjoy your playing every day. Sounds great, doesn't it? Let's get started. Welcome to the show.

I can almost always tell the skill level of a harp student by the way they use their fourth finger. It's not the strength of the finger or a lack of coordination.

A less advanced player simply avoids using it. Now, that shouldn't surprise you. If you give it a moment's thought, remember back to the very first pieces you learned on the harp at whatever age you were when you started. Those beginning pieces used mostly the thumb and the second finger. You learned to place those fingers together and to play them simultaneously and one after the other. Then you added the third finger, which brought the additional pleasure and challenge of three note chords. Placing, whether for a chord or a scale passage, was not just one additional finger harder it it was exponentially more difficult.

It's likely that as you were learning these pieces, you were also practicing scales and arpeggios and even etudes that used the fourth finger. But just because you were learning them didn't mean that your fourth finger was flexible, strong and secure. In fact, you probably only discovered how backward your fourth finger was when you began to learn four note chords. Placing three note chords was hard, but you mastered it fairly quickly. Four note chords, on the other hand. Well, it would be nice if you had another hand. Talk about slowing down progress. Your technique development may have seemed to come to a complete stop.

Even for those of us who have suffered, struggled, and come out on the other side of the fourth finger. Fumbles Our fourth fingers still can be a source of frustration. They're too long or too short. They play too loudly or too softly. They're too unpredictable and unreliable. So today's Quick Fix episode is dedicated to your fourth finger and to all of us who fight the fourth finger fumbles on a daily basis. We'll look at several of the most common fourth finger issues and how to resolve them. So while some of our discussion will come back to basic good harp technique, I will also be sharing some of my favorite fixes that are specific to your fourth finger. For instance, did you know that some of the frustration you're feeling towards your fourth finger may really be the fault of your pinky? I can't wait to share that tip with you. But before we get to all that goodness, I wanted to remind you to sign up for my free webinar 3 Good Practice Habits that are keeping you from playing the way you want and how to break them I know. Crazy title, crazy long title, and a little bit counterintuitive, right? Why would you want to break a good habit? I know you're like me. You're a rule follower. Someone tells you what to do and you do it. And that's generally a good idea, especially when it comes to your practice. But if you don't have a clear overall picture of the trajectory of learning a piece from start to finish, you may be following the right rules at the wrong time. If you sometimes get stuck trying to get a piece over that final hump to where you feel good about playing it for someone, that's a case of the right rules at the wrong time. If you're trying to strengthen your technique but not feeling like you're moving forward, that's a case of the right rules at the wrong time. Or if you're not able to share your music with others confidently, that's almost certainly a case of the right rules at the wrong time, too. It's not that you don't know the right things to do, it's just that you aren't clear on what the best practice strategies are for every learning stage, and they are different. But when you have a clear overview of the path and the right things to do at each stage, you move ahead and make progress. You finish those pieces, you develop a fluid technique, or you learn how to play for others confidently and beautifully. If you follow the same habits at every learning stage, you stay stuck. It's that simple. But the fix is fairly simple too. And that's what we're going to be talking about in my webinar. The webinar is October 13th. Once again, it's got that crazy long title about breaking good habits, but I really urge you to be there. This is the best time to start thinking about what you need to do to get those pieces finished or to make the Progress you're looking for before the end of the year. It's a free webinar. There's going to be a replay, but only if you sign up, because how else do we know how to send you the replay? So be sure to join me for that webinar. You'll have a chance to ask questions. We'll cover a lot of things that I hope will clear the path for you so that you know exactly what to do to get those pieces finished, to get your fingers moving, whatever it is you want to do. We're going to be talking about the right way to do that. So you will find the link to sign up for the webinar in the show notes for this episode. You will also find it if you go to heartmastery.com and look under Events. We'll make sure that you get signed up for it. And I will look forward to seeing you then. Now, let's get on with those fourth finger fixes. Now, since we're going to be talking about technique today, I wanted to just give you, give you a little clarification. There are different schools of harp technique, and they all have differences about how they use our your fingers, your arms, your body, how the whole ergonomic structure is set up for your playing. Um, as you might know, I studied with the Salzo method, and that's essentially my teaching. But the, the main points of technique between most French methods and the Salzido method and a lot of the other main harp methods are generally fairly small. There are some important differences for sure, and some that the proponents of each method will absolutely swear by. I'm no different than anybody else in this one. But. But there are a lot of things that are basically the same, and I'm not going to enumerate those today. We'll talk about that a little bit another time. But I wanted to just mention this because I got a question from a listener. You know, I love to get questions from podcast listeners, and when I can, then I can incorporate them into a podcast. And this one seemed so relevant. This question was from Kate, and she wrote this. She says, one of my harp teachers insisted that when fingers play harp strings, they should be straight and stiff. This method was contrary to what I'd heard from two previous harp teachers and some harp friends. Is this something you could address? So thank you, Kate, for that question. And yes, I'm not only happy to address it, but I'm really pleased that I get to talk about it right now when we're going to be talking about your Fourth finger. Today we're going to be talking about curving and relaxing your finger, not playing with straight and stiff fingers. But I'd like to say that there are some harp techniques that have taught very straight and stiff fingers. Um, in general.

