Do I need two brains for this?

Hi, I have been playing piano for a few years and guitar for nearly twenty.

I understand harmony, chords, intervals, melody etc and play lots of differant styles.

BUT when I try to play anything syncopated in the left hand, my right hand stops and trys to help my left out, I think the years of guitar playing might have created a mental link between the hands and no matter what I do, I cant stop it.

I can play Rock and roll with a good left hand rythmn as they are falling on the same beats, but anything a bit funky and I am totally usless.

Or if I get a good funky bass line going in the left hand, as soon as I play a chord in the right, my left hand falls to pieces, very frustrating.

I have had no lessons so maybe its a bsic lack of technique we have here although I have worked quite a bit as a piano entertainer doing all the Elton John, Billy Joel, Beatles, Eagles music but many places now want a small keyboard on top of the piano so the left hand bass line can be played whilst the right hand plays the rythmn piano part on the piano... and I simply cannot do it.

Any advice from members would be appreciated immencely.

Regards Alan

If you are going to play a dedicated bass line, I'd get a set of bass pedals and do it right. Gerry

Hi pTooner, I hear what you say and have saw some people playing these with their left foot under the piano but many bars dislike it due to the fact that the guests cannot see it and many guests thing its a pre recorded bass line on a mini disc they are hearing, for example.

The whole idea of a small keyboard on top of the piano is to make it more visual and dispell any doubts as to whether the musicain is playing the bass line 'live' or not.

These are the working conditions I am dealing with.

Regards and thanks

This whole deal sounds strange to me. I have never worked in front of a group in a bar in which the patrons knew what the hell the players were doing, i.e. faking it or whatever. Seems like customers are getting pretty particular in your case whereas they appear to accept all kinds of recording tricks otherwise in this day and age, e.g. multitrack and lip synching. What gives? Also have not had much experience with bar owners who know anything either. TS

Frank, I guess you better give up any ideas of playing an organ then. TS

I'm not sure if this helps, but I think it's just one of those things you have to practice doing. If what you're doing is strictly arranged (as opposed to being even partially improvised), then you've got an advantage that you can just learn it. Here's what I do when I get myself really messed up with conflicting left/right hand stuff. I set the metronome really slow and count in subdivided time. By that I mean that, if it's supposed to be something funky in 4/4 at 145 bpm, then I might set my metronome at, oh, something like a painfully slow 40-60 bpm and count the clicks as either 8ths or 16ths (depending on how messed up I am). Then play the offending passages as precisely as possible, over and over again. And when I say 'passages' I mean break those down to the shortest possible chunks as well. You might want to just loop a single bar at a time, for example. When I find that can execute it reliably at that painfully slow tempo, I'll gradually speed up the metronome. Then I'll slow it down again and start counting quarter notes.

It's all in the muscle memory when you do it like this, so make sure that you keep your fingering absolutely constant. And that means you have to make sure that the fingering is appropriate to the final playing speed, not the slow practice speeds. Sometimes what feels best at a slow speed feels terrible fast and vice versa.

This technique even works well for more complicated types of problems like 3 against 4. But there you can't really subdivide things perfectly, so you have to start with a very clear idea of what the basic rhythmic units sound like in your head. MIDI sequencers can help with this because you can play back the phrase at whatever tempo you like to help cement the sound of the correct syncopation in your brain before you start.

Then, lest anybody accuse me of being hopelessly mechanical, once you've got your fingers to the point where they can execute the problem passage, that's when you can start to listen to your phrasing and dynamics, and include any subtle tempo fluctuations that might enhance the performance, trying to make the result as musical as possible.

That's what I do anyway. I hope this helps.

K

Hi Kevin,

Just to say that mostly its completely improvised and as long as it fits the song, its OK.

Maybe occasionally a really recognisable bass line (Billy Jean / Under pressure / etc) might need to be replicated, for the most part its just to get as funky as possible.

I do feel its something that will come with time, but thanks to everyone for their input.

Regards Alan

You mean there may be hope for my uncoordinated, arrhythmic, spastic playing? <G> This is encouraging. Thank you!

Playing two keyboards is a fairly normal situation for a lot of us.

My main gigs at the moment are as part of a duo in which drums and bass are pre-done on MD.

After that I use my main board for piano/electric piano sounds and then a second board for covering strings, brass, flutes, organ... anything else I happen to need.

the only exception is when we do green onions. That gets the organ on to the bottom board too!!

Once you learn to play without watching your hands it doesn't matter if one hand is on a different keyboard. the notes are the same distance apart, aren't they??

In fact, one thing I make my students do at every lesson is play something they know while I hold a book in their line of sight. It's amazing how quick the playing improves. Try practising in the dark, silly as that may

WHOO-HOO! Now THERE'S a great song! One of my all-time favorites!

True... Maybe it wouldn't be so difficult as it seems. Right now, I'm having a real b*tch of a time with ONE keyboard! Heh...

I'm okay with that portion of it. I can play through a piece of music a few times, and after that, I can see the notes/staves in my head. I don't know if that would be called photographic memory or not, since music is the only thing that I seem to have this ability with, but my teacher frowned at me the other day and said, 'Frank, put your eyes on the music occasionally. You can't memorize everything!' I didn't have the heart to tell her that yes, yes I CAN memorize just about everything. I also run through pieces with my eyes closed a lot, after I have my hands situated, but I'm also working on being able to play without first looking at my hands to get them placed. My primary problem, according to my teacher, is that I'm not practicing slowly enough. She says that I am in too much of a hurry, and that's why I stumble and fumble so much with new pieces. I have to agree with her, and I'm working on really slowing it down. (as wonky as a waltz sounds when it's played at 45 beats per min!)

Cheers,