Today’s tutorial is all about an easy fix to poor posture at the piano. This is a great way to avoid injury and to make the best use of your body at the piano.My biggest pet peeve about people playing piano or sitting at the piano is when they have poor posture. In this post I am going to show you three simple steps to perfect piano posture.
Good posture at the piano is vital
Posture at the piano is vital for a couple of reasons:
- It helps us avoid any injury from carpal tunnel syndrome to tendonitis
- We want to be able to be in a position where we can draw the best possible sound out of the instrument
- If your body isn’t in the right position, it’s going to be very difficult for you to have any kind of nimbleness in your fingers or any kind of flexibility in general
I am sitting on my own adjustable piano bench that I can raise and lower for when I see my students in person and here’s the number one problem i see:
People bring the piano bench up nice and forward (almost like you’re sitting at a chair at a table) and then you go to play and this is what happens:
Not only does this look really terrible, but it’s actually pulling you away from really being on top of the right posture.
Step 1: pull the bench back for better posture!
My trick here is you’re actually going to pull the bench back. It’s going to feel really weird to be pulling the bench back this far: I moved it about 10 or 12 inches back from where it was and now you’ll notice that there’s only a small part of me that is sitting on this bench. Before, I was really sitting on the backs of my thighs. Now I’m only sitting on my bum. When I do that, you can kind of see I naturally get into the right position. Can you see that my back is much straighter and this gives me the opportunity to be able to move around the piano a lot? It also means I just have access to a little bit more arm movement in general and I’m just naturally sitting this way.
If you find yourself still sinking, what I want you to do is just think about shining a light from the top of your chest from your sternum and just trying to keep it supported. You don’t want to be over correcting but we certainly want to avoid this horrible humpy back situation.
Step 2: Move your bottom forward on the bench
When you’re sitting just on your bottom and the bench is back pretty far, then you can see I can comfortably get around the piano and I’m in a position where I will not be hunched over and disconnected from my arms.
Step 3: Lift your sternum
The next time you go to sit at and play the piano, push your bench, move your body forward and experiment with what it feels like to have your sternum lifted a little bit so that your back is nice and straight.
I hope you found this little tutorial useful and I hope that today when you sit down to practice the piano you’ll pull your bench out and move your body forward!
If you are a singer, make sure to check out Perfect Piano Posture with a mic.
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Time for some more technical work! Check out:
Perfect Piano Posture with a Mic
How to sit at the piano all day without ruining your back
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