Today, most harp methods do not teach that, partly because the harps, especially pedal harps, concert harps, are bigger. The string tension. Even on full carps, the string tension is a little bit higher, and it takes more, more strength to play. And when your fingers are straight and stiff and you're playing hard with them, you can cause some injury to yourself then. Besides, I think it's just much more comfortable to play with relaxed free fingers. You are able to play faster. You're able to play just with a lot more range in your tone and in your dynamics.

But bear in mind that the straight and stiff finger thing was not what I was taught. So I'm coming from my own background. As I tell you this. You might want to discuss with your teacher about why this is and where that teaching comes from, because you might find that very interesting. The straight and stiff finger thing I tend to associate with earlier historical harp methods. I know there are people that play that way, and you can play very well that way. But I also know that it's generally considered that relaxed fingers are best to use.

There are some major heart methods that will talk about straight or stiff fingers, but they will also talk about it in terms of relaxation and freedom. So, you know, bear that in mind. My best advice is to talk to your teacher and work with the straight and stiff fingers if that's what your teacher wants you to do. And then you can also experiment. If that isn't working for you, try something else. But please know that this is a difference in method, not necessarily, you know, a total harp rule for the entire universe. So I wouldn't worry about it. I would just, you know, gather what you can from various methods. And then if you need to combine those things to help you play better, then you can do that too. But in general, I wanted to say that the stiff and straight fingers I have always found to be very limiting. But that's just me. But thank you so much for sending in that question, Kate. And I wanted to use it right now as a way to introduce. Introduce what we're talking about with your fourth finger. Because the first thing that happens with your fourth finger is that your knuckle will collapse. I mean, when we're talking about fourth finger issues, we're talking about a few particular issues that cause it to be unpredictable. Unreliable feel like you just can't control it. And one of those is when the knuckles collapse. When your finger is straight and stiff, you have a lot less control over exactly when and how it plays. So the first thing you want to do is to train the knuckles of your fourth finger to give you that same beautiful arch that you might get with your second finger or a finger that's a little bit. A little bit more experienced.

