Positioning yourself at the piano, including having your hands in a good shape, is a topic that doesn’t get talked about much, but I think it is important. It’s important because if you are not positioned correctly, you could be causing soreness somewhere in your body, or worse, you could end up doing yourself an injury.
The first aspect I wish to talk about, is how far away you sit from the piano. I have seen many people sit too close. Your stomach should not almost be touching the piano or keyboard. There should be some space between your torso and the edge of the piano, so your hands can move freely in front of you. If you sit too close, where there is not enough room to place your hands on the keys directly in front of you, you could be putting your wrists at a weird angle. This can not only be uncomfortable, but it can also be painful as well. If this is happening to you, then its an indication that you are sitting too close.
It is also important to note that taller people will need to sit further back from the piano than a shorter person. Being a tall person (I’m 6’0 or 183cm), I am often needing to move a piano stool further away from the piano.
The worst thing I see on a frequent basis, is people trying to play the piano with their wrists down, where they are lower then the backs of the hands. This positioning actually makes it harder to play because you are straining the muscles in your hands and fingers. My rule of thumb is that your wrists should be in a position where the back of your hand is not on an angle to your forearm. One way I test is if you can balance a coin (or something of a similar size) on the backs of your hands, while you are playing the piano, you have good positioning of your wrists. If you can’t balance a coin, then you need an adjustment.
This last detail is not as important as the ones already discussed, but it is nevertheless still a useful one. Unless you are using the pedals, your feet should be flat on the floor and roughly shoulder width apart. Most of the time, you don’t have an actual need to do this, but if you are playing a piece of music that requires both hands to either be playing the high notes or both hands playing the low notes, then it is necessary to make sure that you keep your balance.
Having good body positioning while you are playing the piano is important to make playing the piano as comfortable as possible and dramatically reduces the chances of soreness or injury. Not that it is a priority but it also happens to look really good as well.