Chiang 1

Ophelia Chiang
Mrs. Gardner
Honors English 10 / Period 4
27 January 2015
Trills in Thirds and Promises
Lift your fourth finger up higher and press down harder! Mrs.Peng rebuked as my six-year-old
self sat in front of the black Steinway & Sons grand piano and pressed down each key with precision and
strength.
I could feel the fatigue and pain in my arms ascending along with the scale I played. I had just
mastered Beyer less than a month ago, yet my warm ups were already becoming much more tiring and
more than what I could handle. Trying to distract myself from the discomfort, my mind ended up drifting
off to the first time I ever came in contact with this book of exercises.
"Before you become an outstanding pianist, Mrs.Peng told me as she handed me a brand new
book, you need to master every single exercise in this book. HANON The Virtuoso Pianist Vol. 925 was
clearly printed on the worn out front cover. I, being the nave child I was, believed that this was the key to
becoming a pianist even more skilled than Lang Lang. Four-year-old me excitedly reached out for the
book, and my eyes lit up as soon as I came in contact with it. My small hands, so small that could barely
hold an egg without dropping it at that time, tightly gripped onto the sides of the big yellow book nearly
the size of my entire upper body.
I was pulled back to reality when I pressed a wrong note. Mrs.Peng pushed up my wrist from
beneath while adjusting my hands, which, fortunately, were now at a size that could grasp onto eggs
properly.
Concentrate! Make sure you keep your hands round, like youre holding an egg while pressing
each key. You need to be able to see each and every one of your knuckles.
If all five fingers of the hand were absolutely equally well trained, they would be ready to execute
anything written for the instrument. The words were italicized and printed in bold in the preface of

Chiang 2
Hanon. Three years down the path of learning piano, the egg-shaped hand Mrs.Peng insisted on became
particularly hard to maintain when I came across exercise number fifty four in the bookThe Fourfold
Trill in Thirds. Nevermind the egg-shaped hands, the exercise was at a completely different scale of
difficulty for me, not to mention how my hands looked like chicken feet having a seizure. Execute this
exercise very smoothly and evenly, striking each Third very clearly, the instructions read. I never once
encountered such a frustration where the more I tried to focus, the more difficult it became. As my ring
finger failed to lift up as how the others would, I found myself struggling while trying to switch back and
forth between the third and fifth combination and the second and fourth combination. I eventually began
to avoid exercises that involved excessive movement in my fourth and fifth fingers at all costs. Lift your
fourth finger up higherits harder than it sounds.
Sitting in eighth grade music appreciation class with my friend Rebecca, we yawned at the same
time as our class watched a tedious cartoon animation video on Robert Schumann. In the dimly lit
classroom, we found ourselves using every ounce of willpower in our bodies trying to keep our eyelids
open while the narrators hypnotizing voice gravely dragged on. After a while, something caught our
attentionSchumanns obsession with finger independence. It is said that Schumann used various
machines to break the dependence of the ring finger and the pinky. However, the independence of his
weaker fingers came with a consequence Schumann severely injured his hands and shattered his dreams
of becoming a virtuoso pianist.
While the video went on about Schumanns unnatural ways of strengthening his fingers, all noises
diminished in the background as Rebecca and I got distracted and began competing over who could lift
their ring finger higher. She defeated me by two tenths of a centimeter. I then complained to her about
how much my ring fingers lack of strength and agility bothered me while I played piano.
Youre not the only one. It irritates me, too. she responded.
Unable to agree over why it was difficult to lift the ring finger alone, we engaged in a mini yet
intense debate. We then came to a conclusion that the internet would give us a better solution that what
our debate would.

Chiang 3
In the carpal tunnel anatomical interconnections between the tendons of the musculus
flexor digitorum profundus are systematically present. These interconnections limit the
mutual tendon displacements, which decreases finger independence and may be
problematic in a musician's hand.(Leijnse)

Despite how we, being only eighth grade students, could not understand the majority of the
information, we could not agree more with the final statement.
The fact that I had hands smaller than every other kid my age wasnt exactly beneficial
either. I remember back in seventh grade, I used to constantly complain to my mother about how
my tiny little hands couldnt reach the basic octave while everyone elses hands could, about the
little weaklings on my hands that couldnt even stand up for themselves, and about how these
clumsy fingers acted like a barrier between me and the majestic Fantaisie Impromptu I could only
dream of playing.
My mom would always respond in a similar way. Perhaps she didnt understand my
frustration, or she may have been tired of hearing me whine and sulk over pointless things instead
of trying to overcome my obstacles.
How do you expect yourself to play Chopin if all you do is complain about your fingers?
Telling me this wont get you anywhere, practicing will!
The fourth and fifth fingers being naturally weak, it should be observed that these exercises
are intended to render them as strong and agile as the second and third. Although it may take up
quite a bit of our time, we could, in fact, overcome this obstacle we were born with. I chose to
avoid it. As a childish sixth grader, I gave myself absurd excuses such as needing bigger hands to
play the exercise, or that the exercise was only for extremely skilled pianists, or that the day I
reached an octave without my fingers clinging on to the edge of the keys for dear life would be the
day I could finally play the exercise. I promised myself over and over that I would sooner or later
face it, but thought it simply wasnt the time for it yet, or perhaps, I lacked the courage.
Consisting of legatos and staccatos, crescendos and diminuendos, pianissimos and fortissimos, my
relationship with the piano has always had its ups and downs. The many frustrating agitatos eventually

Chiang 4
melted away into sweet dolces. Even with the ring finger making it difficult for me from time to time,
theres something in between us, an agreement, a promise made at the very moment my tiny four-year-old
hands came in contact the black and white keys; it has been like that for more than 10 years, and it always
will be.
Exercise fifty-three, First practice each of these scales until it can be executed with facility; then
play through all twenty-four without interruption.. Fourteen-year-old me read outloud as I chose my
next warm-up. I stretched out both hands, not forgetting to maintain the egg-shaped hands, and began
playing the octave scales without much difficulty. Moments later, I came to realize that I never payed
much attention to how I was playing these notes. I stared at my fingers as they danced across the
keyboard and I started thinking about how my hands were able to remember all the exercises movements
and unconsciously play these complex patterns at a fast and steady pace without any hint of hesitation.
The repetitive sound of the piano and faded out as I let this thought run through my head. I suddenly
stopped, halting in the middle of a measure with both hands hovering over the keys. I stayed there without
movement like a fermata over a whole note rest, leaving the unfinished pattern dangling in thin air. My
hand then moved slowly towards the worn out book, and hesitantly, I flipped the page, just as I promised.
There it was, waiting for me, exercise fifty four, The Fourfold Trill in Thirds, The Fourfold Trill in
Promises.

Works Cited
Hanon, Charles Louis. HANON The Virtuoso Pianist. Complete ed. Vol. 925. N.p.: Hal Leonard, 1900.
Print.
Leijnse, JN. "Result Filters." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of
Medicine, 1997. Web. 26 Jan. 2016.