This series of exercises have been exceptionally useful for me, personally, during my technical training.

First Series: No Held Notes

The first series of exercises (where no note is being held) is extremely useful for developing very fine motor skills and the hand musculature needed for delicate and well-controlled playing, especially when it comes to the fourth and fifth fingers. In the early stages of learning these exercises, I would highly recommend slowing the video down using the speed feature in the bottom right hand corner of the player so that you can follow along very comfortably. The initial purpose of this exercise is absolute not speed, but rather delicacy of touch, and of course, finger independence. Therefore, set the speed of the video to however slow it is required for you to be able to comfortably play along. I would also recommend pausing often. The music is shown at the top of the screen so you can go over a segment as many times as necessary until you feel comfortable and confident. Then you can start the video a few seconds earlier and play along.

Here are the most important principles to remember while practicing with these exercises. You must follow these principles to avoid injury and to ensure efficient improvement:

1. Your wrist and arm must remain relaxed. There must be no tension in your wrist while you play.

2. You must play quietly. This will train the finest muscles of the hand.

3. You must be very flexible with your speed. If you are struggling to keep up, slow the video down or pause it and play by yourself as many times as you need.

4. It is very easy to become confused and lose track. This is absolutely normal and it’s part of the process of clarifying finger independence in your brain. Don’t get frustrated; reset, restart at whatever tempo ensures your complete freedom and comfort as you play.

You can expect it’ll take at least a few weeks before you can play all of these exercises comfortably and confidently.

Second Series: With Held Notes

This second series is recommended for intermediate to more advanced players. There is more risk of injury with these exercises if not done correctly; ensure that you follow these principles closely.

Fundamentally, the approach to practicing this series should be very similar to the principles of the first: relaxed, free, with flexibility of tempo and an abundance of patience. The difficulty with these exercises is of course, ensuring that the held note remains held. Your initial instinct when you fail to hold the held note will be to assume you are simply not pressing down hard enough. This is an incorrect assumption. It takes very little force to hold any one note down. The reason you will fail to hold the notes from time to time is simply because the brain fails to make an accurate distinction between which notes to hold and which notes to lift. And in fact, the challenge here has more to do with which notes to lift rather than which notes to hold. So you will find occasionally, in some moments where the wrong finger lifts, your instinct will be to use increased force to hold it down. This will of course, introduce strain and tension. Avoid using excessive force at all costs. Do not compensate for failures by pushing harder. If the wrong finger lifts, simply reset, restart, and try again. This is training your brain to differentiate not only finger independence in terms of pressing a note, but also in lifting them, which is a far too often forgotten detail of piano playing. Complete control and independence of fingers in both pressing and lifting is especially important in playing polyphonic music (multi-layered), such as Bach’s fugues for example.