Strengthen fingers and finger exercises

[Muad’Dib]

Actually i do type with one hand, more like hunt and peck.

[Muad’Dib]

This is just odd! You took classical lessons for MANY years. Unless you were exclusively taught 'one-hand' piano literature, or played John Cage's 4'33'' the whole time, you must've developed some kind of 2 hand coordination over the years.

 

 

Nope! Lets say I play the bass part of Linus and Lucy, and practice that until I am comfortable with it. Then I practice the melody in my right hand until I am comfortable. Its when I try too put them together thats where things dont work. My left hand just stops, when my right hand comes in. Its as if my brain doesnt understand what i am trying too do. The right side of my brain tells my left hand too stop...

This no longer sounds like its a hand strength, finger stretching issue, since you feel you can play each hand by themselves comfortably. Its when you put them together that your brain just sort of locks up. I have taught this song to many students, and find that some take to the left-right back and forth easily, others require more diligence. Ive found a couple of things that help depending on the student. One is simply to make a rough graph along a time line showing the timing back and forth between the two hands. It only needs to be the first four measures of the song (even better if you have the sheet music). Then go really slow following the chart, in the proper left-right sequence. Speed doesnt matter, and only try a few measures at a time, until it feels natural. Another trick that works is have someone else who knows the song play the left hand pattern over and over while you work in the right hand. When that feels comfortable, you play the left while they add the right, again, only a few measures at a time. If you dont have an accomplice, try recording the left hand yourself either with a smart phone or sequencer if available, then play along with yourself until the timing feels natural.

 

Well, I didnt want to start another thread.

[TommyRude]

I haven't read through the entire thread, so this might be a repeat. I recall as a kid, putting my thumb/little finger up against the edge of the piano, spreading them wide and pushing gently, over and over, slight increases over time. I think it was supposed to increase the range of notes you could hit, spreading out your 'bearpaw'. I think it worked, but not sure if it was legit or medically advisable.

[Muad’Dib]

Depends on how hard you hit the keys or playing fast. I know musicians can develop never damage. The late Keith Emerson suffered never damage by the 1990s and had to have a nerve in his arm repaired.

 

I know Jazz piano players play the black keys predominantly, which can stretch out the hand. Of course i have see some play higher up on the keys.

[J_tour]

Thank you J!

 

 

Maybe you can explain this too me? I can sit at my piano, very relaxed good posture, and can play scales using both hands and can do it pretty effortlessly, and can change it up, by plying the right hand up the scale, and the left hand down, and not make a mistake like hitting a wrong note, but when I try to play the first few bars of Linus and Lucy, I cant? What I mean is, I am still falling into that hole of the left hand stopping, and the right hand going? It is frustrating, but at the same time I dont want too give up. I am telling myself I can do it? Maybe, I just need to keep working at it?

 

Well, for this particular one, I have to defer to people who actually play the tune. I suppose I could fake a version from memory, which might fool some people for maybe a minute or two, but that's about it.

 

But the idea of playing an ostinato in the LH I am familiar with, especially while improvising a solo of some sort in the RH. Or even, what to me is far easier, improvising a walking bass or some other sorts of harmonic and regular rhythmic patterns.

 

I'd say there are a few tricks you can do with the LH to really cement the pattern and make it part of your bag of tricks. Playing a repeating LH part in octaves instead of single notes has sometimes worked for me (maybe not in this case, at least at any kind of tempo, but I would try it).

 

Probably a better strategy for at-home practicing could be to trim the bass down so that you're at least hitting some of the key beats and, as you get that down, you can add in more of the line as you get more adept. It could be making sure the "one" of each bar, the downbeat, or whatever's appropriate, is locked down I'd have to think about what would be appropriate for this particular tune, but that would be how I would approach it. And still do, for similar challenges in different types of music.

 

About the finger stretching yeah, it's strange, but all I can say is my LH just plain has a farther reach then my RH. I think both hands are about the same size, but how long have I been playing tenths in LH versus occasionally stretching out in RH beyond on octave or a ninth? More like for a specific chord, particularly on organ (like a raised nine with the dominant degree of the scale on top), or hitting some gnarly RH chord structure in some of Debussy.

 

At any rate, that hasn't killed my LH. Other things have for sure, but not that particular stretch to reach tenths. I won't be walking tenths in a stride style in Db or A, but that's sort of half the fun in those situations, figuring out how to invert the chords to get about 80% of that full sound. Kind of a different part of the brain, which is fun.

 

I think you should absolutely stick with the tune.

 

And make Bud Powell's "Un Poco Loco" the next tune to add to your bag! Same thing, just with a latin tinge. Probably be easy once you crack this technical problem.

 

[Muad’Dib]

Thank You!

