I've followed your Youtube video for hand independence and despite hours (50 hours) of practicing slowly, my brain just cannot seem to handle both hands working together with the ongoing bass in the left hand. Your Youtube video "Boogie Woogie Hand Independence - Master the Triplets! (no piano required)" helped me alot but I'm still having difficulties. Is there any other tricks I can try? Is it just a matter of continually plugging away at it until you get it? Have you ever heard of someone not being able to get it despite hundreds of hours of practice? Do you think some private lessons would help or do you recommend that I grind away until I get both hands figured out before taking lessons?
Marcin Leżoń
Feb 1
Hi Rick, sorry to hear you're having so much trouble with getting the hands together. I have a few suggestions that may be helpful... First, yes, you can take a private lesson at any point. No need to get to a certain level before coming in. However, unless you can come to me physically in NYC then it may be difficult to help you with this over skype. In person there can be a lot more interaction (such as one person plays one had while the other plays the other, or we both play simultaneously). On skype we have to take turns and cannot both play at the same time.
Here is what I suggest you try first...
Play your desired bass pattern with the left hand while challenging yourself to do other cognitively demanding tasks simultaneously. (i.e. read a book out loud, carry on a conversation, write words with pencil and paper, curl a weight with your right arm, send a text message, etc... get creative).
You said you are doing the hand independence exercise from the video... how far can you get? Can you play whole notes with the right hand while continuing the bass pattern uninterrupted?
Take a short video of yourself trying the exercise and upload it here via the "add a video" button at the bottom of the reply box. Then I can see and maybe give a few suggestions. Chances are, other students are having the same problem. We can all learn at the same time.
Thank you for the reply. I will try the bass-pattern suggestion and see how that works.
How far I get varies but on average I can get anywhere from 1-5 bass-pattern reps in with the left hand and then either the left and/or right hand starts missing or playing the wrong notes.
I start off with a bunch of bass patterns with the left hand. When things seem to be going well with the left, I start up the right hand and as soon as I do that my brain focuses on the right hand and forgets what the left hand is doing. Then my brain catches itself for a second or two and starts to compensate and starts to focus on the right hand again and the entire thing repeats itself over and over.
I will setup a camera and record my fingering frustration for the sake of the boogie woogie hopefuls of the world who visit this page.
@Rick M Okay thank you Rick. In the video, just show me what happens when you put whole notes in the right hand with your most comfortable bass pattern in the left.
I had this hand independence problem in the worst way. I slowed the metronome down to an embarrassingly slow tempo of 40 bpm to start. After 2 weeks of dedicating 2 hrs a day to hand independence training I can now get the triplets on the right hand against the C/G shuffle left hand at 140 bpm.
Start super slow.
That is great advice Joseph thank you for sharing your experience. BTW don't be embarrassed by 40bpm. Slow tempos can be very challenging in and of themselves. I actually like working in the 40 - 50 bpm range for the first 20 min of my daily technique practice with scales. Keep up the good work.
Here is how I am working on hand independence, maybe it'll help others. I'll take an MP3 file of a tune that I like and upload it to a program on my PC that will slow down a tune without changing its pitch. Then I can play along with it. For example, I'm using Arthur's tune from his "Laying It Down" CD (highly recommended by the way!) called Boogie Woogie Stomp in the key of C. I find I can keep up by using some left hand bass patterns with the tune at 70% of its original speed. Once I'm comfortable, I'll add some right hand chords, and then later work towards melody improvisation notes. Right now, I'm at the chords level. I find the advantage of doing this is it's not as boring as doing exercises to a metronome, and it gives you the feeling of playing with a band. I know my progress is moving forward faster by doing this method. As I get more comfortable, I can increase the tempo. I'm using a program called the "Amazing Slow Downer" (a reasonable one time purchase price) though I'm sure there are others out there. You can set the file to keep repeating, so I'll sit there and play the song over and over. I discovered this cool method when I played acoustic blues guitar, and now that I've taken up piano, it works well here too!
That sounds like a great program. I’m going to download it after my practice session and I’ll come back with some feedback after a week of experimenting with it. Anything that helps me practice with a slow tempo is definitely going to help a lot. I’ll be the first to admit that I do get weary of a plain old metronome click.
I have taken a very slow approach and it has yielded excellent results in terms of hand independence. I started with a metronome at 80 until I could do 160 comfortably and every time due to practice I keep getting better and faster. It has taken me a month but I can comfortably play 12 bars and also combine my left and right hand with the licks including variation 1 and 2 of the right licks. The only thing I have struggled with most is perfecting triplets. I am using the wikihow - How to play Boogie Woogie by Arthur.
Rick, this makes me so happy to hear about your progress! That is the same way I work on things... slowly at first and gradually speed it up. If you haven't already, be sure to check out my video about mastering the triplets... it might help you. It is in the "boot camp" section.
Arthur has a recent video about this on YouTube, Boogie Woogie Left Hand - from ZERO to INDEPENDENT in 15 exercises. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfvCrwHWmkU It is very inspiring and gives ideas on how to occupy the right hand while practicing the left hand. It gave me a 16th idea for an exercise. I have a bowl of coins for my right hand to play with. There are endless things you could do with the coins; stack them, count them, pick them up one or two or three at a time, separate them by type as in pennies, nickles, dimes, etc. I have been using this exercise and some of Arthur's from the video for three days and I am making progress in training my brain towards hand independence.
That is a great idea for an independence exercise! Coins! Thanks for sharing @gmoebus1 !