How do I learn piano making my hands work together?

Playing different things with right and left hands is one of the most difficult skills the beginner pianist has to learn. Still, this is the core of piano playing and so it is something to be mastered at an early stage.

I have known very intelligent adults despair to their piano teacher that they’ll ever get anywhere and I’ve known tiny little tots take to it like a duck to water. It’s one of those totally unfair situations when some brains seem to be set up right whilst others have the wiring right for most things but askew for piano playing!

Don’t despair though. By following the advice below anyone can benefit from their piano lessons. some will take longer than others and may feel they are getting nowhere for a while but there is always some improvement through practice.

Consider these three steps to success.

First, make sure that the piece you’re attempting to play isn’t too difficult. If you’re trying to run before you can walk, you’ll get nowhere fast! As adults, we all tend to look at first pieces in a book and think we can achieve something much harder.

With the piano keyboard your brain has to contend with many unfamiliar commands and learn new motor skills. When you think of the story of the hare and the tortoise you can realise that with playing the piano, slow and steady to the finishing line really is the best policy.

Second, make sure you are confident about playing each hand separately. So well in fact that you would not be put off playing by any minor distractions.

A powerful practice technique is to learn to play the left hand accompaniment whilst singing the melody of the right hand. This helps to train your hands to be independent of your conscious thoughts as well as helping you to hear how right and left hands fit together before you can actually play both.

Third, just take it slowly. I mean slow the tempo right down and play the piano notes regularly in tempo but slowly. You’ll naturally have to play more slowly hands together than you do hands separately at first.

As soon as you start to put the hands together just cut your speed in half. Then be very precise. If you play too quickly to be accurate then you are actually learning to memorise these inaccuracies. You can always speed up when you are more proficient.

Follow these simple steps and you will be able to learn piano quite rapidly. Some folk will just get it almost right away whereas you may have to persevere with the right piano notes more slowly. Stay with it ‘though and you will certainly get there in the end.