So the first thing you can do to check your knuckles, just put your fingers on four adjacent strings like A, C, D, E and F. And then as those four fingers are on the strings, remove 2 and 3 from the strings so that the only fingers on are your thumb and your fourth finger. And then begin to play your fourth finger. So your thumb is sort of an anchor here, but very slowly and very softly and see if you can keep all those knuckles curved. It makes a difference to have those knuckles curved and you can hear the difference. So here are my fingers on just C, D, E and F. I've put all, all four fingers on, and then I'm putting two and three back in my hand. Now, when you do that, be sure that putting two and three back in your hand doesn't change the position of your hand. We put them all on to start with so that your hand can be centered. And we're going to talk about that next. So you have all four fingers on two and three back in your hand. And then you're going to play four very gently, seeing if you can sort of feel that motion as you close your finger into your hand, coming from the back knuckle where it joins your hand. Right. And that all the fingers from the back of your finger all the way to the string are curved. So there's a nice beautiful arch. Don't push too hard with your thumb. Keep your hand relaxed, which is why we're playing really softly. But training those knuckles to be curved will help your finger be strong and relaxed at the same time. And that's key to getting your fourth finger to do what you want it to do instead of what it wants it to do. All right, so that's addressing that knuckle issue. Now, if you're playing with that finger straight, I can't even do it. I. I am quite double jointed. And when I was a kid, I was really double jointed. And so I had very little control over which knuckles were straight and which were curved. And I had to work very hard when I was a teenager to try to overcome that and get my knuckles to curve and As a result, my, my. I don't do the double jointed thing very well anymore.

But my fingers became stronger and more flexible because that arch was there to support my finger. So. And I don't think I can play with a straight finger now to. But if I. That's what happens when I try to play with a straight finger, I hit other strings. And if that's one of the issues you're having with your fourth finger, then curving your knuckles might be a place to start. All right. So that might be one of the causes of your fourth finger issues. The next one I want to talk about is if your hand isn't centered. This is such a.

A tricky thing to think about, but, you know, our thumb is so strong, and we tend to pull our hand back to be with our thumb and second finger. Remember how in the opening I talked about, we learn thumb and second finger first? And then when we start putting three and four on the strings, we realize our hand might have to move a little bit forward to reach all those strings. So here's kind of a little test. If you put 3, 2, and 1 on a plain old chord, I'm going to use C, E, G, here.

And then get them comfortably on the strings just so that they're nice and happy. And then put your fourth finger on. I'm going to put my fourth finger on the A below that. So it's not a big stretch.

I don't have to move my hand in order to do that, and neither should you. So that my hand is centered over the 3, 2, 1. My fourth finger can just reach out without moving my hand significantly forward. What tends to happen is that when we play 3, 2, 1, we pull our hand back toward us so that our third finger is a little stretched out. And then our fourth finger can't reach the string. So to check that your hand is centered, put 3, 2, 1 on and then put your fourth finger on. So I've got my 3, 2, 1 on the CEG. My fourth finger is going to go down to the A. That's a pretty chord, isn't it?

And when I have all four fingers on, or whether my fourth finger's in my hand, my hand position doesn't change. It's just right there.

And so having my hand centered will allow my fourth finger to play with all those knuckles curved because it won't be stretched out. So centering your hand is key.

Now you can do the same thing by placing an octave. Here's an octave. A.

Right. So when. When my fingers are on Those octaves. And I play and I. My octave is placed on the harp. My hand should be centered so my fourth finger shouldn't be stretched out. My hand should be centered over the octave so that my fourth finger can be curved.

And a way to test that is once you've placed the octave, put your inner fingers on. Put two and three on the strings, any strings in the middle, and your hand shouldn't move. And that's how to see if you're nicely centered. Now, once your hand is centered and your knuckles are curved, most of your fourth finger technique is going to be in place. But we want to talk just a little bit more about how to keep that fourth finger from being stretched or stiff. Right. Centering your hand is a big thing, but I want you to think about your hand as if the palm of your hand could hold a ball. Picture a ball, oh, a little bit smaller than tennis ball size, right in the palm of your hand. And your hand is, you know, you're cupping the. Your hand around the ball. Then turn your hand upright so your thumb is up on top. And that's how round your hand should look when you're playing. Right. We don't want that knuckle at the. At the base of your fingers where they join your hand. We don't want that to be straight. We want that to be nice and curved. And you can see if you try that how it's easy to arch your fingers. Your fingers would arch right around that imaginary ball, wouldn't they? That's what we want them to look like. Now, this is what I'd like you to try. And remember I was. I told you earlier that your pinky could be at fault for some of your fourth finger issues. Well, we. I often call the pinky issue a teacup pinky. When your fingers are on the strings and your. And your pinky sticks out as if you were a. A dainty lady with a little teacup, and you were. You had your pinky in the air. Well, we don't want a teacup pinky because that stiffens up your hand, particularly in that outer edge of your palm where your pinky is, right? If your pinky is stretched out, then that part of your hand is tight and tense, and we don't want that. So this is one way to teach yourself where your pinky should be. So think about that round ball in your hand.

