How practice left hand to synchronize better with right hand?

[maxkarlstedt]

Hello there! This is my very first post, so It will also be like an introduction of me, my purposes with me being here and my goals with playing the wonderful instrument piano.

I am 26 year old amateurish piano player from Sweden (I play piano only for fun and do not intend to become a professional) who bought my first 61 keys keyboard (NOT digital piano) when I was 16 years old, and I remember how the first thing I attempted to play was the first part of Für Elise.

I started crying pretty quickly when I realized my right hand playing the melody couldn't even play the first notes before you start playing with your left hand (you know A to right C to next right A).

But with practice I learned to play the first famous piece (which most people have heard of) within 6 months I think. This included me playing with the left hand as well as it was very logical in my opinion and in a sense I still just played with one hand at a time, though shifting from one to the another very quickly.

(Something I wonder is if my practice playing with both hands on particular songs below will also lead me to be able to easier learn other songs playing with both hands just like playing with the right hand so long really have made it easy for me to learn melodies that play with the right hand.)

I learned some more classic pieces that very relatively easy with practice like the first famous part of Moonlight Sonata and also the first part of Turkish Marsch. However, as a video game lover I really just loved the music in them, so I started to learn them instead (music from video games and some popular movies like Star Wars as the first movie I started to learn the melodies from).

Now, the thing was, these songs were often comps where you had to play your left hand and your right hand but I was still very young, learning on my own, and I just wanted to learn the melodies so I just practiced them.

I learned a little bit about scales, the ABCDEFGH (and their sharp/# keys) on the piano, and accords in theory but it was still hard to combine left hand playing with right hand playing, so I just kept learning the melodies in songs.

10 years later now, I have gotten somewhat better with the left hand like playing very mechanical accords with no variability. For example, I can play the melody plus very simple accord beat to My Heart Will Go on by Celine Dion. Also, I am not able to play melodies with accords in the right hand (like when you play He's A Pirate where you play with both single keys and accords with your right hand).

So, my question is how to start practicing my left hand to synchronize it better with my right hand? Below are some of the songs I would really love to learn to play with both hands because I find them beautiful and awesome in their own unique ways:

As you can see, all these 3 above are only in Synthesia software (which I also wonder if you as piano teachers would recommend or not recommend). The final thing, and maybe the catch, is that I never wanted to learn to play after notes. I find it boring, tedious and just not my thing.

I have always learned melodies (including those with simple accompanied accords) through (muscle) memory. And thanks to my small understand of scales and accords I can usually know what accord to play when I play melodies as I sometimes figure out what scales I play them in.

Alright, so that is my whole story, my main goals of being here and playing piano. I hope it hasn't been too much to read. I will receive my ordered KAWAI ES-100 B digital piano next week so I can start playing real piano (as real as it gets with my budget and its convenience when you live in an apartment like I do).

A few questions based on everything I have said so far:

- Would you as a piano teacher be okay that one learns playing the piano-based songs above by practicing in Synthesia, or would you demand notes due to traditions or practice efficiency?

- From what I have read about practicing playing songs with both hands, one should practice playing the piece slowly with both hands until it one plays it smooth and then speed up as one learns to play the piece smooth in different speeds; would you recommend that or a different method?

Thank you very much for reading my introductory essay here on this forum, and I hope to be able to share my results as I start practicing playing with both hands to be able to play the pieces I want to be able to play. My parents have a real acoustic piano (not grand) which needs some tuning but after that I will be able to perform some cool songs for them.

Best regards fellow piano players,
Max Karlstedt.

[glennross]

Let me think about that. I'll let you know later today.

[bronnestam]

Hej hej. Vi kan ta detta privat på svenska också, använd meddelandefunktionen.

I am not a piano teacher but I have been playing for quite a while. I think you should learn to read notes after all, because that will open up a whole new world to you. It is really not that difficult! The basic structure is very logical and you should be able to master it within a day. Compared to learning the alphabet, it is nothing.

I have tried to play after Synthesia or something similar to that, because I could not find the sheet music to the piece I wanted, but hey - I found it very difficult! I do not say it is worthless, but actually, your synchronization problem seems to arise from this method. If you play after notes, yu will read the music both horisontally (you can read "ahead" and prepare for the next move) AND "vertically" - you can see how the hands are synchronized.

So my advice to you is simple: get a beginner's book in piano playing, why not "Pianobus" or similar books where you play with an orchestra on CD. There you learn how to read the notes and play with both hands. At first you must do this with very, very simple pieces, but as you can already play, you will make quick progress. Before I took my first piano lessons (back in the stone age) I had no idea how to move my hands independently of each other. I pretended to play the piano and I moved my fingers just like I had seen pianists do, but I could not make them do DIFFERENT moves. Well ... then I learned. It became totally natural after a while.  

We are all impatient and want to skip the boring parts and quickly move on to the fun parts, what we REALLY want to learn. But sometimes you have to realize that "genvägar är senvägar". I don't ask you to spend the next 4 years playing tedious Hanon-exercises and scales in all keys, and THEN you play the fun pieces, but if you invest a couple of weeks in learning this basic foundation, I am sure the problems you describe right now will vanish.  

