Hand independence

[saekwolth]

Hello everyone!!

       I'm looking for some hand independence exercise book. I'd like to improve this technique. Could you give me some guidelines on books or authors?

best

[gerryjay]

Hello everyone!!
I'm looking for some hand independence exercise book. I'd like to improve this technique. Could you give me some guidelines on books or authors?
best

dear saekwolth:
if you want perfect hand independence and coordination, there is an author that, above all other, can provide you material to study: johann sebastian bach. depending of your current skills, look for:
- two-part inventions;
- three-part inventions;
- preludes and fughettas;
- the well-tempered clavier.
notice that this order is not rigid: some three-part inventions are tougher than many wtc pieces, and other are smoother than the hard two-part ones.

exploding this concept, go for imitative repertory in general: lots of baroque music, but also 19th and 20th century music, such as mendelssohn's opus 35, shostakovich's opus 87, hindemith's ludus tonalis.

best!

[richard black]

Just to add to gerryjay's excellent advice, when you've exhausted that lot have a look at some Godowsky.

[gerryjay]

hi, richard!
that's the path, isn't it? it's cool to know you agree with that. 

about godowsky, do you mean the studies after chopin or something else?

best!

[richard black]

do you mean the studies after chopin or something else?

Principally those, of course, though plenty of his other pieces have some, er, interesting bits.

Whenever I want to feel really, really incompetent I pull a volume of the Chopin/Godowsky off the shelf and try a couple.....

[gerryjay]

Whenever I want to feel really, really incompetent I pull a volume of the Chopin/Godowsky off the shelf and try a couple.....

 

nah, for the sake of my mental sanity, it is in a missing-key locker, together with sorabji, boulez' sonatas, some liszt and some ligeti. perhaps in my second-to-come-next life, i'll open that...

best!

[scottmcc]

agree with all the choices listed above--they're all deceptively difficult!

hand independence is a tricky topic.  contrary motion is actually one of the few skills where the hands are doing the exact same thing (just in mirror image), and just about everything else has the hands doing different things.  for instance...to play a scale with both hands together, your right hand will play 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5, and the left will play 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1.  but of course, mentally it's easy to make your hands play the same notes, even though your fingers are doing different tasks.

for making your hands do independent tasks, just about any repertoire will do, but of course focusing on contrapunctal works will aid in that.  the trouble with that is that contrapunctal stuff is difficult.  an easy waltz or other such piece with a steady left hand pattern will also challenge you to make your hands work independently, if you're not at the the level to tackle one of the inventions (they're actually not easy at all).

[gerryjay]

dear scott:
i mostly agree with you: to keep a steady background left-hand while the melody is flowing above - as in a waltz - requires great independence, and - in that way - many pieces of the repertory presents you at least different articulation in both hands, what requires this kind of control as well.

however, i must disagree in one point: if someone can recognize where each note is at both the score and the piano, s/he is ready to play bach's first two-voice invention.

best!

[arumih]

Hey,

I noticed the author never said what sort of piano experience he/she has...if you're at the beginning stages and you haven't done these yet...scales in contrary motion do help, some are just mirror images in terms of fingering true, but others like F major and B flat major do have differences in fingering and depending on where you're coming from this may help in developing hand independence. Also, playing one hand legato, the other staccato and also one hand piano, the other forte to me helped sort of with developing 'brain' independence. Even though both hands are moving in the same direction, different actions are being done, and again in the beginning stages this could be of some use I think. At least for me they were useful.

About the inventions...I have to agree/disagree with you gerry. I'm for better want of a word an "intermediate" student. I'm no teacher, true, but to me the inventions can be as hard or as easy as you make them. Reading the notes is simple indeed, and playing at a slow speed will develop hand independence and is not overly difficult. They do sound nice at a slow speed, but at faster speeds they come alive so to speak and that's where the real challenge (and difficulty and frustration!) lies. 

[saekwolth]

Hello everyone!

          Thank you in advance for your responses. I forgot introducing myself. My name is Miguel Espinosa. Right now my piano level could be medium, but the problem is that I learnt by myself and I develop much more my right hand than my left hand. So I can play difficult things with my right hand but not with my other hand. This is FRUSTRATING. So, I'm working on improve my left hand technique and I want to do it in the right way, by working scales, arpeggios, chords, rhythm, finger independence, and hand independence (Feel free to point anything else if I'm forgetting it).

So the main problem is that I cannot start with very difficult scores... Any proposition?

best,

Miguel

[hikky]

if someone can recognize where each note is at both the score and the piano, s/he is ready to play bach's first two-voice invention.

I, a beginner, can recognize where all the notes are and whatnot, and I'm trying to learn the first invention, and it's really challenging for me. I would imagine it will take me a month or more if I even have the technical ability to learn it at all right now....

[etcetra]

also you can try improvising on a a blues scale while your LH plays a boogie woogie bass pattern..

[gerryjay]

dear hikky:
welcome!

i didn't say that would be easy. the first confrontation with imitative texture is difficult because we normally don't have much experience with that, and we lay on our previous experience in the process of learning something new. think about how much music you listened all your life, and what part of that is imitative?

this piece is the best way i know for such an introduction. it's clear and straightforward, although the process of learning it takes time. it changes from person to person: a month, half a year? anyway, after concluding it, a second shot (normally, the fourth invention) will cost less than 50% of your effort, and so on.

notice, please, that i presume that you have a good teacher, who uses a proper approach. without that, it turns into a nightmare, and that's the main cause of so many players that hate bach, or think that bach is the most difficult thing in the world. btw, if you want some tips about that, please have a look here:

discussion about teaching approaches to bach's 2 and 3 part inventions
some links about the two-part inventions
study work plan for invention 1

those are texts by mr. bernhard, a fellow member of this forum. their ideas could be quite helpful.

best!

[saekwolth]

Amazing information!! THANK YOU ALL!

[gerryjay]

you're welcome. 

[hikky]

Wow, yeah. Thanks for the links garry. Definitely some informative posts. I'll be attempting to tackle the first invention without a teacher but I hope it'll work out thanks to the wealth of information online.

[gerryjay]

Wow, yeah. Thanks for the links garry. Definitely some informative posts. I'll be attempting to tackle the first invention without a teacher but I hope it'll work out thanks to the wealth of information online.

who is garry? 

seriously, you're welcome, but who really deserves the compliments is mr. bernhard himself, for so many insightful posts.

best!

[hikky]

who is garry? 

seriously, you're welcome, but who really deserves the compliments is mr. bernhard himself, for so many insightful posts.

best!

Oh, sorry about that!  I think I just read the name too quick and then replied without thinking about it

[gerryjay]

Oh, sorry about that!  I think I just read the name too quick and then replied without thinking about it

dear hikky:
no problem at all, it happens all the time.
best!