Learn Proper Hand Posture While laying piano: stay relaxed and tension free

Did you ever think about how would you place your fingers when you sit in front of the piano? Should your finger stay flat or curved? How will your wrist stay on the piano bench? Even your shoulder has a posture while you sit in front of the piano.

 Piano learning is a vast subject. You cannot complete it in few week’s course. Some basic factors are very important to have a focus. Do you know to sit in front of piano while you play it? Normally, the students starting the activity of piano playing for the first time will sit in the posture in which they usually sit. But, this might not be always right. There is a perfect posture, in which playing piano will be effective. The hand posture is again an important consideration.

Importance of piano hand position

 According to the expert piano player, the hand position of a player really matters a lot. If you are a beginner, the hand positions may not matter with just few strokes of piano playing. But, once you have learnt it adequately and need to practice for long hours, comfort to your hand is very important. Wrong hand position can create pain on your fingers and wrist. If you are practicing for 3-4 hours in a day, the wrong hand position will quickly create pain on your hand and wrist. But, if you have learned the proper land posture right from the beginning no one will stop you playing piano for long hours. Your hand will stay relaxed and comfortable.  Naturally, you can easily practice and make your piano playing better. Following are the advantages:

  • It will prevent injury on your hand
  • Proper hand position helps the pianist gain better tone quality
  • Position of hand effects the sound quality of piano
  • Piano player can play the instrument quickly with proper hand position
  • The piano playing will become more accurate

Learn proper hand posture

 When you are learning piano, it is important to practice as well. Your teacher will ask you to practice for long hours. The more you practice, better will be your playing. Now, where will you keep your hands during the practice time? The will help you learn proper hand posture while playing piano. Most of the people play piano to reduce stress of work. Now, if they keep their hand in an inappropriate place, this will increase the stress again.

Steps of proper hand position

 right and wrong hand posture

You must have known about the benefit of hand positions. Now, it is equally important to have some idea about its operation. How exactly should you place your hand so that it works better without making your hand tensed. Following are the steps:

  • Step 1– Shake your hand, shoulders and fingers occasionally if you feel stressed. This will keep your fingers and hands active to play piano for long hours
  • Step 2– The player must sit far from the keyboard. This will not make your fingers and arms squeezed. Rather, it will keep your fingers and arms straight and allow it to rest on the keys and piano bench
  • Step 3– In the same position, watch how your fingers gets curved and your arm gets fold to stay in naturally comfortable state. Follow the same position and posture every time you play piano
  • Step 4– You must hold your finger tips just at the top of the piano keys. Even your wrist must stay relaxed. There must be a perfect level of the same with your hands. This will maintain firmness of the knuckles.
  • Step 5– There must be a perfect contact of the finger tips with the lid. Even the position will be in such an order that knuckles of the hand must be placed in a position higher than the wrist.
  • Step 6– It may so happen that while practicing for long hours, one or some parts of your hand may get tensed. In such a situation you must check the parts like fore arm, wrist as well as shoulders. If you find any one of these parts are paining, just give some rest for some time.

Wrist level for piano playing

 Wrist is an important factor to consider while you are playing a piano. This is true for anything you do with something a step higher than you. The same theory applies when you are operating your computer. You must make sure that your wrist is placed in a level with your piano keyboard.  Some people make the mistake of keeping the wrist lower than the level of keybaord. In such case, the player will face difficulty. In fact you will be having a perfect control over the piano keybaord if it is placed upright.

Use of fingers

 Even while playing piano, pressing the keys must be done in a way. People playing piano for the first time randomly press the key without knowing its real technique. To be perfect, you need to press the key in such a way that you press your finger down. The pressing angle should be perpendicular to the keys. Yes, it should be straight down.

Strength used in pressing keys

 Some people tend to put different strength while pressing different keys.  Now, this is going to hamper your piano playing. But, this might give an imperfect sound and rhythm. Even in the long run this won’t be very effective. All you must do here is to provide equal strength while pressing each key in the piano keybaord.  Some of you might have a tendency of flicking the keys. But, this is again a wrong practice. You should never flick at the keys.

Numbering of finger

 You have 5 fingers in each hand. Thus, each finger has different use in your life. Even while playing piano, the same rule applies. Numbering your fingers while playing piano is an important consideration. The piano teacher will number your finger as 1,2, 3, 4, 5. Now, it is very important to know about what name is given to which finger or fingers. If your instructor asks you to press a key with your first finger, you must know your first finger. Did you know that the middle finger is called 3. Your index finger is 2. The name of 4th finger is your ring finger. The last nut not the least, the little finger is named as 5th finger.

