I’m always in awe of pianists whose left hand is equal to the right hand in dexterity, expression, power and reliability. It’s the switch hitter thing that’s mind-boggling as it also applies to sports. Creaming a ball and sending it into the bleachers from either side of the plate is no small wonder. Mickey Mantle was a double threat powerhouse during the celebrated Mantle/Maris home run duel. (I watched from a box seat in Yankee Stadium)
When I came into the world, like most other babies, I had a genetic predilection to use my right hand more than my left. And before I was enrolled in piano lessons, I’d spent gads of time tossing up a pink rubber ball with my weaker left hand as I punched it assertively with my right. The same applied to stick ball.
In primary school, I enlisted my more agile right hand to scribble the letters of my name, while kids who were left handed were considered oddities, stigmatized for their genetic leaning. The same prejudice seemed to cross over into the political universe of Right and Left.
When I finally embarked upon piano lessons at the age of six, eventually progressing to reading the bass clef, it was no surprise that I would single out the melody and tack on the left hand. More often than not, my first Diller-Quaille pieces were supported by florid harmonic accompaniments played by my teacher, Mrs. Vinagradov so this co-dependency perpetuated neglect of my left hand. Decades later, as I played catch-up forcing my left hand out of its lackadaisical role and into the spotlight, I kept a journal to keep myself out of a left hand compromised rut.
Here are some suggestions that I had jotted down:
1) In all technical exercises such as scales and arpeggios, etc. make sure to flesh out the left hand, and give it a central role. Think deeper into the keys, but play into the “marshmallow” or “jello,” whatever works, to nourish well-shaped, singable lines. (you can start by isolating the left hand before pairing it with the right)
2)Play legato as well as staccato in your left hand leaning routines. Vary the dynamic levels.
3)Use Rhythms such as the long/short, long/short (dotted 8th/16th figure) and its opposite, short/long, short/long (16th/dotted 8th)
4) Select repertoire with a meaty left hand, such as Chopin’s “Revolutionary” Etude, Op. 10 no. 12, or the composer’s Prelude no. 2 in G Major Op. 28, No. 3, and apply the deep in the keys, slow and steady approach.
Use the rhythms already described and slow the time frame so you can breathe deep breaths and savor the time spent with your left hand.
Video:
I like the slow, deep in the keys approach. That works very well – I always use the analogy of actually massaging the keys or act like you are hanging from a cliff to make sure your wrist is adding weight to the fingers.
Two other methods if I may that I have actually found to be very successful.
1.) In other aspects of your life, use your left hand. Eat with it, pick up glasses and drink with it, brush your teeth with it, etc. This will help a lot if you stay diligent with it. I have even spent a few minutes days writing things with my left hand – My writing ability has actually improved a little bit but still not as fluent as my right by any means. Writing itself will develop the small twitches and tiny movements that the right hand dominates in – because writing itself is such a small twitch / tiny movement action.
2.) Right hand first / then copy technique and phrasing with left hand. I’ll just simply play a passage in the bass area of the keyboard with my right hand and then copy exactly the same sound and wrist movements with my left hand. This particular method I believe has helped me more than anything else.
Excellent suggestions. Thanks for sharing.. And hanging off the cliff .. yes, I’ve internalized that image.. I actually have a few additional ones like “puppet strings,” (feeling like a suspended marionette) or feeling like my arms are
hanging from a clothesline.. etc..
One problem I have had when I focus on the left hand is that it overpowers the right. This was a constant theme in my most recent series of piano lessons. I try so hard to bring out the bass and inner voices that the top voice gets lost. So how do you have a strong left hand but at the same time keep it subdued enough to be accompaniment (as it usually is)?
Sometimes when I feel my left hand isn’t getting enough exercise, I practice some Berens studies. At one point, I thought I could learn the Brahms arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne in D minor to fulfill the same role, but that was a bit too ambitious.
Hi. What I do is practice hands together scales – But with a twist!
Pick a hand, any hand. Right or Left. Then play the scale itself but without pressing the keys down. It’s basically like just touching the keys. But the most important thing is to actually play the OTHER hand very strong and deep into the keys.
So one hand is touching the keys and other is actually playing them. Then switch hands and do the same thing. After you can do this without thinking at slow and fast tempos, then try the following.
One hand super super soft and the other forte. So instead of just touching the keys you will actually press them down but every so gently. Then switch hands.
This teaches the hands to act in different ways – If you are having trouble with a passage in a piece, then try the same method. Just touch the left hand keys without pressing them down and actually play the right hand – then switch hands.
Trust me, it works! 🙂
Thanks for your comments. What you suggest I frequently do.. and elaborated in the past in this blog and video embed:
https://arioso7.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/piano-technique-and-weight-control-bringing-out-and-balancing-voices-video-teacher-shirley-kirsten/
Interesting and thought provoking question. I think it’s all about weight transfer and attentive listening. The fusion of the physical aspect of playing and the permeating sound ideal, or the imagined sound is indispensable to the whole process. So if, for example in Mozart 545, I am stuck on that finger tripping F Major scale in the LH, I force myself to flesh it out, figuring how to preserve the musical line, or shape while maneuvering various angles of my wrist hand even in micrometers.. It comes down in this phase of practicing to good muscle memory retrieval. Now of course I don’t want the exaggerated, depth into the keys to in the end overshadow the desired balance I want between the soprano and bass. But I know that I must settle the technical issues with that LH scale before I can integrate it into the texture. In that section it’s obviously clear the Mozart has inverted the melody and bass.. so the left should come out.. so maybe this is not a good example. But in a Bach Fugue, for example the C minor.. where you want the subject fleshed out, and it may occur in the bass, you may give it priority in the practicing phase, but musically and intellectually consider the voices around it. And so weighing deeper into the keys for the bass, lighter for counter subject etc. would create the desired balance. I think weight transfer and attentive listening go hand in glove.
I had written a blog with video on “weight control” a while ago.. many months back that came with a video about ways to flesh out voices with an awareness of weight transfer into keys, and playing around with these relationships between the hands. Now if we are string players, we don’t have to deal with this much, except maybe with double stops.. I recall some cadenzas where there were multiple voices to be reckoned with, and on violin it was a real challenge. Same for the Bach unaccompanied, for Cello. The really great artists were able to communicate separate voices and various lines.
I think that when practicing and learning music, it’s necessary to exaggerate everything so it’s clear in your mind and muscles. You wouldn’t actually play the piece this way, but it’s part of the learning process. Then you refine. Part of the problem with my last teacher is that she was trying to get me to refine and prettify before I had solidified the basics; this caused a lot of mental and physical tension. So when I am learning something on the piano, I tend to focus a lot on the left hand and the inner voices because those are the weakest, in a way, yet provide the foundation for the melody and the harmonic movement, and are the hardest to hear. This makes my early attempts at a piece sound unvoiced. But there’s no way I can go to a first lesson or two on something with it perfected — I mean, if I could do that, I wouldn’t be taking lessons at all!
It’s like if you’re sewing a dress and you just baste the seams together but then go on and nicely finish the hem and sew on the buttons and zippers — that will all look pretty, but the thing is going to fall apart the minute you bend over.
Yes, exaggeration is part of the baby step process in learning a composition. Refine can’t happen before the preludium as you well state. Certainly, I see students wanting to skip stages of learning to their detriment, but it does not work in the long term.
One of my students is studying the C minor fugue from WTC and we are picking out each voice, and yes, exaggerating.. It gives me the opportunity to unlayer and then layer, which is the soundest type of assimilation.