Hey piano players here...

hey piano players here? I'm trying to hit these 3 notes at once on my right hand but my pointer finger cant bend correctly to hit the A key without also slightly hitting the A# key. hands are average sized but is that not good enough? if i really position my hand i can do it but i dont think ill be able to do it at a fast tempo

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You shouldnt be bending your finger, just press the top of the key harder

>piano discussion on Sup Forums
based as fuck

actually tho, that's an octave+1.5 chord, which is hard as fuck to hit with long fingers, so i'm not suprised youre having trouble. Not much you can do abt it if youre not able to reach it

for this form, i do thumb, pointer, pinky. sometimes gatta move pointer between the black keys more toward the base of the key for weird forms like this. also try wrist angling if you need to

yeah just move ur entire hand farther in to press top of the key

This. Pressing the upper part of the key takes some getting used to depending on your keyboard, but it makes this much more doable.

try it out on your piano, the stretch from thumb to pinky to cover the octave forces your pointer finger to arch so it cant just slide up to the top of the key.
so i literally just cant play the song if it had this?
those are the fingers im using, give it a feel on a keyboard and you will see my problem unless you just have large hands

Practice running arpeggios, that should help widen your stretch over time. You will get moar comfortable with your finger placement as you do this, and awkward chord shapes like this will soon be a piece of cake. What is your stretch, by the way?

On another note, what's a song you all have been learning or learned recently?

im currently learning "you spin me right round" by dead or alive. what exactly are you referring to by "stretch" like the distance my thumb and pinky can go?i can reach from C# to D# or just one octave on the white keys since they are fatter.

Post a picture of how you are doing it

I meant to type 'reach', but yes, it's the number of whole steps in between your 1st and 5th finger. If you care enough about it, I would definitely recommend running arpeggios. Maybe ones with odd finger placements like the f# minor in the picture you posted.
For example, alternative way of running them could be (fingering in parentheses): F#(1), C#(2), F#(4), A(5)

You may have to sort of roll your wrist back and forth to make that reach, but I think that would be a good place to start.

criticisms accepted and encouraged
im not quite sure where i can find good sheet music to practice arpeggios from. everything im teaching myself with online resources. basically going through synthesia so i dont have an actual piano player to tell me what im doing wrong.

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It's common practice to arch your fingers, almost like you've got your hand resting on the edge of an armrest. Whenever I play a shape like that, I tend to curl my index finger down and sort of point it towards myself. As for arpeggios, they're essential broken block chords played up and down. I'm sure you could find some basic sheet music and/or fingering charts online if you need a reference. How long have you been teaching yourself?

I'm a guitar player and i use songsterr for my tabs and there are a lot of everything you might need. The only problem is they are written in numbers and not notes lol so you would need to write them down and figure each number is the equivalent of each note

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almost a year next month, i bought the keyboard around christmas last year, took a class that thought me the basics like reading sheet music but only recently, within the last month, discovered synthesia so i have just been playing the songs/scale exercises from there.

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Comparing my hand position to yours

Yes. You can't play the song.

Playing the tops of the keys is hard but possible, work out your fingers with grip trainers, whilst keeping up practicing to keep fast twitch muscles.

i think you have like a full hand size on me, you probably reach from Gb to A#

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That's awesome, I'm glad to hear you've kept up with it and I hope you continue to do so. Piano playing is hard, but very fulfilling. There are many styles to play, it fits in with just about any band, and there's nothing quite like completing a beautifully difficult piece you've spent time on. I've never had synthesia myself, but scales and simple songs are a solid foundation. Throw in some Hanon's and you'll be thankful when you start learning moar pieces.

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Your wrist is slightly cocked and you still have room up the keys to play. You have more coverage than you think.

Tried to imitate your hand position. It feels cramped as hell.

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maybe with more practice ill learn how to move my wrists correctly. honestly just really need a teacher to smooth things out,

learn to stretch ur pinky/thumb, seriously, ur a little bitch, my hands are tiny yet i can do that easy

Don’t stress the process, you’ll get it.

Notice I definitely can’t reach the A# above on this one, and my index finger is playing the C right at the top of the key.

ok good one
i can see the difference but i dont understand it, what exactly are you doing with your wrist that widens your hand?

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Studying to become a studio engineer. How often do you guys actively think about music theory? Currently in Theory 3 at Uni and this shit is still like hieroglyphics to me lmao

Rotating it to a more neutral position around that index finger, letting the thumb play lower and the pinky play higher. And notice again my index finger is way higher than yours to start.

Bad position:

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Good position

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Weird ass hand positioning, dawg. Work on getting your pinky to stretch out more on its own, you shouldn't have to curve your whole hand like that

I think about it anytime I’m playing or composing music
It’s really important information for any musician
And as you go into farther your field music theory will help you understand frequencies and the overtone series better and how that affects recordings and acoustics

if you happen to be in the st louis area, I could give you some lessons

Did not grow up with a musical background or raised learning an instrument so maybe that's why it's so foreign to me.

Also another question, given that I'm more focused on the engineering side of music, I have much more experience in DAWs then I do real instruments. Besides the mandatory 2years of an instrument class, will playing come up in my uni courses?

I'm just tryna fire up a DAW and work in a studio as a main goal, rather then be the artist behind the mic.

like this? hitting all the keys and it feels looser
would be down but im in west coast
yeah worst part about learning online is nothing really teaches you when you are fucking up hand and wrist positioning.

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Meh, i learned on guitar where u have to strech. turn ur hand into a claw, basically. u play with ur finger tips. tips hit the keys and nothing else

Much better. Less tension on the right side of your wrist?

yeah all around just feels better on the whole hand, thanks a lot for the advice and pictures dude.

