Playground Forums

I know the key solution for this issue is practice, practice and more practice, but I having a very hard time when trying to play with both hands. My problem is that I get lost reading the notes on the screen (left and right hands at the same) I don't know where to look first to give me some direction. Any one have a tips that can help me with that. I am in the Rooky bootcamp around lesson 33.

Thanks in advance.

I feel your pain. I have the same problem. My solution is to slow the playback tempo to what you might think is a ridiculously slow speed. If you're on a PC or Mac, you can select a wide range of tempos. I will sometimes choose 48 BPM for the first play through of a both hands part.

I will also preview the sheet music at my own pace, that is without hitting play, one beat at a time and figuring out where each finger goes. I might do that two or three times before I try to play with the metronome. You gotta walk before you run. And sometimes you have to crawl before you walk. I do a lot of crawling on the harder lessons.

Thanks a lot for your input. I do believe I need to slow down and read the notes before I hit the play bottom. Love your help and I going to try.

The new Courses section (as of Dec. 2017) is a step in this direction. It is just what I need.

That's good to hear, I'll check it out, because that is one thing that seems to be a bit lacking in PS rookie bootcamp.

I've just started Grade 1 piano as well as using Playground Sessions and the very first two songs in the workbook are canons/rounds where both hands are playing the same very simple tune but the left hand is delayed behind the right. Man, that is hard. Yet I can manage the left and right together in the PS songs without too much difficulty.

I suppose PS don't want to scare people off by making the rookie bootcamp too hard.

Hi ellerandi Seems using the boths hands problem is a common issue, I thought I was doing well up until I reached that point... It was a bit of a brick wall for me. I got really frustrated with it. and left it for a day or so

The way I got past it is this... ( together with determination )

* Like others...I defo slowed it down, NB I found that the backing track element doesnt work beyond full and half speed, which didnt help me as the backing helps me with timing.

*Eventually half tempo with the auto repeat function on worked best. It helped to cut out some the intro which was was too long to be repeating. I let it run on repeat and just went for short two handed sections only where i felt comfortable. I also made the notation screen smaller so I could read ahead further to prepare for the bit I wanted. As I got to grips with small sections I gradually included other sections. After a good number of run throughs I was able to get my hands to obey.

Its funny because I was really concernered that It wasn't going to work at all. but the half tempo with auto repeat defininitely helped me. I'm still working on it but I was able to complete the songs at full speed once id mastered the half speed.

NB dont be surprised if once you get it, that erm you lose it again at the next visit... I have found muscle memory does have a short term forgettery, but it does come back again quite quickly... Now I dont always expect to start where I left off i'm always ready for a bit of refreshing to get back into it.

Let us know how you get on with it... Here's hoping for ya!

Hi,

I just bought two practice books for the piano and I think (hope) they will help with my coordination. They were relatively cheap under 10$ each.

1) Schirmer's Library of Musical Classics: Schmitt Preparatory Excercises for the Piano
The inside says "five finger excercises".

2) Shirmer's Library of Musical Classics: Hanon The Virtuoso Pianist in Sixty Exercises for the Piano (I just bought book 1 of 3).
The description on the inside says "For the acquirement of agility, independence, strength and perfect evenness in the fingers as well as suppleness of the wrist". Which sounds promising.

The books are short, like 25 pages each. But based on the difficulty I feel like I will be spending alot of time with them.

~Vee

I see a lot of people recommending Hanon so have been trying out the first one or two myself.

I'm not quite up to the standard of this guy yet...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mnxstPyphA

Al the Hanon exercises are available here for free download if you want to try them out before buying the book:

https://www.hanon-online.com/

scirocco wrote:I see a lot of people recommending Hanon so have been trying out the first one or two myself.

I'm not quite up to the standard of this guy yet...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mnxstPyphA

Al the Hanon exercises are available here for free download if you want to try them out before buying the book:

https://www.hanon-online.com/

I guess we have our work cut out for us!

Just a tip wrt the Hanon excercises: there are also books that combine the three volumes (60 excercises) into one, e.g.
ISBN10 0793525446
ISBN13 9780793525447