It is true that many of you may be complaining about back aches, paining muscles and tensed body as you spend hours and hours in front of your piano practicing various technicalities linked to this instrument. When you are dealing with the areas you lack at during practice, you might not realize that you have spent hours on piano. Your aching body if often storyteller for you. You may have your hands, fingers and arms aching as you play continuously or a bad back ache as a result of bad posture over piano. All of these effects are extremely painful and it may affect your practice sessions. The need is to get relaxed as you play and practice piano.
Relaxing your body at piano!
Even when you are sitting in front of piano, you can relax your muscles and body. This flexibility of relaxing while playing would enable you to feel more energized and it would ease and smooth up the process of learning to play piano. It is true that as you begin your piano practice session, you are completely relaxed at first but as you drift in to playing this beautiful instrument; it is natural to forget about your body, posture, pains and relaxation. There the situation gets tensed. Even during the passage of playing piano and even during those tough notes, it is important to keep checking your body and take relaxing intervals.
Techniques for Relaxation:
Here are some tricks and tips that piano players irrespective of their level can follow in order to keep their body in a relaxing state over piano:
Check affected areas of your body: When you are done with a practice session over piano, it is important to realize what parts of your body are aching. It could be fingers, wrist, back or many other parts that may hurt.
Relax with stretching and other exercises: Stretching your body and some other light exercising and movements can help. Before beginning the practice session and at the end of it, a light stretching of wrist, fingers and arms can help your muscles relax. Many people find it soothing to run their fingers in warm water before and after playing piano. You can learn some other light exercises that can relax your body before and after the session. Some of which include:
- Rotating your wrist
- Lifting fingers
- Touch of thumb to palm
- Bending of wrist
Keep a check on your body: Every after 10 to 15 minutes, take a break from practicing just to check your body and if there are any parts or areas that ache, stretch them or do some movement to improve the flow of blood through those areas.
Breathe well: Another important aspect of relaxation over piano is to watch your breathing. Especially when you are dealing with certain areas in your practice that are tough for you or at which you are not good enough, you would experience your breathing to go slow. This minimal breathing hinder your body relaxation and may stress certain parts. So always be aware of your breathing while you are playing piano. Proper breathing habits would not only encourage relaxation but would keep your body and mind stress-free.
Changing your position or doing something different can help your body relax. You are not bound to be practicing toughest passages all the time during your practice session. Also you may not be practicing a certain key or scale all the time. Change is important to boost your mood and can be a good way of relaxing. Include some light notes and simple tunes in your practice session that doesn’t require you to press many keys along the keyboard. Some lighter, simpler and slower tones would give you a feeling of real relaxation and would also lessen up stress on your fingers.
Environment matters a lot: A filthy place with a bad smell or a dull boring room can be your reason of stressful mind and aching body. The environment where you practice has a subtle influence on your body and mind. In order to stay relaxed during a practice session over piano, make sure that you have your piano placed in a soothing and peaceful environment where it would be easier to relax your body and mind. A tidy and pleasing environment would also improve your productivity over piano.
Take advice of your teacher: Your piano teacher has been through the process of learning and no one better than him can advise you can relax better at a piano. Follow the instructions that are given by him related to your body posture, hand position and fingering. Also ask him for some exercises that can help you relieve problem areas in your body and would improve relaxation.
Tip: Getting tensed and stressed during a piano practice is natural. This happens not only with learning an instrument but whenever you ought to learn something new and different, stress happens naturally. Do not let stress ruin everything but think of ways to overcome it. Sometimes you may not be able to get your body or mind completely relaxed, do not be tensed about it. With time and practice, things will ease up automatically.
Conclusion
Your body and mind naturally gets tensed as you learn to play piano or any other instrument. It has to happen as you are utilizing your body energy however it is important to use some relaxation techniques so that this stress and tension should not affect your ability to learn and play effectively. Your aching muscles and tensed body can be relaxed by following some techniques that we have shared here. Following these set of advises would not only relax your body but you will enjoy your time at practice and eventually will work towards becoming a pro pianist.
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