Achieving Hand Independence

Practicing hand independence begins with a rhythm, pattern, idea or concept something you want to work on. It could be stride piano, a walking bass line, bossa nova, the Charleston, something Keith Jarrett played or something you invented yourself. Once youve isolated an idea, you can derive exercises from it. Well start with an easy one: the Charleston. Feel free to adjust to fit your skill and taste. Really, the difficulty isnt whats important here; its the process.

The Charleston is easy on its own, but once you add another voice, the alternating downbeat and syncopation makes it challenging, even for advanced pianists. Important note: Playing these exercises at the piano, with notes and harmony, adds a dimension that makes it more difficult. Because rhythm independence is our focus, it may be necessary to start away from the piano. My initial exercises are derived with notes and harmony as afterthoughts; I add them to the mix later, when a rhythmic foundation has been established. I recommend patting your right and left lap for the first set of exercises. Heres ground zero:

A whole note on the downbeat is easy, but it gets more difficult when you move that whole note around:

All of these patterns should be solid before moving on to the next one, or on to something more complicated; were establishing a foundation. If any of these are shaky, repeat them until you get it. If you find youre repeating it a million times and still not getting it, the exercise is too hard. Try a slower tempo or an easier left-hand pattern. Next, half notes (or two evenly spaced notes per measure):

And quarter notes:

By this time, you may be ready to take these patterns to the piano. Depending what your concept is, youll have different options for what notes to play in your left hand. For demonstrative purposes, Ill assume were working towards applying this to a blues in F major, so Ill use the following:

As I mentioned, moving these exercises to the piano adds multiple levels of difficulty. Higher and lower pitches will add different amounts of stress to different beats. Even if a right hand rhythm is un-syncopated, a combination of pitches could create a pitch syncopation, which makes the exercise more difficult. Compare this to patting on your laps, where pitch variance isnt really an issue. Also, even though our goal is to apply this to a blues in F major, playing over the blues from the get-go may be too difficult. Not only would your hands have to manage rhythmic independence, they would also have to manage chord voicings and chord progressions. This may be too much to think about. For exercises meant to improve hand independence, I tend to first isolate single chords or short progressions before moving on to longer, more complex forms.

For these reasons, the first few exercises use minimal pitch variation; the right hand is confined to playing only one note, and the left hand is confined to playing one chord. The following are translated from the exercises above:

By this time, you should be getting a feel for how this all works. Your skills are beginning to compound and it should be getting easier and easier to absorb new rhythms. Instead of providing an exhaustive list of right-hand rhythms, Ill let you derive your own. Pay close attention to how one rhythm can be shifted around in the bar to create more rhythms. Find a right-hand rhythm that makes it difficult for your left-hand to stay steady. Then practice it! In a way, I treat this process like a game. I try to find rhythms for my right-hand that will stump my left-hand. Of course, its easy to create impossibly difficult rhythms to stump my left-hand, so the rhythms I pick for my right-hand have to be part of a linear and somewhat logical sequence of difficulty. Each new, consecutive pattern is derived in some way from a previous pattern, but made slightly more difficult. This way, Im always keeping within an optimal level of difficulty.

Adding Pitch Variance Adding pitch variance in the right-hand should happen very gradually and rigidly. Otherwise we risk this exercise becoming too difficult, or morphing into a creative, improv session. Heres how you might start:

Using half notes in the right-hand, pitch syncopation would look like this:

The 3-note grouping augments the length of the pattern and places pitch accents in different places. The syncopation may be harder to feel with half notes; its more evident with quarter notes and eighth notes.

Notice that using 4-note groupings is easy because theres no pitch syncopation:

Of course, feel free to experiment with 5+ note groupings! Increasing Complexity I can expand on these 3-note and 5-note groupings to create many more possibilities for the right-hand.

When you add pitch syncopation to these patterns, they become extremely difficult. Here are a few examples:

By this time, hopefully youre getting a good feel for this linear sequence of difficulty. It never ends, so Ill stop here and let you figure out where you can take it next. Also, keep in mind Ive only given exercises for the right-hand; this sequence can be applied to the left hand too! The Charleston can be shifted around in the bar:

You can also start incorporating other chords, and larger sections of the blues:

Pick a new left-hand pattern and if necessary, start from the beginning, away from the piano.

Here are a few examples of left-hand patterns that demonstrate different styles and concepts. With all the exercises mentioned in previous posts, learning and mastering these patterns should be just a matter of time and practice! Scott Joplin, Maple Leaf Rag:

Keith Jarrett, What is This Thing Called Love?

Keith Jarrett, Improvisation:

Thelonious Monk, Monks Point:

Egberto Gismonti, Palhao:

Egberto Gismonti, Loro:

Bud Powell, Un Poco Loco:

Oscar Peterson, Boogie Blues Etude:

Doug Riley, Peace Dance:

Doug Riley, Jump for Joy:

Dave McKenna, Yardbird Suite:

John Taylor, Clapperclowe:

Fred Hersch, Songs Without Words: Aria

You can put almost anything in your left-hand, as long as you practice! Heres one more idea: swap hands! Play the Charleston figure, or some other pattern with your right hand, and work towards improvising with your left. The same principles apply; have fun!