Typists bug?

[zoup]

Hello

i'm a computer professional, recently i bough a digital piano and started to learn on my own, results wasn't exactly bad since i was able to play most of Fur elise by less than two months.

most of finding keys and pressing stuff is very natural for me, but problem is;
playing with both hands by two different speed seems impossible for me, the slower hand (left,chords) typically starts to play as fast as right hand.
the other problem is when you have to play two different notes simultaneously by both hands, that's hard for me as well but i guess this is one natural for everyone.

i was thinking and wondering if it has anything to do with my computer typing habits (since on computer keyboard both hands speeds are the same and you typically don't need to have both hands simultaneously pressing keys)

any idea?

[ionian_tinnear]

Sounds normal.  It takes practice to get the seperation of hands.  Start with pieces that have less independent motion between the hands, then work up to more complexity.  Like top-down, bottom-up development!  Sadly, I too am in computers, but it pays the bills..

[jimbo320]

Hey Zoup,
You got it right. You need to overcome the typing form you're used to and learn controlling each hand independently.
Being a computer pro makes certain aspects of piano playing natural but as you know restrictive in others.
Practice each hand by their selves to gain muscle memory and try when playing with both hands to have a split brain keeping each hand separate.
You need more practice than most to over come the computer habit...

[scottmcc]

Some simple homemade exercises might help you.  Away from the piano, try tapping out a few rhythms.  Eg lh a series of quarter notes, rh a series of eighths. You can progress to different rhythms and fingerings as needed.  This will also help you learn more challenging rhythms such as 4 vs 3.

The best way to get you hands working together, at least for me, is to force them to do different things at the same time.  Bach is great for this.  Try the various inventions, or fugues once you get better.  it will take a long time, and will often frustrate you, but the rewards will transfer over to the rest of your playing.  And you'll probably be able to type faster too. 

[sucom]

Putting two hands together is simply a matter of coordination.  One of the most common mistakes a beginner might make is to keep trying to play through a piece from beginning to end, attempting two hands together, no matter how laborious it becomes.  Practising like this can really tire you out and doesn't really help as much as you might think.  If it takes half an hour to play through the piece like this, your brain will feel like it has been put through hard labour and will still struggle to remember everything you just worked through.

Instead, I would tackle the problem a different way.  I would suggest learning each hand separately until they each become reasonably fluent.  This will encourage muscle memory, visual memory, aural memory and last but not least, mental memory.

After this point, I would then attempt hands together just one bar at a time or possibly leading into the first beat of a second bar.  Then repeat.  And repeat again.  Doing it this way gives your brain a chance to catch on to what you are actually trying to do.  I have tried this with total success with my own students, especially adult students, many times.  So often I hear a student say, 'I can't put my hands together'.  And at this point, I ask them to repeat the same section three times before moving on.  The results are instant and always successful.  After repeating one bar three times, we can move onto the next bar and do the same again. 

I don't think it is a typist's bug. It's just a matter of allowing your brain to fully grasp what it is you are trying to do.  After several repetitions, memory begins to kick in and the results can be startling.

[scottmcc]

sucom, I agree with your  practice method.  in looking back over my post, it implied that one should always try to learn with hands together.  this is, as you mentioned, often detrimental to the learning process.  I will typically learn the two hands separately at least to some degree prior to trying to put them together, and I typically put them together in just the way you suggest.  the only time that I don't use this method is with works that "fall apart" when the hands are separated, typically those where a voice is shared between the two hands.  in that instance, I practice each of the voices separately, then add them back together.

however, what I was suggesting is that the way to learn how to coordinate the two hands is to play works that pose a coordination challenge for the two hands.  a unison scale, for instance, requires essentially no coordination.  but even playing a scale with the right hand in quarters and a single repeated note in the left will require a completely different type of coordination. 

hopefully this is clearer now.

[lostinidlewonder]

The challenge of 2 hands vs single hands is obviously something that stumps a lot of aspiring pianists. I am constantly helping my younger students with this problem and find the best way to go about doing this is to identify what passages can be done both hands and which ones would benefit more from separate hands. There are many passages that you can play 2 hands without too much problems, but there are others that cause more of a challenge. It is important to work out exactly where these exist in the score.

Passages which you can play 2 hands easily usually have some past experience to draw from. It is very difficult to do something with 2 hands if the figures you are doing have no past knowledge to draw from.

Improving your sight reading skills often improves coordination of 2 hands a great deal because you  no longer need to memorize the exact notes to train coordination (which takes away a huge amount of time).

I might also add that perhaps you need to do some simplification of one hand when practicing two hands. This means one hand might play not as much as what the score asks for but you play some part of it. This way you never really do hands separate but always hands together, but sometimes hands together WITH simplification of one hand. This sets you up to learn 2 hands more effectively, rather than always keeping the hands isolated from one another. This may require that you know how to simplify the score in a way which does not alter how the hand will feel when you add the other notes.

[hermanberntzen]

You will probaly get this going by it's self after a while.