How can I significantly improve my hand independence on piano?

Question

I started taking piano lessons about 7 years ago, and stopped about 2 years ago when my teacher (the one and only piano teacher I've had) quit.

In all honesty, my piano has been severely neglected without the obligation to practice during the past 2 years. I'd love to be able to sit down at a piano and freeze everyone in a room (who wouldn't?), but I have a big problem with limb/hand independence.

Essentially, I can play swift arpeggios and all kinds of fancy stuff with my right hand alone. The same is true of my left hand, but with a slight drop in speed and accuracy. If you give me a one-stave track, I can have it down in no time. Have me play hands together, and we've got a massive, and I mean massive problem.

I have no hand independence at all. I can't play quarter notes on my left hand while playing an eighth note melody with occasional rests on my right hand - whatever my right hand is doing, my left hand has to be relevant to - and the unfortunate part is, a good 80% of music (100% of the level of songs I'd like to learn) doesn't give me that luxury.

How can I improve this skill quickly and/or efficiently? I'd love to get back up on my feet again and learn new pieces, but this is inhibiting me terribly. Thanks!

Answer 1

Try Bach's Two Part Inventions (BWV 772–801). They were titled by Bach:

"Honest method, by which the amateurs of the keyboard – especially, however, those desirous of learning – are shown a clear way not only (1) to learn to play cleanly in two parts, but also, after further progress, (2) to handle three obligate parts correctly and well; and along with this not only to obtain good inventions (ideas) but to develop the same well; above all, however, to achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition."

There are 15 two part inventions and 15 three part inventions. In working through the two part inventions, myself, I found that I had developed hand independence and learned some beautiful songs in the process. You can get the scores at IMSLP. Good luck.

Answer 2

Another method is to slow the piece way down. Anyone and everyone can play independently if it's slow enough. Hammer it into your brain at a slow speed, and then gradually speed up. When you run into problems, back up to where you had none.

Answer 3

One exercise that my jazz teacher had advised us to do in order to develop independence was to try and play something using either hand, and slowly moving your other hand at the same time (not in order to play, but just moving it up and down the keyboard, moving things around you, ...). This can be useful on its own, but also when trying to master new pieces -- learning a bass line until you no longer have to pay attention to what you are doing, for instance.

Answer 4

The issue you're describing is one of the most challenging and important aspects of learning to play the Piano: the differentiation of the hands.

At the root, this is a brain/coordination issue and it's directly related to the type and amount (think: throughput) of coordination the brain has to 'process.' Consider how difficult most people find it to do the old "pat your head while you rub your tummy" (and then SWAP the two actions) routine. I still find that coordination brain-teaser hard to do!

It's true that greater playing experience over time helps generally, but most of us need something more specific and concrete than that. What I usually recommend is to tackle a challenging hand-differentiation task by breaking it down into smaller, intermediate steps first, and then combining those smaller steps slowly and systematically until the larger, composite hand-differentiation skill is built up and achieved. The secret is breaking down the composite task into SMALL ENOUGH sub-tasks and practicing just those first, until the brain can manage them individually.

College music majors typically do exercises in their sight-singing/ear training classes wherein one aspect of musical performance is isolated from all the other aspects—i.e., they perform an intermediate step that easier to achieve. For example, students will perform or transcribe rhythm patterns without any pitch involved. They will also sing or notate arhythmic pitch patterns that are divorced from any sort of meter or regular rhythmic patterning. Leaving out either pitch or rhythm cuts the job down to about half for the brain.

As a Pianist, you already know that you can practice the hands separately, and you can also temporarily make the tempo as slow as you wish during practice in order to consciously sort out the hand (and occasionally foot) maneuvers required for a piece. What I'd suggest here is trimming down the playing of a difficult passage in some piece to INDIVIDUAL hand maneuvers (as necessary), or to PAIRS of Left/Right hand maneuevers, in isolation from the rest of the piece. If necessary, don't even worry about trying to do the rhythm—just the correct SEQUENCE of the hand maneuvers is what matters initially, and not their timing in a rhythmic context.

