Hand Anatomy

The human hand has 27 bones—

• eight carpal bones, located in the base of your hand
• five metacarpal bones, located in the middle of your hand
• fourteen phalanges, which are the individual bones in your fingers

These are connected by joints and ligaments.

Since most of us are born with two hands, the total number of bones in our hands equals 54. This means that about 25% of all of our bones in the body are in our hands.

The hand can be divided up by our joints:

• carpus
• metacarpus
• fingers

There are three bones and three joints in each finger. There are two bones in each thumb.

There are over 30 muscles in the hand, but movements by the hand are mostly initiated by the muscles in the forearm.

The right hand is controlled by the left side of the brain.

The left hand is controlled by the right side of the brain.

When you favor your left hand, for example, for fine motor movements, we consider you left-handed.

If you truly have no preference, and you can use both hands equally well for fine motor movement, you are ambidextrous.

True ambidexterity is rare—about 1% of the world population is ambidextrous.

We teach this.

Contact us at ThePianoInstructorConsulting@gmail.com or call us directly at 313.687.4433. We love to teach, train, and encourage—as you can see.