A must for beginners! 3 Practice Steps to Play Piano with Both Hands

I can play the piano with my right hand only, and I can play with my left hand only, but when I play with both hands it doesn’t work.

If you are so worried, don’t worry. Even if you play the piano well, you may not be able to play a song rhythmically when you play it with both hands.

It is very difficult to play simultaneously. Once you have practiced until you are satisfied with the performance of one hand, you must practice playing it with both hands. If you can successfully put together the right hand and left hand techniques, you will be able to play a wide variety of music.

In this article, we will introduce practice methods (1) through (3) in order to play with both hands.

You don’t have to do everything every time. Find a practice that works for you.

Step 1: Divide the part into smaller parts

At first, divide the songs into as many smaller pieces as possible.

Again, it is very difficult to play the right hand and the left hand at the same time. Please do not try to practice them all through at once, but create your own detailed parts.

While it is good to separate the performance with a crisp phrase, a more detailed separation will make for a more content-intensive practice.

For example, it is to be separated by one measure.

It is easier to learn one bar at a time than to practice one phrase at a time and struggle with it.

Step 2: Understand the rhythm

The next step is to understand the difference in rhythm between the right hand and the left hand.

In most piano scores, the right hand and left hand have different rhythms. For example, the right hand has quarter notes and the left hand has eighth notes.

First of all, let’s practice playing different rhythms with the right and left hands according to the score. This is the image of playing the cajón, a percussion instrument that is very popular these days.

Step away from the piano keys for a moment. Find a flat surface, such as a table, and carve a lap with the palm of your hand.

With your left hand, tap the rhythm of the left hand portion of the song. Next, with your right hand, tap the rhythm for the right hand portion of the song. In the previous example, try tapping the quarter-note rhythm with your right hand and the eighth-note rhythm with your left hand.

Look at the score and carefully check which notes in the right hand and which notes in the left hand are played at the same time. This is because even though the parts of the right and left hands seem to be separate, they may overlap on certain notes.

Please do this one carefully as well. Ideally, it should be done in sections of one measure each, as in (1).

(3) Input the whole picture in your mind.

At the end, put notes into the rhythm to get a mental picture of the whole part, so that the part plays naturally in your head.

One way to do this is to substitute the sound of one hand with the mouth.

What I mean is that you should play only one hand, say the right hand, on the piano, and sing the other left hand part with your mouth in pitch. If there are no lyrics, singing la la la or humming is also a good idea.

This allows you to capture a sense of rhythm as well as input the entire song or phrase into your head.

Finally.

Even if it is difficult to play with both hands at first, it will come naturally with practice. By following these three steps, you will surely be able to play even the most difficult pieces with both hands.