How to Develop Left Hand / Right Hand Coordination

If you struggle to put both hands together, this might help:

Take small sections of the music, maybe one or two measures at a time.

Practice one hand at a time.

Practice just the right hand, over and over, until the section becomes second nature to you and you can do it without thinking. Now do it with just the left hand. You may need to spend twice as long on the left hand if you are having difficulty.

Change tempos while practicing one hand at a time.

Slow practice is the very key to success. As you work on each hand separately, repeat the section at a very slow pace. Make it painfully slow. It will be boring and tedious. But by doing this, you will learn the passage 3 times faster! Practice at different speeds and change it up, but always go back to the ultra slow repetitions. If you cannot play it perfectly, slow it down some more until you can - never practice mistakes.

Put the hands together.

Once you can play the part cleanly and perfectly with each hand by itself, such that it becomes "easy" to do, then try putting the hands together, but slowly. You may be surprised at how much easier it is to play both hands after you've done the exercises with them apart. It may not come together immediately, but it should be much less difficult now. Keep practicing slow, and then at different tempos, and try to never repeat mistakes because repeating mistakes actually teaches your brain (and hands) to play it wrong instead of correctly.

At first, this may seem painful, slow, and boring, but it's the way to learn music and teach your hands to do what seems impossible. But it's the right way to do it, and ultimately the much faster way to progress and learn a difficult piece of music. It is human nature to want to push the tempo and try to get to the end result without putting in the time to build on a solid foundation of disciplined practice. This results in sloppy playing, wrong notes, and you will forget what you learned much faster after you think you've learned it. Once you've mastered the art of avoiding the instant gratification of trying to run before you can walk, you will find that your learning will actually be much faster. You will spend less time practicing and get better results. You will progress to more advanced levels in less time.


Older Post Newer Post