Never heard of this mandatory 2 years of an instrument?
It depends on the school and your track but usually you’ll have to be playing some sort of instrument
It helps you better understand music if you play it also, it’s like having a coach who doesn’t play the sport. You don’t have to be good at it but still need to understand it.
There’s A LOT of people like you now a days, and what separates the good from the bad usually boils down to who is better at their instrument as inevitably they’ve spent more time dealing with music hands on
Being able to produce and not play an instrument is the norm, I sincerely advise to play an instrument. There is no harm in it and you will probably thank yourself down the road as it is extremely fulfilling.
(PS. If you want to learn chords and scales do piano not guitar)

Hit the A further up the key. It's where your finger would naturally fall if you were to play only the octave.

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Yeah that's what I'm thinking to do (piano). As it probably translates easiest to using MIDI keyboards. My uni requires two years of any instrument and another year of "applied music" which is basically you coming in every few weeks to show what you've learned outside of the regular courses, and that's graded by our music profs.

So far I've only taken one class for audio engineering and have to wait to take more. So I'm kinda stuck doing a bunch of music related things I know nothing about lmao. Music theory has been hard to grasp but when it clicks, it def helps me when I'm working on music on my own.

Any tips when it comes to going down this path? I'm willing to learn anything regarding music and am super passionate about working on it. Rather then be an artist tho I'd rather learn about DAW based stuff like mixing/mastering/etc.

I should have read the rest of the thread before posting

No worries!

no need to apologize for being helpful

You need to think of yourself as an artist when you’re working as an audio engineer. That’s the first mindset change
Another tip is pick a song and remake it. Every single detail.

I get what you're saying maybe I just phrased it wrong

Legit my dream job would be to work some 9-5 in a studio where I mix/master/ do the production side of music. I'm not the most creative person in the world and gonna drop some madlib records lmao. I've been doing my GE in uni and taking theory/music history course but nobody can seem to help me in the right direction for this career goal. Since my area is more business oriented then music.

Could you use an A octave, and use the F# as a minor third accent? Kinda like a 1st inversion without the C#

bump

Dont you have feet??

I can't believe this thread haha, but it comes as no suprise to me at all that so many Musicians would be on here aswell.

my feet play the bongos while my hands play the piano

Have your thumb on F#, pointer straight up near the top of the A and your pinky if it reaches at the top F#

>outside
Fuck you must have tiny gimp hands. Get the dreaded ‘yellow’ book of exercises for your hands and get that shit sorted.

hands are gonna be so swole after hanon! you probably cant finger a girl without her dying

The Hanon is good but it’s not the one I’m th8nking of. It’s by some crazy Ukrainian bastard I think. It’s like isometric exercises for your hands. It got my hands into professional shape in less than two weeks after I needed surgery on one of them (professional jazz pianist btw)
I can practically crack a walnut between my 3rd and 4th fingers

can you give a bit more information with your claims?

Sorry for the delay, just trawelled thorough a few boxes of old music for it.. this is the dreaded yellow book.

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I used to play through that book as well as the hanon in c and c# every day for 2 years when I was studying. Nearly killed me.

Is there something like this for guitarists?

I'm still learning but can definitely afford to learn to go faster and harder. (Actually more consistent)

cool, thanks for the info, ill be sure to pick this book up asap. any other pearls from an experienced player?

I just tried it on my piano, can do it easily by lifting my hand high above the keys and fingers pointing directly down into the keys with the index finger in between the black keys on either side.

Good luck, just don’t hurt yourself! Always take a break if shit starts hurt. Cos I promise some of those exercises will hurt if u do too much.

There’s a bunch of isometric exercises for guitarists too but I don’t know much about them. Any of em will help, as long as you practise them regularly and correctly. It should build up the muscles in the right places and stretch the right ligaments/tendons so you have a greater reach.
My reach on the piano went from just over an octave to an easy 10th which is pretty decent

isometric exercises, thats the term i needed to look for,
thank you user x
i should revisit piano, i only played enough to make the odd synth track but it was fun while i was studying more intensely... just dont have a lot of time. i already sacrifice a lot to play guitar every day

This might be cheating but have you considered substituting the 5th instead of the third? If it’s F#m play C# instead of A. However if there’s not an A played during that chord being held you risk it sounding major because the third determines the chord. It’s confusing but I can explain better maybe.

I am musically retarded and don’t know shit about chords so you are speaking gibberish to me. I have a very basic understanding of the circle of fifths and the pattern of major and minor scales

You're chords are triads made of 3 notes
Think of it like a totem poll. You're playing a

5th
3rd
1(root)

He's saying to swap out the 5th note which is C#.

Sorry meant "Play C# instead of the A"

For sure so if you take a C Major Chord it’s C E G C. When I play I often drop the E so it C G C or just the first and fifth. It’s not a true C major chord be cause the E makes it major, leaving it out can make the chord a multitude of chords if I throw an Eb somewhere while I’m playing the once major chord becomes minor. I admit it is confusing.

Yes this.

I heard that you stand up to play the piano but you bend over to Play the"organ"

Yeah theory/composition is confusing lmao
It's basically musical math but you can't check your answers unless you can play it or someone with more knowledge checks your work.

Basically there are tons of things you can do to chords in terms of swapping out individual notes that produce many different effects. Just try swapping out individual notes to experiment with your sound.

Yeah reading about music is really confusing, I never would have gotten sheet music without having a teacher treat me like a 5 year old and show me with props and a whiteboard. Thanks for the help though

would anyone know any songs that use +6 chords? lmao gotta make a progression using those for uni and would like to get some ideas on how to use them.

Barely learned about them like two weeks ago.