This video is all about training the fourth and the fifth finger in exercises for the weak fingers.

These are the weakest fingers of your hands.

particularly number four

and i know many students like to avoid using

particularly the fourth finger

because it's the weakest and least

independent finger of all of them

and that's because of the anatomy in the hand

it's locked between three and five

and therefore

you will see that lifting the fourth finger

is far more difficult than lifting any other finger

but still with exercises

we can make it more independent

i love to use my fourth finger and my fifth finger

because i developed them well

every finger has its own character

but still the better you develop your fingers

the more rich your piano playing will get

and the exercises i use for that are

a few exercises of Hanon

but there are not many

i think Hanon

is more designed for developing

some equality and passage work

especially when you do them in different tonalities

there are a few exercises

that can be effective for four and five

to make them a little bit quicker

but if you really want to make your fingers independent

and strong you should go to take Brahms exercises

these exercises are the best exercises

that i have found from any exercises

including the exercises of Franz Liszt

they are far not so good as the ones of Brahms

but they are quite difficult

then we have the exercises of myself

i developed my own system of exercises

this is called Super Fingers

book one i take exercises off

which are for beginners to intermediates

and when you're more advanced

but still don't know much about using your arm

about arm technique

if you didn't learn that

then i would also recommend you

check this first book of Super Fingers

there will be a part two

and a part three

and then a part four

transcendental difficulty

but there is a system

in them and i explain very clearly

how i use the fingers

how i use the arm

and i even write the arm movements

for the different exercises

so check it out

the link is in the description

and the exercises that i discuss in this video

you will also find a link in the description to the pdf

you can download them for free

so check it out

and let's get to the exercises

i start with

Hanon because these are the exercises

that most of you are familiar with

they're very good to do

but they are a little bit one sided

cause they're all similar

i would learn all of them once

and then leave them

and maybe you can do make some

design some new exercises form them

the first exercise from Hanon is number eleven

see and what makes it four or five is

this is a repetition here

actually you can also take here number thirty from Hanon

which is a little bit similar

that's number thirty

i don't say that these exercises are exclusively

for the four and the five

but from the exercises of

i know these are the most effective

also number twelve you can do

here is when you go up it's for the left hand

four five and when you go down it is for the right hand

and you can do them in different tonalities of course

then we go to number sixteen

and back...

then we have number seventeen

which i like the most of all of them

because of the stretching here

Hanon is very good for developing equal piano playing

so that all the notes are nicely equal in passage works

but they are not particularly designed for making real

strong flexible independent fingers

for that i would recommend to go to Brahms

or if you are want to find something easier

you could say pre-Brahms

then you should go to my book super fingers

that you can download

the link is in the description

so second let's go to Brahms

there we get to some more interesting exercises

first we go to number thirteen

ben legato that's what brahms writes a lot

with exercises

ben legato means good legato

so really only leave the key

when the next finger has already pressed the next key

so that is ben legato

real legato

not something in between

then we go to exercise number eighteen

this exercise is really for four and five 'trills'

in four and five

and it is two against

three four against

six at the same time

so first a sustained note here

that's a and b is

the next exercise is number twenty three

also this with a sustained thumb

and then with four five thirds

it's actually written this

it's very good to practice in this rhythm first

it's a little bit pressure and release

so it's a very good exercise

and you really feel it also in the lower arm

then we have twenty two so the thumb stays

you will feel this stretching

you should feel them in the lower arm

it's a very good exercise

the next exercise is number twenty eight

is chromatic scales with four five

with a sustained thumb in opposite directions

yeah it's a little bit practicing that

you have the notes correct

in the left and in the right hand

very good exercise

really makes strong your four and five

then we have the next one

number thirty is really a thrill exercise

for four five again

and then a legato in three to one

so really for a finger independence

that's it have a good exercise

you will feel that in your muscles here in your hand

in the tiny muscles

but you should always feel most here

here your should develop your muscles

go to the next exercise it is

thirty four c

the nice thing by the way with exercises of brahms

is that they all are in different tonalities

the tonality in which you have to learn that exercise

really helps to have even more effect of the exercise

this exercise is in b major

and then we come to my own book Super Fingers

this is a collection of fifty seven exercises

meant for developing your finger technique

and arm technique combined

like in brahms

but then with explanations

and they start from starters and intermediate players

and even if you're advanced

and you never learned anything about arm movements

i would suggest you learn from this book

there will also be a course

a video course of it

check the link in the description

then you can check it out

by the way don't forget to download also the pdf

from the exercises that i treat in this video

there's a pdf link in the description

you can download them for free

number sixteen

and the whole meaning of it

is to give an accent on the fourth finger

all forte and legato

a little bit with the arm

and you could make a variation on it

and then you do it like this

simple exercise but effective

especially developed for the fourth finger

then we have number twenty

which is when we go up it's for the right hand

four five and we go down is for the left hand four five

all legato

and repeat and you can do this in different tonalities

you can always go back also to exercises

and do them in different tonalities

then we go to number forty seven

this is with sustained fifth finger when we go up

and a sustained thumb when we go down

see and this is very good for the fourth finger

down is

then we have number forty eight

right after this is a fourth finger sustained

and then we go back the second finger stays

and we go to number fifty two

etc. you could also do fifty one

there's a really a more for pizzicato exercise

but also with four five

so these are a collection of exercises

that are very good for developing four and five

on both hands

and now that we have got to the end of this video

i hope that you have learned some new exercises

so that you can

work on your technique a little bit better

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