New here..Some bg info and a question

[Silence]

Hi guys! My name is Sara, and this is my first post here!   I've been playing the piano for about 6 years, then I took a year off and concentrated mainly on the flute. I'm back to piano now, and my left hand is suffering, to say the least. All that time with the flute made my right hand/treble clef part strenthen, but I forgot a lot of the left hand/bass clef stuff. (Such as the notes..lol.) I can figure them out, but it takes a while. I can't just look at the part and say, "That's a D" like I can with treble clef. So my question..how do I get better at reading bass clef? Should I just be patient, and keep doing what I've been doing? Oh, btw, I take one lesson per week. Thanks in advance!  

[minsmusic]

Hello Sara!

There have been some posts about learning pieces written specifically for left hand.

This is just one of them:

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=perf;action=display;num=1075128920;start=7

No, don't be patient.  Work on weaknesses.  That's what progress is all about.
When you're learning a new piece, study the left hand (bass) first.  Prepare this hand even before you look too carefully at the right hand.  

In fact, get out all the music you can, and just study the left hand.  It needs to catch up.  If we're right handed, it's hard enough for the left hand to do what it's told.  Spend some extra time 'making' it.

For other suggestions, check out this thread:

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=stud;action=display;num=1078828388

You can adapt the advice for only the left hand.  Also, that website quoted is brilliant.  

You'll be 'taming' that left hand in no time at all, if you concentrate on it!
Hope all goes well Sara.  Keep us informed of your progress.  

[rachlisztchopin]

you should get piano compositions that have a lot of bass clef action (which many do luckily) and practice reading the notes from left to right...boring but definitely will improve your weakness....also when i started piano a year ago i had played oboe and so i was used to only treble clef also...what i did was i read the bass clef as a treble clef that had been transcribed two scale degrees down; so when i saw a D on the bass clef (which would be a B if switched to treble clef without transcribing) i would just move that B note up two scale degrees and it would be a D...now bass clef comes natural to me so that obviously worked (sorry it was hard to explain and u may not understand what i was trying to say)