These should be done daily for around 5 minutes.

 
This is a summary of the piano Warm up practice lesson with the video. I recommend that if you don’t have time to practice every day, at least you do these exercises. It is the same as an athlete warming up before running. Cold muscles don’t work very well!

Hands and Fingers Position

1. Imagine you hold a small ball or an apple underneath your hand, so keep it round.
2. Keep hands and fingers round. Cut your fingernails short so you can play with your finger pads.
3. Lift fingers when you play, don’t push in. The power comes from lifting the fingers before they come down, much the same as the action of hammers.

Correct hand and fingers position

Incorrect hands position - wrist too low

Wrong hands position - wrist too high

Correct curved fingers

Incorrect collapsed joint

 
Practice Fingers exercises

1. Take each pair of fingers starting on middle C and repeat playing any 2 neighboring notes, one by one. Lift each finger before playing the key. In this way you have more power in the producing the sound.
2. For example, finger 1 and 2 will play C and D respectively back and forth. Fingers 2 and 3 will play D and E respectively, etc.
3. Repeat 3-5 times each pair of fingers.

 
Practice Arm Lift exercises

1. Your forearm should be about 90 degrees at the elbow with the upper arm.
2. When you lift the arm from a key, relax your hand. Do not hold your wrist stiff. When you lift with flexible wrist, your hand hangs down.
3. Starting with the 1^st finger on middle C, repeat the same note 3-5 times.
4. Lift the arm with hand relaxed to repeat playing the key. Practice with each finger of each hand. When the hand and wrist are relaxed, as you lift your arm, the hand will hang down as shown below. You may try placing your hands on your knees with palms down, then lift your arms relaxed 5-6 inches. Lower your arms down so your hands are again on your knees.

 

Tags: fingers and arm technique, piano practice

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 28th, 2013 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Piano, Practice Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.