Gallery of Frequently Used

Abbreviations in Solfeggio
and Applied Piano

Submitted by : Charles D. Magpili

BSED III- MAPEH

Prepared to: Ma'am Mary Ann S. Recio

Absolute Pitch (AP)
Absolute pitch (AP), often called perfect pitch, is a rare ability
of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without
the benefit of a reference tone. AP can be demonstrated via
linguistic labeling ("naming" a note), associating mental imagery
with the note, or sensorimotor responses. For example, an AP
possessor can accurately reproduce a heard tone on a musical
instrument without "hunting" for the correct pitch.
The frequency of AP in the general population is not known. The
assumed occurrence of less than 1:10,000 is widely reported, but
it is not supported by evidence. However, a 2019 review of more
recent and international studies indicates prevalence of at least
4% amongst music students.
Generally, absolute pitch implies some or all of the following
abilities, achieved without a reference tone:

 Identify by name individual pitches (e.g. F♯, A, G, C) played

on various instruments.
 Name the key of a given piece of tonal music.
 Identify and name all the tones of a given chord or other
tonal mass.
 Accurately sing a named pitch.
 Name the pitches of common everyday sounds such as car
horns and alarms.
 An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning
system, which approximates just intervals by dividing an
octave (or other interval) into equal steps. This means the ratio of
the frequency of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, which
gives an equal perceived step size as pitch is perceived roughly
as the logarithm of frequency.
In classic music and Western music in general, the most
common tuning system since the 18th century has been twelve-
tone equal temperament (also known as 12 equal
temperament, 12-TET or 12-ET; informally abbreviated to twelve
equal), which divides the octave into 12 parts, all of which are
equal on a logarithm scale, with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2
(12√2 ≈ 1.05946). That resulting smallest interval, 1⁄12 the width of
an octave, is called a semitone or half step. In Western countries
the term equal temperament, without qualification, generally
means 12-TET.
In modern times, 12-TET is usually tuned relative to a
standard pitch of 440 Hz, called A440, meaning one note, A, is
tuned to 440 hertz and all other notes are defined as some
multiple of semitones apart from it, either higher or lower in
frequency. The standard pitch has not always been 440 Hz. It has
varied and generally risen over the past few hundred years.

Flat Finger Position (FFP) The pads of your fingers are touching

the keys, not the tips. Find E, F#, G#, A#, and B with your right
hand.
The notes of the A Flat Minor scale are A flat, B flat, C, D flat, E
flat, F, G, and back to A flat.

When fingering the scale in the right hand, start with your
second finger (index finger) on the A flat followed by the third
finger to B flat. From there, move your thumb under and use it to
hit the C key. Use the second and third fingers for D flat and E
flat, respectively. Bring your thumb under once again to hit the F.
You can now finish the upward portion of the scale by hitting the
G and A flat with your second and third fingers. Coming down is
the opposite.

For the left finger you are going to want to start the scale
with your third finger on A flat. Using your fifth finger and your
thumb, hit the B flat and C notes. With your thumb on the C note,
cross your fourth finger over to the D flat. Play the next notes in
order, finger after finger, until your thumb lands on the G. From
there simply cross your index finger over to hit the final A flat.
Coming back is just the opposite.

Practice this scale over and over until you feel comfortable
not only with playing it, but with knowing the notes that you are
hitting and where you are on the keyboard. After you feel you've
got it down, come on back. I've got lots more scales to show you. 

Fantaise Impromptu (FI) by Chopin

 Fantaisie-Impromptu - It was composed in 1834 and
published posthumously in 1855 despite Chopin's instruction that
none of his unpublished manuscripts be published.
The Fantaisie-Impromptu is one of Chopin's most frequently
performed and popular compositions
The Fantaisie-Impromptu was written in 1834, as were
the Four Mazurkas (Op. 17) and the Grande valse brillante in
E♭ major (Op. 18), but unlike these other works, Chopin never
published the Fantaisie-Impromptu. Instead, Julian
Fontana published it posthumously, along with other waltzes Opp.
69 and 70. It is unknown why Chopin did not release
the Fantaisie-Impromptu. James Huneker calls parts of it
"mawkish" and "without nobility". Ernst Oster conducted a
technical examination of the piece which hints at similarities
between the Fantaisie-Impromptu and Ludwig van
Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata (Quasi una fantasia), which he
cites as the reason for Chopin's reluctance to publish the piece.
The mystery may have been solved in 1960 when
pianist Arthur Rubinstein acquired the "Album of the Baroness
d'Este" which had been sold at auction in Paris. The album
contained a manuscript of the Fantaisie-Impromptu in Chopin's
own hand, dated 1835, stating on the title page in French
"Composed for the Baroness d'Este by Frédéric Chopin". The
facts of its authenticity having been "guaranteed by the French
authorities" and that it shows "a delicate care for detail" and
"many improvements in harmony and style" in comparison to the
previously published version, Rubinstein considered absolute
proof that it is the finished work. In his preface to the "Rubinstein
Edition", published by G. Schirmer, Inc. in 1962, Rubinstein
surmises that the words "Composed for" in place of a dedication
imply that Chopin received a paid commission for the work, so he
had actually sold it to the Baroness
 Fantaise Impromptu Frédéric
Chopin

