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i play guitar and when i first learned, the importance of keeping your hands relaxed and free of tension was stressed by my teacher.

i'm playing piano again, and is it the same way with piano? should you keep hands relaxed as much as possible? I asked an earlier question about hitting alternative notes in a fast-paced manner (hand stretched out wide hitting notes alternatively using the pinky and thumb, rotating wrist like door knob) and it seems i can't do this w/out having to resort to keeping my some tension in my hand. is this bad technique?

If you do the right thing, you shouldn't feel ANY tension. This all has to do with relaxation and it's a very complicated thing, but the only thing you can do is to relax.

I would guess that it's impossible otherwise. But I'm no expert - it would just seem logical.

John

No tension!

This could happen also when playng the guitar. Same principle: the only muscles active are those needed to produce the tones, and in between they are relaxed.

Move your arm ever-so-slightly left and right so that your arm is on top of the finger while you're rotating. You'll find you can produce the same "everything else" but with less tension.

(So, instead of a "door-knob", it looks more like "driving a car with a really small steering wheel." ) And obviously, the faster you have to go, the smaller the movements have to be...but also the more relaxed they have to be because you cannot move quickly while "improperly tense".