[The Real MC]

I don't understand why people here recommend various repertoire for strengthening that is not the persons actual repertoire. It's ridiculous to practice Hanon or Bach in order to play Linus and Lucy when you could be training on Linus and Lucy to play Linus and Lucy.

 

You forget that the quintessential jazz piano player Art Tatum mastered the works of Bach. He really wanted to be a classical performer but during his time there was no opportunity because of his skin color.

 

No it is not ridiculous. Dexterity building tools from one genre can benefit other genres. Take off your blinders and stop limiting yourself.

[The Real MC]

If you're trying to develop hand independence in L&L, then learn some ragtime especially Scott Joplin.

[J_tour]

If you're trying to develop hand independence in L&L, then learn some ragtime especially Scott Joplin.

 

Well, sure. But, to me that will just end up with the same problem.

 

I agree, everyone should play Joplin, and spend time working out some Jelly Roll Morton tunes off the record, but it's really ending up at the same problem for the OP, isn't it?

 

You have to break these things down. You have to practice some things in ways that seem painfully bad. Like, play it absurdly slow. If like you say you can play each hand separately then congratulations, that's a big part of it. But then you have to work on the method of putting them together. It will probably feel as slow and awkward as the first time you did each hand separately.

 

This has turned out to be a good thread: this is maybe the one area where there are two different strategies.

 

All leading to the same place, after all.

 

My own preference is to practice a tune with ostinato LH at full tempo, and break it down by simplifying the bass by making sure you hit the first downbeat, and get the groove that way. Once the groove is established, add in more fancy stuff.

 

Granted, I don't know this particular tune, except from having heard it quite a number of times.

 

But, I'm just abstracting from a number of other tunes where it seems to me similar challenges are encountered.

 

But that's not to discount other options.

 

Slow, methodical work, and breaking the piece into discrete sections: this seems to be a common element between the approaches.

 

Likely the best solution is going to involve both, and I'd bet most people approaching the same problem do use both styles of practicing.

 

I've probably given a little bit short-shrift to hands-separate (followed by a strategy of finding where the hands cooperate, sort of as one single unit, if I'm understanding correctly) that wasn't meant to be the case.

 

I would call that a bottom-up approach, which can't be faulted for the emphasis on accuracy and solid fundamentals.

 

The other might be more of a "top-down" attitude, which is probably equally used in combination with the other: take it at tempo, and make sure the right rhythmic and melodic highlights are stressed, and gradually introduce more complicated elements once the tune or the score has been "masked" in such a way.

 

I'm sure there's people who are hard-line one-or-the-other, but even within a single practice session, people can use both strategies.

 

Teaching piano is probably for this reason difficult: there are at least four different approaches in this thread alone (technique: isolate, or context? coordination: isolate-and-combine or jump right into the groove?) I don't think there's a way to know what the right approach is for any given person.

 

Even though I'm coming off as a bit of a hard-line "just play the effing tune, and leave out the fancy stuff until you're ready," every single day I do slow, brutally slow work. On a Bach fugue. On Debussy. Sometimes it's especially painful to slow down to a crawl on "easy" stuff, like playing all your NOLA stuff in B or E.

 

I'm talking slow, like an eighth note in 4/4 is at forty bpm. Slower than that, even.

 

Like it doesn't even sound like anything, or sounds like a little kid playing: I don't even want my neighbors hearing me do that, not even if they were my worst enemies.

 

Still, I think it has to be done sometimes, so screw them. At least Bach or Debussy still sounds like something improvising jazz or jazz-blues, or blues-jazz, really (gratuitous Spinal Tap reference) just sounds like ess when you do it that slow.

 

Oh well: this is the life we chose.

 

So slow you're still playing the first bar by the time your ear has finished two or three choruses.

[Muad’Dib]

Well, i learned one way of practicing. I have a Casio Privia Digital piano that has a built in recorder. So, I record the bass line, and then play that back, and play the melody with my right hand. I think why i have so much trouble, is trying to figure out, when to bring in the right beat in the measure. I can slow the tempo down as well. Plus the display on the piano shows me the tempo, measure and beat.

 

I realize this thread has turned into something more than just strengthening fingers and finger exercises, its come down to technique.

[J_tour]

Well, i learned one way of practicing. I have a Casio Privia Digital piano that has a built in recorder. So, I record the bass line, and then play that back, and play the melody with my right hand. I think why i have so much trouble, is trying to figure out, when to bring in the right beat in the measure.

 

Well, so how's it work out so far?

 

It certainly is one technique, although I haven't found it to work out so well for me.

 

Don't remember what I was trying to do specifically when I was exploring some of the on-board sequencers, but TBH, I found it really frustrating and much harder than just doing whatever tune, which is what I ended up doing anyway.