Fast Play Degradation (FPD)

Play any composition at full speed (or faster), and you may
suffer "Fast Play Degradation" (FPD). The following day, you
can't play it as well. This happens mostly with HT play. HS play
is more immune to FPD and can in fact be used to correct it.
FPD occurs probably because the human playing mechanism
(hands, brain, etc) gets confused at such speeds, and therefore
occurs only for complex material such as HT play of
conceptually or technically difficult material. Easy pieces tend
not to suffer FPD. Students who try to speed up HT can run into
FPD problems and the standard solution had been to only
practice slowly for long periods of time which wastes too much
time.
HS practice is the better solution. This simplifies the music,
reduces confusion and erases any bad habits that formed during
fast HT play. One effective way to avoid FPD is to always play
slowly at least once before quitting.
 The most important thing about FPD is the knowledge that
it exists, so that you don't get caught off guard, and know what
to do to cure it. If you don't know anything about FPD and
experience its symptoms, you can suffer psychological problems
because nothing works for no known reason.

Hands Separate
Hands-separate piano practice doesn’t seem to help with
hands-together playing.
Your experience is quite typical. Playing two hands at the same
time is completely different than playing both separately.
But the point of learning parts separately is NOT about making it
easier to play both hands together. It's about learning all the
"other" stuff (like correct hand position, articulation etc.) without
having the distraction of the second hand.

Hands Together
Playing the piano with both hands together, is considerably more
difficult than just right-hand playing. But no matter how much you
enjoy playing melodies with the right and left hands separately,
the time comes when you have to get these two great friends
together.
 Kirnberger’s II Temperament
Kirnberger's first method of compensating for and closing the
circle of fifths was to split the "wolf" interval, known to those who
have used meantone temperaments, in half between two different
fifths. That is, to compensate for the one extra comma, he
removed half a comma from two of the formerly perfect fifths in
order to complete the circle. In so doing, he allowed the remaining
fifths to stay pure. At the time, however, pure thirds were more
valued than pure fifths (meantone temperament had eight pure
thirds and sacrificed four entire chords to achieve this end.) So,
Kirnberger allowed for three pure thirds, the rest being slightly
wide and the worst being three Pythagorean thirds (22 cents
wider than pure) on the opposite end of the circle from the pure
thirds. To put it graphically:

C-----G-----D------A-----E-----B-----F#-----C#-----Ab(G#)-----Eb-----
Bb-----F-----C
p p -1/2 -1/2 p p p p p p p
|__________pure 3rd______|
|__________pure 3rd______|
|_______pure 3rd________|
|__________Pythag. 3rd_________|
|_________Pythag. 3rd___________|
|________Pythag. 3rd___________|

The above table represents Kirnberger II temperament. The

first row under the intervals shows either a "p" for pure, or "-1/2"
for those intervals narrowed to close the circle of fifths (D-A), (A-
E). Below these are shown the pure 3rds (between C-E, G-B, D-
F♯), and Pythagorean (very wide) 3rds (between B-D♯, F♯-A♯(B♭),
D♭-F.)
Temperament, however, is a give-and-take situation: none is
a perfect solution. It must also be remembered that temperament
applies only to instruments with fixed pitch: any keyboard
instrument, lutes, viols, and so forth. Wind musicians, singers and
string players all have a certain degree of flexibility concerning the
exact pitch and intonation of what they play and may therefore be
free of such restrictive systems. When the two classes of players
come together, it is important when evaluating a temperament to
consider the tendencies of the instruments vs. those of the
temperament. Kirnberger II would only have been applicable to
keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord and organ. The
advantages of this system are its three pure major thirds and its
ten pure fifths; the disadvantages are, of course, the two narrow
"half-wolf" fifths and the three Pythagorean, super-wide thirds.
The chords are not unusable but certainly must not be used
frequently or in close succession within the course of a piece.

