How to sit at the piano

Sit up straight facing the center of the piano. Place your feet flat on the floor. If your feet do not reach the floor, it helps to have a stool or books under them when you practice, but it is not absolutely necessary.

Sit high enough to reach the keys easily. Do you have a piano stool or chair at home that moves up and down? Otherwise, pillows or books can be used to help you sit at the correct height when you practice.

Piano posture is important for all beginning and advanced players. Most importantly, you want to feel comfortable at the piano. Sitting with your nose directly in the middle of the piano’s key range is the best place to sit. Where is Middle C, you ask? You will see that the white key to the left of the 2 black keys is the “C” key. In fact, all the “Cs” are to the left of the 2 black keys.

After sitting at the piano and practicing for a while, say 30 minutes, I suggest you take a little break. I have found that sewing on the machine, being at your computer and playing the piano for a much longer period of time will cause your shoulders to sag (rounded shoulders) and gravity will just push you forward, plus the back pain will start with a tense tension. neck. For youngsters, 10-15 minutes of practice every day will show great improvement overall.

Hand position

Keep your fingers in a nice curved shape. Imagine that you have a ball in each hand. This is how your fingers should curl when playing the piano. Your wrist should be level with your arms. Keep them level as if you have attached a rectangular pencil eraser to your wrists as you move your piano fingers.

Finger numbers

Left hand:

5 = pinky, 4, 3, 2, 1 = thumb

Right hand:

1 = thumb, 2, 3, 4, 5 = pinky

Have someone trace the hands of your piano and then number your fingers accordingly. Set the date when you start piano lessons. It will be a wonderful memory.

The piano keyboard

The keyboard has black and white keys. The black keys are in sets of 2 and 3. When you play down left on the keyboard, the sounds are lower, bass tones. When you play right on the keyboard, the sounds are higher pitches and treble.

On the keyboard, the high keys are usually played with the right hand. The bass keys are usually played with the left hand.

Make up some pieces with sets of black keys. Maybe you could make up a song using the 2 black key sets. Then add the set of 3 black keys. If you play the 5 black keys on the high end of the piano, you will hear tones that sound like a beautiful Asian piece or like running water. I hope these first steps were fun and easy for you.