Discussions > Teaching and Learning
Coordinating Left and Right Hand
Amanda:
Hello all,
I am self-taught and play a 1 1/2 row, primarily waltzes, Québécoise, and Celtic, and my biggest difficulty is that I pretty much only play with my right hand. I only have two basses, but find it extremely difficult to even use them at all. What would be your recommendations to work on this, as it is currently almost impossible to get through one measure of a song? Additionally, I have heard people say that it becomes a lot harder to do the basses, when you already learn with the right hand only, but I would hate to give up on them, as they really add a lot. Thank you for your help and advice!
Amanda
tirpous:
Choose a simple tune that you can use to focus your practice on the bass side.
Stiamh:
Hard to get through one measure of a tune? Well, why don't you start with one measure and deconstruct it - work out exactly what notes and what basses you have to play, as slowly as you like? Then, when you can play it perfectly, move on to the next measure and deconstruct that. Don't go too far before trying to stitch the individual measures together, though.
It might help if you pick a simple tune, as tirpous says. For a waltz, I'd recommend that you start with one that has no "dotted" quarter notes, by which mean a tune in which the melody notes all fall on the beat so that you can easily synchronize them with your left hand going oom-pah-pah.
Jesse Smith:
Mally's beginner book uses Frère Jacques as the first tune with basses. It really just has too "tricky" bits: playing the bass and chords twice on the half notes, and playing the eight note bits without getting the basses mixed up with them.
Tone Dumb Greg:
--- Quote from: Stiamh on November 20, 2017, 02:09:02 AM ---
...why don't you start with one measure and deconstruct it - work out exactly what notes and what basses you have to play, as slowly as you like?...
--- End quote ---
Will this work on an instrument that only has two chords (one push, one pull) and no reversals?
I suspect that learning to push the left hand buttons, rhythmically, as you play the right hand notes melodically, is a rub your head, pat your tummy thing. The only way to learn, whether you've been playing a week, or years, is to push against that mental membrane and break out of the egg. Your brain has to be forced to learn the paths by doing it. For me that happened very suddenly. Almost as if, one minute I was running through treacle and the next I was through it.
Edit:Other metaphors are available ;D
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