Do your left and right hands have a hard time playing together? In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to improvise your way to two-handed independence.
Maybe you struggle when you try to play a bass line in the left hand while your right hand plays chords and they just won’t work together. Today’s exercise will show you an easy way to improvise your way towards this independence.
It’s not really independence
The first thing to understand about 2 handed independence is that it’s not really independence: it’s actually coordination. The two hands may be separate from each other, but they are sharing one brain. The same when you’re singing – while you may feel that your hands and your voice are separate, they are actually being controlled by the same information center, so there really isn’t independence going on at all!
The biggest mistake I see people making is practicing the left hand part a bunch until it goes on auto pilot and then they add the right hand in, expecting that once the right hand starts, the left hand will just keep going. I also see this issue a lot of singers who spend a ton of time practicing the piano and voice parts separately and by doing so, they will magically synchronize.
That’s a big NOPE.
Remember, this is coordination that we are talking about, which means you actually have to spend a lot of time working with all of the components combined. The step that actually needs to take place is that the right hand needs to be added more gradually in a simplified way. By learning a simplified version, you allow the brain to intersect what the hands are doing and once that happens, you can gradually make the patterns more complex.
How to practice two handed independence
One way to do this is to create a two or four bar cell to improvise on, rather than the entire song, so you can simplify the amount of material your brain has to process.
Here is a great method to work this through. Before I get into it, I want to reiterate that this process takes weeks of daily work. (Spoiler alert: this will take TIME!!). The best possible scenario is that you practice each step until you achieve mastery before you move to another step. Practice this material for a total of 10-15 per day MAX and be patient: this takes time.
The steps to take
- Give yourself a moment to just play the LH pattern. Make sure that it is as accurate as possible – this would be a perfect time to take out your metronome!
- Add the right hand, improvising just playing whole notes. Keep it simple and make it as melodic as possible.
- Switch to the right hand playing half notes, then quarter notes, then eighth notes
- Next, improvise using a one bar rhythm cell.
- To up the challenge, create two and four bar rhythm cells and improvise with them
This Process Takes time
Can I say again that this entire process should take weeks and even months? As you build your confidence and dexterity you can add additional challenges, like dynamics and striving for more melodic lines.
If you are looking to build up more strength in your left hand, I suggest that you practice playing melodies in the left hand. Start easily at first and work your way to more challenging melodies – something from the fake book would work nicely. You can also practice improvising melodies in your left hand. Word of warning: take it slowly. If your left hand is weak, then you want to very gradually build up strength. If you go gangbusters, you put yourself at risk of injury.
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Spoiler Alert: It’s Not Really Independence
The first thing to understand about 2 handed independence is that it’s not really independence: it’s actually coordination. The two hands may be separate from each other, but they are sharing one brain. The same when you’re singing – while you may feel that your hands and your voice are separate, they are actually being controlled by the same information center, so there really isn’t independence going on at all!
The biggest mistake I see people making is practicing the left hand part a bunch until it goes on auto pilot and then they add the right hand in, expecting that once the right hand starts, the left hand will just keep going. I also see this issue a lot of singers who spend a ton of time practicing the piano and voice parts separately and by doing so, they will magically synchronize.
That’s a big NOPE.
Remember, this is coordination that we are talking about, which means you actually have to spend a lot of time working with all of the components combined. The step that actually needs to take place is that the right hand needs to be added more gradually in a simplified way. By learning a simplified version, you allow the brain to intersect what the hands are doing and once that happens, you can gradually make the patterns more complex.
How to Organize Your Practice for Coordination
One way to do this is to create a two or four bar cell to improvise on, rather than the entire song, so you can simplify the amount of material your brain has to process.
Here is a great method to work this through. Before I get into it, I want to reiterate that this process takes weeks of daily work. (Spoiler alert: this will take TIME!!). The best possible scenario is that you practice each step until you achieve mastery before you move to another step. Practice this material for a total of 10-15 per day MAX and be patient: this takes time.
Step 1
Give yourself a moment to just play the LH pattern. Make sure that it is as accurate as possible – this would be a perfect time to take out your metronome!
Step 2
Add the right hand, improvising just playing whole notes. Keep it simple and make it as melodic as possible.
Step 3
Switch to the right hand playing half notes, then quarter notes, then eighth notes.
Step 4
Next, improvise using a one bar rhythm cell. Here are a few examples.
Step 5
To up the challenge, create two and four bar rhythm cells and improvise with them.
It Takes Time!
Can I say again that this entire process should take weeks and even months? As you build your confidence and dexterity you can add additional challenges, like dynamics and striving for more melodic lines.
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Other Two Handed Independence Advice
If you are looking to build up more strength in your left hand, I suggest that you practice playing melodies in the left hand. Start easily at first and work your way to more challenging melodies – something from the fake book would work nicely. You can also practice improvising melodies in your left hand. Word of warning: take it slowly. If your left hand is weak, then you want to very gradually build up strength. If you go gangbusters, you put yourself at risk of injury.
If you want to take your two handed independence a step further, this would be the time to dig into some classical piano work. The baroque period would be the best era to pull from here, as contrapuntal (multiple interlaced melodies) pieces were prevalent.
The old warhorse Easy Classics to Moderns (available here: https://amzn.to/3iRsxpK) has a variety of pieces with moving left hand parts.
Bach’s Little Preludes and Fugues are another not-to-hard resource (available here: https://amzn.to/3a611R5)
If you want more of a challenge, check out Bach’s Two and Three Part Inventions. They are at time wickedly tricky, but they are well worth it. (available here: https://amzn.to/3cc7gWb)
When I was first learning to accompany myself on piano (remember that I was an established pianist well before I ever tried to sing anything seriously), I spent months clapping comping rhythms and singing standards until I was able to gain independence. Whenever I feel my comping game is getting stale, I’ll go back to clapping as a sing. Recently, I have started a series of videos called Random Songs I Like, where each week I record another favorite song from a wide range of styles. (playlist is here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcDmZ8kyKXnIxH927yonrseJkNDa-jbZf). This has been a great exercise for me to learn challenging bass lines, rhythmic figures and accompaniment strategies that have been expanding my skills. The work is never finished, people!
Remember that this is a long game that we are playing here. This is something that you will want to keep as part of your practice routine for a long time, maybe even forever. (I’m still working on this!!). Before you dive into it, you should definitely assess how much of this you actually need for your work. There is no point in working on this if you won’t have the interest or opportunity to use it, so stick to what is relevant for you.
If you want to check out some other improvisation videos check out this link and this link.
Midnight Sky piano cover