Practicing left hand only to solidify pieces

twocats

Yesterday I met up with a small group of friends; we've started to meet up every month or so to play for each other and help each other (and socialize!). There are 4 of us, all advanced pianists.

Two of them have advanced piano performance degrees and said that their professors had really recommended practicing left hand only (it was the "catch phrase" for one of them and his favorite saying), because if you only practice hands together you use your right hand as a crutch and the left hand is hiding under it and you might not notice that it's not clean. My friend said it'll be a very painful process but that my pieces will be much more solid by doing this.

Has anyone else heard of this? Anyone want to join me in trying it out?

ShiroKuro

It’s interesting that in simpler music, playing LH only for the entire piece would not be that difficult, but playing a more complex all the way through LH only will be more difficult. And by the way, I’m thinking of some of the pieces I’m working on right now and thinking, ugh, that would be hard!

twocats My friend said it'll be a very painful process but that my pieces will be much more solid by doing this.

My teacher says stuff like to me a lot, I mean describing some practice technique she’s recommending as painful. And she doesn’t mean physically painful of course, just for the record!

And generally she’s right! Some of these practice approaches make my brain hurt! 😃

But they do generally push things forward.

You’ll have to come back and let us know what you think of this, whether it helped a lot etc.

BTW this is not the same as what you’re talking about here, but another thing my teacher would sometimes say to me last semester was “you don’t know where your thumb is.” (Which of course is kind of a funny thing to say, I know where it is, it’s attached to the base of my hand! 😃

Anyway, she was always talking about the LH. She would point out that I knew the notes, and I’d be reading the score and have my eyes on the music, but somehow I wasn’t actively registering the LH part, and my LH looked (to her) like it was a little bit lost. She had me focus on where my thumb was without looking at it and without looking down at the keyboard, and make a more intentional effort to actively read the bass clef as well as the treble clef line, and focus on knowing where my thumb was, without looking at it.

It might sound weird, but it made a huge difference in a very short amount of time.

Somehow I feel like doing this LH-only play through might be similar.

TC3

twocats Absolutely. I'm a big fan of continuing a lot of HS practice even after getting things HT. It really facilitates my improvement in speed, accuracy, and general musicality, but even more importantly, it really helps me remember the piece consciously rather than rely on muscle memory alone. I agree that LH bits are more vulnerable to substandard performance, given the RH's common prominence in pieces, not to mention the majority of people's dominant hand tendencies. I also think it's easier to get away with lesser LH performance because the audience is often more focused on the RH melodies and may not notice the weakness of the LH! We must hold ourselves to higher standards than even our audiences do ... 😃

iternabe

Left hand only in certain sections/phrases, or the entire piece?

twocats

iternabe Left hand only in certain sections/phrases, or the entire piece?

All of it! Left hand alone should be just as fluent as hands together. One friend memorizes all her pieces and she starts off memorizing hands separately before together.

I do practice hands separately for tricky parts but never the entire piece.

PianogrlNW

Yes! I practice LH only for certain types of pieces. It helps to create an even sound and to understand the underlying harmonies. Most Chopin nocturnes would be a good example. But there are also many other types of pieces that it would be useful for. Sometimes I play the LH and sing the melody in my head.

I participated in a Tonebase 2 week intensive that addressed the importance of making the LH sound even, with no stick out notes, by practicing very slowly without pedal. I found the short video on the teacher’s website. It was an eye-opener for me. The teacher talks mostly about using the LH to create the sound world you want to achieve.

thepianoplayer416

Classical music both parts are important. When we get into Pop music or playing off lead sheets, we can play in an improvised way and put in a few LH chords as we go. We're not learning the LH part from sheet music.

A lot of teacher including mine would do the hands separate demo in class so the students are aware what each hand is supposed to play. When we repeat sections of music many times, we develop muscle memory and learn finger sequences without being aware of all the notes we're playing. Playing LH separate we'd learn the notes better even when we're not playing from memory.

A piece with 2 or more melodic lines like the ones by Bach it would be better to learn individual lines so when we combine them we're aware of the separate melodies going across than just stacks of notes. Pieces with simple chords or intervals as LH fillers we don't need to work on the LH part as much. Learn the notes and find comfortable fingerings.

BartK

It's not just LH only. One well-known technique is to play each voice by poking each note using the index only. The point is to check whether you actually remember all the notes without reference to muscle memory at all. Another way is to play the RH part with the LH and the LH part with the RH, separately. Again, this is just to confuse your muscle memory and ensure that you really know the notes rather than just have them on autopilot. I have used both of these and it's worth trying.

rsl12

BartK One well-known technique is to play each voice by poking each note using the index only. The point is to check whether you actually remember all the notes without reference to muscle memory at all.

Interesting--sometimes I practice improv in octaves for the exact same reason. It keeps me from regurgitating muscle-memorized patterns (Also, octaves sound nice.)

Also I agree with LH only practice, and to go even further, practice of each voice separately, to make each line musical.

