Why Do You Need to Curve Your Fingers to Play the Piano Better?

Think about the first time you ever put your fingers on the piano keyboard. 

Do you remember what your fingers did when they pushed the key down? Most times when we first start playing,  we reach out to the keyboard with our fingers straight and keep them straight when we press down on the key. 

You might even do that when you type on your computer keypad...have you ever noticed? 

As you start advancing in your piano playing, you're probably going to hear your teacher or someone else that has been playing longer, tell you to curve your fingers instead of keeping them straight when you put them down on the keyboard. That might seem a bit strange at first, because we're not used to really using our fingertips that much in our everyday tasks, but we do use our whole fingers and hands a lot more. 

So why curve our fingers when we play the piano? Well, let's find out because there are many reasons and they will all help you to play the piano better!

1. When your fingers are straight and flat as you play the piano, you're actually causing tension in your hand and arm muscles because it takes more effort to keep your fingers straight, than curved. The less tension we can have in our bodies while playing is always the best goal, because we'll play better and won't cause injuries to our muscles and tendons. 
2. When our fingers are curved, we can move up and down the keyboard much faster than when they are straight. Again, there is more tension involved when we keep our fingers outstretched and as a result we'll move slower through our notes in the music. This is especially helpful when learning scales and playing through them faster. 
3. Curving your fingers when playing the piano allows your hands to be flexible enough to rotate in the direction that you are playing. This is beneficial because it allows you to play with more freedom and less tension. 
4. Keeping your fingers relaxed in a curved position will allow your whole body to be less tense while playing and you will end up having better posture while you sit at the piano than otherwise. Remember, that the only place in your body that you actually want to feel some "constriction" is in your core as you keep yourself sitting upright on the piano bench and are giving good support from your core to your spine, neck, shoulders, and head. 
5. Maintaining your fingers in a relaxed position also allows your lower body to stay firmly in place on the piano bench, and your upper body to move along with your fingers as you move around on the keyboard. If you are stiff in your fingers from the get go, your whole body will respond to that and be in a state of tension instead of relaxation when you play. 

As you can see, so much of what we need to do when playing the piano is relaxing instead of tensing up. Curved fingers are a sure way to get your body into  more of a relaxed state while playing which will only result in you playing the piano better and faster! 

Take some time to play through a couple of easy scales and just observe how your fingers approach each key and how much tension you notice as you start playing. Then start again, but begin with your fingers curved already, hovering a bit over they keys you're going to play, and then slowly lower them onto the keys and start playing while keeping your fingers curved. 

Be careful that you don't overextend the curve because that will cause just as much tension as there would be if you were playing with straight fingers. The goal is a relaxed position and feeling, and if you let your fingers just fall naturally they will be in a slight curved position; which is exactly where you want to be. 

Take a look at this video tutorial showing exactly how curved your fingers should be, what overextending that curve actually looks like, and I'll discuss a few more reasons why playing with curved fingers are so important for your piano playing. 

Stay Tuned to PianoLessonsOnTheWeb.com to learn much more and achieve your dreams of playing the piano!