Hello,

I've been playing and teaching guitar lessons for years. I understand the philosophy and reason to practice without tension. But no matter what I do I am getting tension in my hands anytime I try to learn the piano. I'm going to my third lesson with my piano teacher tommorrow. Each set of practice routines and instructions just seem to create more confusion for me. Should all of my motion really be coming from the first knuckle?

I'm beggining to think that I need a new instructor. Its not as if I'm practicing intense stuff at high speeds. Its the first exercise inthe Schaum book at 60 bps.

Frustrated,
Chad

Hi Chad,

It's been so long ago that I learned basic finger motion that I had to stop and look at what I do.

My hand is relaxed in a position as if it were holding a ball or a larger orange / small grapefruit. The primary motion comes from the first knuckle (closest to the wrist), but the other knuckles are not rigid. The second and third knuckles straighten out just a bit.

Later you will add in wrist, forearm, etc. motion.

You might also want to post this in the Piano Teachers Forum to see if you can get some comments from the professionals.

Hope this helps
Rich

everyone would get some tension learning some new pieces. i know i do, at least at the beginning of the learning. but once you have learned the notes, the tension is usually gone, unless you couldn't control it yourself.

there're at least 2 ways to try:
- play everything slowly and watch out your tension at each note without letting it build up
- play everything extremely soft (in barely audiable level), which would force you to play notes without letting any force build up in your arm or hand.

do both at the same time for long enough practice till you don't feel excessive tension there anymore, and then try either way a few times also until there's no excessive tension left. after that, play at the tempo and see if you can maintain playing without tension.

Before you play, down a bottle of Jack.

There will be no tension left, and if you are drunk enough, it might even still sound good.

:D that was much too funny!!!

sorry chad, i cant help ya on how to relax, everyone does it differently, and it is really hard to explain for me anyways. just watch a bunch on pianists on youtube that are good and hopefully that with mucho practice you will get it.

Hi Chad,
I understand your frustration - I'm going through this too. I started taking lessons again (4 months ago) and when I first played for this instructor, she looked as if she didn't know where to start. I have been holding a lot of tension in my forearms and they remain quite sore. She has had me doing a number of exercises that incorporate a relaxation - at first it was after every note - now I'm supposed to train in a little relaxation response within the music I'm playing - where depends on the music. Sometimes this is at the beginning of a phrase and sometimes it is at the beginning of every set of four sixteenth notes. It is taking a long time to retrain my brain and my muscles - but where I'm incorporating the relaxation as I learn a piece - it's going better. My struggle now is during crescendos and forte passages - I'm tensing up there as I haven't yet figured out the co-ordination of using increasing arm weight without co-incidentally tighting up. Progress came in little 'aha' moments and my particular brain seems to respond well to visualization. I'm also trying to sit for a few moments before I play, breathe deeply and train in a relaxed state whenever I sit down at the piano bench. I did try wine too - helped with the relaxation - really messed up the co-ordination though

Search the forums for technique and relaxation ideas. It's worth solving the problem since tension can lead to injuries. It does seem to take time...lots of time...and patience.
Good Luck!

Ah the forearm pain - check to make sure that your sitting position is good for you, too: no wierd angles like reaching UP to the keys (worse on your arms than reaching down) and when the music has your hands close together, that you're not "spreading your wings" un-necessarily as you play.

Tension in the fingers is a bit tougher and takes time and practice. One thing that might help is to lower your fingers closer to the key so that it's not so much like you're holding an orange, but more like a half an orange. What that's going to do is put a bit more "weight" in the first knuckle and force the rest of the finger to relax more. (But keep in mind that the "whole orange" is a better hand position long-term.) As you get into octave + spreads, you'll need to learn to REALLY flatten out the hand so that all your power hits fingers 1 and 5 but that comes on later, after rolls (which are good exercises for building up finger control now that I think on those early books.)

Question: [/b] when you flub a note in a piece, do you keep playing, or stop, go back, and fix the note? The latter will cause tension in your fingers because you're jumping around on the keys AND trying to stay in time, and you're adding extra motion and distraction to your playing in that spot.

My problem has been to even the sound across all fingers. Some of mine work better than others, so there's a lot of re-training going on. Both the #5 fingers have no problems at al so they really BANG as loud as they want to, while there's virtually no control in the 3s, especially on the left. So it's a project of learning to first tone down the 5, bring up the 3, and then over time raise the whole thing to a reasonable tone, while at the same time building up dexterity and speed.

At least this time there's some physiology behind why my fingers won't do right, and none of that re-starting after years off, of "WHY can't my fingers do this right!" That helps remove the frustration (and the tension) and it becomes more of just another science project at the keyboard

I have tried the "Jack" approach.....turns your fingers into linguine!

Maybe you're putting too much extraneous motion into your playing? Try "sticking" your fingers to the keys a bit more, or thinking of them as sort of oozing from one key to the next. Sorry, I can't be more descriptive. But if I have a bunch of tension I often realize that I'm sort of "flicking" my fingers off the keys. Check out your pinkies. Are they all curled up or just sort of laying out there? If they're all curled up and tense then that can often be a clue that you're really not as relaxed as you want to be. Another source of tension is playing something faster than you're ready to play it, so maybe try slowing down and really pressing and holding the key down for as long as possible before you have to release it for the next key. Do this slowly and naturally, not as a "strength" exercise.

