Handy Tips: Getting Your Hand into a Comfortable Position for Playing Piano

With so many method books out there, it’s exciting to see how different learners can take up skills on the instrument in different ways. Some people learn the white keys first whereas others get used to the black keys. Some learn more theory and then put that into practice, whereas others learn more practical music and then dissect the music. Yet the practical side of playing piano quite often boils down to a few simple rules. And one such rule is:

The hand needs to be in a comfortable position.

With such a plethora of workbooks for learning out there, it is interesting to see that so many of them build the learner up from a simple starting point. This usually involves ‘C Position’, which is where the right hand lays the thumb on middle C, finger 2 on D, finger 3 on E etc. - and the left hand does the same idea but one octave lower and, of course, fingers reversed (finger 5 on C, finger 4 on D etc.).

But…there is one fundamental problem with this technique!

YES - it gets us used to playing at least something from the off.

NO - it doesn’t truly reflect the skills required going forward.

And one of the main things that I find from this is that the hand can struggle to adjust itself to different positions because of how used it gets to C position.

Consider this: C position is all white keys.

If you wish to play a scale of C major - whether that be the full scale or just a pentascale - you can easily do this by keeping your hand in a position that graces toward the edges of the keys. You don’t need those black notes getting in the way!

However, when we finally do introduce black notes - even if only one (for example, an F♯ if we play a piece in the key of G major) - it can lead to all sorts of weird and wonderful acrobatics from the hand because we assume that we need to just grace the edges of the keys for the entire duration - like we do when it’s all on white keys! Thus, when we come to a black note, we literally have to stretch or jump or twist our wrist in order to reach it!

And is this the correct way to play piano?

I’ll let you decide the answer…

And for those who can’t make up their minds…

The correct answer is…

NO!

So let’s investigate just a couple of ways in which the hand position can be developed so they become a much more settled part of our body whilst playing piano:

The Coin on the Back of the Hand Method

This is an oldie but a goldie, and one that tends to be employed right from the off by teachers that wish to use it (I don’t personally use it by default, but if I were to ever come across an extreme example of bad hand position I might try it).

Simple execution: Place a coin on the back of your hand. Play. Keep the coin on the back of your hand.

Note that the coin will probably slide off when you take your hands off the keys, so if you are changing hand position or jumping off keys - particularly with a little vigour - then you can be forgiven for dropping it. But in general, passages of music that you play note after note with your hand should be done so in a way that allows the coin to stay on.

Moreover, you should feel it being still. If you feel it sliding around, you’ll know something’s amiss. And if you feel it start to slide off, you will hopefully be able to pinpoint from that the exact moment that your hand position is losing its discipline.

Improving Hand Position on Piano with Chords

Familiarity of the shape of chords is a good way to practise getting your hand position much stronger, and taking it ascending chromatically (up one semitone at a time) is better still as this will require constant readjustment.

When beginners start to shift between chords, they will often lock their wrists into a set position away from the keyboard - almost like they’ve been shackled from a wall behind them and can only get so close to the piano. Therefore, any exercise in chord shifting becomes an exercise in finger twisting. For example, C major stays at this safe distance away from the piano, but then when E major is attempted, the hand doesn’t move, the E and the B are pressed in about the same place as these are the white keys, yet the third finger attempts to stretch out to play that G♯ rather than just…moving the hand forward slightly!

The reason that chromatic ascension of triad chords is such a good tool to practise with is because it is continuous readjustment of hand position.

If you need help identifying all the chords, read my blog on how to find them here . Even if you only find four or five neighbouring chords, that’s a great start to help you out. But if you do manage all twelve, try playing the major triads of C, C♯, D, D♯, E, F, F♯, G, G♯, A, A♯, B - or, indeed, their minor alternatives.

Don’t race through them.

Take a moment to appreciate the slight adjustments that you are making with your hand. You’re not aiming to just graze the keys by fluke - it has to be a definite depression. Remember the curvature of your fingers at all times.

Twisting

No pain, no gain, right?

Wrong!

