The Importance of Fingers on The Piano

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. Today’s subject is, “The Importance of Fingers on The Piano.” It seems obvious. But there are actually three parts of the body that come into play when playing the piano: The fingers, the wrists, and the arms. I have an extended video series on my Patreon channel on this subject. I’m going to give you a free taste today. I hope you enjoy it!

The first thing we have to talk about is how to approach the keyboard.

Sometimes, you see people sitting really close to the piano, and it strangles them. So you want to make sure you’re far enough away. And you don’t want to sit with the bench right behind your knees. You want to be able to have flexibility because sometimes you need to reach from one end of the keyboard to the other. You want to be comfortable!

When you look at the keyboard, you see white keys, and you see black keys. The white keys extend all the way forward. The black keys are set back. But, the white keys also extend all the way back. Why am I bringing this up? This is really important. Often I will see beginning students placing their hands on the keyboard where they can only reach the white keys. Then they have to move their hands in and out for every black key. What you want is to keep your hands at the point at which black and white keys meet. This is the appropriate place to keep your hands, generally.

It’s important to curl your fingers.

If your fingers are stretched out, some are far longer than others. So that’s one of the main reasons for curving your fingers. This way you keep them all in alignment with the keys and you don’t have to go in and out with the thumb every time the thumb has to play. This is very important. It might be obvious to some of you, but this is worthy of mentioning.

You can see there’s so much to piano playing, and identifying what parts of the body come into play is critical for being able to solve technical and musical challenges. I hope this is enjoyable for you. If you enjoy exploring pianos and piano playing, joining my Patreon family will offer you even more videos and the opportunity to be part of the creative process. These videos are for you!

I’m Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.
Please feel free to contact me with any piano related questions for future videos!