[yadeehoo]

Good advices from Bronnestam

I'm also a self taught amateur. Learning to read music is an investment for your future development. I started playing 2 years ago. I bought a music theory book, read it through in one sitting, understood the basic logic behind it (also went to some forums to get additional infos on how to play accidentals in strange situation)

Then I started with Moonlight sonata from Beethoven (1st Mvt) that was something I could easily play, but it took me a week to read and remember the 3 pages of the song !

2 years later now, I'm not afraid to read through any difficult piece, I just improved as i learned new pieces.

About left/right hand synchronization, find a way to relax, so you can play the piece as slow as you can correct you mistakes as you play, still keeping your flow. It's one of the hardest things, but again, big payoff. The 3rd movement of Moonlight Sonata is all about that, you might want to give it a try.

You can practice both hand separately, and join them together. Sometimes, it's the only way. Especially if you're new at reading scores. What's good also with reading music, is you'll learn and improve your rythm.

1 - Print the score of any song you like, and give it a shot

2 - Practice both hands separately, and join them together by playing it very slow, as slow as needs to be, really

Hope that helps, cheers

[adodd81802]

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[maxkarlstedt]

Hello there again!

Thank you very much for all your generous replies!

After I posted this I searched in the forum and discovered that many seem to NOT recommend synthesia as a way to learn playing songs on the piano. The reason I have used it is that I first off cannot read notes (yet) and I have before used Audacity and imported MIDI files and then I saw a piano like in Synthesia but from left to right as if you turned the piano 45 degrees to the side. I would then choose what tracks I wanted to play and I learned melodies, sometimes accords to them but mostly melodies since I have been skimping on playing with my left hand a long time.

I also realized that I really need to learn to read notes, particularly if I want to be able to play the exercises since all of them are in notes (from what I found when doing a quick search).

And while we're talking about exercises. From what I understand so far about exercises for piano playing, you can practice the following when you play piano:

- finger dexterity (how fast you move your fingers when you play one or more notes after one another?)

- jumps (how fast and accurately you jump between notes or accords that are far apart from one another)

- left hand and/or right hand (when you want to just improve your general use of that hand)

- hands together exercises (so you can get better at splitting your attention when playing with both hands)

I go to the gym and there you do certain exercises to exercise certain muscles and what I wonder is if there are certain exercises for piano that you can play to exercise these certain areas of piano playing I mentioned above?

Would these also be "general exercises", meaning that I would benefit from doing these exercises in all my piano playing and the songs I am trying to learn? Or is that just not how it works?

In other words, does there exist "general proven exercises" to improve one's general piano playing abilities or do you have to do different exercises for different songs and master them to master those songs?

I realize that you of course will have to practice playing the song to improve your playing for that song, I just wonder if there are general exercises that can help you when you get to practice your favorite songs.

Finally, is there any good software out there that can portray MIDI files as notes that I can look it? It just so happens that I will have my digital piano right below my desk where my computer screen is at (so I won't be able to use my note stand then).

Thank you very much once again for all your generous replies!

Best regards fellow piano players,
Max Karlstedt.

[listesso_tempo]

To be able to play with both hands simultaneously, you must accept the fact you will not be able to focus on both hands at the same time. That's simply not how the brain works.

If you are playing a figuration as accompaniment, like alberti bass, count the rythm, play the melody on that rythm, this applies to arpeggios and chords too.

For example, this is the way I count the accompaniment and play the melody notes on the bold characters on the piece above:

M1: 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3
M2: 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3
M3: 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3
M4: 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3

For a piece like this, though, which requires immense independence, you take one note or hand movement as a reference, and play the rest around that.

[adodd81802]

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[oldlearner]

I have been teaching myself piano for almost 10 weeks. General exercises I find useful are:
• Bartók - Mikrokosmos, Book 1
• Johannes Rövenstrunck - Miniatures op.1: Music for piano education, Book I
• H. Berens - 50 Piano Pieces for Beginners, op.70, Books 1-3
All are available for free download from the Web. Mikrocosmos and Miniatures name each piece so you know just what you’re practicing. The Mikrocosmos names are in a language that looks like Russian, but English translations can be found in the Wikipedia entry and a description called Mikrokosmos, progressive pieces (153) for piano in 6 volumes, Sz. 107, BB 105. There’s also an informative essay entitled Béla Bartók's Pedagogical Legacy: Mikrokosmos.
I believe that these etudes/exercises are more useful for developing my technique than practicing simple pieces. After all, that’s what they’re designed for. I find them (especially Mikrocosmos) to be reasonably musical and not too boring.

[maxkarlstedt]

Thank you very much for all your replies.

