You don’t have to be sitting at the piano to sharpen your skills. Below, piano teacher Ryan C. shares five off-bench piano exercises that will help transform your piano playing for the better…
Playing the piano is a very physical activity, and like any physical activity, stretching plays an important role in keeping your muscles flexible and at their prime.
Not only this, but as any practiced pianist knows, the intense mental focus required for a good practice tends to make your body feel tired after a while.
In the article below, I’ll be outlining a few off-bench piano exercises and stretches that will help increase your flexibility and activate your muscles prior to playing.
Some of them are good for your full-body and mental health. Throughout all of these piano exercises, be sure not to over-stretch. Instead, only do as much as feels comfortable without strain.
What Are Some Piano Exercises?
Some of the best piano exercises for beginners include:
- The Five Finger Scale
- Full scales
- Chords
- Broken chords exercises
- Warm up exercises
- Hands independence activities
- Hanon piano exercises and techniques
- Triads
- Reputation exercises
All of these piano technique exercises can help you to become a better piano player. However, when it comes to the best piano exercises for beginners, it’s important that you don’t overlook the finger exercises for piano you can do when there’s not even a piano nearby. Off-bench piano exercises are incredibly helpful in strengthening your hands and improving your flexibility.
Not sure where to start? Ask your piano instructor about the best beginner piano exercises. Of course, watching videos about hand placement, rhythm, and other aspects of playing the piano can help you as you start your journey, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmqzssofur0
10 Off-Bench Piano Exercises to Strengthen Fingers
One of the best ways to improve your piano playing is to practice regularly. But finding time to sit down at the piano can be difficult.
That’s why we’ve put together a list of off-bench exercises that you can try next time you’re short on time (or are missing a piano!). These exercises will help improve your technique and musicianship, so you can come back to the bench ready to tackle anything!
1. Arms Out, Palms Up
Simply put your arms out horizontally to your sides and slowly pull your fingers down toward the ground. You should feel this immediately in the muscles surrounding your elbow.
If you don’t feel it, try slowly lifting your arms up and stretching your fingers downwards. I love this piano exercise and do it fairly consistently. It also looks hilarious to anyone watching because it doesn’t look like you’re actually doing anything.
2. Extend Arm Forward, Pull Back on Finger Tips
Place one arm in front of your body with your palm down, take your other hand and grab the fingertips of the extended hand, then slowly stretch your fingers toward the sky.
This stretch helps increase flexibility of the forearm below the wrist on the palm-side. Repeat for both hands.
This piano exercise is similar to the “Arms Out, Palms Up,” but works different muscles. Rather than stretching the elbow and lower forearm, this exercise stretches the upper forearm.
3. Go Swimming
Seriously, this is probably one of the best exercises a pianist can do. Not everyone has access to a pool, but if you do, (and have a few extra dollars laying around), pick up a buoy.
You can use the buoy to make your legs float and focus solely on swimming with your arms. This is excellent for stretching your arms out before or after some intense piano playing.
Swimming works nearly all upper-body muscles, which makes it ideal for pianists. Additionally, a great workout may substantially increase your ability to learn faster. Check out this article for some insight.
4. Try Rock Climbing (Every Once in a While)
Rock climbing is really great for building strong hands and fingers. This is especially important for composers, like Brahms, who often composed music with big chords, octaves, and so on.
A few of my friends at school rock climb consistently and have incredibly strong fingers, which works great for some of the pieces they’re playing. However, rock climbing does cause your forearms and hands to get really tight for about a day afterwards.
If you’re going to start rock climbing to try to build your finger strength, I recommend you only go once, maybe twice per week at most. Anything beyond that becomes counter-productive and results in tight and fatigued forearm and hand muscles.
5. Finger Tips of Both Hands Together
Curve your hands and connect them fingertip to fingertip around an imaginary grapefruit (or softball, baseball, etc.) depending on your hand size. Apply very slight pressure to each fingertip and force your first knuckle to remain firm and not collapse.
Slowly lift one fingertip at a time (for instance, lift both your 2nd fingers off each other) then reconnect them to each other. Feel the pressure on each fingertip.
Repeat this process for every finger on your hand, and eventually start doing two non-consecutive fingers at a time.
This piano exercise is tricky and takes some practice, but the main goal here is to activate the muscles of the hand prior to playing. It’s actually a really great warm up too!
6. Clapping and Tapping Rhythms
Rhythm is just as important as the actual playing. You should try clapping and tapping out rhythms as part of your sight-reading strategy.
Before you play a piece of music, take a look at the key signature and rhythm, Tap out everything you plan to perform so you can get an idea of how the music will feel.
7. Shadow Playing
Shadow playing is something a lot of pianists do to help them improve their abilities at measuring distances and anticipating fingering. You can do this silently on the keys, but it’s best to remove the keys and take them totally out of the equation.
This removes the distraction of creating the proper tones and staring down at piano keys, instead helping you focus on counting, intervals, and where your fingers should be.
8. Finger and Arm Stretches
Some of the best piano finger exercises aren’t exercises at all – but are instead stretches.
Think about it this way – you wouldn’t go for a run without stretching first. You wouldn’t hit the gym without making sure your muscles were warmed up. So why are you attempting to play the piano without getting a good warm-up in first?
This can help prevent overuse injuries that often arise as you start playing piano.
An easy way is to do a few behind-the-back arm stretches. Hold the position for 30 seconds, then move to the other arm. For your fingers, take each one and bend it backward. Hold it there for around 10 seconds per finger.
Note that this technique should not hurt your fingers in any way. You just want to get a good stretch in!
Another helpful stretch you can do to complete your piano practice routine is the wrist bend. To do this, you’ll make a closed fist with your thumb beneath your other four fingers. Gently bend your wrist down until you can feel the stretch in both your wrists and thumbs.
9. Make Musical Flashcards
Another one of the best exercises to improve piano technique is to make flashcards to help you memorize key aspects of playing the piano.
For example, you can make flashcards to help you practice intervals, locate landmark notes, memorize key signatures, practice random chord selections, and more.
10. Use a Stress Ball
You don’t have to be stressed to use a stress ball! In fact, squeezing a stress ball is one of the best piano finger exercises you can do. Squeezing a stress ball will increase the strength and stamina in your hands, allowing you to play the piano longer without getting tired.
What Should a Beginner Pianist Practice?
In order to improve your piano playing skills, you need to practice regularly – even if you don’t have access to a piano. These exercises are a great way to start, but don’t forget to incorporate other types of practice as well.
Be sure to challenge yourself with new pieces and techniques on a regular basis in order to continue progressing as a musician. Of course, always get the advice of your piano lessons teacher before you start any new piano exercises, too!
These piano exercises and stretches are designed to help you warm up or recover from some serious piano practicing. I hope that they help you as much as they’ve helped me!
Thank you for reading. If you have any questions / comments, please feel free to post them below and I’ll respond as soon as I see them!
Post Author: Ryan C.Ryan C. teaches piano, ear training, and music theory. He is a graduate of San Diego State University with a B.M. in piano performance. Learn more about Ryan here!
Brooke Neuman