This is, again, primarily a matter of brain-training of coordination. For example, many Pianists have trouble making a (phrase or other articulative) 'break' with one hand while playing legato (no break) in the other hand. This is because our brains naturally want to MATCH what both hands are doing rather than DIFFERENTIATING them to do separate tasks. Most of us fail to conquer at least some of these coordination difficulties because we overdrive our brain's ability to 'sort it all out' in real time as we try to read and play the music (over and over again). So, again, I suggest: Simplify the task to the point where you can't get it wrong! That way you'll end up practicing complete success rather than just partial success.

For example: If, say, your Right Hand has to lift off a note at the end of a phrase to create the proper phrase break but your Left Hand has to continue playing legato (no lift/no break) you're faced with a 'pat the head but rub the tummy' sort of problem. To let your brain FEEL what the proper hand maneuvers are for that passage so that it can discern them by 'feel' and replicate them later (correctly) when you replay the same passage again next time, you have to be KIND to your brain and simplify the task down to its most basic challenge. For me, this often means: DISCARD THE RHYTHM ENTIRELY! And it also often means: Don't bother playing the entire BEGINNING of the phrase—which consumes some of your brainpower and attention—because the problem occurs at the END of the phrase, where the Right Hand has to lift off the keys to create the phrase break but the Left Hand has to remain down on its key(s).

And so what you do is: (1) Forgetting about rhythm temporarily, play the notes in both hands at that particular spot and then do JUST THIS ONE THING: (2) Lift the Right Hand off its final phrase note and hold it up off the key(s) while the Left Hand stays down on its key(s). Then (3) FREEZE and HOLD that position for a moment so your brain can 'record' the sensation of the proper hand being up while the other hand remains down. Then do the same thing 1-3 more times until you're comfortable with the maneuver. When that maneuver is comfortable, then tack on JUST ONE previous note in either hand so that your brain feels the transition from the previous note to the newly learned maneuver. It's not important yet to play everything in proper rhythm, but only to practice the proper sequence of correct hand maneuvers.

Eventually, tack on the NEXT note in each hand—but only one hand at a time—so that you 'attach' the newly learned maneuver to the notes both immediately preceding and immediately following it. In this way you can gradually 'stitch' the difficult maneuver back into its original musical context and play the music, successfully, in rhythm. Just reinstate the rhythm in small enough increments that you can cope with it on top of the maneuver sequence you've been been practicing.

The key to everything is: CONSTRUCT INTERMEDIATE STEPS that are small enough that you CAN'T GET IT WRONG, and practice those first. Then 'glue' those steps back together into the larger musical context. Remember that you can temporarily jettison rhythm and dynamics altogether if you need to while you work on the basic 'Right Hand goes UP while Left Hand STAYS DOWN' maneuver. Find the reduced level of complication where your brain CAN sort out everything it has to do correctly and then practice THAT sequence of maneuvers a few times before tacking on more music before/after the troublesome spot.

In the long run you should end up spending LESS practice time learning a piece this way, because you're practicing SUCCESS rather than hit-and-miss-through-brute-repetition. Bottom line: Just BE KIND TO YOUR BRAIN.

Answer 5

My piano teacher made me play scales unisono with both hands over two octaves forward and backward, but with a twist: play one hand straight and the other one syncopated. Then the other way around. In itself it may seem boring but at the time it was a real challenge.

Also, we used Bartok's Mikrokosmos mainly. Many pieces in it seem to be targeted at excercising independence of left and right hand. Listen here and esp. the first two pieces here from the beginner level book II. Mikrokosmos is fun to play and it's great music, too.

Answer 6

I have found that learning to play polyrhythms such as 7 over 5, etc. allowed me to gain independence of hands. But it took me several years to achieve it. I am able to quite easily do rubato passages and improvise as well.

Answer 7

You mentioned mixing quarter notes one one hand with 16ths on the other, but not in a constant stream. When I started learning drums I found a similar issue to this, where my mind was using the consistant 8ths on the hi hat as the driving rhythm, so slipping in 16ths on kick or snare made everything go wibbly. The trick to that was counting in 16ths (1 e and a 2 e and a...) so that the tricky notes were easy to hit and the pulse of the tune was not actually counting it. Something like that may help, at least until you mix in triplets ;)

Combine this with playing slow and building up speed as mentioned by Matthew Read's post. Getting it right is always more important than getting it quick. Speed comes with practice, practice it wrong and you'll get really fast at playing wrong.

