Chords for Simple Exercise To Improve Piano Hand Independence (Between Left and Right Hands)

_ _ [E] Welcome back to another lesson.
In this lesson we're going to look at a simple
but very effective exercise for working on your hand independence.
And by hand
independence I mean the ability to think independently as to what you're playing
in each hand.
And this comes in handy in many cases in music.
For example if you
want to work on polyrhythms or have a certain complicated type of
accompaniment in your left hand _ _ that doesn't exactly hit all of the same
accents as in your right hand.
_ _ So let's get straight to it.
So for this exercise
pick any _ simple melody that's a few bars in length and that you can play easily
in both hands.
And let me give you an example.
Let's take something as simple
as Mary Had a Little Lamb. _
It's important that you are able to play this in both
hands comfortably.
And the melody is, well you probably know it, it goes like this.
_ [D] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ [G] _ _ _ _ [E] _ [Dm] _
_ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ [Dm] _ _ _ [E] _ [Dm] _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ Now again it's important that you are able to play this comfortably in the
left hand as well.
So I hope you're comfortable playing this in the left
hand.
If not, take something that you are [E] comfortable with.
[D] _
_ [E] _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ [D] _ [E] _ [D] _ _ [C] _ _
[G] Okay it doesn't have to
be fast.
Actually speed is not the main issue in this exercise.
All you have to
do in this exercise is start playing the melody in the right hand and then once
you're a bar into it, _ _ start playing the same melody in the left hand.
This is
also called a canon _ in _ sort of traditional _ classical music.
_ So in the
case of Mary Had a Little Lamb you would play _
[C] [D] and then start playing the exact
same melody only a bar late in the left [E] hand.
_ [C] _ [D] _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
_ [E] _ _ So _ the idea is to take the simple
short pieces of melody and work on them and be able to play them delayed from
one another.
I'm gonna play this Mary Had a Little Lamb example _ and then I'll
give you a few extra ideas maybe at the end of where to take this.
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ [C] _ _ [D] _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ [E] _ [G] _ _ [C] _ [G] _ [E] _
_ _ [C] _ _ [D] _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ [Ab] _ [D] _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ If this sounds
slow just try playing it yourself.
It's actually very challenging especially if
you're playing it the first time.
And your goal is as you work through these
simple melodies that you pick out is to really reach a situation where you can
sit down and do this from the first try.
And this is difficult.
You will need a
lot of practice _ _ and a lot of time to help your mind internalize this way of
thinking.
_ _ _ _ You can take all sorts of or have all sorts of variants on this
particular exercise.
First of all of course you can take more and more
complicated melodies. _
_ _ Again speed is not the main issue here.
First feel
comfortable _ doing this at a slow pace.
_ _ _ It's challenging enough when played
slowly.
_ Don't try to make it more complicated than it is.
_ You can take
different [E] delays so you can go something like just not wait a bar but maybe wait
two beats or six beats or one beat.
_ _ [D] _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ _ [G] _ _ [Em] _
_ [E] _ [D] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ [D] _ _ [E] _ [G] Oh you see I made a mistake.
_ _ So _ you see
nobody's perfect.
It's important to keep working on these along your regular
exercises.
Just these simple bits _ that _ are not going to take up a huge chunk of
your time but will help you work on your independence. _ _ _ _
Finally if you're
comfortable enough try taking two separate melodies one in each hand and
playing them together.
So you can take something like [D] _ _ [C] Mary had a little lamb in
one hand let's say and then twinkle twinkle little star _ _ [A]
[Gm] and _ _ [Em] _ _ _ try playing them
simultaneously.
[Ab] _ _ [D] _ [C] _ [G] _
[A] _ _ _ [Em] _ _ [Dm] _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
Finally when you're really adventurous try taking two [N] tunes
but with different time signatures.
Have one be in four fourths _ like Mary had a
little lamb and then _ the other in something _ like well say three fourths
three quarters would be a very challenging _ beginning.
_ _ _ That's it.
I hope
this exercise keeps you occupied.
I think it's personally quite a bit of fun to
sit down and try.
It's also frustrating but it's very satisfying when you
actually get it to work together.
And when you play Mary had a little lamb
with this one bar delay between the hands when you play it enough times
you'll find that at one point it becomes from it transitions from a set of
independent notes you'll be actually able to hear [A] and think about each of the
hands independently _ simultaneously. _
And this is really the state that you want
to get in.
It will take time so you really have to get this Mary had a little
lamb down exercise going _ _ or master it before you get this feeling but it will
come.
_ _ _ That's it.
I hope you've learned