How to Play PIano - Lesson #27

Hello , everyone and welcome to piano lesson number 27 .

All right .

So today we're gonna be talking about how to play hands together .

I've got a couple emails talking asking about that .

So , um , it's kind of an interesting topic here because in a way it's just like there's only a few things that really you can do and then the rest is pretty much a lot of just practice .

So , uh , the first thing you want to be thinking about is if you're playing a piece hands together and you're having trouble , uh , the first thing might be the rhythm .

Now , the rhythm , uh , like if you're playing a poly rhythm where it's not sinning together , which I explained in less than 20 .

If you're playing something like that , then you're just gonna have to slowly work through it .

But if you're having a problem , more basic on that , so let's go all the way down to the end .

Uh , so if it's the most basic kind of problem , like , basically you can't just do something like that , something like that .

Like , you can't just play a really simple rhythm together or you , something like that .

I don't know , I'm just making stuff up , ran all right now .

Uh If you can't get those together , there's something , it don't frustrate yourself .

It's not really that big of a deal if you can't get it right away .

The main thing we wanna do here is uh we want , just want both notes being going down together .

Like can you do this ?

If you can put both your hands and your cheeks like this and go then you can , you're capable of playing hands together because like I'm playing hands together on my face .

OK ?

So if you can do that , slip yourself in the face for me , OK .

How does that feel ?

Can you do it together ?

OK .

So we have just realized that we can play hands together .

OK .

So you're capable of doing it .

Now , all it needs is a little bit of work .

OK ?

So all we wanna do is if you can't do it at all , just take your 22 of your thumbs and play ac and another seat down together just like this and just practice your like that .

So once you've got that down , then you could add a second note like you could be going like this da da da da .

I don't like that .

Not here .

OK .

So once you got those down , then um you're gonna be starting to get ready to play it into like a really basic pieces .

Now , the main thing with hands together is you can't just expect that if you can play your right hand and you can play your left hand separately that all of a sudden you'll just magically be able to play them hands together .

Your two hands , the , the uh you have two hands , you have to learn the right hand , you have to learn the left hand and then you've got to learn it again , hands together .

So your brain has to like , mix it all together and like put it together .

So what you're gonna have to do is go really , really slow as if you're learning the piece again , it's like a third hand .

It's not gonna just magically appear .

So um the best way to learn hands together is you want to be thinking in kind of lines , like these two notes going on together , these two notes go down together , these two notes go down together .

So if you got a group of notes , like say you're playing and then now you have to play the next two together , you're just gonna make sure those two notes are coming in together .

Uh There's not really much I can say other than that , you just have to play them together , just do whatever you need to do to make them stick together .

Like um yeah , that's about as much as I can say on that .

But now there are other exercises you can use to basically help your hand independence because basically what's happening is your brain can't think of both hands at the same time and it's having a trouble putting it together .

So , what you need to do is later on , you'll develop more uh like in your brain , it's almost like you have a partition or like a separate part in your brain , that one controls one hand and one controls the other .

But before you can do that , it's actually best to think .

OK , I'm gonna play like that .

And then whenever I hit say AC or the C on the bottom , I'm just gonna play with my left hand and hit this G here .

So I'm gauging my left hand based on what my right hand is gonna do .

So I'm gonna , no , actually let's do it .

So when I hit the sea , uh , the G on top here probably can't see .

OK , maybe you can see now .

So when I play this G here , all right , when I play this G up top here , then I'm gonna play a G with my left hand down here like this .

If we wanted to , we could just play the CS together .

So when I'm thinking of this , I'm actually gauging it .

I'm letting the right hand lead and when the right hand hits this G , then the left hand is gonna come in .

So all I have to do is keep my right hand steady and that'll keep everything steady .

Now , I've drawn out some exercises here .

One of them is called uh , these ones are a little bit more advanced .

So this would be say we're gonna , we're gonna play a one and all right , we're gonna play , but this time is gonna be playing eight notes and this is gonna be playing quarters .

So for every one left hand note I play , I'm gonna play two right hand notes like this .

Yeah .

OK .

So you can probably see by that , that I was just every second note .

