Soft with left hand, forte with right

[maartenm]

Hi, I am new to this forum and I started playing the piano a couple of months ago. I am an autodidact, nearing thirty.

I have some problems trying to play soft with my left hand, and louder with the right. One typical passage where this issue arises is in Mozart's K545, around measure 11/12 where you play a rhythmic part with the left hand, overlayed with the simple D-B-G-.. melody with the right.
Whenever I play this, my left hand just gets too excited and it comes off way too loud. I simply can't get my brain to play the hands' strengths individually.  

Does anybody have some good tips to train this, is this a known difficulty? Or should I just wait until it clicks.

Thanks,

--
Maarten

[asiantraveller101]

Yes, it is a common challenge especially for most beginners. To balance the sound so that the RH is more prominent than the LH, you have to start slowly. Very consciously exaggerate the RH over the LH and keep listening to the balance at all the time. You may use the passage in question as a practice point. The brain and hands need to be trained to do that. Merely playing over and over will not do it. You may also try doing the balancing technique with the exercises that you do, for example, hanon.
The next step in your training is to do the reverse. Where the melody is in the LH and accompaniment in the RH.
Keep working at it and it will click in.
Good luck Maarten.

[scottmcc]

a little exercise that helped me learn how to do this very thing (which is broadly referred to as "voicing") is to play a big fat c major chord, both hands simultaneously (C E G C E G C), and repeat it at a regular rhythm, nice slow quarter notes or the like, and very softly (ppp).

now stop and without moving your hands, play a c maj arpeggio up and down a few times until you can play it nice and smoothly and at exactly the same speed as before, but very loudly (fff).  your fingering does not change at all.

finally, do the two things simultaneously.  if you do it right, you'll still be able to hear the arpeggio through the chord.  it takes some time and practice though.  to me, voicing is one of the biggest challenges of playing well (going beyond just striking the notes to actually sounding good).  eventually you'll get to much bigger challenges such as playing a melody that is shared between two hands, or playing melody and accompaniment in the same hand.

let me know if the above makes sense.  it's a lot easier to just show at the piano than to explain in words.

[gsmile]

Play hands separately, then play the right hand only, with the left hand "ghosting" (touching the keys but not playing) to get the melody into your head. This way, when you put the hands together, your ears will know the melody well-- and you'll notice it when the melody isn't coming out.