This is a topic that I am very fussy on and very passionate about. I think that it is incredibly important that you hold your hands in the correct manner, when you are playing the piano. I also think that it is really important for piano students should learn good hand positioning from the very beginning because it is ultimately much easier to learn to do things correctly the first time, than undo mistakes and re-learn the correct way to do things.
There is actually a good reason as to why I’m very pedantic about having piano students learn good technique and good hand positioning from the very beginning. I suffered from tendinitis, otherwise known as RSI or Repetitive Strain Injury in both my wrists. First I had it in my left wrist in my mid twenties and then a year or so after that was finally better, I developed it in my right wrist. At first I thought that these were kind of leftover injuries from when I had broken my wrist when I was fifteen and when I had torn ligaments in my right wrist around the age of 22. During the bouts of tendinitis, the hardest and most painful thing for me to do was to play the piano.
After I while, I came to the realization that every time I played the piano, I had held my wrists really stiffly. I was putting in far to much tension than was necessary to hold my hands up into the correct position. I also realized that this was the case from my very first piano lesson and I never really realized it. My piano teachers never picked it up because it was not evident by just looking at my hands and the way they moved. As a result, I had to learn how to hold my wrists with far less tension, which took time, effort and quite a deal of pain before I was successful.
Having gone through years of pain when I was younger, with both of my wrists, which could have been potentially been avoided, I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through.
So here is what is important – don’t hold your hands, wrists or fingers stiffly or with too much tension. Do not have your wrists low down, or learning on the bit in front of the keyboard. Have your wrists higher up, so that your fingers curve down towards the keys – your hands should be in a natural rounded state and definitely not flat. Your fingers should not be straight, unless you have to stretch between two notes. If you have to play a black note with your thumb, then don’t twist your wrist but instead slide your fingers up between the black keys while it is necessary. Don’t sit too close to the piano and sit up straight in a comfortable manner. Don’t pay with tension in your shoulders.
If you look after your body and follow these pieces of advice, you should have years of pain free play the piano, because the alternative is no fun at all . Take it from someone who unfortunately has been there, done that.