And then you can take that. You know, we've got an imaginary ball. Put your fingers back on the strings. Any old strings will do. I'm Going to do that a C, E, G thing again, right? Put them on the strings. You don't want your fourth finger to feel stretched out, but as you're on the strings, think, bring your pinky just slightly underneath your fourth finger. Just slightly. Not enough that it touches a string or would get in the way, but. But enough so that it's not sticking out. And just with your fingers on the strings, let your pinky move out like a little teacup pinky. And then in just under your fourth finger, out and in. And feel how different your hand feels. Feel that, that tension that happens when your pinky's stretched out and the relaxation that happens when you bring that pinky back in. Then with those fingers on the strings again, practice closing your fourth finger. Just play your fourth finger lightly and be sure your pinky goes with it.

You want your pinky to move with your fourth finger, not to stick out in the air and stay that little teacup pinky all by itself. It needs to move with your fourth finger and close just as your fourth finger does. So we may not use our pinky to play, but it has a really important role to play. You can almost think of it as support for your fourth finger. It's just a little encourager to bring it in. But if you think about your hand as that round ball, then that'll help you bring that pinky in. Because if you're holding a ball, you're not going to hold it with your pinky sticking out. Put a ball in your hand and try it. And see, as I said, you want a ball that fits your palm pretty nicely. Something smaller than a tennis ball, almost certainly. Tennis ball is probably a little too big. Golf ball's probably a little too small. So something in between. And if you, if you decide to try this at the harp, be sure that ball is, you know, sort of nerf ballish or light rubber. You don't want to drop any balls on the harp, right? But I think you, you can do this away from the harp. You don't need to do it with your harp, right? Just put that ball in your hand. Notice where your pinky is. It's not sticking out. It's holding that ball in place. And it can be there when you play as well. Okay, so we talked about three things to look at with your basic fourth finger technique. Be sure the knuckle is curved.

Be sure your hand is centered over all the strings you're going to play so that your fourth finger isn't stretched out. And then think about your pinky so that your finger isn't stretched or stiff or impeded by your pinky sticking out. Okay, that's that round ball in your hand. Now, once we've solved sort of how your fourth finger should play, there is just a really easy way to sort of drill this in. A little exercise only. I want you to think of it as the most gentle exercise in the world. A little exercise to help your fourth finger play well. And we're going to just put your four fingers on adjacent strings. Again, I have C, D, E, F. My. My fourth finger's on middle C here. And we just want to put all four fingers on to feel where your hand should be. Then take three, two, and one off the string, and your hand shouldn't move. Your fourth finger position shouldn't change. That's the first thing to check. Then play your fourth finger by itself. My other fingers are. Are closed lightly into my hand the way they would be if I had just played them. And I'm playing my fourth finger by itself. No other fingers on the strings. Feel how your arm is supporting your hand.

Your fourth finger shouldn't have any pressure on it. It should be able to keep all the knuckles curved, close nicely into your hand all by itself. And every once in a while, stop. Put those other fingers on the string and check where that fourth finger is. Check that your hand position would be good if those other fingers are on. You want to close your finger. No pressure here. Just close it lightly and play as softly as you need to to keep those knuckles curved, but with a complete full motion. Don't close part way just because you're playing softly. Let that finger go all the way into your hand.