When I look at and listen to the songs again, I find this one to be the simplest one with very repetitive bass/left-hand:

Some of my long-term goals in piano is being able to play the following pieces (as many notes as possible at any giving time, from what I can see, some combination seems to be impossible with just two hands):

Or as when someone actually plays it:

This is a nice version of He's A Pirate I also want to learn as one of my long-term goals with piano:

As you can see, I have a very strange, nostalgic and almost childish taste of music played on the piano!  

I will now reply to each one to show my appreciation.

oldlearner: Thank you very much for providing those resources! I found most of these in PDFs now. Will print them out before I receive my digital piano so I have them.

My parents have an untuned acoustic piano and I will also leave my keyboard there so hopefully my unemployed father will have something better to do which is also good for his age (54) by playing piano and learning simple notes. My mom used to sing in church and can sing correctly so she will also love that I learn reading&playing notes since she has a huge stack of church songs and melodies in note form.

Bartók - Mikrokosmos Book I, seems pretty basic which is great for me who can only see one note at a time as of now. From what I remember from years ago, you are suppose to be able to read one bar at a time after enough practice or was it one row with bars? (how do you do it?)

Johannes Rövenstrunck - Miniatures op.1, seems also pretty basic which is great for me. My biggest challenge (I think) will be when I have to read&play more than one notes at a time (e.g. an accord on left-hand and maybe two different notes in right-hand).

H. Berens - 50 Piano Pieces for Beginners, op.7, seems to escalate pretty quickly in terms of how many notes played at a given time and per bar. So, I assume this would be like a step up from the two other ones? (although I found several books from Bartók).

Would be interesting to hear what piano teachers think of these piano beginner books. Thank you very much for your reply!

adodd81802: Thank you very much for your reply. I think we have an misunderstanding here. I don't go to the gym to necessarily exercise muscles for piano playing (but I don't exercise my underarms so I should start doing that!), I do it for my whole body, for general health purposes mainly.

It is nonetheless an interesting comparison, particularly when we think about the rest part when going to the gym. You can exercise/train too much and do more hurt to yourself than good, and I wonder if this is also the case with piano playing? At the gym I do exercise my back and shoulders and I always concentrate to have an open, shoulders rolled back, and straight posture, just for the sake being.

What are your opinions and experiences regarding piano practice and resting? Do you think one can train/exercise too much on the piano? I will look up those softwares and see whether I can benefit from them to make them worthwhile to afford them.

I do not exactly know what you mean with (I do not know so much of the music lingo yet, I have just played and listened mostly these years) 1-2-3 beat. Do you mean that you count 1,2,3 as one bar?

I have never heard of the word "trill" and when I translate it I see that it seems to mean "a note that alternates rapidly with another note a semitone above it". Does that mean like one white key plus another white key with its sharp/black key above it?

Thank you very much once again for your reply!

listesso_tempo: How do I understand "not being able to focus on both hands at the same time" with "playing with both hands slowly"? Is that learning style false in other words? Is the optimal way to play first left-hand, then left-hand and then both slowly until you just nail it?

Your first provided YouTube video with real notes is just way too complicated for me right now. However, for future reference, is it a good finger dexterity exercise? Does it include jumps exercises?

I'm afraid that I do not understand what you mean (yet) with M1: 1-2-3... M2: 1-2-3 and so on. I do not know all the music lingo and way of communicating with other pianists yet, and I apologize for that.

Your second provided YouTube video appears to be a fugue, which I remember from music class in elementary school, and that seems to really exercise even one's separate fingers for each hand. What I wonder is how this, very abstract sounding music according to me, would translate when wanting to improve one's general piano abilities? Would it help with dexterity, jumps and so forth?

Just like my comparison with the gym; would it exercise certain "piano muscles" (not body muscles, but piano skills) or would it just make you better at that particular piano piece and not really benefit otherwise from it? I do not intend to learn classical pieces, so that is why I ask this.

Thank you very much for your reply!

[oldlearner]

From what I remember from years ago, you are suppose to be able to read one bar at a time after enough practice or was it one row with bars? (how do you do it?)

When it’s only a few rows of notes which aren’t too complex for me, I play all the bars and all the rows straight through, initially one hand at a time. That’s what I’ve done with all these exercises so far. With music that’s more complex or with more than a few rows, I break it up into a few bars at a time. Generally, I start by playing each staff a few times with 1 hand, then the staff that is more complicated with 1 hand (usually the treble clef and the right hand) until I can play it slowly without mistakes, then the same for the other hand and other staff, then combine them even more slowly at first.

Would be interesting to hear what piano teachers think of these piano beginner books. Thank you very much for your reply!

You’re welcome. I’d also be interested to hear the views of piano teachers about these exercises. I haven’t found opinions online about the Rövenstrunck or the Berens, but the Bartók seems to be well-known and well-regarded. He is one of my favorite composers and Mikrocosmos appears to be oriented toward modern classical music whereas older studies obviously are not. Because I’m more interested in playing modern music more than, say, Bach or Chopin, I think it suits my purposes. Because Rövenstrunck is a contemporary composer, I guess his studies are also suitable for my purposes. Berens possibly not as much. I find the 3 sets sufficiently different to provide welcome variety.