Controlling Balance Between the Hands

Seeker

...posted this over on PianoWorld for somebody trying to get the LH accompaniment under control and under the melody in the RH. Perhaps it will be helpful to some of you here.

Here's an easy [probably should have said simple] way to practice controlling the balance between hands.
Take a simple 5 note sequence, C-D-E-F-G.
Play it slowly UP then DOWN with one hand.
Do the same with the other hand an 8ve down.
Play with BOTH hands - one hand plays STACCATTO and LOUD - the other plays connected and soft
Switch to reverse the roles
Play both hands in parallel, connected, up and down, ONE HAND LOUD, the other soft
And, for a challenge, CROSS one hand over the other, play the bottom figure with the RH, the top with the LH
Go through the same things
Do this in a different key each day
After a while, you'll start to be able to bifurcate your attention and more successfully control individual hand dynamics.
I often use E-F#-G#-A#-C instead of CDEFG, because the hand fits more naturally, at least for me, on those notes.

pianoloverus

Seeker What is the idea behind playing one hand staccato and the other hand legato? IOW why not play hands legato or both hands stacatto?

Animisha

Great exercise Seeker, thank you!

I find with this exercise it helps a lot to have a mental "image" of the sound that I need to produce: a flowing melody-line with ping! ping! ping! accompaniment.

Nightowl

I like it - a simple exercise that might be very useful. Thanks, I'll give that a try. 🙂

Sophia

Thank you Seeker 🙂 As someone who invariably gets the advice play the accompaniment softer, I probably have no choice but to sit down and do these exercises 😃

Seeker

Sophia Pleased that you'll give them a try. I should add that it's important when you do them not to tense up, because you are concentrating on the task of differentiation. So, however you play that is relaxed on a 5 note pattern, you want to be sure to keep that up during the exercise. Hope this is clear.

rogerch

Great exercise @Seeker !

When I learned to do this I tried to press the keys so slowly with the quiet hand that the hammers didn’t hit the strings. This strategy was also helpful when I learned to play multiple notes with the same hand at different volumes

Sophia

Ok, I confess. This is hard. HARD!
I feel like I'm sitting at the piano for the first day ever.

First I practised hands separately - LH soft legato. RH loud staccato. And reverse. This, of course, is easy.
Then try it hands together. LH soft legato and RH loud staccato is difficult, but... somewhat doable, after a few attempts. Somewhat. It still sounds like 💩 half the time.

Then, LH loud staccato, RH soft legato, yeah, no. My brain exploded before my fingers even touched the keys! This is going to be part of my routine for quite a while to come... then maybe I'll get it someday. Hmm! Maybe!

Seeker

Sophia I am thrilled that you're working these "little" exercises, which may be little, but are not easy to do... until you can do them, after, as my teacher, Peter Feuchtwanger, said many times, you will wonder how it could have been that they were difficult.
Beyond that - another pro tip - you need to find out how long you can REALLY concentrate. It may surprise you how short a time that really is, but whatever it is, keep the time working on the exercise(s) just to the point of discomfort - THEN STOP, and do something else. Come back to things later in the day, or even the next day, but don't push beyond where you can be entirely focused.
If past experience is prologue, you WILL advance. Just be patient with yourself.

iternabe

pianoloverus Because it's hard? And it's in my recent assignment? 😉

Seeker

pianoloverus Playing both legato or staccato is, of course, done. Adding the touch differentiation can help develop the ability to bifurcate. Consider it an add-on.

pianoloverus

iternabe My thinking was that for people in the beginning stages of learning to bring out one hand versus the other, adding the additional aspect of playing one hand staccato and the other legato might make things too difficult or not allow one to focus only on the dynamic contrast. Having seen some of your excellent playing on this site, I think you are beyond that more elementary stage.

Nightowl

Seeker I haven't tried the exercise yet, but I'm pleased to have learned a great new word: bifurcate! 😃 As a keen online Scrabble player I like growing my vocabulary. Actually plenty of musical terms are permitted so one hobby helps with the other - win, win! 🙂

keystring

Reading various responses I'm thinking there may be a problem in the detail. When I was learning to play one hand loud, the other soft, it was done in stages. To begin with it was with one pair of notes: a loud G in the RH, then a quiet G in the LH -- again closer together in time - finally at the same time. One pair of notes: 5 may be too much. 5 up, then down, may be too much. I'd also go for short repeated sessions with pauses - allow the skill to develop in the way the nervous system works with rest and sleep.

