It just occurred to me that what I really need is a book of simple melodies for the piano -- but one that concentrates on teaching me to use my left hand and play from the bass clef. I'm right handed and so my left hand is clumsy, plus I've spent the last few years playing low-rent woodwinds* which all read off the treble clef.

I'm thinking that there must be a lot of right handed, treble-clef-instrument-reading people out there who go on to learn the piano, so there ought to be be a book to address these issues. Is there such a book?

Or will I just have to buy a tuba method book?

*pennywhistle, recorders (plastic, SAT)

Most books seem to teach left hand chords and right hand melodies (for adults, at least), but in a purely technical sense, you could reverse the hands and play the opposite (melody in the left, harmony in the right).

Otherwise, there are specific etudes meant to train your left hand. Thi seems to be one of the bigger problems for new players.

Are you using any specific series to teach yourself/learn with a teacher now? How far along are you?

As someone who has difficulty with certain rhythms and left hand independance can I suggest that you look at the link below and download the initial lesson. I am working on at it at the moment and it is an excellent tutorial.

http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/32/7708.html

I played piano for a couple of years as a child, but I've only been playing as an adult for a week or so. I've been working from the preparatory level Baroque & Classical book from the Keith Snell series, and that's been just about the right speed for me, so long as I choose the pieces with simple left hand parts. I also have the Etudes book -- would you know if there are any of those left handed etudes in there? (Am I correct in remembering that you're another Snell user? I may just be confused...)

Anyway, I just notice that as I read and play my tunes, I have very little trouble finding the right keys on the keyboard for notes on the treble clef, but theres a delay (or complete brain fart) when I try to quickly read notes from the bass clef. Plus my left hand is spastic enough that I may THINK the right note but twitch an entirely random finger.

I found these books / pieces searching for left hand piano music at sheet music plus.

For Left Hand Alone - Book 1 By John Thompson. Published by Willis Music. (414630)

For Left Hand Alone - Book 2 By John Thompson. Published by Willis Music. (414634)

The Ocean Deep (for right hand or left hand alone) By Kathleen Massoud. Published by Alfred Publishing. (18991)

Song for Left Hand Alone By Katherine Beard. Published by Willis Music. (405228)

Either/Or By Joyce Grill. Published by Alfred Publishing. (EL03775)

The One-Handed Creeper - piano (left hand only) By Elizabeth Alexander. Published by Seafarer Press. (SEA-055-00)

There were a lot of other books that were way harder. These were the ones that looked like they may be better for someone starting out. Note that I'm sure they are not just using the bass clef.

Rich

Welcome to the forum, tangleweeds. I came to piano with a history of playing accordion as a child, so I had much the same difficulty as you regarding reading the bass clef. I don't have any magic solution for you, but I can assure you that it *will* eventually click for you, and after a while you will be reading bass clef as fluently as treble clef. (I think it took me about 6 months to a year to feel equally comfortable in both.)

I think just lots of sight-reading practice will do the trick for you; I'm not sure it's necessary to seek out any special left-hand exercise books.

If you get a "Junior Hanon" exercise book, "Alfred Masterworks Edition", the first exercises are written with the RH and the LH playing the exact same notes, only 2 octaves apart.

Unlike the regular Hanon, the print is larger and much easier to read, and, more importantly, the RH begins on middle C, with the LH on 2 C's below Middle C.

Therefore, you can play hands together and glance between the more familiar treble clef, and the less familiar bass clef, as both hands play the same note.

Also, because the exercises are repetitious, in that you play exactly the same pattern of notes over and over, chromatically, you can quickly memorize the pattern, and thus not have to keep up with a changing melody.

The first exercise is very simple and lends itself well to this.

I have my students play this the following way to learn to read:

As you read the music, play the note, and verbally call out the name of the note. Thus, you see the note, hear the note played, play the note, and hear the name of the note, all at one time. This seems to really speed up the learning process.

If you primarily look at the bass clef as you do this, with glancing at the treble clef only as necessary for reference, you should pick up reading the bass clef quickly.

Also, this is a good way to get the LH in better "athletic" shape, to be more like the RH.

The only caveat is to go very slowly at first...one note every 5 or 10 seconds is fine...this is a learning exercise, not music.

I know this does not exactly answer your question of finding melodies to play, but it is something that might help you with reading.

But Monica is right...the process of learning to read either clef is to play, play, play...but as you say, much music is LH chords, so finding LH single notes is a bit of a challenge.

Hope this helps, and Good Luck!

There are some exercises for the left hand on this excellent free and legal link someone posted a while back:

Exercises and Studies

Wow, thanks for all these thoughtful replies to my intoxicated insomniac New Years posting. You guys are great!

It occurred to me (once I got some sleep) that I knew of an excellent source of bass clef melodies, so I thought I should post a link to it, just in case anyone else wants some bass clef practice, It's this page full of traditional tunes and other pieces arranged for the bass recorder

Also, I realized that one of the many things that my favorite computer program can quiz me on are series of notes on the bass clef. I can respond either by plugging my midi keyboard into the computer or by clicking on an on-screen keyboard (or even an on-screen guitar fretboard, if I wanted to take up yet another instrument...)

Thank you for the link on the exercises and studies. I just downloaded 2 of them.

Bluekeys: above you say that this is a free and "legal" link? I thought this was very useful and sent the link to a couple of people that I thought would be interested in it and received a snippy e-mail in return saying that it's "blatant copyright infringement". Since the folks on this forum are usually very conscientious about such things, I was quite taken aback. How do you determine that sites such as this are legal? I'm not sure how to reply to the rebuke I received.

None of those are legal - they're taken from the CD Sheet Music collection.

(Yes, the pieces themselves are public domain, but the CD Sheet Music incarnation is considered an edition of the works and protected under copyright law.)

Sorry. I thought since everything on there is like a hundred years old it was all out of copyright and legal. Still seems odd to me that if someone was going to break the law they would only post all this old stuff. Didn't mean to get anyone in trouble or contribute to copyright violations.

Can someone post a link to somewhere where one can legally obtain this CD Sheet Music collection? It sounds like a good resource.

Just answering my own question in case anyone else is interested -- the CD in question is available here

[edited to fix url]