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I started playing this year, and I have been working through Alfred's Beginner book. Things went very smoothly up until some hand independence was required. I like the book, but I feel they didn't provide enough guidance or exercises to develop hand independence.

So how did you gain hand independence, or how are you working on achieving it? I know practice is required, but were there specific exercises you found beneficial? Just playing pieces that demand independence isn't really working for me. I feel like I need to learn this in smaller steps in order to keep the positive momentum. As is, I just feel stuck/frustrated.

Thanks for your help.

I don't know if there are any specific exercises. If there are, I haven't come across them.

Just play one measure or even just two notes at a time. Play the left hand part. Play the right hand part. Try playing both together. As slowly and as many times as is required.

Plink Plink. Right. Plonk Plonk. Left. Plink-plonk plink-plonk. And there you go.

For me, it just kind of eventually comes together.

Come to think of it, that's how I learn to play everything. Though I do a line or so at a time rather than a single measure these days.

But I'm certainly no kind of an expert, either.

I too think pieces are best for hand independence, especially Baroque pieces. It might be early for JS Bach but there are easier minuets by other Baroque composers. In the early stages I had this minuet in A minor by Johann Krieger, which helped me tremendously:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=zpycZrdee3E

I had the very same troubles.
Even now I notice that as I start certain pieces (Bach for example) my brain is straining to coordinate with my hands,... or vice versa.

HS until both really know what they're supposed to do, and then a snail slow pace HT. If I'm still having trouble it means I am going faster than a snail and have to slow down more.

Lots of repetition.

On the bright side, the whole process evolves a bit faster now than it did even just a few months ago. Practice may not make perfect, but it sure makes a difference!

Not quite independence, but a useful step along the way for me was scales hands together, two octaves, and contrary motion. At least you know the fingers should go down at the same time.

This is an example of work at the beginning of Anna Magdalena Bach's Minuet:

the importance of each hand already knowing what to do for me is important. For a long time I would jump in with hands together when learning a new piece. Nowadays I work for a much longer time hands separate. I make sure I can count the piece so that I have the rhythm and the notes pretty much ingrained before putting both hands together.

Playing hands separate will also highlight any technical difficulties which have to be addressed for good hand independence. Some of the technical issues I have had in the past were somewhat hidden by starting hands together too early and would not show until much later, probably when I would be having difficulty getting the piece up to tempo.

You have years of work ahead of you, if you are anything like me. But it's been a fun journey. I still have trouble, especially if the passage is difficult.

Decide on a fingering for the LH and stick to it.

Don't move the LH position unless you have to. Taking it off the keys and moving it when you don't need to leads to errors.

Learn something with a waltz or stride bass pattern (low bass note, higher chord) until you get confidence moving the LH around without looking. This takes years.

Try this for practice if you want to expand your mind - double the left hand with your right hand, an octave higher. This exercise makes me crazy because its so much harder than it should be.

Divide your attention. Decide when your LH needs to get all the "mind-power" and memorize the RH so it can go on autopilot.

Sam

I also started this year and I am not expert at all. But I had too have the same problem and I was looking around for exercises that could help to develop hand independence. After trying a lot of different options I found the following youtube video very useful for me. Please note that I am not promoting/advertising this video - I am just sharing my own very positive experience:

Developing Left Hand -- Right Hand Independence on the Piano - Glen Rose

Hey EPMD, I have to give credit to practicing 12 bar blues very slowly to getting all of my 10 fingers in the game ... there are plenty of simple bass line rhythm patterns one can work with.

Good luck!

I know lots of people curse at Hanon but those exercises are exactly that - i.e. the same pattern an octave higher in parallel. I found it good for general technique but I'm not sure it's so great for hand independence though. Once you get used to doing patterns in parallel it's not much of a challenge. A greater challenge is doing different rhythms in both hands (and later different dynamics too), which is why I suggested Baroque pieces.

