playing faster

[amethyst]

I've heard that they key for playing really quickly is having your arms and hands completely relaxed while you play,and that there are special excercises in order to manage this.Does anyone have any such excercises to suggest,or any link about this?I think I'd really be able to play a lot better if I managed to be more relaxed while playing.

[justliam]

Finding a way to relax your hands while playing is just something you need to think about when you play. If you want to play fast the best things to do are to exercise your fingers through scales or Bach pieces and really lift your fingers, build some strength.  The second thing if your learning a particular piece or section is to practise over and over again slowly, even if it seems stupid slowly.  Set your self a time limit and do over and over for that length of time, eventually, if your fingers a re good enough you should be able to play at speed.  As for relaxing just think about it, when you ever tense up, don't.

[alzado]

And the obvious--  not having to look at your hands or at the keys. 

Of course, for two octave jumps, looking is better than missing.

[amethyst]

Well I don't look at my hands while playing and I do practise a lot on excersices to build strength and on scales.I can also play quickly pieces that I've practised a lot on,but the thing is,professional pianists seem to be very relaxed even when they play extremely difficult parts that require great speed and big jumbs,so sure there must be something more to do in order to relax?My cusin told me that in university his teacher made him practise nearly completely on relaxing excersices the whole past year and now he can play even very difficult pieces without much difficulty,but I can't get in touch with him for the moment in order to ask him what these exsercises where.