Answer 8

The problem you mention is a one I face constantly with my students. I teach piano, so most probably I will be able to help you.

Until I see your fingering and how much coordination their is, I can't give you a concrete solution, because those are based on individual fingering and hand- brain coordination.

I would suggest you try learning Beethoven's popular piece – Für Elise. (Only the first movement.) Start by learning right hand, which is pretty easy. Then learn left hand. Play both the pieces individually, then combine them and play very very slowly. Gradually speed up, and you won't have too much problem. The reason I suggested this piece because mostly, the left hand stops while the right plays and vice versa (the second movement changes all that).

Then try learning Scott Joplin's Entertainer. Same drill – right hand - Left hand, combine slowly, speed up. This piece too has little coordination, but more than Für Elise, so it'll help improve coordination gradually.

Answer 9

I've only been playing piano for 5 years and started in my mid 40s, and still have a long way to go before I'm ready to play publicly due to me not being overly coordinated or agile, but like some others have already said, it helps to learn each hand's part individually to the point where you more or less have memorized it and gradually have sped them up to tempo, then, when you feel ready to combine both hands, go back to playing slowly (ideally with a metronome so you can gradually speed it up and also measure your progress). How slow should you go initially with both hands? To whatever tempo enables you to play with little or no errors and with ideally no tension and maximum control. Also, go over small sections that give you problems -- one of my teachers suggested doing this 15 to 20 times per practice.

Answer 10

play Chopin prelude 24 in D minor, it also teaches to stretch and move the left hand, play one hand loud, other silent, play different asynchronized trills and arppegios on strings and other instruments, warm hands in hot bath water, grasp a sport expander or a silicone balls, find some synchronized pivot notes which sound together in both hands, learn firmly two different parts separately then add the other hand, you can do it on table without a Stein. and sons 2 billion cost keyboard....rewrite scores several times on Finale software or on the paper, write a harmonic analysis on a piece to make your brain remember and understand the flow of sounds, play parts on guitar or the other instruments, transpose to various keys, it will help to manage your hands and fingers saving time.

Answer 11

You can use the technique where you play any simple song but at the same time play the same song an octave lower with your left hand but delay the start by like one measure so you're technically playing the same songs with both hands but at different times. You could also play two different simple songs with each hand.

Answer 12

The truth of the matter is that there is no such thing as independence between hands(something else is happening and we call it that), rhythms are created with both hands/fingers at once.

The independence is experienced as the mind interprets. These interpretations are the result of pattern recognition, these patterns are recognized in the sense that the sounds created are to much for the brain to handle without organization(think Mcluhan/IBM "information overload equal pattern recognition ie: the Easter bunny appearing in your breakfast when the light hits it at a certain angle).

When one hand lifts from a coordinated task(say keyboard playing), something is happening but noticed by very few... the hand is still engaged in the act of playing while not playing because movement is in the whole body not independently - don't believe it then watch Chick Corea and the gang with JHenderson on "AliceBop" on ytb, while he/Corea is soloing with his right his left hand is up in the air circling(that is to say making the rhythm in the air!!), until it comes down to land on a chord perfectly in sync.

There is an issue that once again must be addressed and that is speed. Whenever you set out to do something/anything consciously the momentum you generate at the start of that action dictates the action, speed included. Practicing slow will not necessarily lead to fast articulation, there will be a wall reached by the very way in which the phrase is approached.

Something else must happen for this to take off(even if tempo appears objectively "slow" you will know the difference when it happens.

So far(for me) the hardest example of this is 3/2 , that is a shuffle beat with a trill for example because the emphasis changes with every new triplet(the two lands on a different part of the three), one would have to say these are "poly-rhythms", but not separate. That is the trick of the listener. This may be consciousness itself(the awareness of this activity).Those who do not do this right away as so called prodigies do, can become aware of this as it happens! Think about it for a while.

