Should I lift my finger before I hit a key when playing a piano?

Question

I've noticed, that many people are hitting keys, instead of just pressing them. It kinda looks like that before they press the note, they lift the finger a little bit, same as if you tried to hit a nail with a hammer.

Is this correct? Should I try to practice this, or instead just try to leave my fingers lying on the keys and just pressing them?

This looks a little bit like the exact opposite of typing on a keyboard, where I'm trying to just move around the keys and press them, without hitting too hard, which makes me type pretty fast (450-600 characters per minute). But I guess piano might require a different technique.

One funnny thing worth noting, after I finish playing the piano, I find myself typing on a keyboard much faster :)

Answer 1

The important thing is consistency. If you are playing the same style and volume, you should hit the keys the same way. When you move a finger from one key to another, you have to lift it a little. So when you play the same key twice, you should lift it a similar amount.

If you want to play loud, accented notes, it may help to lift your fingers a little farther. In a slow, smooth piece you may be able to rest your fingers on the keys and press the keys a little slowly.

Some players will get a little theatrical (or emotional?) and lift their hands and fingers inches above the keys before they hit a keys. But they don't usually do this all the time.

I think the most important thing to practice is precision -- hitting the key exactly at the right time and with consistent force. Bending your fingers helps. After you are precise, experiment with the different styles of hammering the keys.

Answer 2

On most instruments, including the piano, economy of movement is important. What is the least movement you can use, to get the sound you desire? Because using the least movement possible, is the least fatiguing, and by not wasting movement, you have the opportunity to play faster figures when you want to.

On a piano, the only variable (ignoring pedals) that affects the sound coming from the strings, is the velocity of the hammer when it strikes the string. The only influence you have on this, is the velocity of the key at a certain moment in its travel.

It's likely that you can achieve that velocity without letting go of the key -- but whatever feels comfortable is likely to be best for you.

However a piano is a percussion instrument, which means it's all about getting hit. And to get certain sounds, you need to hit it hard! And to hit it hard you may need to lift your hand some distance to give it some attack. It all depends on whether you want to sound like Little Richard or Richard Clayderman! (Or, less dramatically, whether you're playing the strident first movement, or the lyrical Adagio, from Grieg's piano concerto).

It will also depend on the piano. Some pianos give you a long travel during which your finger and the key can gain velocity, others have less. Some pianos offer more resistance than others.

Use your ears. If it makes the sound you want, you're doing the right thing.

Answer 3

I still remember one of my professors telling me once, when we were looking for a particularly sharp sound on a note in a piece (I think it was somewhere in Copland's "Variations for Piano"), holding his thumb and third finger together and banging down on the key from about eight inches. "That's your 'weapon'!" he grinned.

You would be well served by looking carefully at some of the videos of great pianists. You'll notice that there's a good deal of variety in their approach to finger technique, indeed, whole schools of study are built around different approaches to it. The Russians tend to like to hold the fingers up some from the keys and sort of plop the down flat-fingered (look at Shura Cherkassky for a representative example); Americans (who haven't studied with Russians, perhaps) tend to have a more curved hand position. You'll notice that Horowitz appears to do this, but careful inspection will show that while he often holds his fingers out flat, he pulls them in when hitting notes in a sort of plucking motion. You also might notice that his very rapid finger passage work is rather non legato; the notes get his trademark clarity by slightly disconnecting them one from the next. I think that plucking motion rather assists in getting that sound. You'll also notice that he is very still from the shoulders down, getting a lot of his volume from very rapid and percussive arm movements.

If you compare Rubinstein, you'll notice that there's a lot more moving around of the arms, but the arm technique is less percussive than Horowitz's. He gets a softer sound with bigger movements. You'll also notice that his finger passage work has less up-and-down movement of the fingers; the fingers start closer to the keys. Look especially at, say, a quick run of notes in a Chopin piece.

A lot of how far you raise your fingers when hitting a note has to do with the level of volume that you want. You can get a lot of volume without raising the fingers at all, by putting body weight into it, it is true, but you can't play very fast that way. And, you can also do it by raising the fingers higher and still get a great deal of speed.

So, the short answer to your question is that you have all kinds of tools in the box, and each has its place.

Answer 4

You definitely want to press the keys, not hit them. Your goal is to smoothly accelerate the key down. Ideally you should move from motionless contact with the keys into a downward press.

Of course, it may not be possible to make contact with the keys without also striking them depending on the speed of the piece and so on. However, if you feel the keys bounce off your fingers, that's a problem. The keys should never accelerate faster than your fingers, except perhaps when playing staccato.

After you've built your strength sufficiently, you should be able to produce fortissimo quite easily without "hitting" the keys. If you need to use the weight or inertia of your arms/hands then something isn't right. I totally agree with slim about the economy of movement as well, and playing some pieces requires extremely efficient motions that leave no room for lifting your hands more than necessary.

Answer 5

The attack is just as important as the release. Depending on the type of sound you want to come out, you need to have a correct attack, which may involve distance above the keys. For example, to play very quietly, height above a key is useful, since you can put your hand into a slow motion before the keys is pressed, and then retain that same motion after contact with the key.

The release is connected to the attack. Consider the difference between pressing a key and releasing it (something like using the accelerator pedal of a car), and pushing off of a key as the release (something like doing a standing long jump). The latter can provide awesome intensity in your music, much more than the former. Pushing off leaves your hands in the air, with great position to attack the next notes.