Left hand Piano

Playing Piano with Your Left Hand, Too. Your left
hand plays a supporting role when you're at the piano. But even
though it doesn't often get to play the melody, your left
hand adds some crucial bass notes and accompaniment. ... The
other fingers on your left-hand rest on the nearest D, E, F, and G,
respectively.
 Mental Play
The only way to memorize well is to learn Mental Play (MP).
In fact, MP is the logical and ultimate goal of all these practice
methods that we are discussing because technique alone will not
enable you to perform flawlessly, musically, and without getting
nervous. Read III.6.j for more details on MP. With MP, you learn
to play the piano in your mind, away from the piano, complete
with accurate fingering and your concept of how you want the
music to sound. You can use keyboard memory or photographic
memory for MP, but I recommend keyboard memory for
beginners because it is more efficient; for advanced players,
keyboard memory and photographic memory are the same, since
if you can do one, the other follows naturally. Whenever you
memorize a small section, close your eyes and see if you can
play it in your mind without playing it on the piano. Once you have
memorized an entire piece HS, you should also be able to play
the complete piece HS in your head. This is the time to analyze
the structure of the music, how it is organized and how the
themes develop as the music progresses. With practice, you will
find that it requires only a small investment of time to acquire MP.
Best of all, you will also discover that once solid MP is
established, your memory is as good as it can get; you will have
confidence that you will be able to play without mistakes,
blackouts, etc., and will be able to concentrate on music. MP also
helps technique; for example, it is much easier to play at a fast
speed after you can mentally play it at that speed; very often, the
inability to play fast originates in the brain. One benefit of MP is
that you can practice it at anytime, anywhere, and can greatly
increase your effective practice time.

Nucleation Growth (NG)

The NG theory states that an object forms in two stages,
nucleation and growth. This theory became popular and useful
because it is in fact the way in which the majority of objects in our
universe form, from raindrops to cities, stars, humans, etc. Two
key elements of NG theory are nucleation and growth. Nuclei are
always forming and disappearing, but there is a thing called a
critical nucleus which, when formed, becomes stable – it does not
disappear. In general, the critical nucleus does not form unless
there is a supersaturation of the material that aggregate to form it.
For the object to grow to its final size, the critical nucleus needs a
growth mechanism by which to increase its size. In general, the
growth mechanism is totally different from the nucleation
mechanism. One interesting aspect of nucleation is that there is
always a barrier to nucleation – otherwise, everything would have
nucleated a long time ago. Growth is a two-way street: it can be
positive or negative.

Post Practice Improvement (PPI)

There is only a specific amount of improvement you can
expect during practice at one sitting, because there are two major
ways in which you improve. The first one is the obvious
improvement that comes from learning the notes and motions,
resulting in immediate improvement. This occurs for passages for
which you already have the technique to play. The second one is
called post practice improvement (PPI) that results from
physiological changes as you acquire new technique. This is a
slow process of change that occurs over weeks or months
because it requires the growth of nerve and muscle cells.

Parallel Exercise (PS)

All the PS exercises are HS exercises. However, you can

practice them HT also, and in any combination, even 2 notes
against 3, etc. At first, try a few of each exercise, then read c.
How to Use the Parallel Set Exercises (Beethoven’s
Appassionata, 3rd Movement) on how to use them? There is no
need to practice PSs by themselves because, if expanded, there
will be an infinite number (as they should be, if they are
complete), so you will never practice them all. You will never need
all of them either, and probably over half are redundant. Use
these exercises only when needed (all the time!), so that the only
requirement at this point is that you become familiar with them so
that you can instantly call upon a specific, required exercise when
the need arises – no more wasting of time doing unnecessary
exercises! Once the problem is solved using a particular exercise,
there is no need to keep repeating it, because you have acquired
the desired skill. PS exercises should not be practiced every day
like Hanon exercises; they are to be used for diagnosing
difficulties and correcting them.

PS exercises are designed to test your technique. A

beginner with no technique should fail all of them. Most students
will initially have no idea how to play them correctly. It would be
very helpful if someone could demonstrate a few for you if you
had never done them before. I will make videos available as soon
as I find the time. Intermediate students with 2 to 5 years of
lessons should be able to play over half of them satisfactorily.
Thus these exercises provide a means for measuring your
progress. This is total technique development and therefore
involves tone control and musical playing. Advanced students will
still need them but, unlike developing students, they will need
them only briefly, often for just a few seconds of practice and
experimentation.

