How to self teach good piano technique?

[yuvismahi2]

I've been trying to learn from online sources, I've managed to learn some scales and basic songs but yesterday I managed to hurt my left hand while playing scales, so it's time to learn good technique. Can you guys please help me out? to be honest, I can't even define a good technique, what is it? and how should I practice in order to archive such thing? Thanks and sorry for my mistakes, I'm still learning english!

[timothy42b]

I've been trying to learn from online sources, I've managed to learn some scales and basic songs but yesterday I managed to hurt my left hand while playing scales, so it's time to learn good technique. Can you guys please help me out? to be honest, I can't even define a good technique, what is it? and how should I practice in order to archive such thing? Thanks and sorry for my mistakes, I'm still learning english!

It would be faster and more efficient with a teacher.  It may not be completely possible without a teacher.

But if you have no choice, here's what I would suggest. 

Watch video of good players.  Do this a lot.  Really a lot.

Video yourself playing and compare.  Do this a lot.  Really a lot.  A phone is good enough, you don't need to capture tone in detail. 

Share the videos with other players and ask if they will critique.  Make sure the videos contain your posture and motions, especially the hands. 

Some of technique is motions and some is choice of fingerings.  Ask for help. 

[keypeg]

Look up PianoOlogist.  Find the series where he teaches how to use the body at the piano at a fundamental level (there are about 40 small exercises) and DO what he says, over a number of days or weeks, gradually.  Stop scales.  They are not "beginner things" because of what is involved. 

[timothy42b]

  Stop scales.  They are not "beginner things" because of what is involved.

The famous pedagogue Abby Whiteside

https://www.amazon.com/Abby-Whiteside-Piano-Playing-Indispensables-ebook/dp/B001ULCEZM

said scales are not for beginners, they need to be more advanced before there is any benefit.

[j_tour]

The famous pedagogue Abby Whiteside [clip unneeded information] said scales are not for beginners, they need to be more advanced before there is any benefit.

That's good.

Yes, using scales as an abstraction, or as elements to be used in improvisation, for example, is indeed IMHO not for a beginning student.  Yes, the beginner should know all of the correct fingerings, in all keys, but that doesn't begin to encompass how scales are used in compositions or in improvisation.

There's a world of difference between learning material which employs scalar fragments, in thirds, sixths, or at the octave, or even at the unison in either hand, and becoming an adept technician at isolating that material and extending it.

That's what I've found, anyway:  running scales in any configuration, in an ad hoc fashion, is pretty much it's own technique, which has many applications, as one can see just by a brief look at the piano literature, but IMHO it's not an end in itself unless one is using the material in improvising. 

So, you can play a lot of music that uses a lot of scalar passages, and still not be a master of running scales in an academic fashion.

Depends on what you want:  play repertoire,  pass examinations, or be a monster improv person. 

I'd say, choose one of those, and do that.

[timothy42b]

So, you can play a lot of music that uses a lot of scalar passages, and still not be a master of running scales in an academic fashion.

Yes, particularly in the standard variations like Hands Together Contrary Motion 4 octaves etc. In at least 24 keys at tempo. 

Abby's opinion was that beginners were not ready for scales.  You'd have to read her book to get the full explanation, but that's not a bad idea anyway.  I'm a fan, not everybody is though.

Gieseking and Leimer's book used scales for teaching something specific:  how to listen to yourself, a skill that is underappreciated and the fundamental for a lot of learning.  Because that was the purpose of scales, they recommended hand separate, slow, and with careful attention to strict evenness of tone and strict evenness of rhythm.  That makes sense to me also.