You shouldn’t be feeling excruciating pain from this exercise, but it’s important to recognise it and adjust as necessary. It’s also important to recognise when this is just discomfort from a new exercise that you should work through. This usually feels more like fatigue than discomfort or pain. If you’re getting sharp pains, something isn't right and the most likely cause is…twisting!

Using your right hand as an example, the further up the keyboard you get the more lopsided your chords will get. In white note chords such as C, F and G it’s easy to keep the fingers relatively even in length, but as you progress up you will find exceptions. For example, B major has two black notes in fingers 3 and 5, leaving the thumb on a white note which causes a bit of a twist. Work with it and make subtle adjustments to make sure that you are both playing the chord confidently and not causing yourself unnecessary discomfort.

Height

Remember also that height plays a part! Just look at the keyboard and notice that the black keys protrude up by at least 1cm, so to not add a slight bit more elevation in your hand position would be illogical.

Similarly, don’t think you can get around this constant adjustment by always playing with exaggeratedly raised hands. As I always say - pianists are always looking for the easy option, and I can assure you that playing with this added strain is not the easy option. You add a bit more lift when you need to work around the black notes, which has the advantage of naturally curving the fingers round a touch more. In doing so, it increases their precision in hitting the black notes. Let’s not forget they have much less surface area and also - being high - can be ‘slipped off’ if not struck correctly, so do yourself the favour of giving yourself every possible chance of actually playing them!

Incorporating Technique into Musical Passages

When your hand position is feeling much more confident, you can incorporate this into your performance of musical passages too. Before you delve straight into a piece of music you are learning or wish to learn, try it with some of your simple exercises such as scales.

Try a simple 1 or 2 black note scale (G major, D major, F major, B♭ major) and work in your understanding of when your hands needs to push forward ever so slightly and then pull back as well as the moments in which you could advantage the fluidity by lifting your hand (and arm if needed) to accommodate for those black notes.

Don’t forget that we are never seeking exaggerated movements and we certainly aren’t looking for sharp movements. Everything that we seek to do as pianists should be with a fluid movement. A rise and fall like sweeping hills. Not up and down like a zigzag! Try to visualise the movements of your hand (and arm) like waves in the sea as they rise up and down and for the forward and back motion ensure you avoid sharp movements as these will send shock waves down your arm and fatigue and hurt, not to mention affect your playing.

Try it yourself, and for a video demonstration of all I have covered check out below:

Make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel to never miss a video!

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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The Devil’s Interval - Introducing Locrian Mode for Halloween

Last week we began learning about modes.

In a slightly more conventional setup, I would follow up last week’s blog with the introduction of minor modes, however today is 31st October and so I have not only broken that tradition - but also the tradition of posting on a Saturday morning - in favour of introducing the Devil’s Interval and the Locrian Mode to you to celebrate the spooky season!

What is Locrian Mode?

Let’s firstly refresh our memories:

Ionian is our major scale that we know and love.

Lydian is like our major scale except that we raise the fourth note by one semitone.

Mixolydian is like our major scale except that we lower the seventh note by one semitone.

Now let’s consider a little bit of keyboard history:

Modes in History

Once upon a time, at the birth of the first keyboard instruments (not the piano - not even the harpsichord), music was performed on what we now recognise as the white keys of the piano. Therefore, everything could be said to be played in C major / A minor.

However, in order to create different moods, modes were used.

By using the principles of the root scale - in this case C - yet starting on a different note each time, we can perform different modes.

Needless to say, in the key of C major, starting on C is Ionian.

If I played a scale starting on the fourth note - F - and use only white notes as per C major, I get lydian mode.

If I did the same thing but starting on the fifth note - the G - using only white notes as per C major, I get mixolydian mode.

Although not yet covered in these blogs, D, E and A also have their modes - minor modes -, but then we get to B.

And any pupil of mine will tell you that I have a tendency to tell them:

“Ignore the B for now, it’s awkward”.

And awkward it is.

Because if you play a scale starting on B using all white notes, you get Locrian Mode.

Locrian Mode on B

Locrian Mode on B

Locrian Mode Explained

To give a complete rundown of Locrian mode, you have to lower everything by a semitone except for the root / tonic and the fourth.

Therefore, C Locrian would be:

C  D♭  E ♭  F  G ♭  A ♭  B ♭

Locrian Mode on C

Locrian Mode on C

What is a Tritone?

