general coordination exercises? [Bob asks]

[Bob]

I've heard of percussionists learning to juggle in order to get better coordination.

Are there any general coordination exercises for pianists?

[bernhard]

Juggling is excellent for general co-ordination of the large movements (as well as most martial arts).

Coin and card tricks are the next step to fine tune it to the fingers.

Of course, the ultimate activity for total co-ordination is… Piano playing! (I’ve heard that jugglers and magicians do it to improve their co-ordination).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[MarkAllison]

I'm no expert but intuitively I would have thought that playing the piano would increase your co-ordination for piano playing.

Chang has some words on this:
https://members.aol.com/chang8828/exercises.htm

[MrRonsMusic]

Here's my 2 cents.  I don't know what style of music you play, but if you practice "stride piano" and "walking bass line" patterns you should realize significant improvement in bilateral hand movements.

Mr. Ron
https://www.mrronsmusic.com

[bernhard]

Here's my 2 cents.  I don't know what style of music you play, but if you practice "stride piano" and "walking bass line" patterns you should realize significant improvement in bilateral hand movements.

Not to mention J. S. Bach.

[Bob]

Ah.... I was just wondering what kind of response I would get.

I was thinking more along the lines of conducting exercises I guess.  I've seen a few where you move one hand up, the other down.  Or conduct a basic pattern while moving one hand up and down.

Or a finger one I putzed around with -- tap one finger and move the others in patterns in time.  It's without the piano, just a hand exercise.

[jazzyprof]

Are there any general coordination exercises for pianists?

I completely agree with Bernhard.  Playing Bach's Two-Part Inventions and Sinfonias will do wonders for your coordination.

[MrRonsMusic]

Not to mention J. S. Bach.

I agree with you Bernhard... but let's not forget Art Tatum.  Understanding that Bach was one of the world's greatest improvisors, other styles of music require different coordination skill sets!   Mr. Ron

[ted]

It's not something I do very often because I have never had much trouble with coordination. However, what I would do is play some pattern with the left hand (anything reasonably involved, say an alternating scale 5,3,4,2,3,1... up and down say, which has a period of a certain number of notes) I would play simultaneously a pattern with my right hand (again , anything will do depending on how hard I wanted it to be) with a different period.  After a number of cycles equal to the lowest common  multiple of the periods I should end in the position I started with.

As a very simple example, an alternating five-finger exercise has a period of 10 notes and an ordinary one has a period of 8 notes. Therefore you should come back to the starting position after 40 notes.

It's just a thing I invented for myself. I don't do it all the time, just if I feel I'm getting a bit sloppy. Aside from the very simple cases, once you start combining different patterns, different fingerings, different accents and different keys, it's actually a very tough exercise.