So I'm thinking , OK , CD go down and then when I hit D I'm going to play D here she goes down and then all I'm thinking is that I just need to keep the and then my lifetime notice accompanies it and that's basically what you're doing .

You're focusing on one hand more and that way you can still feel like you have one brain focusing on something .

But then it's just kind of like a reminder .

It has to come in at that time too .

So it's a lot of mental stuff .

So that's what this one was .

So you can alternate that you could do it .

So right hand is going just like that and then you can also do it .

So left hand is doing two notes and right hand is doing one .

So that's one exercise .

Another one is , you can actually play .

Now , this is good for getting independent hands so that when you're playing , you can separate your mind .

So this one's good .

You play , you play five all you're gonna do is you're gonna make one hand staccato and one hand leg .

Does that sound tired ?

We'll see .

So I'm gonna place Stato with my right hand and legato with my left .

So like that , it might look simple and it is pretty simple .

But what that's gonna do is get you to re it's like you can almost test out and feel which part of your brain is controlling your right hand and which is controlling your left .

And then you can kind of be able to channel your thoughts into those different hands and then we can do the opposite .

So we're doing life time , Stato and right hand , legato .

OK ?

And then the really tricky one , once you've mastered this is alter it in between .

So I'm gonna start with my right hand stato .

And then when I get up here , I'm going to switch it .

So it's legato on the way back down .

So what's left ?

So you'll do that faster and faster until you've got it .

And that's actually a good exercise because pieces will have where you're playing one touch in one hand and a legato touch in the other .

And that will really help you later on .

So try to keep uh steady by using one hand to keep steady .

And then the other hand is gonna follow uh if you really have some trouble , uh think of just practicing those individual parts really slowly , really , really slowly and then what you're gonna do is , uh , once you've got those parts back and forth , back and forth between those two spots that you're having trouble , like , if it's just an isolated area and then even if to get it even better , just try to practice it , eyes closed .

Like , so then you can get folk when you close your eyes .

It's like you can , your senses redo themselves so that you're feeling more than you're seeing .

And obviously you can play piano without seeing because Ray Charles did it and she was awesome .

If you don't know who Charles is .

Look them up on Google .

All right .

So that is my lesson on playing hands together for now .

I'll be looking maybe in the next couple of days .

I'm gonna be doing the five random facts .

I've got five facts that a couple of people tag me on and yeah , you guys might find them interesting .

Anyway , I hope you enjoyed this lesson .

Uh I should be getting more lessons out sometime in February because my braces are coming off .

Yes , but at least the top ones are February 12th .

So I'm happy .

Ok .

Well , uh thanks for all the support and I hope everyone's doing really well .

I know it's been a little while since my last video , but there will be another one not related to piano next time you see me in a couple of days , think I'll shoot it right now .

I'm kind of in the mood .

Maybe I'll do that .

I just don't want to do all the editing because I wanna make it kind of cool .

Kind of like that one was really cool the way he did it anyway .

Oh , yeah .

So , uh , I hope you guys are doing really well with all your practicing and stuff and I've got quite a few ideas .

These are my new lessons .

I've got all the way up to 30 darn .

But if you guys wanna keep sending me more ideas , uh That's awesome .

And also um I'm starting to get too many messages that I can act .

I can't reply to them all anymore .

Uh Basically , I'm getting more messages than I can reply to now .

So if I don't reply to your message , please , please , please don't be mad at me .

I would love to reply to all the messages that I get and I actually kind of feel bad now that I'm not .

Yeah , it's just , there's so many and I hope you guys can understand uh if you really want to get a hold of me , just try messaging me more than once .

And usually I can like I read every message .

I do , I read every single one of them , but it's hard to reply to every single one , but I do read them all .

So if you do send me something , I will , I will read it and usually I respond to comments and stuff like that .

So if you want to get in touch with me that way you can always do that too .

Anyway , uh take care .

Uh Have you practicing ?

And the next lesson will be on fingering like uh general fingering rules .

Like how do you put your fingers over specific phrases ?

What's the best way to use your fingers ?

And how can you make up your own fingering and stuff like that ?

OK .

So take care happy practicing and thank you for watching .