Weekly Project #5: Right and Left Hand Separation

This is a biggie for me. As an adult learner, I don't have the benefit of a young, plastic brain to have learned the "dual processing" that is achieved when a young person becomes proficient on the piano.

I'm having problems holding down a simple rhythmic or bass pattern in the left hand and then playing something entirely different like a melody in the right. This is bugging me and I want to hack my brain and fix it!

Tuesday:
For the last few days I've been trying to figure out what my brain is doing. I've been experimenting with body rhythms because I wonder if starting out on the keyboard to try to get to the heart of this problem, is better addressed off the keyboard. Here's what I've been experimenting with. I stand up, drop my arms to my side and start patting my left thigh with my left hand. I want to keep a steady rhythm going: pat, pat, pat, pat - 1, 2, 3, 4. Once I get that going, the idea is now to do something, anything, while keeping that steady rhythm going on the left. I've tried reading out loud, writing something with my right hand, using my right hand fingers to thump on a table to keep in time or out of time.

I've actually noticed I'm getting better at this with just a few days practice!

Wednesday, Thursday:
I moved onto the keyboard and the accordion, coming up with exercises that work my hand independence. Really hard. It's difficult to image holding down a rhythm or bass line in my left hand and then playing improvisational in my right hand, but I'm going to keep going. I just start out really slow then gradually speed up. But I have to learn to be patient. I'm not.