… raise your wrists
What I need as a shortie is a keyboard stand that can go lower than 60cm and is not an unstable X-shaped 😭
Z stand
I’ve been looking at those too but I’m yet to find one that can go lower than 60cm
Tell that to Russian pianists
I'm not even a Russian pianist, but since a lot of my repertoire is of that style I've adopted a lot of the Russian piano technique. My wrists are only really raised if I'm shaping a line or something, or if I'm crossing over/under and need the room, and at most if I'm trying to get a particular kind of cantabile. It's all fluid though after a certain point, but I think it's also a type of technique that really needs a very developed finger bridge. Part of having your wrist up puts your hand into a position that has better stability when your knuckles are still weak, otherwise you collapse and have zero support if you do it any other way
well said
I started learning piano 2 months ago from a teacher who has russian style. She always keeps my wrists low compared to the advice here and I'm always torn on which to follow :(
If in doubt, listen to your teacher
Listening to your teacher seems much better than listening to a random person on reddit.
I wouldn't even say raise them, I'd say just USE them. Use them to leverage your weight to get nice tone on chords, use them to manage tension on repeated octaves, use them for slurs, etc etc etc.
Keeping them raised isn't always useful.
Tell that to Horowitz lol
Horowitz’s poor technique lead to a heavy meltdown in repertoire and quality when he got older. Also many of his students got irreversibly injured
How is this useful? "Raise" is a relative term and everyone will have different wrist positions, and maybe already "raised" them.
Is my personal playing in need of raising my wrists? I have no idea from this. The statement says yes. Okay, now I should just blindly follow that advice?
We can do better than this, for technical advice.
Agreed.
I think it's quite obvious they're referring to people who play with their wrists too low.
If you need actual technical advice about wrist position, a good rule of thumb is that your wrist should be either straight or slightly bent downwards while playing.
I am gona go with a strong "no" here.
"Raised" wrists are a side effect of correct technique, if you don't have that and you'll try to raise your wrist in a wrong way, you're looking into years of battling bad habits.
If you keep your wrist raised so your fingers can "press" the key (sometimes referred as "hovering" or "ufo" hands), you're blocking the weight flow, basically killing interpretation and making your playing more error-prone. It is an extremely common problem, especially for late starters which I had a "pleasure" to experience for years.
Focus on your wrists being relaxed instead.
It's good to see all the serious performing pianists calling out the problems with that approach
...but not all the time.
No it's not necessary to raise them and it can create tension
every player has a different natural position
Name checks out
First off they're correct, and you're really in no place to be snarky or try to make a blanket technical statement like that. For a beginner it's helpful, but can build excess tension if held wrong. Like I said in another comment on this post, it's not at all necessary, especially for pianists who play in the Russian school/style. Piano technique is a really nuanced and in depth area of study that's just more than the basic pedogical stuff for beginners
The amount of learners on here who get so angry when they're told that there's more to technique than the bare basics of hand shape... They fight back so hard, yet complain of pain and fatigue. I get the appeal of having a shortcut to everything, but that's just not how musical instruments work, there are no shortcuts.
I'll trust my teacher before a random on reddit. She's a gifted concertist and is much more qualified to fix my technique, which she had been doing quite a lot, than you.
Been playing piano for a while now, he's not talking to everyone to raise the wrist he's mainly talking about begginers and self tought pianists. and your technique is probably fine. Yes your teacher is more qualified to do this but he's telling this to the people with bad hand technique not someone who already has good hand technique (he's also talking to people who are self tought piano more, because they do this alot). And also, raising your wrist helps with hand tension (though doing it unreasonable high is worse). But it helps to get rid of hand tension
then maybe he should write more than 3 words when he posts
Great post. NOT
yes 90s comeback ftw
This is terrible advice.
Are you my piano teacher? (they say that to me more than once per lesson though)
Lisitsa: How high to raise wrists? Like 1 foot off the keyboard?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tbBkAI2JjWA
(I'm joking, she's incredible!)
Flexibility is crucial
The majority of the dexterity and control should actually come from your fingers. If you don't develop that, you will never play advanced pieces competently.
What if I play with my nose
Raise your … neck?
Noted. I’ll begin to repeat this in my mind as I’m learning.
As always, to the experienced experts who are here guiding us.
Thank you for your insights.
I'm a beginner. What advantages does raising the wrist give us?
An analogy I tell my students is imagine sucking water through a bent straw (not the bendable straws, the ones that are meant to be straight). You probably can't do it so well right? Well that's kind of your blood vessels trying to circulate blood into your hands. So you wanna have your wrist straight while playing (or if it's a bent a bit downwards that's fine too). A lot of beginners have it too low and the wrist bends backwards as a result. If it's just for a while, then it's probably okay, but making a habit out of it causes poor circulation, and the extra tension causes the muscles to wear out in the long term, and potentially cause permanent damage to your wrist and eventual inability to play.
You're spot on, I do have a tendency to bend my wrist backwards. Thanks for the analogy.
Do you mean sticking the wrists up in the air so you have to tilt your hands downwards from them? Or do you mean bring your wrists up level with the knuckles so that they're not drooping? Because one of those things is a bad idea, and there's no way of knowing what you meant in your post.
I literally got tendonitis because I did this as a kid
And let elbows flow
but... how?
I tell my students to keep their palms above the keys. I have an adjustable bench, so their elbows aren't below the keys
When I was learning my teacher got me to balance a coin on the back of my hands when I was playing. I don't know if this is the best method, but it worked for me! It can feel awkward to start out, but it really does make playing easier.
This seems counter to the Taubman method, which appears to be the preferred way now. The Taubman method encourages arm rotation, and it would fling a coin right off.
I’ll look into that, thanks for mentioning it!
i've just tried that with guitar plectrums and with coins. placing a flat objects on the back of my hands does not contradict rotations much (my sticky hands still remember eclectic chinese gymnastics i did years ago). however, the novelty raises awarness about one's hand position and about fluency and softness of movements.
tomorrow will get some ping-pong or marble balls and try with them. why? i think that what Ling-Ling would do
It’s classic! Even better, if they can play a whole piece without dropping it they can keep it. 20c for students playing with great technique? Worth it.
thanks, it's interesting way. i'll check it out
Do I have to do that to press the keys as I play my songs (tbh my neighbours say I’m talented)?
You right
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Maybe some people need to raise their seat height too