Piano Posture Infographic

Do you teach “Piano Posture” in your studio? Some methods start their Primer books with a basic “this is how you are supposed to sit at the piano” model. Pictures might illustrate how far away to sit, or how a student should hold their hands. Pictures like this should look familiar to most piano teachers:

It says “sit tall,” but do you see how much the head/neck juts out over the shoulders? This is the kind of posture that has gotten me into trouble over the years!

This fall I’ve decided to make “Piano Posture” a stronger focus during lessons. The typical drawings that you find in books sometimes don’t really cut it, and recently I came across a great infographic from Hoffman Academy that details the hows and whys of good piano posture:

This infographic is just the beginning: in Joseph Hoffman’s blog article he details each item on the chart and explains how to achieve better a better posture. I liked the article so much that I printed out the explanations to hand out to some of my intermediate piano students during lessons. Bonus: Mr. Hoffman has a PDF version available on his blog!

Piano posture is so incredibly important, especially for teachers. Staying cognizant of your own posture can be difficult sometimes, especially while constantly reaching up/over to point to a student’s music. Repetitive motion injuries are common among professional musicians simply because of the nature of the job — and music teachers can sometimes be at an even higher risk.

… but that’s a topic for another day. I hope you find this infographic helpful! Happy Teaching!

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