Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum My left hand sounds more like my left foot!!

Good grief! I just recorded my playing the first section of Chopin's C#m prelude (Posth). I COULD NOT BELIEVE how my left hand practically drowned out my right. The LH is basically all broken chords, but, try as I may to play them lightly, every so often (actually more than that), I will come down on that first note of the chord so loudly that it almost scares me when I listen to the playback.

I am not one for Hanon (too late for him...I'm 68), but are there some exercises I could do (yes, Hanon if necessary) to give me more control of my LH, especially when playing the chords as mentioned above?

I appreciate your help.

Kathleen

You need to realize that the quieter notes of the left hand mean the keys must be depressed slower. The louder tune faster. This cannot be done accurately at the same time, so play the louder notes a little earlier. Eventually they'll just about catch up.

One thing that helps is to sing the melody while playing it. You will have a tendency to bring it out (play it louder) without even trying.

Glenn Gould did that all the time.

Works for me too, most of the time, when I think to do it ... :rolleyes:

Hope it helps You

Cheers

Hi Kathleen,

Well, of course, students must learn to play each finger independently, and that takes time, patience and understanding. Most teachers have a bag of tricks to help students along.

Recognition of the problem is step one. Now that you hear it, you can start doing something about it.

One way to slow the left hand fingers is to stop playing vertically. If you watch your fingers, you'll see they are moving pretty much straight up and down. If you incorporate a glancing movement, using wrist and arm, your finger will still be moving quickly, but not downward so quickly. It will make a big difference once you master it. The key stroke can be in or out.

This is really something you should have a teacher work with you on, as it's very, very difficult to describe and execute over the internet.

Good luck,

John

Thank you all for your great ideas. I promise to try each one of them, hoping that one, or a combination of two…might give me a softer left hand. Because I play almost all Chopin, I sing his beautiful melodies all the time, even in Walmart, which gets me strange looks from the shoppers there. Oh well, Walmart can certainly use a little culture.

Again, my gratitude,
Kathleen

Kathleen,
The idea that the melody should be brought out seems rather obvious, but perhaps you aren't actually listening when you play? There are some people who have trouble doing that, so don't feel bad if that's the case. It's great that you were able to identify it on a recording though. A former teacher of mine always said that the melody should be no softer than MF, and that it should always be 1 to 2 steps louder than the dynamic marking, which the harmony should adhere to. So if your piece says P, the harmony (LH usually) would be P and the melody (RH) would be MF.

Another thing that John referred to was the idea of playing too vertically with the LH. One way to overcome this is to make sure your wrist is pliable. Let it go down just after your finger has hit the bottom of the keybed. It will absorb some hock and make it easier to play softer (in other words, press the key slower) with more control. Of course, practice this in the LH alone before adding the RH.

Another thing to try is "ghost playing." Play your left hand without depressing the keys at all, while your right plays normally. Then go back and play again with both hands depressing the keys. Your left will be able to play quietly more easily.

Something similar happened to me. In my case, I would "mix" the finger movement and the "arm" movement so that the note was accented because of the additional speed provided by the arm. In most cases though I did not really need the downwards vertical movement of the arm, just the lateral one. I'm trying to practice more carefully, putting the hand above the key but then using the same movement I would have used without the "jump".

Thank you all...AGAIN!

All of your tips and advice sound "doable."

After some thought yesterday, and after reading all of your suggestions, I realized that playing the piano is a lot more than hitting the right notes with a bit of dynamics. So I called my once-in-a-while teacher and have arranged to take lessons again AND on a permanent basis. I am going to print out all your comments, and I believe she will agree with them. Now all I have to do is put them into practice. I am not expecting to see immediate results, but at least I will be on the right track.

Much gratitude,
Kathleen