Another great way to improve independence is to play simple tunes such as Frère Jacques as a canon. That is, you play the melody first in the left hand and after one measure you come in with the same melody in the right hand without stopping the left hand. A great source of short beginner-level canons is this:

http://imslp.org/wiki/200_Short_Two-Part_Canons,_Op.14_(Kunz,_Konrad_Max)

Hello EPMD,

If I understand you correctly, you've just begun to play pieces that have the hands doing different things at the same time.
For every student I've ever had, the first piece with different parts for each hand takes a very long time to learn, compared to all the pieces they learned before that are one-handed or have the hands playing the same thing at the same time. It takes time to develop that skill, and it takes time for everyone. That can be tough for adults because usually they move through the beginning stages very fast -- they learn information so fast, so they learn note names and understand physical movements and the basics of sound (loud/soft, high/low) much more easily than young children -- but developing the coordination to play hands together takes about the same amount of time as it does for a child, so it's the first time an adult has had to slow down during their beginning piano study.

But then, once that first hands-together piece is really learned securely and sounding good, the next piece with different parts for each hand goes much more smoothly. We eventually move into more difficult music of course, but it's never quite as difficult just to think about the hands independently anymore.

You have received many good suggestions above, but it seems to me that many of those suggestions are intended for a level of difficulty that's substantially harder than one's first hands-together pieces ought to be. Later, after the students have played many more pieces with a RH melody and a basic LH accompanying pattern, that's when they get easier Baroque pieces (including that minuet Nahum posted), and rounds/canons, and many teachers use Hanon at that stage too. So keep those suggestions in mind for when you get to that stage.

For now, I'd suggest just taking your time. Maybe add just one measure each day to your first hands-together working piece, but play that measure many many times so you really understand what's going on and it becomes easier. Keep at that piece every day. Stick with it until it all sounds good with no struggle. And then keep it around and play it regularly as a review piece, so that when you start work on the next hands-together piece you have the first one still in hand as a confidence-builder and a way to keep your hands remembering how that kind of coordination works.

If you are looking for more pieces at the early hands-together level you could try the first book of Mikrokosmos by Bartok -- it's very effective, but some people don't like the sound of the exercises (really they are exercises and not pieces of music). Also Fundamental Keys, or really any method book and look for the level where you just begin to see different parts for the different hands at the same time.

I know they are out there. I know they exists in the classical world. But in my world, there are no songs/tunes where my left and right hand aren't somehow connected by the beat. One hand may be playing 2's and 4's, and the other playing 3's and 5's, but make no mistake, they are not really independent because the rhythm ties them together somehow. I can see this to be a problem where if something is played so excruciatingly slow the rhythm disappears completely. Why not play something simpler?
This isn't meant to undermine somebody's method.
It must be a good idea to get published, right?

It is necessary to distinguish between the difficulty of repertoire and difficulty of the method. I suggested the most simple additive method, of course, after each hand knows his part.

I can't remember well now but I had the same problem and someone in the forum recommended practicing on the table or anywhere you have close to you.

I have posted this before, and it is the bottom line as to learning anything at the piano, especially hands together:



You cannot speed this up. Cramming won't work.

All you can do is keep putting information into your brain properly, slowly, so your brain can "digest" it, and wait to let your brain adapt and learn.



How to do it right:

1. Once you can play hands separate at a basic level without speeding up and without undue tension, take something that is Hands Together, but very very simple and below your level, and master it by playing it slowly, carefully.

2. Don't add new more complex things until you can do simple things well, and for at least a few weeks.

How to do it wrong:

1. Start by jumping into something that is difficult. You will know if you are over your head if you cannot play it hands together fairly quickly, and play it well, despite your every effort.

Basic principle: if you can play hands separate at a certain level, you probably cannot play hands together at that same level.

Hands together is an additional brain task, in addition to each hand by itself, so back up a level or 2, because hands together is a whole new thing, its not hands separate X 2.

Pay special attention to learning the left hand, separately. The left hand is where most screw-ups occur when we go to hands together.

Hmm I still can't do some combinations of rhythms in the hands (was watching a video like that now). I just had not noticed because there's nothing like that in my music at the moment. I just can hope some day I'll have the patience to practice for it.

EPMD, is it specifically Blow The Man Down where the hand independence problem begins for you in Alfred? Or earlier? (Or later)? Depending which piece it is that gives problems, I might be able to suggest some ideas for developing the necessary hand independence.

+1 Time is the main component, IMO, as long as you are practicing patiently and slowly. I don't mean time on the bench... regular practice is assumed... but just the passage of days and nights digesting the whole learning process. Most likely your expectations are too high. It is going to feel awkward for quite some time when you start new pieces. Just keep working each assignment to the best of your ability. It will get better with time.

Good luck,

Jim