Yeah, you caught me. Hand independence two words. 🙂
But these two little words are super important little buggers and when you understand how important hand independence is to your ability to learn to play piano, it’s really going to alleviate a lot of frustration!
Why does it matter?
Just like learning any new physical activity, sport, hobby, etc, you have to strengthen the muscles you use in order for them to carry out what your brain tells you. When it comes to playing piano, obviously, that means strengthening your hands!
That’s why it’s VITAL to incorporate drills and exercises into your routine.
The three main areas that you wanna master as a piano player are strength, agility (or dexterity) and hand independence. Today, we’re going to look at hand independence, which honestly is the most difficult of the three.
It is really a biggie!
Your brain is wired to have your hands mirror one another. That’s how you’re physiologically created. So your thumbs wanna play together, your pointers and so forth. But when you play piano, this rarely ever happens.
You are literally having to rewire your brain.
There is no natural gift that can shortcut you to the front of the mastery line. You just have to do the work. The way that you build up these skills is simply to incorporate exercises!
Yeah, hand independence is hard…
One of the things I always tell students is to give themselves grace when practicing hand independence exercises. It’s HARD at first! It will feel like your hands are disconnected from your body and that they’re not cooperating.
Don’t worry though, it will get easier!
When you remember that you’re repeating motions that are creating new pathways in your brain and it just takes practice, you’re going to instantly do better. Mindset is soooo so important.
Tell yourself you CAN do it, it’s just challenging because it’s new. Then get to practicing!
Rewiring that brain
Today, I have a hand independence drill that I’m gonna teach you. You can practice this for a while before you master it, but it’s gonna begin to help you build some motor skill and hand independence.
The more you practice it, the more you rewire that brain.
Okay. You ready?
Click here to view the exercise. Learn it and then practice it about 10x every day!
Drill of the Week! 🎶
Here’s a little sumpin sumpin for you guys to add to your practice so we can get those hands up to snuff!
This week’s DOTW is a called The Thumb Tuck.Â
CLICK HERE to view the demonstration
When you play your scales, it is tempting to move your entire arm when tucking your thumbs under to finish out the last half of the scale. But in reality, that is supposed to be a simple thumb tuck under and your elbow shouldn’t move.
This exercise will help stretch those muscles and train them how to tuck under smoothly.
Practice this one about 20x per hand, it’s super quick!
Weekly Challenge 💪🏻
Practice that hand independence drill and try to extend the exercise by doing a full scale using the “canon” concept!
If you need to just stick with the 5-finger position I demonstrated, that’s great too!
Are you an uber overachiever? 🙋‍♀️ Do two octaves. Fully embrace your impressive self.
Then comment below or head over to our Community Group and fess up… tell me all about your overachiever status. 🤩
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