Almost all music teachers will agree that proper finger posture is required to play a musical instrument. If your music teacher does not agree, find a new one immediately! Improper posture will let you develop bad habits, causing you to have a more difficult time in learning your pieces. When worse comes to worst, improper posture will injure you.
What is proper finger posture? Let’s start where the rubber meets the road: The piano keys and fingertips. Play each key with your fingertips, not your fingerpads. Your nails should be short to prevent discomfort or clicking sounds.
The perfect position is one that requires no effort to maintain. Your fingers naturally round, a sort of fetal position for them. Try laying the back of your hand on a flat surface. Notice that your fingers curve inward. It actually takes effort to lay your fingers flat! In this manner, let your fingers naturally curve when sitting at the piano.
Keep wrists flat when playing piano. Some students may have a tendency to sag or lift the wrists. This is creates unnecessary tension in the forearms, causing the student to become tired. Again, the perfect position is one that requires zero effort to maintain.
To test your if your wrists are flat and in good position, balance a small ruler on your wrists. It should touch the back of your hand, your wrist, and your forearm above your wrist. If it touches only the back of the forearm and the wrist, your wrist is too high. If there is a gap under the book, your wrist is too low. You can use a pencil, too, but a ruler is easier to balance.
Keep your fingertips at the point where the black keys and white keys meet. This way, you will not have to reach so far to play the black keys, and your thumbs will naturally reach the white keys.
