The SECRET to become FAST & STEADY on the PIANO

A SHORTCUT to learn to play FAST on the piano. If we cannot sit 8 hours a day at our piano, rehearsing, how do we learn to play fast and steady? Well, we just have to acquire ourselves a bad and annoying tapping habit... I'll show you how to tap the right and most beneficial way and how to transfer the tapping exercises to the piano - playing Music. By the end I'll try to play as fast as I can and we'll see how that goes...

00:00 Intro
04:03 Where & When to Tap
05:58 How to Tap Correctly
09:48 Beneficial Exercises
13:37 Transferring the Tapping to the Keys
19:36 How fast can I play (meaningless fun)

All NewJazz material is free public and for everybody. No ‘pay walls’. But you are very welcome to make a small voluntary donation, to help keep me going, at either;
or

Many warm regards from Oliver Prehn
Master in Music & Multimedia (University) - and bus driver!!!

[PedroHenrique-svum]

The way you make this kind of videos for free is not usual... Without doubts you´re the best piano teacher on this platform!!!!

[trahulytube]

Even the sound made by his tapping is musical.

[hamet]

Been doing this for around a week and my piano playing has already gotten significantly better and smoother. Thanks a lot for sharing this secret🙏👍

[etpk]

This man is like the Bob Ross for pianos!

[linux_b]

The commitment on the editing of this video. Every tap shows the finger he used!

[PhotoMakers]

This video should have millions of views! You kept my attention 100% of the time. Your voice has a nice character on it. Learning should be always like this: Funny entertainment. Congrats and thanks a ton!!

[BoredOfBills]

I've been a "lazy" blues and jazz player for years never really progressing much and this single lesson has fundamentally changed me as a player. Thank you so much.

[craigadam]

I have played the piano for years mainly classical, I tap all the time. Currently doing double trill with fingers 1-2 4-5. It’s true your fingers get quicker and stronger, yet lighter and more relaxed. Great advice, I’m newly subscribed. Love the channel.

[javimar]

There isn't a silly method at all. The agility and the strength in the fingers we can get is enormous and very useful to play and improvise in the piano. Thank you very much Oliver for your great lessons and your generosity.

[gregfam]

A truly good teacher is someone who can convey ideas simply and in a great manner with a good pace and you sir, have a real gift. I bet none of your students feel intimidated or inadequate.

[MM-rzll]

You’re finally making me feel less crazy… I started some years ago this “stupid” tapping nearly everywhere, exactly the way you are describing… and YES I confirm the great benefit I had and the surprise when finally being in front of the piano and checking the progress… thanks for sharing, thanks the way you share 👍

[-dial-a-djentertainment]

Apprx 6-7 months ago I started working on isolating each finger’s movement while relaxing the rest of my fingers and hand making sure they don’t move. It is difficult and I am slowly mastering it. Around the same time I started tapping. My focus again was isolating, finger movements as I did the tapping exercise. My playing has definitely improved. I am able to crawl up and down the piano. I feel so much more in control, I have more strength and I have more confidence in my playing abilities. I still have a ways to go and I will continue to improve.
I’m so glad I found your channel. You definitely resonate with me. And I am already learning from you. Thank you.

[themoonbubble]

An expert is only a person who can perform The fundamentals at an extremely high level...Your channel is awesome

[SamuelNasta]

In a nutshell: to be a awesome pianist, you should be a drummer

[waltway]

Please, if you are reading before watching this guy I would say to be very careful, find a safe haven first because you will forget your surroundings!
This dude is a highly professional!!!
He stops everyone on his/her way, he retains our attention 100%. You didn't even realize you are late until he finished!

[karlmccreight]

It is almost like a spiritual path: I have been very close to what you have discovered without even realizing what's right infront of my nose. I've been doodling around with pentatonic scales and scratched the surface of what you are revealing to us. I've been tapping rhythms as a school boy but it never occured to me that it could be used to improve my soloing. Your way to combine things is pretty damb creative.
Thanks again!

[ryanlyle]

One of the best piano lessons I’ve ever seen. Your tapping is hypnotic, I want it as my ringtone.

[spartan]

I started learning how to play the piano around a month ago. I've been self-teaching. Most of the stuff I've done so far are just finger exercises. Stuff to help get my fingers working together and develop strength in them. I know how to play a few parts to songs as well, but I have mostly shyed away from playing entire songs. Instead I've been picking out portions that look like they will challenge me in some specific aspect, but in a way that is realistically achievable.

A few days after I started, I actually did these types of finger exercises. I was sitting down at my workbench at work, waiting for an iPad to warm up on my heating mat so I could take the glass off. I started tapping my fingers in boredom, and I realized I could tap the fingers in both of my hands to a random tempo and try to keep it in rhythm.

From that moment on, any time I ran into a situation where I would tap my fingers, I would try to turn it into some kind of fun exercise to just waste a few minutes. Over the course of a month, I would say my playing has significantly improved because of these exercises. Now, I should clarify, I have nothing else better to do with my time, so when I'm not at work, I'm pretty much always screwing around on my digital piano. Either trying to slowly learn bits of a new song, or just doing random exercises to develop my finger strength and get them to cooperate.

But I still think these kinds of tapping exercises helped me. For a long time my playing was very hard and "spikey", and I often found it very difficult to stay in rhythm even when practicing using a metronome. Over time, I could feel my playing improve. Every day I'd begin and end practice with portions of songs I've been trying to learn, and with each session I could tell it was getting better and better. Gradually, my fingers and hands became much more relaxed. The way I started touching the keys gave me way more expressive control over the kind of sound I wanted to get from each note. Additionally, I found it much easier to play in time, or at least, if I ever fell out of time, how to gracefully bring it back in.

I think these exercises also gave me another benefit, which is the ability to pick up bits of songs a lot more easily. What used to take me 2 or 3 hours of brute force muscle memory now happens in maybe 30 or 40 minutes. I of course can't learn an entire song and play it to complete perfection in that 30 or 40 minutes of learning, but I can play a small passage of one and learn how to play it to sound very pleasing to the ear. I still struggle to play very quickly, generally anything above ~100BPM is still quite a brain teaser for me. But I can string together some very beautiful and pleasing sounds at slower tempos now, which was something I just could not do before.

I actually took some videos of myself playing to show some friends some songs I've been trying to learn. One of my friends showed a video to a friend of theirs who has been playing piano for 14 years. They saw the way I was playing and assumed I had been taking lessons for at least a year. That's how good these exercises are, and I intend to keep doing them to gradually build up my ability to play at faster tempos.

These exercises work, and if you've ever been interested in playing the piano, I think there is definitely no better way to develop finger strength, dexterity, and a sense of rhythm. Not only do these exercises make you test every single finger, they will develop a lot of muscles and tendons and condition them into trying to be as relaxed as possible when you play the piano. Which is EXTREMELY important. Tension can quite literally make playing physically uncomfortable, in addition to making many things sound harsh and spikey when you really need the notes to be soft and pleasant.

[ragtimerevival]

Honestly, Ive tried this half a year ago, along with practising scales at an increasing rate, and i have become so much faster. My ring and little finger rarely pose a problem now. I tap everywhere. While in my lectures, while watching Movies, even when working. Its a superb method!

[sunbeam_piano]

I was already tapping before watching this. I called it "Playing an Invisible Piano" . I didn't realize it actually helped