Answer 13

You cannot learn how to learn this. You cannot prepare to learn it by doing something else first. There is no incorrect method, because there is no method at all. It's like a child learning to walk; explanations are useless, so they have no choice but to just do it.

Give up on playing with separate hands. If some of your music is written for one hand only, quit playing it and choose something better. Separate hands is a weird specialty technique only needed for solving a very limited set of very specific problems, that has been misused on students by generations of well-meaning but backwards teachers. Play both hands all the time without exception. (For those who have learned successfully using a lot of separate hand practice: that's great, I'm glad you made it, but I'm sorry that your teachers had you waste so much time - you would have been better off without it. Yes it's a valuable skill when you need it, but it takes two minutes to learn, and it's useless for an elementary-level student.)

Success in hands-separate playing is like children in school spending two years writing only the top halves of all the letters because they're not ready for the next step yet. They'd be getting a fake skill that they couldn't use for anything, and it wouldn't help them enough for it to be worth learning. That's why schoolteachers don't teach that way.

(I acknowledge that this post is a bit over-the-top, but it's nothing compared to the army of teachers instilling the false belief that hands-separate playing is a step towards real playing. It isn't a step towards anything - it's just a dead end, as the OP has discovered.)

(Extreme beginners in their first couple of weeks do need one-handed music, of course. I mean after that.)

Answer 14

I started taking piano lessons about 7 years ago ... I have no hand independence at all.

What kind of piano teacher would give 7 years of lessons without teaching hand independence?!?

You can roughly separate two hand independence issues:

• fingering issues, learning to position changes at different times between the hands
• rhythm issues, playing different rhythms in each hand

Any standard piano method will provide exercises to deal with both concerns.

There isn't a short cut or secret trick that will avoid practicing basic methods.

A very common drill is playing scales in contrary motion. One hand plays a scale up and down while the other hand plays the scale down and up. Beside exercising general hand independence, it will address changing hand position at different times between the hands. You need to run the drill in all major and minor scales to get the full benefit. Even 10-15 minutes per day will help a lot. As you get better you can get through more scales each daily session. Eventually you can do all the scales in each session. When you really have it down, you don't need to do all scales every day.

For the rhythm issues there are some common drills that should help.

• Five finger exercises. In these exercises all fingering and position change issues are removed. It's all about finger independence, but because these exercises often have the two hands playing two different parts, rhythm independence comes into play. The upside is you can focus on that rhythm interplay without worrying about fingering.
• Scales in contrary motion at different rhythms. Ex. L.H. plays a descending scale, one octave, in quarter notes, while the R.H. plays and ascending scale, two octaves in eighth notes. The fingering challenge of playing scales exists in this drill, but the main point is the hands moving in two different rhythms.
• Play an Alberti broken chord pattern in eighth notes in one hand while moving up and down a full octave arpeggio of the same chord in quarter or half notes in the other hand. This drill can be expanded by playing the arpeggio beyond the octave using a position change.

All combined that's only four different drill patterns. But they cover the basics of scale and chord material in a simple context of mixed rhythms.

Notice that there are not any complex or tricky rhythms.

The point isn't to present the challenge of rhythmic complexity. Instead it's an introduction to feeling the hands operate with rhythmic independence. You don't need complex, tricky rhythms to get that effect. Simple quarter notes against eighth notes it all that's needed to introduce independence. That simplicity also allows you to concentrate on how independent hands feels.

Two other ways to gain hand independence are deceptively simple:

• use contrasting dynamics in the two hands. Ex. soft in L.H. and loud in the R.H.
• use contrasting articulations in the two hands. Ex. legato in the L.H. and staccato in the R.H.

Either can be applied to any simple drill pattern of five-finger, scale, or arpeggio exercises.

The point is to "send" two contrasting "signals" to the separate hands, and you can contrast various musical elements: rhythm, dynamics, articulations, etc.

Provided you have the contrast between the hands, you don't need the drill to be complicated. Start out with simple material. Concentrate on the two hands doing their independent thing clearly, well executed. Make the focus on feeling the two hands working independently. Personally, when I get "in the zone" with this kind of thing, it's like my two hands are working automatically, disconnected from me, my eyes and ears are (literally) between the two hands, and just observing what the hands are playing.