Exercises

Chapter 2 - Sassy Seal

Exercises by maintaining relaxed arms while keeping fingers gently unified like a seal flipper

Balanced and free, the sound comes out of movement, not compression

Franz Liszt technical exercises - 8 dynamic levels

How much kinetic energy you transfer to the key?

The piano hears and responds

Dance with the piano

Alan is talking about and demonstrating the natural flow of the body that is required while playing

Educate the motor cortex

Our focused mind can only handle so much while we play. We need to educate the body how to play

Four sit bones

or ischial tuberosity

My head stays in the middle

A Feldenkrais exercise demonstrated by Alan

A couple of exercises to get the hand in shape

Building up the arch..

If you stand up really well, your forearm is floating

Wrists don't have to be high

Deep knee bend

Deep knee bend

Cantilever hand

An exercise for the bouncy feeling that works out the muscles

Deep breathing

Deep breathing is done with the pelvis

Hopping

Hopping exercise

Skipping

Move the arm behind the finger

Walking and running

Alan thinks walking and running follows up a bit later in the process but..

Before you even feel tension, the quality of the sound goes away

Standing exercise

"Cliffhang" to curl the fingertip

Pianimals teachers exercise 28

A growing hand arch even in octaves

Pianimals teachers exercise 27

Get rid of the "down", especially in forte

Pianimals teachers exercise 26

The standing action internalized for ringing and clarion sound

Pianimals teachers exercise 25

Rotation

Pianimals teachers exercise 24

Overholding

Pianimals teachers exercise 23

Whip the arm up to play a fast scale

Pianimals teachers exercise 22

Stand on 2nd finger, reach thumb to inside

Pianimals teachers exercise 21

A snapping scale

Pianimals teachers exercise 20

Sauntering

Pianimals teachers exercise 19

Weighted vs unweighted walking: The tai chi empty step

Pianimals teachers exercise 18

Manipulate the key: grab its edge

Pianimals teachers exercise 17

Turn the hand into a bell clapper: bong the keys

Pianimals teachers exercise 16

Turn the hand into an amoeba, melt it into the keys

Pianimals teachers exercise 15

Make the hand a roly-poly

Pianimals teachers exercise 14

Walking on stilts: playing with the back of the hand

Pianimals teachers exercise 13a

A floating arm, a feather standing finger

Pianimals teachers exercise 12

The thumb: tromping trolls and leaping stallions

Pianimals teachers exercise 11

The aligator jaw

Pianimals teachers exercise 10

The crocodile jaw

Pianimals teachers exercise 9

Different types of bird beak

Pianimals teachers exercise 8a

Fingers form a bird beak

Pianimals teachers exercise 7

The versatile, agile, potent thumb

Pianimals teachers exercise 6

Flopping and rolling

Pianimals teachers exercise 5

Heel sinks, fingers cat scratch

Pianimals teachers exercise 4

Sink heel, peck keys with bird beak fingers

Pianimals teachers exercise 3

Sink heel, flop fingers

Pianimals teachers exercise 2

The most beautiful sound in the world

Pianimals teachers exercise 1

5 finger overholding

Exercise 12

The cat scratch

Exercise 11

Hooking

Exercise 10

Rotation in leaps

Exercise 9

Rolling

Exercise 7

Walking

Exercise 6

Poking

Exercise 5

Sliding

Exercise 4

Standing

Exercise 3

Empower the thumb

Exercise 2

Float the finger into the key

Exercise 1

Increasing the horizontal stretch

You hands might be small but you can still stretch them

My arm moves me through the phrase

We need to be well balanced when playing the piano, no other way.

Stretching and rotation

Awaken the main part of the hand

Forget holding an apple, supination does not let your hand fall down

If the arm freezes, it's game over

Everybody wants to over secure but tense up. Arm needs to be in motion all the time

Finger islation is totallty anti functional

In independence, there is always inter dependence

Clarify the difference between the standing and touching function

Like the Tai Chi empty step

Thumb flexion is not good for your hand

Thumb can move in three different ways but we don't want to flex it really

Neurological mechanisms make our actions smooth

And we don't really think about it in our day to day activities

Hand like a lung exercise

Exploring horizontal movement of the injured hand

Useful Bird Beak Exercise

Rene shows his exercise he uses with his studenta

Scales Exercises - Thumb

Piano Exercises for Beginners

A bit of theory and hands on exercises with young pianists. From Montreal, CA 2019 workshop

A few exercises for the functional hand

Alan is demonstrating a few important concepts

Exercises for Injured Thumb

Alan and Jean are working around the injury and trying to make the thumb work again

Linking the Hands to the Body

Warmup session designed to sync movements of pelvis with the hands

Slow Hand Exercises Part 3

Part 3

Slow Hand Exercises Part 2

We continue where we left off in part 1

Slow Hand Exercises Part 1

A follow up lesson where Alan and Will practice core principles like the arch on slow excercises