Improve Your Piano Finger Speed in 3 Proven Steps

Finger speed is important in playing piano music. The faster we can move our fingers over the keyboard the better we will play any music that we want to learn. When we know our notes on the keyboard well and can use them to play music without having to think about where every finger goes before playing a note, the more advanced music we will be able to play as well.

There are specific exercises that you can do to increase your finger speed when learning a new piece. Incorporating these methods to increase finger speed in your playing is important to do on a daily basis to get the most benefits from them. Let’s see what these three tips are.

First – you want to learn the notes of the scale of piece that you are going to work on.

• Take a few minutes and visually read through the notes in the music and see if there are any that you don’t know or recognize. Zone in on those so you can know the note names and exactly where they are on the keyboard.
• Try playing through the piece or scale very slowly while saying each note just to confirm that you’re reading and playing the same and correct note.

Second – make sure that your finger technique is correct.

• Once you know what notes are in the piece and where those notes are on the keyboard, you want to make sure that you are using the right fingers for those notes.
• A scale is an easy example for this. We know that we start playing a scale with the first finger, or the thumb. Starting with the 1st finger instead of say the 5th finger is going to allow you to play the notes in the scale the fastest, rather than trying to figure out how to fix your fingering in the middle of the scale.
• Also make sure that you keep your fingers curved and over the keyboard, so your hand has the space to move freely at any tempo, especially a faster one.
• The main goal and benefit of using the correct fingerings is so you can play a passage smoothly at any tempo. Make sure you hear a smooth flowing type of sound in your notes as you are learning them.

​Third – practice to the beat of a metronome.

• A metronome is a device that clicks beats at a certain tempo that we can play with. You can actually find a free metronome online to use if you don’t have one at home.
• You want to set the metronome at a very slow and comfortable tempo to start with. Play through your scale or piece with the metronome at this slow and comfortable tempo a few times to start with and don’t be afraid to slow the tempo down if you need to. For a good starting place, pick somewhere in between 60 and 80 to start.
• Play one note of a scale with each beat of the metronome. Make sure the notes are exactly with each beat that you hear and go over it a few times at that speed until you are comfortable.
• Then move it up a step or two and play the scale again at that new and a bit faster tempo. Continue moving up with the metronome and your notes until you are at the speed that you want to be.
• As soon as you reach a tempo that you can’t play your notes smoothly without any mistakes, slow the tempo down and start again at that tempo.
• The metronome is such a sneaky but great too for increasing speed in our playing. We get faster sooner than we realize and especially sooner than we would without using the metronome.

One of the biggest mistakes that we all make is trying to play something faster than we can. This leaves room for all kinds of mistakes and the melodies won’t move together smoothly and we just won’t end up playing the piece very well.

As always, start slow. Learn what notes you are required to play in the piece or scale, make sure you know the fingerings and hand positions for all of the notes, and then start working with your metronome at a slow tempo and work up daily until you are at the faster tempo. 

If you like my tips and lessons, you will love the courses over on my website. Whether you are a beginner looking to get a solid foundation to build on or you are looking to take your existing skills to that next level, the online music courses on my website https://www.pianolessonsontheweb.com will help you do just that.