Art in Science: The “Pygmy” Chair and the Tenodesis Effect

From the Column Editors,

Dr. Johnny T. Nelson’s contribution to the Art in Science column highlights the synergies between these two disciplines. As a performer, Glenn Gould was an exceptional pianist with an unorthodox manner of positioning his body, especially his hands, in relationship to his instrument. As a fellow in hand and upper extremity surgery, and with the added benefit of being an accomplished musician, Dr. Nelson is very much aware of the mechanical and physiological consequences of Gould’s unusual approach to the keyboard. Indeed, both Gould and Dr. Nelson clearly meet at the intersection of art and science, both bringing exceptional talent to the subject matter literally at hand in this article.

Dr. Nelson also embraces a theme we very much appreciate and try to ignite in others; that is the use of careful observation to provide information and insights otherwise overlooked. As true of many skills involving manual dexterity, and epitomized by the playing of a musical instrument, there are guidance postures posited as advantageous. For the pianist, the attitude of one’s wrist and fingers must heighten the force and agility of the individual digits as they strike the keys and seemingly move effortlessly across the keyboard. Our keen observer, Dr. Nelson, classically trained in piano, notices the postural unorthodoxy of Gould and understands how and why the resultant position of Gould’s hands above the keyboard, reflecting wrist flexion as a substitute for more traditional wrist extension, is dictated by the height of his seat relative to the piano.

Generally, the revelation of a peculiar posture, swing, stance, or other divergent position, be it music, dance, or sports, portends a disadvantage. In the case of Glenn Gould, the outcome is masterful.

— Gary E. Friedlaender MD and Linda K. Friedlaender BA, MS

It was affectionately dubbed the “pygmy chair,” fashioned by sawing off the bottom four inches from each leg of a folding bridge chair. By the end of Glenn Gould’s life in 1982, the little chair (“pygmy chair” is a name no one would accept today, and so I will not refer to it that way in this article again) was the Canadian pianist’s beloved companion, hauled along for every concert and recording session, its battered frame reinforced with piano wire, electrical tape, glue, and a pell-mell assortment of screws (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.

Glenn Gould’s folding piano chair, ca. 1942 is shown. © Government of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of Library and Archives Canada (2019). Source: Library and Archives Canada/Glenn Gould fonds/e010868574_s6-v8. (Published with permission from the Library and Archives Canada).

As he played, concert-goers noted how the little chair seemed to sway back and forth under the performer’s weight (Fig. 2). Over the years, its upholstery eroded completely, leaving a single strip of wood mere inches wide running from front to back upon which Gould would perch. The sight of the bespectacled, disheveled Gould, his nose a few inches from the keyboard, air-conducting with one hand while the other elaborated the deeply sophisticated melodies of Johann Sebastian Bach, was eccentricity personified.

Fig. 2.

A photo of Glenn Gould at the piano is shown. © Government of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of Library and Archives Canada (2019). Source: Library and Archives Canada/Glenn Gould fonds/4377200. (Published with permission from the Library and Archives Canada).

But what was most important about his chair was that it placed Gould a mere 14 inches off the ground, which altered the position of his hands and arms and created an uncommon relationship with the piano. Gould’s elbows often fell far below the keys, while the wrist was held in a high degree of flexion. Most concert pianists play with the wrist in approximately 10° of extension [5], and indeed almost all performers adopt a very different posture [11], with back straight, forearms parallel with the floor or slightly down-sloping, the elbows at 90° extension or more, and the wrist at neutral to slight extension (Fig. 3). Biomechanical studies suggest that Gould’s posture decreased the excursion efficiency of the flexor tendons [8], added pressure within the carpal tunnel [3, 21], and increased internal stresses on the extrinsic extensors [15], which are prone to overuse injury in musicians [9, 18]. Furthermore, kinematic research on pianists with conventional postures show that faster performance requires greater finger height above the keys [1], yet Gould seemed to drape his hands over the edge of the keyboard, rendering a greater finger height difficult.

Fig. 3.

The recommended posture at the piano is shown: Back straight, forearms parallel with the floor or slightly down-sloping, the elbows at 90° extension or more, and the wrist at neutral to slight extension.

So why did Gould insist on sitting so low?