Right Hand (RH)

The right hand, stationed in the treble-clef notes, general

plays melodies and the left hand, in the bass quarters, handles
the low end. Both hands generally flesh things out by adding
harmony. Of course, there are exceptions to these rules;
one hand sometimes ventures into the other's territory.

Speed Wall

What are speed walls (SW), how are they created, how
many are there, and how are they overcome? There is always a
maximum speed that you can play. When first learning a piece,
this speed is often below the final speed. If practiced incorrectly,
the speed does not increase beyond a certain value no matter
how hard you practice – this is called a speed wall. SWs are
caused mainly by stress and bad habits, and are therefore
erected by the pianists. There are as many SWs as bad habits, so
there can be an unlimited number of them. Clearly, the best way
to avoid them is not to create them in the first place. HS practice
is one of the best weapons against SWs because most SWs are
HT SWs. Outlining is another effective weapon because it allows
the large motions to be correctly played at final speed, thus
avoiding the SWs in these motions. Quiet hands is also helpful for
similar reasons. Parallel sets are useful because you immediately
start at speeds above the speed wall, and come down in speed.
Relaxation is essential at all times, but especially necessary for
avoiding SWs because stress is a major cause. Any method for
increasing the efficiency of motion helps; thus, mixing flat finger
and curled positions, keeping the fingers on the keys, and the
various hand motions, such as glissando, cartwheel, arm rotation,
flick, wrist motion, etc., are all needed to prevent SWs. Musical
play is not possible at SWs because any SW will be audible; thus,
in principle, if you always practice musically, you will never meet a
SW. Clearly, practically every recommended practice method in
this book is aimed at preventing speed walls.

Thumb Over (TO) and Thumb Under(TU)

There are two ways to play the scale. The first is the well-
known “thumb under” method (TU) and the second is the “thumb
over” method (TO). In the TU method, the thumb is brought under
the hand in order to pass the 3rd or 4th finger for playing the
scale. This TU operation is facilitated by two unique structures of
the thumb; it is shorter than the other fingers and is located below
the palm. In the TO method, the thumb is treated like the other 4
fingers, thus greatly simplifying the motion. Both methods are
required to play the scale but each is needed under different
circumstances; the TO method is needed for fast, technically
difficult passages and the TU method is useful for slow, legato
passages, or when some notes need to be held while others are
being played.

For lack of a better terminology, I have named the TO

method “Thumb Over” which is an obvious misnomer and might
make it harder for a beginner to understand how to play it. I have
tried other names, but none of them are any better than TO. The
only possible advantage is that this outrageous nomenclature
may call attention to the existence of TO.

Well Temperament (WT)

Most WTs are relatively easy to tune, and most harpsichord

owners had to tune their own instruments, which is why they used
WT. This historical use of WT gave rise to the concept of key
color in which each key, depending on the temperament,
endowed specific colors to the music, mainly through the small
de-tunings that create “tension” and other effects. After listening
to music played on pianos tuned to WT, ET tends to sound muddy
and bland. Thus, key color does matter. On the other hand, there
is always some kind of a wolf in the WTs which can be very
annoying.
 For playing most of the music composed around the times of
Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, WT works best. As an example,
Beethoven chose intervals for the dissonant ninths in the first
movement of his Moonlight Sonata that are less dissonant in WT.
These great composers were acutely aware of temperament. You
will see a dramatic demonstration of WT if you listen to the last
movement of Beethoven’s Waldstein played in ET and WT. This
movement is heavily pedaled, making harmony a major issue.

Cartwheel Method (CM) (Chopin’s FI):

In order to understand the cartwheel motion, place your left palm

flat on the piano keys, with the fingers spread out like the spokes
of a wheel. Note that the fingertips from pinky to thumb fall on an
approximate semi-circle. Now place the pinky above  C3  and
parallel to it; you will have to rotate the hand so that the thumb is
closer to you. Then move the hand towards the fallboard so that
the pinky touches the fallboard; make sure that the hand is rigidly
spread out at all times. If the 4th finger is too long and touches the
fallboard first, rotate the hand sufficiently so that the pinky
touches the fallboard, but keep the pinky as parallel to  C3  as
possible. Now rotate the hand like a wheel counter clockwise (as
viewed from above) so that each successive finger touches the
fallboard (without slipping) until you reach the thumb. This is the
cartwheeling motion in the horizontal plane. If your normal reach
is one octave with your fingers spread out, you will find that the
cartwheeling motion will cover almost two octaves! You gain extra
reach because this motion makes use of the fact that the center
three fingers are longer than the pinky or thumb, and the
circumference of a semi-circle is much larger than the diameter.
Now repeat the same motion with the hand vertical (palm parallel
to fallboard), so the fingers point downwards. Start with the pinky
vertical and lower the hand to play  C3 . Now if you roll the hand
up towards  C4 , (don’t worry if it feels very awkward), each finger
will “play” the note that it touches. When you reach the thumb,
you will again find that you have covered a distance almost twice
your normal reach. In this paragraph, we learned three things:

