Bench Height

[Daniel_piano]

Hi all
I've a problem.
I can't retain the natural arch of the arm and keep the tip of the elbow below the key level while I play, this because I can't find the riight height I should sit at the piano.

I was looking the Freeing the Caged Bird VHS by Barbara Lister-Sink and she plays with her elbows below the white keys level as this will guarantee that the weight is transferred properly from the forearms to the fingers.

The problem is that I can't find the right height.
I've found out I have a long torso and my upperarms are short.

When I sit at my bench (minimum height 18 inches) the tip of my elbows (in playing position) are at a 26.3 inches height from the floor and the tip of the white keys in my piano are at a 26 inches height. from the floor
This means my elbow are above white keys level instead of below.

The minimum height of all the benches I've seen is 16 inches and I don't know what to do to find the right height and maintain the natural arch of the arm.

Of course all these measures are approximate as a friend of mine helped me measuring them but it's not easy to be exact especially when measuring the distance from the floor of the albews while in playing position.
I've tried to follow the suggestion to see by yourself if your arms seem parallel when in playing position and they don't.

What do you think the right height should be and how many inches below the tip of the white keys should my elbows be?

I don't know what to do.
I'm not able to maintain the natural arch of the arm Thomas Mark writes about or to do the basic stroke Barbara Listen-Sink talks about.

Thanks for your help
Dany

[Bacfokievrahms]

All I can say short of getting a new bench is to make sure your shoulders are in the correct place?

[gkatele]

make sure your shoulders are in the correct place?

Interesting comment. I find that the more I "worry" about getting through a passage, the higher my shoulders go. Of course, the higher they go, the tenser I am, and the less likely I am to succeed getting through the passage. A CONSCIOUS effort to relax them, and as a result, my back, legs and calves, makes all the difference.

I doubt that 0.3 of an inch in bench height would make that much of a difference. You can change that elevation just with how you sit.


George

[Bacfokievrahms]

Ah yes I have the same problem of tensing my shoulders whenever I get to a hard passage. Actually with my tiny repertoire the only passage that I find hard is the repeated section of Rachmaninoff's G minor prelude (repeated exactly, not thematically). since I've begun playing that part at Mei-Ting Sun's tempo and i've begun to fear the left-hand jumps near the end so I tense up, lose feeling in my left hand and I miss them half the time and when I don't miss them my arm weight is very poorly distributed and it's pretty much all muscle.