Then try adding your third finger onto the string. Check again with all four fingers on. Make sure your hand's in a good position. Take one and two off, and then holding with three, play your fourth finger. Make sure it plays the same way.

There you go.

So now your third finger's on, and your fourth finger is playing. Good. Now we're gonna. This time we're gonna put all four fingers back on, Check our hand position, and then take off one and three. So all that's left is two and four. And use two to support your fourth finger. And let your fourth finger play. Remember, your big support is always coming from your arm, not from your other fingers. So you can do that. And 1 and 4, of course, is an easy one to check, right? But 1 and 4 brings up another one of those issues, and that's octaves.

If your finger, your fourth finger is sweeping past other strings. When it plays those octaves, your finger might be too straight and too stiff, just the way I talked about a moment ago. Here's that octave, and with my stiff fourth finger, guess what happens? It sweeps by other strings, and it can't play cleanly the way we want it to. So what do you need to check? You need to check that your hand is centered. So put your fingers on that octave, 1 and 4. Put 2 and 3 on the strings just to make sure that your hand is centered. Put 2 and 3 back in your hand. Then close your fingers and feel the equality of 1 and 4. Play very lightly so that your fourth finger can be completely curved and closed into your hand.

If you're brushing other strings, check your hand centering. Usually that's because your fourth finger is stretched out too far. But don't try to fix this by pulling your hand away, trying to not brush those other strings. That's not what's going to fix it. You can if. If the stretch feels a little bit much for you, which can happen, right? So then try moving your fourth finger just a little higher on the string. Don't move it as high as your thumb. We want to still keep it below your thumb. But if we move it just a little bit higher, that should ease the stretch a little bit. And that should make it easier to play just a tiny bit, right? Not as high as your thumb. Just move it up the string a tiny bit, and you'll feel that pressure ease just a little bit. And then that should help you play a nice clean octave. This should help you to be really accurate with your playing, so that you're not sweeping over those other strings. But curving those knuckles is essential for this. Now, if the octave still feels like it's not quite working, then start with the. Start with just your thumb and fourth finger on that fourth, like C to F. And make sure that you can close cleanly at that interval. Then move to a fifth. Here's C and G. Make sure that that works. Notice that these intervals aren't stretches at all. So you can really check to see that your fingers are curved, that your fourth finger is curved, that your hand is centered, and that you're playing cleanly. Then move to a sixth. Here's a B and a C or B and a G rather.

And then, if you like, move to a seventh, the A and the G. And then you can move to an octave.

And working up to it that way can help you be sure that your hand is still centering and it can Help show you if there's a specific issue. But the issue is probably the stretch. And, you know, keep your hand centered so that your fourth finger can be curved. I can't say, you know, enough times. There's. It's impossible to tell you that too many times. Make sure that your hand is centered and your knuckle is curved, and that will keep your fourth finger clean, okay? Now, the other big fourth finger issue is cross unders in scales and arpeggios, right? To a lesser extent, crossovers. In a crossover, the fourth finger has a different kind of a role. But in cross unders, we've got that fourth finger, right? You're playing a scale.

And you get to that truly, quite literally pivotal moment where your thumb is on the string, your fourth finger has to cross under, and then both fingers have to play, right? So a few keys. What's most critical in playing your fourth finger well here is that your hand needs to stay upright and steady. You don't twist your hand to make the cross under happen. Your hand by staying at the. At the. The optimal playing angle, the one you use most of the time. By staying by keeping that angle happening for your hand, your fingers will be able to play the same way they always do. When you twist your wrist, you change the whole angle of everything, and you completely change your technique. So you want to keep that angle of your hand the same. So we're going to play 4, 3, 2, 1. Then when we get to 1, reach under with 4. Don't twist your wrist to make it happen. Just take your fourth finger and reach under. If you, you know, you can reach lower or higher on the string. Find a spot that's comfortable to reach. Just put it on, on the string. Then you haven't moved anything yet, right? You have four and one on. Play your thumb without moving your hand, then pull your arm back to recenter your hand over that next group of strings. Place 3, 2, and 1, and then play 4.

