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How to Stop Over-Curving Your Fingers at the Piano (Alignment, Part 2)

The Piano Prof | Kate Boyd

13,817 views

In this video I discuss the problem of OVER-curving your fingers at the piano and what to do about it. I also discuss how to make micro-adjustments with your arm to accommodate different finger lengths, as well as how to adjust to the topography of the keyboard as you play.

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CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
1:20 What is over-curving?
2:41 Finger lengths
4:57 Making micro-adjustments
6:35 Playing on the black keys
7:33 Balloon
8:24 Blocking
10:11 Alignment
11:40 Loose wrist
12:04 Using a timer
12:33 Black keys

#pianopractice #pianotips #pianolesson

20 Comments

@ThePianoProfKateBoyd Creator 4 years ago (edited)

What did YOUR piano teacher tell you about curving your fingers when you started playing the piano?

@neilmachado3820 2 months ago

My teacher used to tell me to imagine I'm gripping a ball (like a tennis ball)...to get the curve I suppose so I always thought well rounded/ curved fingers was perfect hand position

@MichaelClark-zc7ht 2 years ago

This is an incredible resource. Thank you for these FREE lectures; very generous and appreciated.

@VenantRutelano 4 months ago

Am TANZANIA 🇹🇿 thenk you my teacher

@whitlockpianostudio8327 4 years ago

True story: my Chopin Etudes score has a note inside the front cover from my first teacher with the fingerings for the E-flat major scale, and a note that says, “curve your fingers!!”

SO FUNNY because it’s evidence (1) I had essentially no technical focus for the first 10 years of my piano life while I studied with her - however lovely she was - and (2) she let me have my run of whatever repertoire I wanted to play.

Any student playing the Revolutionary etude should probably NOT be in a place where the teacher needs to write a reminder to “curve your fingers!” (Or to review the fingerings of the E-flat major scale, for that matter) 😂

Ahhh, stories of piano past.

LOVE your channel, Kate!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

@memohisham7365 2 years ago

You are helping me very well

@virginiaforaci966 4 years ago

Thanks Prof. Your lesson is helping me a lot. I completely changed my way of playing piano using the harm instead of curving the fingers. I am 10 and I started with classical music in my mother womb. I started playing piano at 4. See ya

@nicecubetube 1 month ago (edited)

Step 1: Create that rounded arch
Step 2: Maintain relaxed rounded arch posture while pressing down the keys to their bottom, don’t go further
Step 3: Lift the fingers off the keys.

This is the extent to which your fingers need to “curve”

@jimredner2649 2 years ago

Thank you for videos! I learn so much from them.
I was initially taught to keep a relaxed but flat wrist and to curve the fingers as if they were holding a ball.

@stephanierend1261 4 years ago (edited)

Thanks for one more great video. Your comments and advise have been helping me get back to playing after a pause of more than a decade. I am learning a lot about the health of my body though your videos, something that was never a concern in the past despite my many complaints of constant pain. Your advise on the board to let go of the instrument was particularly important to me, as I remember being praised for over extending my hands as much as I could, as if it were a good thing! Somehow my many teachers of the past thought that was a sign of having "big piano hands", which is not the case at all, I was just tense and causing myself lots of pain with no musical benefit whatsoever. I also remember seeing one of my teachers play, who had very tiny hands, and noticing how much more fluid and delicate she was while playing but she would say she needed to do so due to her small hands! How I wish someone would have advised me better back then and how grateful I am to your content!

@Frank-in-NY 3 years ago

Every video I watch has given me the right stuff. Outstanding information.

@drumminglater9451 2 years ago

I just started last week with private lessons. She has my rolling my hand on a ball. She allowed me to video her position, and I have to submit a video of my progress.

@rob26b 1 year ago

This stuff is GOLD!!!

@kathyspencer5909 2 years ago

This is a very helpful series! Thank you Prof.

@nancy-wooton 2 years ago

I took lessons in the 1970s, and the only technique I was taught was Hanon - and the instructions in the Hanon book. Wrists high, fingers lifted high and independently. When I was given a digital keyboard for Christmas (2022), I found myself playing the same way, and my back really hurt. YouTube is an amazing resource for people like me! I've learned about rotation and wrist circles and how to adjust my bench. I also had 6 weeks of physical therapy, because playing piano had revealed, not caused, a spinal injury. My core is much stronger, and the pain mostly gone. I'm really enjoying your channel - thank you!

@amalpianoclasses 2 years ago

V good lesson thank u🌸

@bctl9 1 year ago (edited)

I totally misled myself with the popular "pretend you're curving your hand around a ball" analogy and thought that my overly-curved fingers was the natural position. Maybe I should've visualized a larger ball :P... anyway, your videos have been helping me sooo much. You're a great teacher, thank you!!! ❤

@hannahka6263 4 years ago

Thank you so much for your video! I am so glad to have finally found someone to explain the technique so well. My piano teacher doesn't explain too much and my arm and hands and fingers began to hurt after a few months because I always want to do it too right. :-)

@rogercarroll2551 4 years ago

This is fabulous. Just as Chopin pointed out: everythng depends on suppleness, and for sure tightly curved fingers destroy suppleness. Over curving the hand and over flattening it are equally destructive.