Disadvantage of wrong hand posture

There must be perfection in hand posture to play piano in a perfect way. Even your performance can suffer due to lack of proper hand posture. Improper hand posture with lead to:

  • Cramping– If you keep your hand in tensed position while playing piano, this can lead to cramping. As a result, you cannot play piano for a long time. This may hamper your piano practice in a long run.
  • Dexterity issue– Some of you have a tendency of playing piano keeping he hands tight. Sometimes the hand positions remain too much awkward. Your piano keys operation become an issue. Yes, accessing the keys effectively and quickly becomes an issue. You end up with very clumsy performance. Also, you will get the notes wrong and improper.
  • Improper playing– Everybody wish to have proper piano playing experience. Even when you are learning it for the first time, there is always a hope of reaching till its peak. But, if the posture of playing piano is not proper, this process will totally be disrupted. You will end up with being an unsuccessful player.
  • Impact on tone- Most of you may not know but the incorrect posture of fingers can lead to undesirable piano tone. Once you have kept your fingers correctly over the keyboard, it will boost the tone. The audience absolutely like the tone that comes out of the piano.
  • Hindrance in performance- If you wish to become a perfect piano player, the focus must be on the piano keybaord. The position of your hand over the piano bench, the placement of fingers and the posture are very important factors. Initially at the starting point this might not be an issue. But, gradually when you are growing up to the intermediate and then professional level of piano player, your performance will really matter. Your fan and follower would like to hear your best performance.

Simple exercise before playing piano

 It is very important to prepare your mind and body to play piano in an efficient way. Following are some of the exercises:

  • When you are sitting in front of the piano, keep your arms up just in front of you. Make sure to keep your arms up
  • Keep your shoulders relaxed. You must keep your upper arms hang from the shoulder quite loosely. Most of you tend to push it forward or backward. But, this is a wrong practice. Instead keep them hang
  • Keep your hand and arms adequately relaxed. You can shake your hand slightly and see the curves in the fingers
  • You must try of flipping your hand over the top of the piano keys. Make sure you do it with your loose hand. The curved fingers so formed must kept relaxed
  • Do you know what the little finger is called in piano language? It is no.5. You must keep it right at the tip. This will make your hand position effectively ready.

What should you do at the time of playing?

 Do you want perfection in playing piano? You must be wandering about how that will be possible. Don’t worry as there are various techniques as prescribed by the experts. Even the piano players have learned each tip while playing it personally. Following are the facts and activity you must keep into account:

Be patient

Patience is an important factor which each of the piano players must have. Getting the perfect position of playing piano might take some time. But, gradually, it will come naturally.

Do not force

Forcing your hand and other body parts to make things perfect is not preferable. You must practice and be cautious while playing the piano. But, don’t force it at all. Wait till it comes naturally.

Check hand position

It is going to be a very good practice to check your hand position while you start playing piano. Make sure the hand position is perfect. Continue with the same hand position throughout the playing. Also try to make it a habit.

Short finger nails

One of the biggest problem which female piano player face is due to longer finger nails. If you have longer nails, it will strike with the piano keys without allowing the finger tips to place at the first instance. This create a serious issue in the rhythm, notes and sequence of piano playing activity.

Arching of fingers

 There is a technique of playing your hand on keys perfectly.  It is very important to keep it arched. Keep your fingers curled as well while you are playing piano consistently. This may feel wired in the beginning. But,  slowly, it will be within your practice. You may have following benefit due to this:

  • This will allow you to access any key whether while or black in a very quick and easy way
  • Even your hand won’t feel tired very quickly. It can withstand even after you have played for long hours
  • The issue of hand cramping will be easily reduced.

Pick any finger

 Dexterity Boosting Exercises In Piano

Some of the player cannot go ahead with correct fingering. Everyone has ease with different finger or fingers while playing piano. This varies from one individual to another. You can randomly pick any finger and allow it to play piano along with other fingers. Again, use another finger and make this one vital finger this time. Realize both the fingers and find out which one provides you with more ease while playing piano. Keep both the hand palms over a surface and name each on of it. Make it 1 – 5 in both the side. Start naming the fingers from 1 to 5 right from the thumb. The little finger will be named as 5.

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