Now comes into play the very crux of the problem of Locrian Mode - at least as far as classical music and earlier goes;

It features an incredibly prominent tritone!

A tritone is - as you can probably guess - the interval made up of a sequence of three whole tones.

So a tone from C - D is one, then D - E is two, but then E to F♯ is three.

Thus, C - F# is a tritone.

C Tritone

We can refer to this one of two ways:

• An augmented fourth

• A diminished fifth

The way in which we refer to it depends entirely on its context. For example, when I refer to the C Locrian mode above, you’ll notice that I don’t mention F ♯ but I do mention G ♭. Although these are harmonically the same note, if I’m referring to it as the latter then I am flattening what would otherwise be C - G (a perfect fifth) thus it is a diminished fifth.

If, however, I were referring to F♯ then I would be sharpening the fourth - F - and turning a perfect fourth: C - F - into an augmented fourth: C - F♯ .

All scales and modes feature a tritone somewhere, however they normally come in a place in which they can resolve easily.

For example, your typical major scale (Ionian) features just one tritone that can be started from the fourth note. So, in C major, this would be F. And the tritone would be F - B (three tones apart). But B is a leading note, so it resolves very pleasantly back to its root / tonic - C!

In Locrian mode, our tonic is the note on which we have our tritone. Worrying! Thus, there is always a sense of apprehension and dissonance within this mode that is much the reason why many classical compositions don’t tend to use it!

It stood against everything that music stood for once upon a time: particularly as music was by and large either a celebratory or religious affair. Therefore, music with such oddity was not at all conventional.

And the tritone did indeed gain the nickname ‘The Devil’s Interval’ although, tragic as this is because the story is fabulous, it was not banned! Just far from the norm.

Music in Locrian Mode

If you wish to go down a rabbit hole and delve into the weird and wonderful world of finding music written in Locrian Mode, I wish you well. Whilst you may come close, you will likely find no examples because it just doesn’t work as well as we’d like harmonically.

If you’d like to hear examples of the Devil’s Interval prominently in action - but not in Locrian - consider a lot of music by Danny Elfman:

• Theme from ‘The Simpsons’

• Theme from ‘Beetlejuice’

• Theme from ‘Tales from the Crypt’

Spot the tritones in both hands of the opening of 'The Simpsons' theme

Or for an examples in the land of musical theatre, consider:

• “Maria” from ‘West Side Story’ (the singing of ‘Maria’ in the chorus is C - F♯ - G)

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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Getting in the Mode - A Beginner’s Guide to Modes in Music Part One: Major Modes

…but first, a disclaimer.

This blog is not for the faint of heart.

And by the faint of heart, I specifically refer to the fact that modes are something that aren’t necessarily taught until a much more advanced level in music or music theory.

Why?

It can take long enough for pupils to learn the scales and key signatures on which much of our classic music is based; the ‘do - re - mi’ scale, to put it a way we all understand.

So until you’re absolutely confident with how these scales work and 100% confident also in all 12 different harmonic key signatures (C major, C minor, C♯ / D♭ major, C♯ / D♭ minor, D major etc.) then this blog may not be for you quite yet.

But if you are on top of all of these - or you just like to live life on the edge - then do read on…

What is a Mode in Music?

I’m glad you asked. After all, that is the nub of the blog.

Take a look at the classic sea shanty below:

Now tell me what key signature it is in.

If you said A minor because you’d deduced it is either that or C major from the key signature, you’d be right on paper.

However, to consider that a piece of music is truly in its home / root / tonic key, it has to at least feature the chord let alone have some sort of grounding in that chord. Yet this score is made up of D minor and C chords exclusively.

Right…so it’s in D minor?

…No.

Although I can see why you’d now shift to thinking that.

See, does D minor (relative minor to F major) not feature a B♭ and - if so - why are we not showing that in the key signature?

Because the B in bar three is a natural. So it's not in D minor!

So, how can we describe the key in which this key is in yet still honouring the notes and not having to resort to one or several accidentals throughout the score?

We describe it as being in a mode.

