THE FINGER-JOINTS ARE THE LEAST EXERCISED, AND THE WEAKEST.
To become a skilful musician is no small matter. There is no art which
demands more labour, patience, and especially more _time_, than, for
instance, piano or violin playing; and at least half of that time
is for years required for the particular purpose of strengthening
the muscles of the fingers, and rendering them flexible. And why so
many years? Because the muscles, the ligaments, and the tendons of
the finger-joints and wrists have not previously been gymnastically
exercised and trained.
To prove in a practical manner that it is particularly important to
prepare the muscles and ligaments of the fingers and hand, I will cite
a fact which may appear startling, but which, nevertheless, is true,
viz., that the muscles and tendons of the fingers, in spite of their
great importance, are, proportionately speaking, the least of all
practised in daily life.
Take all sorts of people from amongst the labouring classes, such as
the smith, the joiner, the gardener, the bricklayer, the stone-mason,
the husbandman, the day-labourer, &c., &c. They are at work the whole
day, and acquire arms like steel and muscle like giants; but they very
_rarely_ use the _fingers_, which, therefore, remain unexercised. And
it is the same with the educated classes, without difference of age or
sex.
This is the reason why the learning of piano and violin playing
is attended with such great difficulties, and why the muscles and
ligaments of the hand ought to be trained by proper gymnastic
exercises. For their weakness arises, for physiological reasons, from
the very fact of their inactivity.
This fact I will satisfactorily prove in the sequel, for it forms the
basis and key of my discoveries.