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Hello. I started to play piano actively at old age, 17. Before that I had played some years unregularly and without a teacher. I still have no piano teacher who would told me the correct stuff about how to move your wrists etc. So I hope that you would tell me what I do wrong and what should I do more. I'm pretty happy with my left hand, I have more problems with my right hand. So here's a video of me playing Super Mario Air Platform theme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHh4f66bobw

Edit. Come to think of it, this may not be the correct board for this.

Wow! I thought you played that pretty darn good! that Super Mario stuff isn't easy, and you did well!

Thought your left hand was good! Kept time and good rhythm, but your right hand needs to ripple more! Some of my best students are also guitar players, and playing the guitar will really loosen up your fingers in your right hand! Your fingers just seemed a litle stiff, and need to be able to move a little better than they are.

Well, keep playing! You are doing great!

Sounded like you were having a lot of fun with that! Your wrists seems a little stiff in places, but do you experience any fatigue while playing, or any soreness afterward? This is generally the best indicator that there is an issue. If not, you should be fine with this level of playing.

It's hard to tell with the recording quality, but perhaps you could use a little less pedal in places, just use your ears so harmonies don't blend or sound muddy.

What other thing have you been playing? What are your goals with piano? Anything in particular you'd like to learn how to play?

I like your hand shape. Good wrist position, too.

Do you read music? Do you know scales, theory, things like that?

My impression is that you are starting with a lot of skills that most people may never attain, with any amount of practice or instruction. If I had the chance to teach you, I'd tell you to start with what you already have and just add to it. In other words, I don't think there is much at all to change about what you can already do, but you might want to branch out, over time.

But you would have to get lucky and find a teacher who is a fit for you!

Your hands/wrist are quite tense. God knows what's going on further up.

Thank for your kind comments!

Diane and keyboardklutz: I haven't had much feedback about my technique but those are the most usual things I hear. What could I do to relax them?

Morodiene: I have never had any fatique or soreness in my right hand. Yes, I should use less pedal, with our piano even little use of pedal makes it sound muddy. I've been playing mostly video game music lately. I don't have any certain goals but I'd like to learn to play Those Who Fight from Final Fantasy VII.

AZNpiano: Really? I don't like my hand shape at all. Thing that ruins my normally good motivation sometimes.

Gary D.: "If I had the chance to teach you, I'd tell you to start with what you already have and just add to it"

That sounds interesting, could you explain that little bit more? And yeah, I can read music averagely and have practised some scales.

For a number of years have someone tell you, for about an hour a week, that your hands are not relaxed. Eventually you'll sort it. Check out the beginner hand position I teach here: http://www.youtube.com/isstip

This is Jenova from Final Fantasy VII. I tried to play more relaxed than in that Super Mario vid. Sorry about darkish quality, I had to use my brother's camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWi4IChD4GA&feature=channel_page

It's a little better, but here are some things to consider:

-fingers not being used should not be lifted any higher than necessary for them not to play. This means non-used fingers should rest on the keys or barely above them. I noticed this mostly when you played octaves that the middle fingers were raised quite a bit above the keys and stuck out straight.

In order to reduce this, try playing a C major scale in octaves. First play Cs and hold it. As you hold, relax all the fingers not being used until they rest on the keys. Then play the next octave and do the same. You will have to go very slowly, and don't move on to the next octave until the fingers have relaxed.

-whenever you play a key, think more of a downward motion of the fingers being used, rather than an up and down to strike. There should be more a feeling of the weight of the arm coming to the point of the finger rather than just playing with your fingers. Think about weight distribution in general: something that weighs a lot can actually apply less pressure beneath it if the weight is spread out over a large surface area, right? And of course, the opposite is true: weight that is concentrated in a small surface area will apply more pressure.
formula for pressure

This is key for playing piano, as we concentrate the weight of the arm onto the tip of a finger, and it is the velocity at which we press the keys that creates the bigger sounds. Using gravity to help that velocity is the most efficient way because it requires little to no effort on our part.

To help with this, try some free falling exercises:
1) Take one hand and hold it high above the keys (about eye level), and then let it free fall onto the keys. Don't worry about hitting any one key, just whatever notes your entire hand hit. Be sure the hand and fingers are completely relaxed here, flopping like a dead fish .

2) Do this a few times to make sure that once you release your arm, that it is only gravity doing the work.

3) Repeat with the other hand.

4) Now do the same thing, but intend to free fall landing on only one finger. Be sure all the other fingers are not engaged as you repeat this.

5) Once that is easy, you can do the free fall from less of a height, and intend to hit a particular key. Try with each finger.

6) Repeat #4 & 5 with the other hand.

7) The hard part now, is to be able to still have a sense of free falling while your fingers are resting on the keys. To begin this process, do your free fall to your thumb from a few inches above the keys, and then play a two-note slur to finger 2 (that means connect from thumb to pointer), and then lift up the hand to the starting position. By playing legato from one finger to the next, you are transferring some of the free fall energy or pressure to the next finger. Be sure all other fingers are relaxed.

8) Repeat this two-note exercise going from fingers 2-3, 3-4, and 4-5, then repeat on the other hand.

9) Expand the scope of this exercise to encompass a 3-note slur, 4-note slur, and finally all 5 fingers played legato, being sure to lift up to your starting position at the end of each slur.

You may have to work on this over a series of days or even weeks, but it is well worth it.

Morodiene, what about the release part of this? So the weight has gone onto the finger which presses the key. How do you reverse this?

I'm not quite sure what you mean, keystring. The non-playing fingers must be completely relaxed and return to the starting position, which should be the entire hand floppy like a dead fish. Does that help?

What I mean is, you've played the note and your finger is depressing the key. What happens in the lifting part as you stop playing that note?

You return to completely relaxing that finger and the hand.

I'm still missing something here. If the weight of my arm has transmitted into the finger which has some "unrelaxed" quality so that it will end up pushing the key, then if I relax the finger it will crumble into the keys from the weight of the arm. What have I done about that? Is it possible that I've been playing the older way with mostly finger movement and that this way is unfamiliar therefore? When I began asking I was thinking in terms of a finger being lifted after playing, but there is no lifted finger here. How about the arm weight transfer - does it get lifted, or moved on to the next finger?

Oh, and thank you.

Keystring:

There is a difference between "relax" and "rest." When you are standing and doing nothing, you are relaxing; however, your muscles are still at work to keep you standing against the gravity that pulls you down.

When you are resting, you are lying down and your muscles are at rest. You give in comopletely to gravity.

So, imagine your fingers relaxing on the keys. If your fingers are resting on the keys, then they will definitely fall flat and crumble into the keys.

I think you are missing the elephant in the room.

Every note sounds equally loud. It sounds very much like a DP recording with touch sensitivity turned off. No dynamics.

AZN, it might simply be impossible to picture in this medium. As I saw in Morodiene's description, we start with the idea of the weight of the arm transferring to the finger which ends up depressing the key. But what happens to the weight of the arm once the note has been played and the finger relaxes? What's gone down has to come up again or something like that (?) If you are not lifting the finger after playing, and if there's been a weight transfer toward the finger in some way, then what happens at the end of that? My questions do tend to come at the end of the note these days.

It seems strange that no one else has mentioned anything about style, dynamics, accents, difference between the hands.

My point is that you can bring any style "alive" by doing something creative with it, in this case at least dynamics and articulation. That's what I totally missed hearing.

one thing my first teacher made me do, to check whether I'm relaxed or not, was to flap my arms while I was playing... like if you're trying to imitate a chicken... it doesn't work if your shoulders, etc. are tensed up... it looks utterly stupid, though, so you might not want to have anyone watch you