Schumann's ability to play the piano was to become an important factor in the development of his compositional style. Firstly, he only had one finger on each hand, which many believe to be the reason why the only melodies Schumann could write were, in fact, scales. To try and help things along a bit he tried to surgically operate on his hand but only succeeded in sculpting himself into a pengiun. Many critics are of the opinion the the penguin version of Schumann was far superior to the human version at the piano.