1. How to “cartwheel” the hand

2. This motion expands your effective reach without making
any jumps
3. The motion can be used to “play” the keys without moving
the fingers relative to the hand.
In actual practice, cartwheeling is used with the hand somewhere
between vertical and horizontal, and the fingers will be in the
pyramid position or slightly curved. Although cartwheeling will add
some key drop motion, you will also move the fingers in order to
play.
 Chord Attack (CA)

Suppose that you want to play the (LH) “do-so-mi-so”

quadruplet (“Alberti accompaniment”) many times in succession,
very fast (as in the 3rd movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight
Sonata). The sequence you practice is  C G E G C , where the
last  C  is the conjunction. Since the conjunction is the same as
the first note, you can “cycle” this quadruplet indefinitely without
stopping. If you practice the quadruplet slowly and gradually
speed it up HS, you will hit a “speed wall”, a speed beyond which
everything breaks down and stress builds up. The way to break
this speed wall is to play the quadruplet as a single chord
( C E G ). You have gone from slow speed to infinite speed! This
is called a chord attack. Now you only have to learn to slow down,
which is easier than speeding up because there is no speed wall
when you are slowing down. The key is – how do you slow down?

First play the chord and bounce the hand up and down at the
frequency at which the quadruplet will be repeated (say, between
one and two times a second); this teaches the hand, wrist, arms,
shoulder, etc., what they need to do for fast repetitions, and to
exercise the appropriate muscles. Note that the fingers are now
positioned correctly for fast playing; they are resting comfortably
on the keys and slightly curled. Slow down and speed up the
bounce frequency (even beyond the required speed!), noting how
to alter the wrist, arm, fingers, etc., positions and motions to
maximize comfort and avoid fatigue. If you feel fatigue after a
while, then you are either doing something wrong, or else you
have not yet acquired the technique of playing repeated the
chords. Practice it until you can play without tiring because if you
can’t do it for a chord, you will never do it for quadruplets.

Keep the fingers close to or on the keys as you increase

speed. Get the whole body involved; shoulders, upper and lower
arms, wrist. The sensation is to play from your shoulders and
arms, not the fingertips. When you can play this softly, relaxed,
fast, and without any feeling of fatigue, you have made progress.
Make sure that the chords are perfect (all notes landing at the
same time) because, without this kind of sensitivity, you will not
have the accuracy to play fast. It is important to practice slowly
because that is when you can work on the accuracy and
relaxation. Accuracy improves faster at the slower speeds.
However, it is absolutely essential that you get up to fast speeds
(if only briefly) before slowing down. Then, when you slow down,
try to maintain the same motions that were required at high
speed, because that is what you need to ultimately practice.

Conjunction (C)

When practicing one segment, always include the beginning

of the following segment. This continuity rule ensures that when
you have learned two adjacent segments, you can also play them
together. It applies to any segment you isolate for practice, such
as a bar, an entire movement, or even to segments smaller than a
bar. A generalization of the continuity rule is that any passage
may be broken up into short segments for practice, but these
segments must overlap. The overlapping note or group of notes is
called the conjunction. If you are practicing the end of the first
movement, then include a few bars of the beginning of the second
movement. During a recital, you will be glad that you had
practiced in this way; otherwise, you might suddenly find yourself
stumped on how to start the 2nd movement!

Curl Paralysis (CU)

There are discussions in the literature (Jaynes, Chapter 6),

in which it is claimed that the lumbrical and interossei muscles are
important in piano playing, but there is no research to support
these claims, and it is not known whether these muscles play a
part in FFP. It is generally believed that these muscles are used
mainly to control the curvature of the fingers, so that FFP uses
only the muscles in the arms to move the fingers and the
lumbricals simply hold the fingers in position (curled or FFP), thus
simplifying the movement and allowing for greater control and
speed for FFP. Thus there is uncertainty today about whether the
lumbricals enable higher speed or whether they cause curl
paralysis.

