Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum playing soft with one hand & loud with he other

When playing an actual piece I have the feeling I can do this fairly well, but now I have to study it very specifically with a short etude. First half the melody is in the right hand, and then moving to the left hand. The melody (of couse) should be louder then the other part. To complicate matters it is als shifting from staccato to legato (so left hand has to play eg loud staccato, and right soft legato or loud legato with a soft staccato in the other hand etcetera)

It drives me CRAZY!!

Any tips???

Ingrid

The best tip I have for this kind of situation is to play your right hand legato (let's say two phrases)

So play the right hand once thorough.
Then as you focus on playing the right and part add one note (with the correct dynamic) in the left hand, without allowing it to disrupt your right hand, which will go on for the whole two measures.

When you can do this fairly well, use the same principle and add a second note in the left hand.
Again, make sure it is the right dynamic and that it doesn't bother your right hand. Keep practicing until the left hand notes don't mess with your right hand smoothness and control.

Then add a third note in the left hand.
As you progress with more notes, you will see that the work gets easier and easier.

You will reach a point were the whole left hand combines with the right hand remaining individual in its flow and dynamic and without disrupting the right hand.

Now that you're reached this point, repeat the same process with the left hand going smoothly and the right hand adding notes (with the correct dynamic) without disrupting the left hand smoothness. Chances are, this phase will be a lot easier and faster than the first time.

Practice each hands dynamics separately to make sure you have the dynamics in each hand down really well and the practice the piece very slowly focusing on what you need to do with each note to give it the proper feel. This can be a pretty hard technique to get down...it took me awhile in my first piece where I had to play like that.
It shouldn't take long when you practice hands separate, but just make sure you go slow when you practice hands together the first few times.

Ooh - I've been having some trouble with this lately, thanks for the tip Danny - I'll have to give it a try!

Much more practical than my teacher's helpful advice of "it's like you have one hand in warm water, and one in cold water" - *huh?* - I'm still not sure exactly how to process that one

I like it! You should do it with your ears though. Once you hear the tune soaring above the accompaniment you won't go back.

Hmm. I don't know about the warm and cold water, but I'll think of it while trying the other approaches mentioned. I think I'll go with the one-note-at-a-time first and see where it gets me. I confessed to my piano teachter that I threw my etude book in a corner and need another week for this one, so I'll really have to tackle it now! (6 days to go. LOL)

Thanks,

Ingrid

Another tip, try to play one hand so softly that it is not making any noise. Then gradually increase the volume on that hand.

Rich

I usually work on the fingering of the "soft" hand without actually pressing the keys down and play the lead notes with the regular volume and dynamics. Playing both hands at different volumes can be tricky!

Always, always we get mechanical suggestions and mostly good ones, but it's about hearing the effect. The OP has obviously never heard it. How can you hear something (so that you can play it) when you've never heard it before?

Keyboardklutz,

I know exactly how it should sound. How I want it to sound. But (at least for me) that doesn't automatically mean that it sounds that way when I play it. That's the frustrating part. So I guess I need some 'technical' trick to help me disconnect both hands volume-wise. But if you know mental trick that might help, I'm all ears. Do you mean something like the warm/cold water approach? (I still need to try...) Or something else?

Ingrid (and what's the OP? Is that me? I'm pretty new on this forum, and a non-native english speaker, so probably missing out on some abbreviatons or other things)

Hi Ingrid,

(OP just means 'Original Poster', the person who started the thread with the first post)

Sorry to get abstruse here but if you haven't played it you can't know what it sounds like. Is imagining eating pickled herrings on toast eating pickled herrings on toast? My favorite mechanical approach is playing one hand as loud as possible and the other soft as possible. Also realize the physics mean that the loud hand will play a little bit before the soft.

But the result for experienced players, when they split the hands (one coming in sooner) is usually soft first, loud later. They anticipate early with the hand that plays softer.

Hmm. Keyboardklutz. To taste something you actually need to eat it yourself, but to hear something you don't actually have to play it yourself. In this case my teacher played it for me live during lesson, and I've got it on a home-made CD which she provides her students with as a back up help for study.

I'm still curious what non-mechanical tips and tricks you might have though...

Ingrid

PS...and thanks Eeaun for the OP explanation. If I make any other weird beginners mistakes that I do'n even realize I am making...pls let me know & enlighten me where appropriate!

I'm afraid not. To hear it you've got to play it. Maybe this'll help? http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/27/2634.html Don't know any other non-mechanical tips.

Ha, Klutz. I'll think about it. But I played it myself as well, and what I hear when *I* play it is not what I want to hear. That's pretty good already, I guess. Step one. Now, step two is how to get it to sound more like what I want to hear (which I also have a pretty good idea of, with my teacher and the CD recording) And that's where I am struggling.

Ingrid

Hate to be obstreperous but that's step 0. No wonder it drives you crazy!

You're right, but the two methods chase each other in circles. How can you play one hand as loud as possible and the other as soft as possible, if you just can't yet individualize the dynamics of the two hands. You must start somewhere and you can't do what you can't do.

This is one area where a digital piano can be beneficial. Split the keyboard, and turn the volume of one hand down to either zero or near zero, and it will help you focus your attention on the other hand.

ps...I am not against Acoustic pianos...I own a beautiful one.

We're talking about a skill here. The skill must be mastered, to some extent, in order to be applied.

One hand (or one note in one hand) against another in the other hand, soft against loud, id not always possible at first. Many people have to play alternating hands first, then try to gradually get the hands together, in steps.