How to Not Get Frustrated Playing Hands Together on the Piano
It’s bound to happen! There will be times when the brain stalls and gets the left and right hands mixed up! The spaces on the bass staff look exactly like the spaces on the treble staff. So the brain is probably thinking, “Hey, you just told me this is treble space F and now you’re telling me it’s bass A? They look just the same!!” The player is left with brain confusion and frustration – on top of trying to coordinate the hands to play together. Can you think of patting head and rubbing tummy at the same time – and now throw in a hula hoop to keep going!? It’s a trick in itself to not get frustrated playing hands together.
When I try to counsel my frustrated student – no matter what age – I start with, “Let’s just pause a moment and think about this. It’s understandable to feel frustrated right now. You’re trying to learn and play two different languages at the same time – so give yourself a chance to think about this.”
To recognize and understand why the confusion is happening is the important first step to getting rid of frustration playing hands together. There will be moments when the brain stalls as it tries to determine which language/clef is to be played with which hand. This is why in the Revolutionary Piano Method only the right hand treble clef is introduced first. This is also why the student is required (under teacher supervision) to say each letter name aloud as the key is played in order to reinforce learning to long-term memory. Short-cuts (not saying letters) cannot happen at this point, or learning will not sufficiently occur.
Be Positive!
When a student experiences a brain stall, I like to point out that the misread error is actually correct – in the other staff for the other hand. That particular note recognition is making its way into long-term memory – yay, congratulations! That alone can relieve some pressure and frustration with self-performance, especially for those who strive for perfection at all times.
Don’t Use Shortcuts
Yes, the first exercises are easy to play, but verbally attaching a letter name to a key and its line or space on the staff – and moving forward and backward within the alphabet – is much more difficult. We go to school to learn the ABCs – not the CBAs – which happens all the time when playing an instrument (except the drums)! Skipping the letter-saying process will cause frustration quickly when playing hands together since learning never fully happened with each hand’s staff in the beginning of lessons. The student must not use shortcuts in the thinking process. However, the teacher should point out that the student won’t have to say letters aloud forever – and will be playing without thinking of letter names at all in a short time!
If the student was faithful in saying aloud letter names and correctly locating each on the keyboard, he will still have some moments when the brain stalls. Doing any two things simultaneously can be tricky. The teacher should remind the student that two languages are being played at the same time. When stalling occurs, have the student choose one hand first, identify the letter name and locate the correct key, and then repeat the thinking process with the other hand, and only afterwards play hands together. I think it helps when following this remedy to always start with the same hand each time. I vote for the right hand since the treble was learned first.
There Really are Two Languages!
I tell my students to think of the right hand treble clef as being “German” and the left hand bass clef as being “French” – both are foreign languages to the student. Each has a different “language” of spaces: F-A-C-E for treble and All-Cows-Eat-Grass for bass. Draw a smiley face near a treble clef sign and write/draw “cow” near the bass clef sign. “We want our FACE to be above a cow, not underneath a smelly cow, so think of the right hand staff as being on top of the left hand’s staff.” Over weeks of lessons, this visual does help remind the student of how the keyboard correlates to each staff.
So when stalling occurs, tell the student to first find one hand’s note (I prefer treble), then find the other hand’s note, and then playing hands together. When the student remembers that two different languages are being learned, and the procedure of one hand first – then the other – then together, this usually greatly lessens frustration. It’s a learned process that takes some time.
And by the way, WHY are the letters of the treble and bass different? If you’re interested, you’ll find out why in this blog.
Dr. Jon I. Young has provided an overview to the theory of Instructional Design in this link. He describes how the essence of designing a successful educational approach to learning a specific skill – is to work backward:
What is the desired end result?
What is to be acquired at each specific learning task?
What is the basic skill and/or knowledge essential to acquiring each specific learning task?
What is the best sequential arrangement of learning tasks needed to acquire the end result?
These vital points are very time consuming to consider, write, and proof by testing. The Revolutionary Piano Method has been adjusted and fine-tuned over years of application by students. Simply put: It works! Its approach makes playing hands together much easier.
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