Playing with both hands

Why two hands feel hard

Each hand on its own is easy by now: the right hand plays a melody in C position, the left hand can hold a note. Together, the brain has to send two different instructions at once, and at first it wants both hands to do the same thing. That is normal, and it passes faster than you think if you build it up in small steps. Every pianist went through it; nobody is born with independent hands.

The trick is to start with a left hand that does almost nothing: one long note per bar, played with the first note of the melody. Your attention stays on the right hand, and the left hand only has to join in on beat one.

The grand staff

Piano music for two hands is written on the grand staff: the treble staff on top for the right hand, the bass staff below for the left, joined by a brace. You learned to read both in lessons 3 and 4. The one new rule: notes on the same vertical line are played at the same time. Read the music from left to right as usual, and when a note in the bass lines up with a note in the treble, press both keys together.

Hands separate, then together

This four-step method works for every piece, from Ode to Joy to Chopin:

• Right hand alone until it flows without stopping. You already did this in lesson 10.
• Left hand alone, counting the beats out loud, so you know exactly when each bass note comes.
• Both hands, very slowly, half the speed or less. Stop on every note where the hands meet, check both keys, then go on. Accuracy first, speed never.
• Both hands in time, with the metronome, at a tempo where you make no mistakes. Raise it a little each day.

Work in small pieces: one bar, then two, then a phrase. Repeat a short passage five times correctly rather than a whole page once with mistakes; the hands learn whatever you repeat.

A left hand of long notes

In the exercise the left hand plays only two notes: C3 with the little finger and G3 with the thumb, below the melody. C goes under the first and third bars of each phrase, G under the second and fourth, because C and G are the roots of the two chords of the song, and a last C joins the final note. Press the bass key with the first melody note of the bar and hold it while the right hand goes on.

Keep the left hand relaxed and close to its keys between notes. If it tenses up, the right hand tenses too; shake both hands out and start again slowly.

Two mistakes are very common at this stage. The first is looking down at each hand in turn: keep your eyes on the music and feel the keys instead, using the black keys as landmarks. The second is letting the left hand speed up or slow down the melody. Count out loud, "1, 2, 3, 4", and let the count lead both hands.

The next steps

Once a bass note per bar feels natural, give the left hand a little more to do, one step at a time: two notes per bar (root and fifth), then block chords, the three notes of the triads of lesson 9 held for a bar, then broken chords, the same notes one after the other. Many easy versions on the sheet music pages use exactly this kind of left hand: pick one, play the left hand alone first, then follow the four steps above.

Practise ten minutes a day rather than an hour once a week. Coordination is built while you sleep between sessions, and a little every day is what makes two hands become one pianist.