Curious thoughts about coordination

[rjjackson]

Salutations;

New to this forum, and the art of keyboard/piano.

Presently not under the direction of a professional; whilst studied theory extensively with the plethora of information from the internet. Understanding the circle of fifths hasn't been the challenge for me. I am hoping my issue is one of being incredibly inexperienced, in which case there is hope; and not one where, old dogs can not learn new tricks.

I love learning and playing music; Previously having played with an English hand bell choir, I didn't take to my Korg totally clueless. There were some quirks experienced while playing bells with two in hand we all found most interesting. Sometimes, mostly when tired, My left and right hands would reverse their parts. Most embarrassing.

I am ambidextrous with near identical handwritting. One would think, the hands would be capable from independent thought.     Here of late, while working very hard to get my hands to sync with polyrhythm’s, (not real difficult ones) <--- may be my perception.. I'm getting all kinds of mental pushback. it's kinda scary. I want to believe that maybe, I'm just pushing too hard. At times, while frustrated, There seems to be this total disconnect, as though the mind saying, "enough already."  Please tell me, this is just a vertical learning curve, and that my hands will both be playing from the same sheet of music one day.

Appreciate the Forum,

Robin

PS. I've been plunking on the keys for 14 weeks.

[arumih]

Hey...well being that I'm not ambidextrous, I can't say if that really helps with co-ordination/ hand independence on piano. I can say though, that in the beginning stages...okay even up to now it can be difficult! It's good to be working on polyrhythms, but with 14 weeks of piano experience I can't really imagine any pieces at your level containing polyrhythms.

I think at this stage one of the easiest ways of developing hand independence lies in the practice of scales. Try playing your scales, one hand staccato, the other hand legato, or one hand piano, the other hand forte, of course switching hands every so often. Also, practice perhaps playing C major in contrary motion i.e. start the scale on middle C in both hands and play left hand descending, right hand ascending. Even though these are quite simple exercises, they do work in the beginning stages to get you working on hand independence.

I don't know your situation so these are things you've already worked on or are working on. If that's the case, I'm positive someone with much more experience than myself will come along to help you out.

Good luck in your piano future...if you can't tell already, it's gonna be one hell of a ride!

[rjjackson]

Thank You for your response.

My choice of first and second pieces of music to work with,  probably not for the inexperienced. Cannon in D for piano solo, beautiful piece and nice scale to work in. The other in B flat. (one of my favorites) a melodical rendition of "Carol of the bells"

Playing scales has been interesting. To make them more interesting, I used relatives; minor in left, major in right. Adding contrary motion brought in a pleasent twist. Ideas behind learning seem to be infinite; a good thing. To gain the independent control I so desperately seek, I will vary the dynamics with the hands and spend more time working with just the scales as you suggested.

I really do enjoy learning to play. During my normal week to include the usual 40 and then some work hour week, I have a suspicion I'm racking up 20 to 30 hours of piano/keyboard practice every seven days. Progress hopefully, may come sooner then later.

Time will tell.

robin