On paper, these read the same as a key signature, so if you were scoring out the above you’d still notate it as if it were in A minor on the score i.e. marking no sharps or flats in the key signature, but that’s where your description of it being A minor comes to a tragic end.

Let’s remind ourselves of what makes a scale with a fancy subheading…

What Makes a Musical Scale?

A scale is a series of ascending or descending notes that are separated by usually a mixture of tones and semitones.

Of course, you can just use semitones (chromatic) or just whole tones (a whole tone scale) but these don’t really cross into our discussion of modes.

For all other scales you’ll need to know, you just need to know that it is a mixture of both. And by all other scales, I don’t just mean the ones you’ll have learnt so far. I mean all the modes including the ones you’re about the be subjected to:

Introducing the Modes

Ionian Mode

Well, as if my magic, you already know a mode!

Ionian Mode is the fancy name that we give to the major scales we already know and love.

Let’s demonstrate how this is laid out:

C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C

C Major (Ionian)

If we look at the intervals between starting with C - D, our layout would be:

Tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone (back into C)

C Major (Ionian)

This is the mode on which much of our beloved Classical and Baroque music is based, and to much extent music from the Romantic Era. As far as music in a major key goes, it is also the mode that is used most commonly (though not exclusively) in our modern pop / rock music.

But the point of modes is to understand how a piece of music grounds itself. For example, a chordified C major scale would be:

C

D minor

E minor

F

G

A minor

B dim

Yet to say that a piece of music is truly in the key of C, we’d have to have that C major chord featuring quite prominently through. For example, a I, IV, V structure (C, F, G) would be great?

But what if we wrote a song that just used chords F and G?

Or D minor and G?

Or A minor, G, D minor?

What keys are these in?

You would still mark the key signature as appropriate if notating, but you wouldn’t call them C major so much as refer to them as being in their more prominent root with one of the following modes in them.

Let’s explore some more…

Keeping it Major: Lydian and Mixolydian

There are two other modes that are in a major key:

Lydian Mode

Here we take our usual scale structure, such as C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C, and we raise the fourth by a semitone.

The fourth is

C = 1

D = 2

E = 3

F = 4th

In this case, raising F by one semitone makes it an F♯. So the layout of Lydian is:

Tone, Tone, Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone, Semitone (back to C), C now reading:

C - D - E - F♯ - G - A - B - C

C Lydian

C Lydian

Try playing this scale and hearing the difference. Note you may need to adjust your fingers (thumb under on the G in the right hand works well).

To get an understanding of how this is used in music, chordify it bearing in mind that all our Fs are now F♯s.

C

D

E minor

F♯ dim

G

A minor

B minor

So if we wrote a chord structure from this that bases itself around the C major chord; such as C, D, B minor, C - we would say we have a piece in C Lydian*

*the name of a mode itself already dictates the tonality of the piece, therefore there is no need to specify C major Lydian. Just C Lydian will suffice.

You will note that the scale has one sharp - an F♯ - just like a G major scale. However, there is no G major in our chord sequence. Not even just once let alone with any prominence or grounding, yet on paper we would still mark this music the same way. Therefore it would read as being in G major but we would refer to it as C Lydian.

See why it’s confusing?

Mixolydian Mode

Here we revert back to our original C major scale (Ionian - remember?) and make another small adjustment. Let’s refresh our mind of the C major scale:

C - D - E - F - G - A - B - C

And now explain the slight adjustment required for Mixolydian. This is taking the seventh and lowering it by a semitone:

C = 1

D = 2

E = 3

F = 4th

G = 5th

A = 6th

B = 7th

In this case, the B being lowered by a semitone creates a B♭, ergo:

C - D - E - F - G - A - B♭ - C

C Mixolydian

C Mixolydian

This ones plays a lot more alike to the C major Ionian scale for the fingers, but you’ll notice that lovely little ‘folk-like’ lilt at the end!

If we chordify this, bearing in mind that all Bs are now B♭’s, we get:

C

D minor

E diminished

F

G minor

A minor

B♭

If our chord structure from Lydian were adjusted slightly to accommodate the B♭ and re-naturalise the F♯ we would create:

C, D minor, B♭, C

And there it is: a sequence in C Mixolydian.