Intuitive Method (IM)

Note that the above practice routine is an “intuitive” (or

“instinctive”) method. If a person of average intelligence were
marooned on an island with a piano and decided to practice, that
person would most likely devise a practice method like the one
above. That is, a teacher teaching this type of practice routine
isn’t teaching anything – the method is intuitive. When I first
started to compile the “correct learning procedures” of this book, I
was struck most by how counter-intuitive many of them were. I will
explain later why they are so counter-intuitive but this offers the
best explanation for why so many teachers use the intuitive
approach. These teachers never learned the correct methods and
therefore gravitated naturally to the intuitive methods. The trouble
with counter-intuitive methods is that they are harder to adopt
than intuitive ones; your brain is constantly telling you that they
are not right and to get back to the intuitive ones. This message
from the brain can become irresistible just before a lesson or
recital – try telling (uninformed) students not to enjoy playing their
finished pieces before quitting practice, or not to over-practice on
recital day! It is not only the students or teachers. It is also any
parents or friends with good intentions that influence the practice
routines of young students. Parents who are not informed will
always force their children to use the intuitive methods. This is
one reason why good teachers always ask parents to accompany
their children to the lessons. If the parents are not informed, there
is a virtual guarantee that they will force the students to use
methods that are in direct contradiction to the teacher’s
instructions.

Students who started with the correct methods from the

beginning are the “apparently lucky” ones. However, they must be
careful later in life if they weren’t taught what the wrong methods
are. Once they leave the teacher, they can stumble into the
intuitive methods and have no idea why everything is suddenly
falling apart. It’s like a bear that had never seen a bear trap – it
gets caught every time. These “lucky” ones often can’t teach
either, because they may not know that many intuitive methods
can lead to disaster. On the other hand, the apparently “unlucky”
students who first learned the intuitive methods and then changed
over to the better ones have some unexpected advantages. They
know both the right and wrong methods and often make much
better teachers. Therefore, although this book teaches the correct
methods, it is equally important to know what NOT to do, and
why. This is why the most frequently used wrong methods are
extensively discussed here.
 Pyramid Position (PP)

In the “pyramid piano” the strings slanted upward from left to

right, and the case above the keyboard took the form of a tall
isosceles triangle. Or a grand piano was essentially set on end
with its pointed tail in the air, producing the asymmetrical “giraffe
piano.”

Quiet Hand (QH)

The concept of a quiet hand is about avoiding unnecessary

motion in order to achieve control in smooth melodic playing. The
most important aspect to playing with a quiet hand is to have as
little extraneous motion as possible and to utilize the weight of the
arms transferring smoothly from key to key.
 Segmental Practice

Segmental practice: Choose two short segments to

practice, one each for the right (RH) and left hand (LH). The
segments can be any length, down to just one or two notes, but
are generally about one bar. The shorter the segment, the easier
it is to play, the more times you can practice it in a given time,
and the faster you can play it without forming bad habits.
Segmental practice, combined with HS practice, enables
experimentation with new hand motions, etc., that results in a
powerful method for acquiring technique.

Spider Position

The pyramid position, you can bend the fingers at the first
joint from the knuckle. This will be called the “spider position”. The
critical point here is that the last joint (closest to the fingernail)
must be totally relaxed and allowed to straighten out when you
press down on the key. Thus, the generalized definition of FFP is
that the third phalange is totally relaxed and straight. Phalange
(also called phalanx; plural is always phalanges) is the name for
the small bones beyond the knuckle; they are numbered 1-3
(thumb has only 1 and 2), and the 3rd phalange is the “nail
phalange” for fingers 2-5. We shall call both the pyramid and
spider positions “flat finger” positions because all three FFPs
share two important properties: the third phalange of the finger is
never curled and is always relaxed, and you play with the
sensitive palm side of the fingertip 
 Speed

After doing all the basic work; really learning the notes of the

piece, the rhythm and phrasing at a slower tempo, with fingering
that is secured and not changed all the time. The next step is
passage work, to isolate your weak spots and practice slowly,
hands separately as well as both, gradually increasing speed with
the help of a metronome all the places that you
feel any insecurity. For rapid note patterns you should also take
them through all kinds of rhythmical patterns to make sure every
pattern flows effortlessly. This is an ongoing process by the way-
even after you “know” the piece, it is useful to practice difficult
passages this way.
This is important, you cannot skip the basic work!

THANK YOU AND GODBLESS!