Diatonic Dexterity: Piano Warm-Ups & Exercises

Dexterity, warm-ups, routines, exercises. I know – you're already yawning. Doing the nitty gritty work of improving your technique and strengthening your fingers as a pianist is often associated with a robotic regimen of scales, arpeggios, and other repetitive exercises that aren't exactly... inspiring. But if we're serious about improving, we know it's worth it in the end, and so we plow ahead.

Now there's nothing wrong with having a very dull and repetitive warm-up routine (as long as it's focused and intentional). But I'm here to tell you that there are ways to engage these big beautiful brains of ours and have more fun during our warm-ups. It happens when we combine intentional harmonic exploration with fun twists on classic exercises..

In this intermediate course, I'll walk you through some of my favorite warm-up and dexterity exercises that will challenge your mind and your body. We'll look at scales in 10ths, 6ths, with different rhythmic and dynamic emphases as well as a variety of subdivisions. We'll learn some fun pentatonic patterns that will open your fingers up to more nimble improvisations. We'll look at some strength training exercises for the weaklings, aka the ring and pinky fingers. We'll even look specifically at some left hand exercises that will improve our independence and familiarity with common patterns.

And most importantly, we'll put the DIATONIC in Diatonic Dexterity by studying everything in multiple keys to keep your brain engaged and expand and your mental map of all the notes and chords and keys on the piano. Did I mention the play-along tracks?

So yes, it's a warm-up and technique course, but it's also a course that will change your relationship to transposing, playing by ear, and improvising because you will feel a more direct connection with everything you play. Many of the exercises can be incorporated directly into your own arrangements. By the end of this course you'll see two sluggish hands transformed into ten supple fingers ready for anything, and a musical mind that can make sense of it all.

The videos in this course are entirely visual (no sheet music) and feature falling blocks that guide you to the right notes. The videos in this course were originally created for HDpiano.com using their tools and software.