In order to play notes on the piano and not trip over your own fingers, there are methods shown on the staff to help you know which finger (or thumb) to use to start playing the notes you see written.

Hold your hands up in front of you (palms pointed away from you). Spread your fingers apart. Look at your left hand. Beginning with your little finger, this finger is called #5.

Now look at the thumb of your left hand. The thumb is called #1. There are five fingers and five numbers, one for each finger (or thumb). What number would you guess would be assigned to your pointer finger?

Answer = #2

How about your ring finger?

Answer = #4

And, how about your middle finger?

Answer = #3

Do the following exercise.

• Wiggle your #5 finger.

• Wiggle your #1 finger.

• Wiggle your #2 finger.

• Wiggle your #3 finger.

• Wiggle your #4 finger.

It takes some practice for any student learning to play the piano to do this. It's not easy to think about wiggling one finger at a time and having your brain tell the nerves for just that one finger to move (wiggle). With some practice, you will be able to do this without having to concentrate on doing it.

Now look at your right hand. It is also numbered in the same way as your left hand.

• Thumb is 1

• Pointer is 2

• Middle is 3

• Ring is 4

• Little is 5

Repeat the exercise above using your right hand.

Wiggle Those Fingers . . .

For the final part of this lesson, we are going to practice wiggling fingers by typing.

Place your hands on your computers typing keyboard. With your left hand, place your fingers accordingly.

Now add your right hand to the keyboard in the following way.

Type the following and when you see the letter "X", hit the space bar with your left hand thumb. Also, when you see the letter "O", hit the space bar with your right hand thumb and do not type any of the spaces shown in the following message. Begin typing:

AAAA XXXX SSSS XXXX DDDD XXXX FFFF XXXX
OOOO JJJJ OOOO KKKK OOOO LLLL OOOO ;;;; OOOO.

Continue to type this exercise for 3 minutes.

That's it, you're done. "Bookmark!" this page in your browser and practice Lesson Seven from beginning to the end for five days. Don't skip anything. The purpose of this lesson is to train your brain to respond to moving any one finger at a time. It takes about ninety days for your brain to strengthen a nerve pathway from itself to 1 finger of your choice.

Doing this exercise for five days will help strengthen the pathways and get you a good start on finger control. Remember, "Practice does not make perfect but it does give you more confidence. And, confidence is nice to have."

Well it's Show Time! In this lesson we are going to put it all together. Don't panic!. We will go slow and explain fully.

Look at the staff above. You will be playing with your left hand first in measure number 1. In measure number 2, you will be playing with your right hand. Then in measure 3 you will be playing with both hands together. Finally, in measure 4 you will be ending with both hands together.

Place the 5 th finger of your left hand on low "C" of your keyboard. Low "C" is 7 white keys below (to the left of) middle "C". Look at the keyboard above to help you find low "C". It is marked with a number 5. Now, place the number 1 finger (your thumb) of your right hand on middle "C". It is marked as always and also with a number 1. Your hands are now in the correct starting position to play this song.

Notice in measure 3 that you will need to adjust both hands to the right to change to new finger positions. The number 1 finger (thumb) of you left hand will start on note "A" below middle "C". The number 3 finger of your right hand will start on note "A" above middle "C". The whole purpose of finger positioning is so you don't run out of fingers when you get to measure number 4. If you try and keep your fingers in the position as when you started playing the song (you can see by trying it yourself), that you would run into problems trying to play measure numbers 3 and 4.