I want to see you try one of these exercises out! Send me recordings or tag me in your Instagram stories! 🎹 Better yet, tag your friends and lets all warm up together!
I use these warm ups to get the blood flowing from the arms to the fingers but it also acts as a good exercise for understanding the combination of finger articulation and supple arms.
You don't need to go through all these exercises to warm up, pick and choose your favourite! Don't forget to start at a slow or comfortable tempo!
All these exercises should span at least an octave. You can do HS, HT, contrary motion, parallel motion, different articulation, different keys, different parts of the keyboard. It's very versatile and up to your imagination!
outside fingers = 1 and 5
Inside fingers = 2,3, or 4 depending on your chord’s fingering
Level 1 - Standing on a finger
Lift and drop the hand onto a single finger. Great for building good hand Posture! Add in some wrist circles to really loosen up the joints!
Level 2 - lift and drop chords
You can add in some wrist circles here too! Remember not to keep pushing down on the keys after you have played them
Level 3- Triads outside-inside
Drop onto the outside fingers and as your wrist rolls inward towards the piano, let it play the middle finger for you. Its essentially a two-note slur gesture. Listen carefully for a clean release of the outside fingers
Level 4- Triads, inside-outside
Start with dropping and standing on the inside finger and then play the outside fingers with either a finger articulation or with a slight inward push from the elbow. Listen carefully for a clean release of the middle finger
Level 5 and 6 - Triads, outside-inside-outside
This exercise is great in learning how to find your personal combination of finger articulation, arm weight, and use of wrist/elbow. This can be practiced with just the use of fingers (mindfully of course) or adding in arm weight and/or wrist and elbow to help play with clarity and speed.
level 7- Triad with wrist circles
Great for learning how to use arm weight to walk through notes. Opens up the wrist, elbows, and shoulders. Teaches you how to combine larger arm gestures with finger articulation for added clarity. Listen closely for clean and clear releases of notes.
Level 8-13: same idea as Level 2-7 but with 4 note chords.
Level 14- Alternating note pattern
Play each note with clarity and precision. This is a great exercise for learning to combine rotation, finger articulation, and arm weight. Try not to let the finger fly off the keys, keep the arms relaxed.
Give these warm up exercises a try! Tag me!
Happy Practicing!
Michelle
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