starting a piece hands together

[dalirus]

I'm a 19 year old student that's been playing for a year..well 2 semesters really.  I never really had the chance to learn piano when I was younger.  So, now I'm in college and I saw that the offer a piano class, I had to take it.   And I've been repeating it.  I've been working hard despite my tedious other classes. 

Well, the start of this term...my professor assigned me Beethoven's Sonatina in G.  I started it the usual--playing the piece hands separately.  When I told her, I've only gotten half the 1st movement's melody, she told me I should start, starting a piece hands together to help me with my reading and musical understanding.  Is this advisable? 

[gerryjay]

hey dalirus!

welcome!

as far as i´m  concerned, it´s not a good idea to start a piece of your present level HT. there are two main reasons: first, you would loose the oportunity of develop your technique working HS; second, you would probably take forever to solve it.

work HS and go fine. to help you with your reading, work on easier materials (way easier i must say). thus, you are able to control and coordinate everything (or at least a great part of it). about your musical understanding, read a lot, listen a lot music, play a lot of music, analyse a lot...well, you got the idea .

best regards!

[lostinidlewonder]

Too many people try to divide practicing the piano as either hands together or hands separate. In fact you should never really do hands separate by itself for too long unless it is a technical/fingering issue.

Too many people waste too much time doing hands separate work, instead you should always try to play both hands immediately. Practicing with Both hands DOES NOT require that you play all the notes in the score, perhaps you will only play a couple of notes on strong beats in the LH, or perhaps you will miss out a few notes t make it easier to start BH with, then you build upon that.

[ophely]

I think it's a good idea...but not immediately..
you should read it first once or twice withou playing, than, if you're a good reader, you'll see by yourself if your able to do it.
It's by things like that that I've  made a lot of progress.(to read- not to play)

[guendola]

Music only works well with HT but it requires that you are able to play it HT. If you have to figure out each single note, it will take more time to start HT but there is a simple way to learn HT without making mistakes that will be engraved in your memories forever: Play extremely slow unless you aren't sure, you can play faster without making random mistakes.

My teacher has a concept of three different levels of tempo: Very slow, flowing and original tempo. Very slow means note by note, regardless of rhythm, only notes that have to be played at the same time should of course be played at the same time. Flowing means any tempo but rhythmically correct. Original tempo is obvious

So you start very slowly until you know what you are doing, then start "flowing" for small parts - start at a difficul part and work your way through the piece while playing parts together where it makes sense. Always pay attention to musical expression. you are playing very slowly, so you might even have time to analyse the music while playing. Find the correct phrasing, decide where you can breathe, take a rest, speed up, find uncomfortable fingering, eliminate physical stress (not all tension, some, even high tension, can be necessary for the music - ask your teacher when in doubt), etc.

When you have mastered "flowing speed", it is the moment to start HS as well, if you realise that you are far away from the original tempo. Again in small chunks, use the metronome to find the highest tempo in which you can play a part well three or four times in a row, do that every day. After a couple of days or weeks you will be able to play each hand faster than needed (a well known guy on the web suggests 130-150%). This is when you start playing HT again and finish the work (attention, this can take another few years but technically you are done now).

I also agree with ophely, just reading music is very good too. Of course you must be able to get a basic idea of the music from reading, otherwise it is useless. you won't hear the music in your head so soon but you can see where it goes up, down, changes key, becomes faster, louder etc. It is possible to see the structure much better while reading without playing. And you will learn a lot more by reading when you have more experience. It can help to read at the piano and play a few notes to get a better understanding.