Playing with both hands

[CharlieL]

Hello from New Orleans,
I am retired and have always wanted to play the piano. Now that I have the time, I am running into major stumbling blocks. My currect one is playing with both hands. I can go through the whole piece with just my right hand or just my left hand but when trying with both hands I am like a deer in the headlights. I am on song 36 in the bootcamp. I am on session 6 and have practiced it 50 times and cannot get above 87% accuracy. I turned off the numbers and letters for the notes several songs back to help me learn reading the notes. I can do better if I turn on the letters for the notes but I don't feel like I am really learning to read the notes that way.

Any tips or encouragement is appreciated.

[andrewwegierski]

I always found that two things really helped me play with both hands

-memorizing one or both of the hands and internalizing it so you don't have to read as much
-focusing on different combinations between hands - is one moving up and the other one moving up too? (parallel) Are they moving in contrary motion? Is one not playing at all? Where do they line up? Associations like that. Then you start to feel both hands at once as opposed to left and right individually.

Andrew

[FlatPanda]

I agree with Andrew, especially in the second point. A novice player myself, I find shortcuts like "and there both ring fingers" or "and there both hands one finger to the left" (e.g., it was left 2 and right 3, upcoming is left 1 and right 2) or "there copy but not mirror" (meaning for me that e.g., left 4 is playing with right 2, or left 5 with right 1) are enormously helpful.

[CharlieL]

Thanks, I'll keep those points in mind and keep pluging away.

I was wondering how long it takes to where you see a note on the scale and your finger automatically goes to the correct key on the keyboard. I realize it would vary greatly per individual. Would you tipcally have to play for hundreds of hours or for years to get to that point?

[rj3711]

I think your lesson 36 Session 6 is the same as my Lesson 38 Session 6...is yours on Counting Music - Subdivision? When I got to that lesson, I felt it was very out of place compared to the lessons previously. The concept of counting subdivisions wasn't bad, but the level of 2 hand coordination went up magnitudes beyond the previous lessons. I ended up getting a little frustrated with that lesson in particular and since the melody was very abstract, the 2 hands were moving with different rates and directions, etc.

I know others may say keep going at that lesson, but I got to the point were I wasn't feeling like I was making any headway at all. So I thought to myself, "Maybe I'll just move on to the next lesson and come back to this one later." Best decision I could have made. The next few lessons (Scarborough Fairs, Say Something, I won't give up, etc.) were much easier and more in sync with the progression of the previous lessons. I was able to get back to enjoying the practice sessions again. That was about a month ago and I'm now working on Rookie Lesson 51 - Girl Crush and the 30 Day Challenge, and I haven't looked back yet. I will eventually go back to that lesson and give it a try again, but maybe when I get closer to the end of the Rookie lessons.

Hope this helps!