This goes with what was said later on:

Seeker Beyond that - another pro tip - you need to find out how long you can REALLY concentrate. It may surprise you how short a time that really is,

I've found for some things, 10 seconds can be a long time. But one can pause and reset. In my experience those 10 seconds will expand to 20, 30, then minutes.

Sophia

Hahaha well... yesterday I tried this for 15 minutes. It was frustrating and no fun at all. I told myself (and some friends) ok, that was once but never again 🤣

Of course today I tried again, just now in fact. This time only 5 minutes. I played CDEFG both hands legato. Then I played one hand staccato, the other legato. That is easy as well. And finally tried to increase the staccato hand. This is much harder and still basically impossible in reverse (LH loud/stac).

But, yeah. Thank you for this pointer - I do appreciate it and I know it will be helpful (and doable soon enough).
@Nightowl you go and try to bifurcate as well. C'mon, you KNOW you want to

Seeker

Just wanted to say that I am really happy with the community's reaction to my suggested exercises. Some people have written that 5 notes is a lot, so why not, 1, or 2. Indeed, why not? And what makes me happy is that I have stimulated your thinking about these things. Eventually, I would hope to see you extend that thinking to how you tackle the difficult passages in pieces that you are learning. It's what I do with my students in lessons, and I could cite numerous examples where a student comes to a lesson unable to play a difficult spot well, and, after we break things down in isolation and play with them until they work, they are able to get through the difficult spots with far less effort and difficulty.

Keep on keeping on, and do let us know of your progress. I think you'll find Sophia's, "well, the next day I could DO it..." experience is one you will share.

keystring

Seeker Some people have written that 5 notes is a lot, so why not, 1, or 2. Indeed, why not? And what makes me happy is that I have stimulated your thinking about these things.

I was the person who wrote that. It's not new thinking for me - it's how I do things. I came back to piano majorly handicapped by things that had developed the first time I'd played as a child and some nonsense I was given about the body learning another instrument. A lot of things I did automatically had to be revamped. A lot was and it's still ongoing.

When I read your OP, those were really good exercises. But I pictured that a lot of people might try to do the whole thing from the get-go and maybe all of them, and in my experience that doesn't work, nor would you want that. For one thing because of how long real focus actually lasts: something you wrote later on. Reading on, I saw signs.

When you post exercises in a forum, you don't get to observe the student trying them where you can guide: go more slowly - try doing less - take a break, now focus again. I was hoping when I posted you might support some of what or disagree if you disagreed.

Sophia

Heh, yes, this is true. Though it is taking a bit longer to get the LH to behave 😃 And... it's still hit and miss. I personally found that starting with both hands equal and then gradually introduce the differences is easier than trying to do it immediately.

It is something I have been needing to implement for quite a while now (as that is the most frequent comment on most, if not all, my recital pieces). I guess that just like the trill and page turns, I just needed to sit down and, well, practise it 😃

Seeker

keystring Actually, I WAS supporting what you said, if not, explicitly.
You're right. If I post an exercise in a forum, I cannot observe what people do, so I am VERY careful about what I post.
In fact the specific way that people can play those ascending/descending 5 note fragments would differ based on what "school of pianism" they were following, if any. My focus in the exercise was on developing the ability to bifurcate the attention between the hands.
I think I was clear in stating that people are individual in ability, and that results could vary.
I don't know how to be more circumspect than that.
And believe me, I'm absolutely NOT trying to hurt anybody, quite the contrary.
So, if I've offended you, I'll apologize publicly here, and after that, I'd like to drop our asides and remain focused on people trying the exercises and seeing how they work for them.

keystring

Seeker Actually, I WAS supporting what you said, if not, explicitly.

Thank you. And no, you didn't offend me. I'm not always that good with words.

Seeker And believe me, I'm absolutely NOT trying to hurt anybody, quite the contrary.

This I know. I've seen your work and your playing, and I've done some work with the Feuchtwanger material by now. We've discussed it.

I did not see any possibility of your exercises hurting anyone. I did want them to work for everyone because what you have given is powerful and effective. I was picturing ways of trying to follow that wouldn't get there, and dropped in the absurd extreme of one note at a time as maybe a ball to be picked up, or someone might play with that side of it and see what happens.