subject: Piano Lessons - Your Piano Bench Is Too High [print this page] Piano Lessons - Your Piano Bench Is Too High
You may not know that your piano bench is too high. Why would I say this? What most people don't know is that the home model piano bench, the kind that matches your piano and has a bench seat that opens for music storage inside, is too high for about 98% of the population. The reason is that home-model piano benches are designed for children ages four to six. The manufacturers never tell you that.
I found out about this during music school while pursuing my piano degree. A two weeks into my first semester, my teacher took one look at me and my hands while I was playing and said, "You're sitting too high." Since I was sitting at the piano on the matching bench provided, I thought "Well, what am I supposed to do?" We spent the next fifteen minutes with me kneeling on the floor in front of the piano, and for the first time in my nine years as a player, my hands dropped into the correct position.
Imagine my shock! Here I was, having completed nine years of piano lessons and managed to be a good enough player to get into college with it and all along I had never known anything about sitting at the wrong height! Once that change was made to a lower seat, I was astonished at how much more comfortable I was! After just one experience of sitting at the correct, that is, lower height, I swore I'd never go back to sitting on a regular bench again.
It was revolutionary for me to finally sit a the correct seat height because it completely altered the angle of my hands, arms, back and all the leverage in my body. I could finally let my hands and wrists relax while the weight of my arms did the work, which is what is supposed to happen. Nine years of sitting at the wrong heigh had caused tremendous hand problems. My teacher and I then spent the next ten months undoing and correcting those hand problems. Since the majority of the hand problem was associated with sitting at the wrong height, it was amazing for me to finally play relaxed and without pain for the first time in years!
If you watch top-flight classical players, you will see that they sit on professional model piano benches that are adjustable. Almost always, these players will walk out on stage, sit down on the bench and adjust it down. Since these cost about $400, they are not something that the average person who owns a used piano that's been in the family for years is going to know about. In fact, most piano players, unless they are professionals, don't know about the seat-height issue and adjustable benches.
For adults, home-model piano benches are far too high. In fifteen years of teaching, I found that the only segment of the population that is comfortable on a standard piano bench is kids aged four to six. Even the eight-year-olds were too tall to sit on the same bench.
If you have a home-model piano bench and you are now wondering what to do, contact me through my website and I'd be happy to give you some assistance that addresses the height of the players in your house. There's not one solution that works for everyone, so I'd be happy to address any individual questions you may have.
