Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Can I get a comment on my hand position/technique?

Hi. Greetings, everyone,
I've been learning piano on my own as I can't afford weekly lessons in my country for now. I've read many times that self-teaching leads to bad habits, so it would be very helpful if I got a comment on the way I play so I can improve it. Here it is a video of me playing a brazilian choro piece called Brasileirinho:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8q97t2CWL4

Is there anything I'm doing wrong or could do better?

Thank you.

Technique wise things look pretty good although the camera angle makes it somewhat difficult to watch your playing. From a musical perspective I think the LH and RH occasionally get out of sync and the RH melody should be louder compared to the LH accompaniment. Basically very good for self taught playing.

Thanks, man. I didn't notice the hands get out of sync ocasionally. Will pay attention to that!
I really thought by now I had developed much more bad habits.

Self-teaching leads to bad habits only if you leave it up to the teacher to evaluate your progress, without ever asking yourself the same question. So, let me ask you: is something bothering you about your playing? Are you successfully accomplishing what you're trying to accomplish? What are you trying to accomplish, anyway?

Don't forget to work the last few notes to make them sound good too as part of the piece

I think at least 99.9% of the best teachers would strongly disagree.

I agree that it looks quite good.
But, one possible thing: the left hand seems stiff and tense, needlessly so. (I get sort of tense myself just seeing it!) I'm guessing that you don't always play like that but that you're doing it with this piece in order to give the left hand the 'bouncy' feel -- but I don't think you need to do that in order to get that effect. I'd guess that playing that way actually makes it harder, and I think it definitely makes the hand get tired quicker, also arguably is "unhealthy" for the arm and hand.

I didn't notice any serious flaws technique-wise, but you need to work much on your right hand, because it plays very unevenly rhythm-wise. My advice is to slow down to probably 1/3 of the current speed and to play right hand only with a metronome until it plays its part with the steady rhythm.

Thanks for the replies. I'll take care of all the problems you guys mentioned. This was very helpful.

Perhaps even 100%

It is already looking pretty good! I think it is important to keep doing warm up exercises for technique on a regular basis in order to ensure both hands playing in sync and so on. Here is a video on warm-up exercises from a professional pianist that might be of interest to you:
https://youtu.be/qAAQk3FhQt4
The channel also has more on octaves, trills, thirds, etc.
Hope this helps!