 

I imagine it's sort of like a drummer playing to a click, or for us mere mortals, using a metronome ad lib. Seems like it should be easy, but for me it's pretty tricky.

 

If this exercise isn't going places with you, here's an alternate route I've used and still do on Bach: you can rewrite the material.

 

I don't mean some new-age sort of "make your own thing, man," but actually use a pencil and paper or MuseScore or another digital typesetting program and just isolate where you feel the important notes are in each bar.

 

And rewrite it.

 

There's, for example, practice material for, let's say a week. Or more!

 

I know some people have whole theories about learning and whatever, which I don't know much about, but at least if you lose any time sketching out these diagrams, some part of your brain is still working at the music.

 

I guess my only retort is: well, if you find playing to a click track or finding the groove in a pre-recorded difficult, it's probably because it is difficult.

 

At least it's hard for me and word around the campfire is that it's hard to do that for most people, except maybe some real veterans of the studio life who do it all day, most days. So, I'd think it's a skill that can be acquired, and it'd probably be what Bach could have done when he was improvising, among many others, but I don't think the average competent professional musician necessarily has that "drop-in, drop-out, take it from bar 57 here's the click" ability.

[The Real MC]

If you're trying to develop hand independence in L&L, then learn some ragtime especially Scott Joplin.

 

Well, sure. But, to me that will just end up with the same problem.

 

I agree, everyone should play Joplin, and spend time working out some Jelly Roll Morton tunes off the record, but it's really ending up at the same problem for the OP, isn't it?

 

I have been playing Joplin/stride for 40+ years and I had little trouble picking up L&L.

 

Apparently you're of the opinion that this is not a solution, but from someone who succeeded at this approach for 40+ years I would not be so quick to dismiss that.

[Joe Muscara]

You have to break these things down. You have to practice some things in ways that seem painfully bad. Like, play it absurdly slow. If like you say you can play each hand separately then congratulations, that's a big part of it. But then you have to work on the method of putting them together. It will probably feel as slow and awkward as the first time you did each hand separately.

 

This has turned out to be a good thread: this is maybe the one area where there are two different strategies.

 

All leading to the same place, after all.

 

My own preference is to practice a tune with ostinato LH at full tempo, and break it down by simplifying the bass by making sure you hit the first downbeat, and get the groove that way. Once the groove is established, add in more fancy stuff.

That's another method that I've experimented with more recently. I don't see anything wrong with it, whatever works.

 

Overall, my suggestions to Paul were coming from what he described. I think he was saying he had the separate parts, and then expected that he could just put them together. I wanted to make sure he knew that it wasn't so simple. I wish it were!

[J_tour]

If you're trying to develop hand independence in L&L, then learn some ragtime especially Scott Joplin.

 

Well, sure. But, to me that will just end up with the same problem.

 

I agree, everyone should play Joplin, and spend time working out some Jelly Roll Morton tunes off the record, but it's really ending up at the same problem for the OP, isn't it?

 

I have been playing Joplin/stride for 40+ years and I had little trouble picking up L&L.

 

Apparently you're of the opinion that this is not a solution, but from someone who succeeded at this approach for 40+ years I would not be so quick to dismiss that.

 

No, that's not really where I'm coming from. I also had no trouble with Joplin and other ragtime composers for the LH. That was some of the first stuff I played, primarily looking over my uncle's shoulder when I was kid.

 

And I still play Joplin sometimes I have to use the music to remember all the strains to some of my favorites like "Solace," "Bethena," or "Magnetic," but Joplin's never left me, even if I sometimes am unfaithful to the score and decide to improvise/have a bit of fun with it.

 

I think at worst I didn't read between the lines in your post: it seems like you're suggesting that a simpler LH (sometimes) is a good way to get the feet wet and work on independence of the hands in the abstract.

 

And, I agree with you. More than that, I think everyone should play at least some Joplin, Bill Bolcom, Jelly Roll, Eubie Blake.

 

Just on sheer principle: it's some of the backbone of jazz+piano. Not everyone will end up being a specialist, of course, but there's no question at least having some awareness of the basics could be as helpful to later jazz as Bach or other staples.

 

Overall, my suggestions to Paul were coming from what he described. I think he was saying he had the separate parts, and then expected that he could just put them together. I wanted to make sure he knew that it wasn't so simple. I wish it were!

 

Sounds good to me. I mean, it's really almost like an experiment: some things will work better than others, so, really, it's just a matter of trying a lot of approaches and seeing what sticks.

 

The more approaches, the better, it seems to me. Of course, time is limited for everyone, but it seems worthwhile to at least spend a few minutes as a learner to see what seems promising, or fits with his or her style of learning.

[Rustar]

If you haven't tried this you're missing out.

[Muad’Dib]

Actually, it works for me.