Any tips for playing p with the left hand and mf with the right? I have no problem playing both hands together in any of the pieces I've learned so far and some of those had some pretty complex left hand parts (for my level at least) but now that hand "independence" seems to no longer be hard at all, another issue arises. Is there some exercise to practice this? My teacher said it won't come easy and also that I should think about it, imagine my left hand playing softer than the right and then eventually it will work. She said I can try purposefully playing forte with the right hand while trying to play really soft with the left but that doesn't seem very easy. When I think of playing forte, both hands play forte and when I want to play piano, both hands become quiet. Any tips? I'm sure it will come eventually but in the meantime I'd love to have more opinions about this.

Hi Teo

I have a tip: don't look for tips.

Your teacher is right, right on the money!

You will try and try, and it won't be right...

... and then a long time down the road you will realize that you are doing it without even trying.

It demands a very developed mastery, muscularly and intellectually. In any case, if you can hear that you are not playing differently between the two hands, you are already on the road.

For the moment, do as your teacher says, exaggerate both hands.

After all the grief that you gave yourself about this gal, she seems to be a very interesting teacher. Normal enough for an accordeon player. Did you ever offer her an ice cream?

No, I'm not good with people, can't do that sort of thing. It would be awkward.

Yeah, keep at it and eventually you'll just do it without even thinking.

I agree...

I have a similar issue right now with keeping a 4/4 beat with the left hand while playing triplets with the right (not sure if the technical terms are correct, I translated them roughly from spanish).

If my mind focuses in the triplets, my left hand starts to slow down. If I pay attention to the left, the right hand synchronizes with the left.

It's a pain :S But I'm getting there!

The piece I am polishing requires this soft/strong playing on different hands too and need to switch them in the middle of the piece. My teacher told me to go extreme first as well. To play forte use a bit of body weight. Push yourself a bit forward when you press the keys. And to play pianissimo playing like you are brushing the dust off the keys (but in some cases you probably don't want to lift your fingers off too fast such as when you play legato).

And then you gradually apply more weight or less the weight on the other hand to get the right dynamic for that phrase.

I agree it doesn't come easily or smoothly but it's coming along so I think it's a good approach. Just make sure your arms and shoulders are relax and keep practicing.

Hope it is somewhat helpful and let see what others suggest. Good luck!

TinyHands

Teodor, I agree with TinyHands. The key to balancing dynamics between the two hands is to focus on arm weight. You need to allow more weight to sink in with the right hand than with the left.

Of course, this is easier said than done. If you're not accustomed to thinking in terms of arm weight, you might try a simple exercise. Sit up straight with your arms resting on your thighs. Breathe deeply and relax.

Then, with your wrist relaxed and your hand hanging, gradually raise your right arm. Feel the weight of your arm as you do this. When your arm reaches shoulder level, stop raising it and just feel the work you have to do to keep it raised.

Then—let go. Just let your arm drop onto your thigh.

This downward fall is all the force you need to produce tone on the piano. When you want to play forte, you let all the weight drop. When you want to play softly, you let just a little of it sink into the keys.

Of course, you need to get accustomed to using arm weight with one hand before trying it with two. Learning to balance the weight between the two hands is tricky. No one does on the first try. But when you let gravity do the work, you're relaxed. And when you're relaxed and attentive, great things can happen.

Let us know how it goes!

Bruce

Bruce, you hit it right on the head here. Arm weight plays a big part in this and in a lot of things at the piano. It helps not only to maintain a balance between the hands, but also keeps the arms and wrists relaxed, which also helps with the balance.

I also find singing the melody helps. The accompaniment will naturally fall to the background when I do this. Also knowing the music inside and out absolutely perfectly and comfortably really is important here. With an absolute comfort with the music, then there's no reason to focus on keeping something louder or softer. This will come naturally because there will then be no need to work extra hard at the more difficult accompaniment.

John

Weight is what you use to control three other more basic but important aspects of volume - speed, distance and micro-timing. Therefore weight controls volume indirectly. Speed, distance and micro-timing are really what controls volume. Let's examine each.

The starting point needs to be with controlling volume on individual notes, not phrases or passages.

1. Speed - If we're talking about just one note (not a melody) try taking your index fingers in each hand and play a note with each but attempt to press one note very fast and the other slow. This may result in the notes sounding a little separately. That's OK. You're just experimenting to see that how fast you press a note affects its volume.

2. Distance - If you hold your hand up high and drop your index finger on C, it will most likely be loud. If you start with your finger right on the note it will be soft.

LETS PUT THESE TWO VARIABLES, SPEED AND DISTANCE TOGETHER

Put both hands in C position. Hold your right hand slightly higher above the keys to give it distance. Play C slowly with your left hand and right after play C fast with your right hand, sounding it after your soft left note on purpose (similar to the speed of a grace note). This is rather crude but will give you the sensation of playing different volumes in each hand. if you still can't get different volumes, attack the loud right note a full beat after the soft note. Continue slowly through the five notes keeping the left hand close with slow attacks and the right hand slightly higher with fast attacks. Try switching the loud and soft hand. Try crossing your hands and doing this. Then you try to integrate the attacks at the same time but still achieve the different volumes, and that takes micro-timing.

3. Micro-timing - this is what takes our speed and distance experiment and regulates everything back into something worth listening to. Micro-timing is when you start the movement to press a note. In other words, if a loud note is pressed faster, the movement starts slightly after the movement of the soft note, which gets pressed slower. Thus, micro-timing are those little unconscious millisecond adjustments used to regulate the timing when two different volumes need to be achieved but you want them to sound at the same moment.

ALSO TO CONSIDER.

Weight is only one way to regulate speed and distance. Speed and distance (and thus, volume) can be controlled by using more arm/wrist (faster) or less arm motion (slower).

I know its a lot but I hope it helps!

Yes. it does happen at some stage, I guess..

Last year or so I posted a topic with the similar question as you are asking right now. I was struggling at that time.

Just last week I worked on a piece from my Alfreds book, and my teacher asked me to put more volume on the melody and less on the 'background stuff'. I actually realised only after the lesson that I could basically just do as she asked! No problem! And this was a piece where some of the background stuff was even in the RIGHT hand. So I was able to even play loud/soft WITHIN one hand!

I was surprised. I really didn't realize untill she asked that somehow I apparently had tackled the problem! No Idea even what I did. Maybe it's just time, and lot's of hours of playing.

Hope this reassures you a bit!

Ingrid

My teacher has me practice Hanon excercises with different volumes in each hand. It seemed to help me a lot.

Weird thing is, I am playing Tchaikovsky's Waltz from Sleeping Beauty and I manage to play left hand soft and right hand strong just like I wanted, and it happened without trying too much. I guess that's because it's easy to play so I could concentrate on that more.

Try mixing it with a little legato in one hand and staccato in the other. Even harder. I currently am also having trouble with both of these things. My left hand tends to always play strong than the right. I am sure this has something to do with me playing with my fingers in the right and playing with the whole hand (chords and octaves) in the left.

When my teacher brought up this subject I used to lower my right shoulder as a reminder. Don't forget wrist rotation and curled fingers. After you get the feeling it's all in your head, but it tends to be forgotten (I've practised it about 4 months, making progress but I'm not there yet).