ShiroKuro

BartK One well-known technique is to play each voice by poking each note using the index only. The point is to check whether you actually remember all the notes without reference to muscle memory at all. Another way is to play the RH part with the LH and the LH part with the RH, separately.

Those are the kinds of things my teacher will have me do. They make my brain hurt! 😃

AaronSF

ShiroKuro
Practice techniques make your "brain hurt"?! Then I'd suggest you do them until your brain stops hurting. That's when you'll know you've finally nailed it. 😉

Jane

Garrick Ohlsson was obviously traumatized 😵by Rosina Lhévinne when she asked him to PLAY ("not practice, Dear”) the left hand of the più mosso section of the Barcarolle (he’s referenced the incident in at least two videos).

When I had a few minutes at a Tonebase event to ask him about a different section of the Barcarolle, he asked me to PLAY the left hand alone in that section…. and I couldn’t (although I’m fine playing the più mosso LH).

I’ve been expanding the amount of time spent on LH alone.

lilypad

I start out learning most pieces hands separate a section at a time. Once I've learned the section I pretty much practice hands together from then on.

Interestingly when I'm playing a memorized piece that I haven't played for a while and have a lapse for how the right hand goes in the section, I can often bring it back by playing the left hand part, provided I remember that.

There's a concert pianist, Greg Niemczuk, who memorizes lengthy pieces in their entirety hands separate. He goes further and memorizes Bach pieces by each voice. He has lengthy videos (approx 50 minutes or so) where he does it.

Josephine

I practiced left hand alone last month for the short Schumann piece 'Chopin', but for a different reason: While it is a super short piece I still failed to memorize the arpeggios 🫣 It worked very well for memorizing, and the side effect was that the whole piece sounded better. I think because I focused more on left hand dynamics this time. I played it as beautiful as I could to make sure that it was focused practicing. Maybe they became more separate, like an instrument and a singer? I don't really know. It does make sense. If you and a cellist play a piece together then you are both important. If one of you didn't practice then it has an effect on the end result. You both have to practice your own part, and also practice together for the best result. And piano solo pieces are already complete on their own, a combination of the different 'instruments', like a mini orchestra.

It's such a coincidence that you mention it now, because I never do this normally. I was just frustrated that I kept forgetting some of the arpeggios, so I needed to hear the left hand only version in my mind, memorize the sound as if it were a different piece.

I don't know if it will work for all pieces. I would like to join to try it again with a very different piece to find out, but can I join with a new piece that I want to learn? I didn't play for a month and I don't have anything to practice now.

twocats

Josephine can I join with a new piece that I want to learn?

It's not an official challenge or anything, just try it when you can and share the results 🙂

Josephine

twocats

I know, but there won't be a before and after for the particular piece. Maybe I should relearn something. I think I might do that, one that I quit because I had difficulties learning it.

twocats

Josephine I know, but there won't be a before and after for the particular piece. Maybe I should relearn something. I think I might do that, one that I quit because I had difficulties learning it.

There are no rules! You can see if it improves an old piece, or just use it as a learning tool for a new piece 🙂

pianoloverus

I think for many or even most people practicing the left hand separately would improve the performance of a piece.There are certainly other approaches to practicing that are not commonly done, including practicing the right hand alone, that would also probably improve the performance of a piece.There's always the question of how much time one is willing to or can afford to spend learning a piece and if the potential improvement is worth the effort.

ShiroKuro

AaronSF somehow I feel like you’re missing the point of this discussion…. The point about “brain hurting” is not just “oh, I don’t know how to play this yet…” which is a standard stage in the learning process.

Instead, the point is that, when you use a practice technique that’s not only different from normal practice techniques, but also might be something that you would never do in actually performing the piece (e.g., play the RH part with the LH or vice versa) it challenges your brain in different ways.

What we’re talking about here is a kind of pianistic cross-training. So, maybe something like, “no (brain) pain, no (brain) gain” to perhaps really run the metaphor into the ground 😃

Monviso

Thanks for this suggestion! I'm using it on the Allegretto of Beethoven's 14/1: it's easy enough to sight read, so I hadn't put much work into it. Focussing on the LH alone is forcing me to be much more precise with legato. It's going to make all the difference (I hope!).

I've been interested to see how exhausting I have found it. So I presume it's doing me some good!

twocats

Monviso I've been interested to see how exhausting I have found it. So I presume it's doing me some good!

I'm glad it's helping! And yes, I find it exhausting as well! I do think it's improving small details that I didn't previously notice in my left hand.

ShiroKuro

twocats improving small details that I didn't previously notice in my left hand.

I think this is maybe one of the other reasons LH-only feels hard — namely, I find that I put my LH on autopilot a lot (certainly more than I should). Which isn’t to say I’ve memorized the LH part, but more that, sure, my eyes are grazing over the bass clef notes as I’m reading along, so I know what I’m playing, but I’m not focusing on the LH part because of my attention is given to the RH. It’s like my attention to the LH part is very cursory. Switching that attention from cursory (during HT) to hyper-focused during LH-only allows for that noticing to occur.