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Piano Exercises for Beginners

What type of piano exercises do you need as a beginner and how can they help you develop strength and flexibility at the piano?

When you begin playing piano, simply the act of pressing down the keys and synchronizing your fingers in addition to learning music theory and how to read notes, as well as trying to sit correctly and keep you hand position right – phew!- is usually more than enough...!

But after a while it is a good idea to start working with separate piano technique exercises to help you to build up strength, awareness and security in your playing.

If you need help to get your fingers in great shape check out: Boot Camp for Clumsy Piano Fingers A piano lesson companion course to improve your technique and more.

Movement Patterns:

One more plus (of many) with special technical exercises is that you become aware of the different movement patterns used when playing the piano.

And to recognize a pattern of notes as a movement instead of a “bunch of notes”, helps you to both read and perform music better as well as to play more beautifully without unnecessary tension.

I know there are pianists and teachers who consider technical exercises pointless and that by studying lots of repertoire and making your own exercises from the “real” piano pieces, you will learn all you need.

Even though I personally do not agree completely with this, it is a great way of learning a piece to actually work on passages, aka “passage work”, in the music itself and to make up your own exercises from it.

However- this does not apply to beginner pianists, as you need to be a really good player to begin with, to be able to make such choices, knowing what you need to work on!

Piano technique is studied in different parts:

Finger Exercises and Drills:
Exercises as opposed to Etudes, are technical exercises that introduce you to movement patterns for your hands, arms and whole body, as well as finger drills, introducing one difficulty at a time. (Not really very pretty to listen to!).
Charles-Louis Hanon wrote the famous The Virtuoso Pianist. Get your free PDF and some advice on how to practice here.
Scales, Chords and Arpeggios:
Scales, chords and arpeggios serve several purposes:
Firstly, they get you acquainted with the basic tools or elements that music is made from, which helps you understand music theory and to read music better.
Secondly, they teach us the common movement patterns we meet when learning piano pieces. It makes a huge difference, when learning a new piece, to immediately know what fingering to use, as well as what movement is required.
Thirdly, you will be able to "see" the written music as being either chords; broken or blocked, scales; or part of a scale and intervals.
Here are the 12 major and minor scales in one octave with fingering, free and printable: Piano Music Scales with Fingering
Etudes:
Even though the word means exercises as well, we say "Etudes" about exercises that are more like real pieces. Etudes are pieces that contain several difficulties at the same time, for example to make a melody be heard over a subtle accompaniment.
Some of these etudes are used as repertoire since they are really beautiful, and some are more boring. But the point with the etude is to practice technique in a more musical context, involving phrasing and musical thought, not just drills.

Here is a list of the best piano exercise books for beginners, organized to develop a great piano playing technique from the start: Develop Your Piano Playing Technique.

How to Practice Piano Exercises:

A. The All-At-Once Method:

Each day you set aside certain minutes of practicing piano exercises, in addition to learning new pieces, maintaining old repertoire, learning by heart, sight reading and improvising. If you practice 60 min. sessions in a day it could look like this:

10 minutes scales

10 min. technical exercises

10 min. work on an etude.

10 min. learn notes etc of a new piece

10 min. learn a few measures of a piece by heart

10 min. play through repertoire (any piece you know well and preferably by heart)

B. The Different-Every-Day Method:

During the week you might like to focus more on one different aspect each time:

Day 1: Technique drills and repertoire work.

Day 2: Scales, chords and arpeggios and learning a new piece.

Day 3: Etudes and memorization of an already learned piece.

Day 4: Improvise, make your own pieces, record yourself- play around!

Day 5: Perform for someone- even if only by video recording for yourself.

Day 6: Sight reading, watch DVD’s with great pianists; go to a concert (!).

Day 7: Listen to great music and read about great musicians! (By the swimming pool sipping a huge drink with an umbrella, maybe…mmm!)

C. The Don't-Wanna-Spend-too-Much-Time Method(!):

After a while when you have learned some exercises you really like and feel does good for you, put together a short piano exercise “repertoire” of about 10-15 minutes and use as a warm up every day (by heart), and then focus on your pieces for your repertoire the rest of the time.

These are just a few suggestions; try to work- if not every day- at least a few times a week with some form of technical exercises.

Piano Playing Questions and Comments

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