Posture, Hand & Finger Numbers
Round as if holding an apple, wrist loose, thumb is 1, pinky is 5. The exercise calls a finger — you press the key.
Builds on: 0.1 Your Instrument & MIDI
Sitting
Sit on the front half of the bench, feet flat, with the keyboard at the height where your forearms are level and your elbows hang a little in front of your body. Too low and the wrists collapse; too high and the shoulders creep up. Everything that follows — speed, evenness, not hurting — starts here. A laptop keyboard on a desk is fine for reading lessons; for the technique lessons, sit at the instrument.
The hand: an apple, not a claw
Let your arm hang loose, then lift the hand to the keys without changing its shape: the fingers stay gently curved, as if resting on a ball, and the wrist floats level with the hand — neither dropped below the keys nor arched above them. Play from the fingertip (the pad, just behind the nail), and let the weight of the arm, not a poke from the finger, put the key down. Tension in the thumb and a collapsed wrist are the two habits every teacher spends years correcting; catch them in week one.
Finger numbers
Both hands are numbered the same way, from the thumb outward: 1 thumb · 2 index · 3 middle · 4 ring · 5 pinky. Sheet music prints these little numbers above or below the notes, and the exercises in this course show them on the keys. They are not suggestions: a good fingering is the difference between a passage that flows and one that trips on itself, and the numbers you learn here are the standard ones.
The C position
Rest the right thumb on middle C (the C nearest the middle of the keyboard, left of the two black keys) and let the other four fingers fall on D, E, F and G. Do the same with the left hand one octave lower: pinky on C, thumb on G. This five-finger position is where the first dozen lessons live. Look at the two hands: they mirror each other, thumbs in the centre. That symmetry is why the same finger number means the same distance in both hands, though it means a different note.
Aching in the forearm or a burning wrist means tension, not progress. Shake the hands out, drop the shoulders, and play slower and softer. Five relaxed minutes teach more than an hour of gritted teeth.
Now the exercise: it names a hand and a finger; you press the key that finger sits on in the C position. No reading yet — this is about the hand learning where it is.
🎹 Exercise — Finger Call
Both hands in C position. The prompt names a hand and a finger number; press the key that finger is resting on. The key is highlighted with its number — later lessons will take the hint away.
- Right hand first, up and down; then left hand, out from the pinky.
- Then the fingers come in a scrambled order — keep the hand still and let only the named finger move.
Press the highlighted key to begin — any input works.
🎹 Exercise — Mirror Hands
Both hands together: the same finger number in each hand at the same time — thumbs, then index fingers, and so on. The two notes must sound together.
Press the highlighted key to begin — any input works.