Think about this in totally separate steps where you've got a cross under. Here.

You cross under with four, but don't move your hand. Play your thumb, then pull your arm back, replace your fingers, and then play four. This will keep your fourth finger in optimal playing position and will allow your fourth finger to play well, to play cleanly, to play with an equal sound. And it will keep your scale from sounding like it has holes in the middle. Now, I know that's breaking down the steps a lot, but once you develop that as your scale technique, you'll find that it's Much easier to play your scales faster and have your fourth finger cooperate. Okay. Keep your hand steady, don't twist your wrist and don't anticipate that move of your hand. Your hand won't move until your thumb has played and you're ready to replace the other strings. And it moves with your arm and it moves before your fourth finger plays. Oh. Now, those of you who were on my Facebook live just a few weeks ago, you saw, we worked on this quite a bit. We worked on exactly how that, how that placing happens. And that was one of my Monday Facebook lives in our Harp Happiness HQ group. And you're welcome to join us there. You just need to hop on over and we'll be happy to have you join us. So cross unders a big fourth finger moment and worth practicing crossovers on the way down. It's not, it's not as critical. Our fourth finger doesn't play as critical a role. But you're essentially going to reverse the process just to cover this quickly. You're going to play your 1, 2 and 3, then reach over with your thumb. This will probably mean you have to move your arm forward just a little bit to get your thumb there. Then play your fourth finger. You can. If you feel your hand centered over four and one when you get there, that's your hand in the right place. That's how you know you've got this right. So you're going to play 1, 2 and 3, move forward just enough to place your thumb. Play 4, then move forward as you replace 2 and 3, 2, 3 and 4 before you play your thumb.

Much easier on the way down. So but do follow those steps on the way up. So just to sort of recap here, the important things for your fourth finger are to not let it get so stretched out because that's when it doesn't play well if it's has to reach too far. And we can prevent this by remembering to play with curved knuckles and remembering to center our hand over the strings. Now, sure, sometimes you're going to have to stretch and you're going to have to reach with that fourth finger. Move your arm to accommodate your fourth finger. This is especially important for left hand. Move your arm forward so that you can, your hand can support your left hand when it plays and then move back as you need so that when you have those really big stretches, it's not your fourth finger that's going to, you know, going to have to pull extra weight to make this happen. Support your fourth finger and let that arm move forward. You know we have this wonderful hinge joints like elbows and shoulders. Use them so that you can reach well. Okay? Knuckles curved, hand centered, close your fingers. That's it. Easy peasy. Best Practices for a Fumble Free fourth Finger Once again, I want to invite you to join me for our free webinar on breaking those three good habits. We're not going to abandon them. Trust me. Those are good habits. But if we can clear up for you the best way to use even one of those to take what you're already doing and use it at the optimal time in your practice and know when it's time to do something different and what to do instead of, we will have made a big difference in your playing and I guarantee you're going to love it. So it's a free webinar. Go ahead and join me for that, please. October 13th you'll find the link to sign up in the show notes for today's episode. You can also go to harpmastery.com and find it there. Next week on the show, we're going to be talking about practicing in sections. Now I know you do that well. You do do that, right? But we're going to be talking about the best ways to do that and how to use that section practice to make your pieces come together faster. Think about that. Pulling it apart, putting it back together. I know that the easiest thing about practicing in sections is the pulling it apart bit, and the hardest part is putting it back together. But we're going to talk about exactly how to do that so you won't want to miss next week. I look forward to talking to you about that then. In the meantime, remember that every day is a day. You can add more harp happiness to the universe, to your world, and to your spirit. And all you have to do is play. All right, see you next time. Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your harp happiness every day. See you next time.