The most-informed explanation may be found in the biomechanical demands of Gould’s preferred musical genre. Although he performed works from other musical eras, Gould was best known for his interpretations of the baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach. He first achieved widespread fame in 1955 with a recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, ripping through arpeggios and scales at dizzying speeds while unwrapping the great Baroque master’s sophisticated contrapuntal puzzles. He succeeded where musicians had been falling short for centuries, preserving the clarity of Bach’s dueling melodic passages while simultaneously weaving them into a cohesive whole. Gould’s rendition of Bach’s “Art of Fugue” is an exercise in gestalt, the creation of a work of art that is more powerful than the sum of its individual notes and melodies. Draped over the edge of the keyboard, Gould’s hands, and indeed his individual fingers, seemed to behave as separate beings, crawling together, apart, and often over and under one another [4].

While to most it appeared bizarre and disadvantageous, it could be argued that Gould’s posture actually served to maximize the biomechanical economy of his hand and wrist, encouraging speed and clarity at the expense of force and spatial freedom. His little chair was more than an eccentric’s accessory—it was the perfect companion to the Baroque keyboardist’s hand and wrist.

Consider the concept of the tenodesis effect, which states that at various degrees of wrist flexion, the resting position of the digits changes according to the sum total of the passive forces exerted by the antagonistic extrinsic musculature [15, 16, 19]. Thus, the conventional posture of 10° of wrist extension favors a flexed digital posture, moving the tips of the fingers into a more-vertical orientation and closer to the axes of rotation of the wrist and elbow [14]. The hand and fingers become static transmitters of power from the triceps and wrist flexors, creating a vertical “power-chain” that is valuable when performing pieces of romantic-era composers like Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Claude Debussy. These artists made full use of the piano as an emotive instrument with sweeping lateral movements, complex chord structure, and heavy-hitting fortissimo. Gould refused to play or record most works by these composers, claiming they were “… full of empty theatrical gestures, full of exhibitionism …” [13]. When he did perform them, his interpretations of works outside his preferred genre were written off by critics as “perverse” and “willfully idiotic” [2, 17].

But Gould fully embraced the entire oeuvre of Bach—its fugal and contrapuntal structure demanded rapid, percussive key strikes delivered with extreme clarity, while requiring far less horizontal and vertical arm movement [6]. He lowered his seat, flexed his wrist, and harnessed the tenodesis effect to place his fingers in an almost extended position with the pulps more parallel to the surface of the key. This technique allowed Gould to “pull down” on the piano keys rather than striking them from above [12], which he believed granted him more control over the finer nuances of tone, phrasing, and dynamics [6]. In a 1974 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Gould explained that his posture was more method than madness:

“… you simply cannot play [Alexander] Scriabin in that [lowered] position, for the simple reason that the leverage required to support a widening of the hands is such that you have to be further away from the keyboard, you couldn’t be that close. But you can play Bach that way, and should, because by so doing you refine the sound, you minimize the pianistic aspects of it, and you increase your control” [2].

But the depth of Gould’s genius is in sharper view upon examination of more-recent biomechanical and anatomic studies, which strongly favor the intrinsics, and especially the lumbricals, as the primary muscles of keyboard motion. Using a three-dimensional motion-capture system, Goebl and colleagues [5] observed that finger movement patterns of pianists indicate a predominant use of the palmar lumbrical muscles which function to flex the proximal phalanx while slightly extending the remainder of the finger. Other studies [7, 10] have established that the extrinsic flexors are strong but slow, exhibit strong biomechanical coupling between the digits, and serve to flex the metacarpophalangeal joints only at the end of their excursion. By comparison, the lumbricals seem to be God’s gift to the Baroque keyboardist: Weak, but fast and independent [5, 10]. By facilitating a finger-flat technique with the hand in a “lumbrical-friendly” position [20], it is likely that the little chair was crucial in maximizing the economy of Gould’s finger movement. Passages from his 1981 recording of the Variations, such as “Variation 5”, are delivered with such a vigorous combination of speed and clarity that Gould creates the effect of brief moments of “levitation” away from the keyboard. While others have delivered powerful performances of Bach’s music using conventional posture, one wonders if the unique magic of Gould’s Goldberg Variations would have been possible without his unusual technique.

Was the little chair the tool of a true genius, or did it represent the stubborn and irrational insistence of a savant? Was it the result of a serendipitous discovery of hidden biomechanical principles, or was it left-field performance lore? We may never know for certain. But we do know that the human hand is as adaptable as it is complex, capable of representing the immense but intangible beauty that is the final object of the human soul. Gould, with his tattered chair and two hands, teaches us that with the help of something old, we too can make something new.