Some have called this type of movement emotional or theatrical. Sure. But it's real purpose is to put life into your instrument. To make the piano sing, you must let it become a part of your performance. How can you do this by keeping your hands solidly on the keys? You cannot. The reason professional pianists do this is not for theatrical value, it is to make you involved enough in your music so that others can understand it. Take, for example, Yakov Kasman, who won 2nd place in the Van Cliburn competition. In this video he lifts his hands all the time. I saw him in concert stand up multiple times while he was playing because that is what the emotion called for.

So, yes, lift those hands if you want. But always hit the right notes.

Answer 6

One critical note about "fingery" technic: try to avoid lifting the fingers by using the muscles in the top of the forearm -- i.e. the extensors. The extensors are engaged to lift the fingers, whereas the flexors (underside of the forearm) are engaged to play the fingers. Lifting a finger via the extensors creates a situation where, for a brief moment the extensors are engaged to lift the finger while at the same time the flexors are engaged to play (pull down) the finger. In each of these moments, the opposing pairs of muscles are "fighting" each other, which creates tension, stress on tendons and joints, and may result in pain and injury if continued over time. Learning to play with a "close touch" (using flexors only) minimizes the lifting of the fingers, thereby minimizing tension and risk of injury.

Answer 7

Yes and no. There's not really a good answer to this question. If you have a musical reason to strike keys, by all means do so.

However, an overly finger-y technique will quickly lead to repetitive motion injuries. You need to learn to incorporate wrist, arm and shoulder action to organize the motion of your fingers properly. Unless you learn this, you will have difficulty playing fast passage work with any kind of consistency. Also, your musical expression will suffer if you only use your fingers.

The best resource for elementary piano technique, other than a qualified teacher, is by far Barbara Lister Sink's "Freeing the caged bird." It discusses basic technique in excruciating detail. It's also a steal.

Answer 8

Ah, as others have said, I'd not think about "hitting" keys so much as "pressing" them... using a more careful upper-arm pressure transmitted through fore-arms and then fingers. The more visibly percussive "striking" stuff is partly theatrical, of course, but/and also is occasionally necessary with things like lots of parallel octaves (e.g., Chopin's military polonaise' middle part).

Being a bit older now, though never making a living by playing the piano, I'd think it would be unsustainable to think about playing as a percussive instrument... because your forearms and fingers would wear out. Rather, there's the well-known subtlety of pressure exerted from shoulders and upper arms, through forearms, and through hands. Optimizing (among other things, ergonomically) the story.

Sure, young people can temporarily maintain almost anything... no matter how un-ergonomic, etc., ... but that's not the real question. :)

Answer 9

Do whatever is more comfortable for you and what produces the sound you're after. If it's a rather slow piece it really doesn't matter, and you can play-around and try out playing things differently.

For a fast piece you might not have much choice, so it's important that whatever-technique and approach you are choosing, it must scale well with increasing speed.

Answer 10

This is the opinion of a student of Lubomyr Melnyk's "continuous music".

No, you should not lift a finger with the stated goal of hitting a key (not really, not intentionally). You should not strike, attack. If you have sufficient finger strength, you can press calmly into the keys, taking them all the way down to the end of their stroke, without effort; then you can create any volume or touch that you wish to. The piano should yield to you, the notes falling away with ease. If it does not yet, then you are playing a piece too difficult for your hand to manage.

Of course, the fingers are in motion and if a finger is deep into one key and is called to play another, it must lift off from the old and land on the new, but a raised, curled talon in the air coming down to slam a key.. for the sake of volume.. this is unnatural for the hand; tense; forced. Rather, it can move a small, imperceptible, unconscious distance, within the confines of the hopefully relaxed hand surrounding it: or if a greater movement is needed it can have the wrist fluidly carry it and the rest of the hopefully still relaxed, but strong, hand to where it needs to be. Why expend tremendous (and conscious) effort in raising a finger away from where it must be? In the raising and the curling, you typically obstruct the muscles and contort even what is happening in the palm of the hand. If you maintain this for ten minutes, twenty minutes, an hour, in motion, it is not good for you at all. Maybe you can even do it without noticeably hurting (depends on the piece), but it limits fluidity and relaxation.

The sensation of playing with all fingers at rest on, or pressing in, the keys - rather than being in the air - is a wonderful one. Not too easy to achieve, I am guilty of raising them slightly from time to time, but I experience very obvious tension when I do that! It is a problem. Usually, it is a symptom of playing faster than I am really able to (of forcing the speed), and it happens much less often these days.

Raising the fingers this way can be a good way to build strength, in the weak fifth fingers especially, but I would strongly caution against doing it in the fluid motion of a piece (and if the piece somehow demands it as a matter of course, perhaps by having obscene arrays of jumping octaves, I would criticise the piece as - while possibly quite beautiful, who knows - unnatural for the hand). Tapping on a table, I still raise my fifth finger quite high and bring it down sharply (all other fingers static) for the sake of exercise, but I wouldn't dream of doing so during a piece. At least, if I recorded myself and found out that I was doing that, I would be quite annoyed and would seek to change it.

It is quite possible to play with volume and strength, flowing from the entire body, with fingers hardly ever elevated from the keys at all - and certainly never 'in the air'. If a piece is within your grasp, then the depth of touch and volume can be accessed just from the way you perceive the notes and lean into them. Hearing the music as it is played is very helpful for that. Accentuation can emerge unconsciously or consciously. Having a close physical (and mental) connection with the piano goes a long, long way.