This is a little detailed. I am outlining here my basic theory on good technique. Keep in mind that I have not been playing that long. If this is too technical come back at a later time and read what I have said, these tips have proven to be invaluable to my progress as a pianist.

No. If you're instructor is telling you to do this, get a new instructor.

The type of movements you're going to make vary from piece to piece. An extreme example would be Chopin's etude op. 10 no. 1, where your wrist makes a circular, undulating motion as your fingers caress the keys. Do NOT play with just finger motion, use the weight of your arm, rotate your forearms, and smoothly shift your wrists, not randomly of course, but where it seems appropriate to do so. I still develop tension in my hands, mind you. Don't forget about loosening your shoulders, neck, and arms too, this will all help finger technique.

The whole point of getting rid of excess tension is not to make your hands look good on the keys or to make you feel like spaghetti, but to give you the most control over what you're playing. It also helps prevent injuries. When your hands are tense, you'll notice choppy playing and sounds which you did not intend coming out. Try keeping your hands loose and delicate through everyday exercises, such as while typing a message.

Don't forget to *imagine* that you have fine technique when you play. This is important. Imagine your fingers as constantly loose, energetic, and flexible. I sometimes imagine my hands as waves of water flowing over the keys. I like to describe it as keeping your fingers "fluttery". You can really see where I get this adjective from looking at a Clementi sonatina.

As you advance, you'll notice more and more of what I'm saying can be applied easier by you. It really is just the passage of time which develops good technique, a teacher will only guide while it's you that is hitting the keys. Keep your entire body LOOSE. Loose, loose, loose.

I remember starting piano I also had problems with tension as I tried to speed up my scale runs and such. This was before I even understood what proper technique was. After being directed that I should keep them as loose as possible, my scales got infinitely better, both in speed and tone. My arpeggios have gotten excellent as well, that deals more with wrist movement.

Here's a couple of important points. Some of them apply further down the road:

Do not allow the joints of your fingers to collapse while you play. This is important. It will give you more control.

Keep your fingers close to the keyboard. I still struggle with this, but it's getting better.

Keep your hands supple when playing octaves. It's easy to tense them when you play these things, but after awhile octaves will become completely second-nature. When playing on black keys, try using your ring finger to hit it instead of your pinky. When you play octaves in a row (usually chromatically) you should use your pinky on the white keys and your ring finger on the black keys. Try playing an octave on middle C. Now go up a half-step to C#. Notice that you can "climb" up to it using your ring finger? This can help the octaves become more legato, but just let your thumb bounce from note to note.

When striking a heavy chord, do not keep pressing down after it is struck; allow your hand and wrist to "float" after the keys have been struck.

With trills, do not allow your hand to tense. Rotate your forearm with the trill and keep your fingers fluttery.

With mordents, here's a FANTASTIC tip thanks to my past teacher, Adam Chlastawa: Alternate fingers when you play them. For instance, to play a mordent on middle C, hit it with the thumb, hit the D above it with your middle finger, and hit the same C again with your forefinger. Experiment. You can use different fingers with this technique, and it really helps with both the velocity of your mordents and tension in your hands.

Allow the rest of your fingers to rest on the keyboard when you play a chord.

Learn all the major and minor scales and arpeggios. This took me about a year. If you stick with it, learning a few scales will feed into your ability to play other scales, and you will develop incredible speed. Practice them! A lot! Do arpeggios as well. Make sure you're rotating your wrist with fluidity and grace when playing arpeggios, and keep your fingers close to the keyboard when playing scales. This will greatly boost your technique. I wouldn't worry about Hanon or other exercise books, but if you are so inclined you may use them, of course.

After playing a chord, or a single note for that matter, allow the dampers to come smoothly back onto the string(s) by "rolling" your wrist up a bit and releasing your finger(s) from the keys. It's like taking your finger print. You may be inclined to drag your fingers backward a bit while doing this, as I do this naturally when playing arpeggios, but it's up to you.

Okay, I hope all this will help.

-Colin

Thanks guys for the great responses. There are a lot of good things here; some of which I have yet to even fully digest. I had my lesson last night. It seems that I misunderstood a few things that the teacher was telling me. It also seems that my technique isn't necessarily wrong, but I have been trying to rush to fast through scales, pieces, exercises, etc. I breaking out the metronome and leaving it on 40 bpm for a while!

Chad

ii7-V7 (are you a spy? ),

I've tried taking guitar lessons but the position is just so darned awkward I could never get used to it. Maybe I needed to give it more time. There was something immensely pleasurable about having a glorious sounding instrument that I could carry wherever I wanted to! I took about 2 months of classical lessons. I sure did love the music though.

Re: movement from the first knucle (meaning the one which attaches your 'fingers' to your hand), in the sense that the other two knuckles are neither flexed or extended, it is true. The muscles that move this 'first' knuckle up and down are in the hand. The musles that move the other two joints are in the arm. However, this doesn't mean the other two knuckles are 'passive' (what I mean is you should not try to hold them in rigid formation). You should neither try to extend nor flex them. The tips of your fingers need to be 'alive', there should be a great deal of sensation at your finger tips.

So what I'm saying is yes, a lot of the movement is in the first knuckle, but it doesn't end there. The energy needs to follow through to the tips of your fingers.

CozyWriter, I do indeed go back and correct mistakes when I make them. Its ironic that if I'm reading a piece on guitar I won't do that, but on piano I feel the need to correct it....thereby drawing attention to the mistake.

Chad