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For all the newcomers, and maybe even veterans.
Basically, let's discuss various aspects of technique and posture for playing keyboards and piano which we can later compile into a sticky. I'll start
For posture, here is what I learned you should and shouldn't do:
- Sit upright. Avoid using a chair or bench with a backrest since it can make you slouch or not sit upright.
- Your feet should be flat on the floor, with your knees roughtly bent at a 90 degree angle, with one foot(usually the right) slightly ahead of the other one by about half a foot's length(for balance). This is naturally when you arn't using pedals.
- Your elbows should hang down relaxed and you shouldn't tuck them in or raise them while playing. They should extend just past your body when you look from top-down.
- Your forearms should be roughly parallel to the floor, so you should adjust your keyboard or chair height to match this.
You should play around with different setups and positions until you find what is comfortable, but generally the advice above should act as guidelines. People come in many different shapes and sizes.
Technique:
I don't know much about this but here is what I know:
There are, from what I researched so far, two schools of thought for technique. One is what I will call the finger driven technique and the other the arm/shoulder driven technique.
The fingers driven technique advocates that all the strength, control and dynamics in playing comes from your fingers. They therefore advocate playing style and exercises that developes only the fingers. Some(mostly the arm/shoulder school of thought) have criticised this as being a cause for RSI and injury. One commonly cited flaw with this approach is that the ring finger is alot weaker than the other fingers, and excessive exercise for this fingers causes injury/RSI. The Hanon exercises, for example, is to develop fingers strength and dexterity.
The other school of thought is the arm/shoulder technique where the strength and dynamics of playing comes from the arms and shoulders, with less fingers movement. But, I don't know much about this. From what I understanding, the fingers only do the minimal work of changing position, while the arms and shoulders carry the burden of providing the force for pressing down the keys.
Personally I think both has merit, but I havn't been able to even determine which style I currently play under, but I think it's probably the finger approach.
Then, onto general advice:
Avoid tension. Although everyone probably know this, just to be concise. Tension is when your muscles are doing self-defeating work, or in other words, the muscles used to extend a limb and the muscles used to retract the limb are working against each other, which slows you down and can cause injury. This also includes using muscles that you shouldn't, like having a raised shoulder to play on a keyboard that is too high for you. This effects your expressiveness badly.
So, best way to avoid it is simply to relax your entire body(without slouching your back). You can be perfectly upright without tension. Breathe in, and as you breathe out just relax. For me it took some practice to learn how to relax properly. Another thing is also to always pay attention while you are playing or practicing that you don't tense up without noticing. If you do, just relax your whole body again.
And, the last bit of advice on practicing: Practice doesn't make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect. Simply put, try your best not to make mistakes while your practice, because your mind remembers mistakes too. If you can't play something fast in 100 tries, do you think you will get it right the 101st time? No. Always practice at a speed where you can play what you are trying to play correctly. A good thing to do is throw out tempo completely and just focus, for as long is it takes, the get every movement in a sequence right.
Well, that is all I can remember for now. The last two points about tension and Perfect practice applies to all music and even lots of other activities(where I first learned about them), but they deserve mention here.
Hope this helps someone out there, and please add anything I left out or correct me if I'm wrong. We can discus details about exercises for the different playing approaches, but for now I have to go
Basically, let's discuss various aspects of technique and posture for playing keyboards and piano which we can later compile into a sticky. I'll start
For posture, here is what I learned you should and shouldn't do:
- Sit upright. Avoid using a chair or bench with a backrest since it can make you slouch or not sit upright.
- Your feet should be flat on the floor, with your knees roughtly bent at a 90 degree angle, with one foot(usually the right) slightly ahead of the other one by about half a foot's length(for balance). This is naturally when you arn't using pedals.
- Your elbows should hang down relaxed and you shouldn't tuck them in or raise them while playing. They should extend just past your body when you look from top-down.
- Your forearms should be roughly parallel to the floor, so you should adjust your keyboard or chair height to match this.
You should play around with different setups and positions until you find what is comfortable, but generally the advice above should act as guidelines. People come in many different shapes and sizes.
Technique:
I don't know much about this but here is what I know:
There are, from what I researched so far, two schools of thought for technique. One is what I will call the finger driven technique and the other the arm/shoulder driven technique.
The fingers driven technique advocates that all the strength, control and dynamics in playing comes from your fingers. They therefore advocate playing style and exercises that developes only the fingers. Some(mostly the arm/shoulder school of thought) have criticised this as being a cause for RSI and injury. One commonly cited flaw with this approach is that the ring finger is alot weaker than the other fingers, and excessive exercise for this fingers causes injury/RSI. The Hanon exercises, for example, is to develop fingers strength and dexterity.
The other school of thought is the arm/shoulder technique where the strength and dynamics of playing comes from the arms and shoulders, with less fingers movement. But, I don't know much about this. From what I understanding, the fingers only do the minimal work of changing position, while the arms and shoulders carry the burden of providing the force for pressing down the keys.
Personally I think both has merit, but I havn't been able to even determine which style I currently play under, but I think it's probably the finger approach.
Then, onto general advice:
Avoid tension. Although everyone probably know this, just to be concise. Tension is when your muscles are doing self-defeating work, or in other words, the muscles used to extend a limb and the muscles used to retract the limb are working against each other, which slows you down and can cause injury. This also includes using muscles that you shouldn't, like having a raised shoulder to play on a keyboard that is too high for you. This effects your expressiveness badly.
So, best way to avoid it is simply to relax your entire body(without slouching your back). You can be perfectly upright without tension. Breathe in, and as you breathe out just relax. For me it took some practice to learn how to relax properly. Another thing is also to always pay attention while you are playing or practicing that you don't tense up without noticing. If you do, just relax your whole body again.
And, the last bit of advice on practicing: Practice doesn't make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect. Simply put, try your best not to make mistakes while your practice, because your mind remembers mistakes too. If you can't play something fast in 100 tries, do you think you will get it right the 101st time? No. Always practice at a speed where you can play what you are trying to play correctly. A good thing to do is throw out tempo completely and just focus, for as long is it takes, the get every movement in a sequence right.
Well, that is all I can remember for now. The last two points about tension and Perfect practice applies to all music and even lots of other activities(where I first learned about them), but they deserve mention here.
Hope this helps someone out there, and please add anything I left out or correct me if I'm wrong.
We can discus details about exercises for the different playing approaches, but for now I have to go 