And…you guessed it…you’d mark that one flat - the B♭ - on the score making it look just like it were in F major, but we know. We know the truth now. It’s in C Mixolydian!

Differentiating the Two

Again, this all comes down to grounding.

Let’s take a look at a simple riff by the Kinks: ‘You Really Got Me’.

Here, you can see that the piece is written in C major (let’s assume it’s all major from here on out…I know, I know it could also be A minor but stay with me…).

The chords are F and G.

So yes, they absolutely do appear in the C major scale. Technically, it’s fair to say you wouldn’t be wrong for identify the key of the song as being in C major for this reason, however is there something a little more accurate?

Our grounding chord is probably going to be the G here. It’s not the first, but it’s the one that the F resolves to more pleasingly as it is the G that rings out at the end of each phrase.

So now we need a variant on the G major scale that features F♮ as opposed to F♯.

And as it were planned this way, F♯ is the seventh degree of the G major scale, is it not? And what rule did I give above? Lowering the seventh by a semitone creates…Mixolydian!

So is You Really Got Me in G Mixolydian?

I would argue so!

But now let’s just assume that the riff was backwards...:

And that now F major is our chord of resolve…

We can’t surely still consider it G Mixolydian because G is a more incidental chord that now resolves into the F major.

Oh no - what do we do?

We need a mode for which F is the root but G major still exists - thus changing F major’s usual B♭ to B♮. By process of elimination, you’ve probably sussed that this is Lydian but…let me talk you through it anyway!

Lydian raises the fourth by one semitone:

F = 1

G = 2

A = 3

B♭ = 4

And a B♭ raised by one semitone is…B♮!

So our backwards Kinks is…F Lydian!

So, whilst in either of those two examples above all the notes are there to suggest that this could be C major (Ionian), F Lydian or G Mixolydian, consider where the grounding and / or the resolve is within the chordal structure and work with that.

Examples in Well Known Music

Ionian: Ionian is the Do - Re - Mi scale, so if you find a piece of music from the Classical or Baroque Era that is in the major key it will almost certainly be in Ionian Mode. Just to give you a head start, however:

• ‘Winter’ from Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’*

• ‘Overture’ from ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ - Mozart*

• ‘Ode to Joy’ - Beethoven

*of course, many of our Classical and Baroque composers liked to throw accidentals into their music and that doesn’t alter the mode. Don’t let it throw you - just consider when it is an accidental (i.e. appears just a handful of times or - when it does - it resolves to a note with the Ionian scale) or a regular, un-resolving culprit in place of its natural, sharp or flat counterpart that should be in the scale. If the latter. It may be a mode!

Lydian:

• ‘Dreams’ - Fleetwood Mac

• ‘Flying Theme’ from E.T. - John Williams*

• ‘Every Little Thing She Does is Magic’ - The Police**

*Lydian is a mode that is rarely adhered to for it’s entirety. Whilst Fleetwood Mac do indeed ground themselves in Lydian for the duration of their song, the E.T. theme has snippets of theme that are in Lydian mode before it modulates to a new key!

**Similarly here, we could argue that the Police’s song is in Ionian because at the very end of the verse it ends (modulates) to chord I - the tonic. So it’s really subjective as to whether you would consider it this way: because of the resolve it is Ionian - or because the majority of the verse's structure it's Lydian.

Mixolydian:

• ‘Louie, Louie’ - the Kingsmen

• ‘Sweet Child o’Mine’ - Guns & Roses

• ‘She Moves Through the Fair’ - Traditional

In Conclusion

Whew…that was exhausting. But hopefully it made sense for at least as long as you were reading.

I’ve neglected to start the minor modes in this blog because I think that’ll be quite enough to be getting on with, although that does mean you will need to wait until my follow up to learn which mode ‘Drunken Sailor’ is in.

However, do familiarise yourself with them and how they sound for now.

I do, for the record, have a YouTube playlist dedicated to the modes and demonstrating them, so take a look at the first video and head over the playlist to watch them all!

And make sure you subscribe so you never miss any videos of mine about all things piano in the future!

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Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.

Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!

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#musictheory #musiclesson #pianolesson #pianoteacher #musicteacher