A Little More Progress At the Piano
It used to take Charlie ten or so minutes to practice the piano: Now, after playing for a year and several months, his binder is stuffed with music sheets—”Bingo,” “Heart and Soul,” “Oh Susannah,” “Happy Birthday”—-and he also has a second binder for songs that he has mastered (”Ode to Joy”). After of year of the C major scale, he is working on D major; his teacher has made him a special board with the grand staff and velcro notes for more practice reading music.
Practice takes a lot more than ten minutes—almost twenty-five minutes, tonight. For most of this year, the big challenge has been for Charlie to learn to play with both his right and left hands, and also to read the lines of notes as they go back and forth from bass to treble clef, and back and forth again. He has gotten pretty good at going back and forth from hand to hand.
There always has to be a new challenge, and it is to play “Merrily” (as in “Merrily, we row along….”). This is the first song for which Charlie has to play with his right and left hands simultaneously: He has a two-note chord with the left and the melody with the right. He can play each hand fine on its own, but coordinating left and right together is not so easy. I have been standing behind him and trying,very gently, to help Charlie align three fingers from two hands over the keys. He has been playing the right hand and then the left, or not playing the left hand.
When banging around on the keys on his own, Charlie can play both hands simultaneously and I know he will get this but his difficulties clue me into how his neurology is “wired.” It’s not easy, it seems, for Charlie to get both the right and the left hands to do similar things simultaneously—it’s not easy for him to do two things simultaenously, period, and perhaps all the more so when has to use both left and right hands in concert, and so both parts of his brain. Of course, I still feel amazed to see him switch back and forth quite effortlessly from left to right hands as I point to the notes on the bass or treble clef: Practice does not always make perfect, but every day we’re at the piano together, I can sense his fingers moving to the right notes. A little hesitantly, but on their own.
Merrily, we row along.
Photo courtesy of Bekah Stargazing via Flickr
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POSTED IN: Music, Neuroscience
12 opinions for A Little More Progress At the Piano
Jennifer
Nov 15, 2007 at 3:58 am
After seven years of piano lessons, I was, at best, mediocre at actually playing with both hands together. I could learn each part but putting them together was devilishly difficult, so I definitely feel for Charlie.
(And yet, I type at somewhere between 70 and 90 words per minute. Go figure.)
Casdok
Nov 15, 2007 at 4:53 am
Well done Charlie! Both you and he must be so proud!
M
Nov 15, 2007 at 5:37 am
Jennifer: “After seven years of piano lessons, I was, at best, mediocre…And yet, I type at somewhere between 70 and 90 words”
You should have pained a letter on each piano key and tried to convince your mind that it was a big, ivory typewriter.
Tricking yourself: it’s the key to everything. In order to eat healthy, for example, I have to pretend that brussel sprouts are really just lumpy, green, tasteless donuts. Mmm. Tasty brusselnuts.
Regan
Nov 15, 2007 at 7:28 am
That is great Kristina. As self-tutored pianist, I can appreciate the coordinating difficulties, but when he gets it, it’ll be so much fun. Good going Charlie!
Autismville
Nov 15, 2007 at 12:26 pm
I think this is the point in many piano students’ studies where they throw up their hands and quit. Getting over the hump of combining hands is extremelyl challenge. But, much like riding a bike, once you get it, a whole new world is opened up to you…
Keep working. This is the hardest part.
Justthisguy
Nov 15, 2007 at 10:00 pm
I always was, and am, and probably always will be, totally hopeless at playing the piano with both hands at the same time. I was no good at the strings, either.
However, I can manage a wind instrument just fine. I used to play the clarinet, until that got stolen and, later, my teeth decayed. Lately I sometimes play the recorder, but I’ve found no one around here with whom to play,; most of my neighbors being rich damyankee beefheaded golftourists, or recently arrived Mexicans.
I wish we had more normal people here.
N.B. By “normal” I mean “culturally normal”, not “mentally normal.”
I am not mentally normal.
I just hate what these people have done to the Florida I remember from the fifties and early sixties, when I was a kid here
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 15, 2007 at 10:18 pm
I, ahem, am quite fond of brussels sprouts “as is” (just lightly boiled, with some peppar). Charlie and Jim each eat 1 leaf each.
Charlie plays with velcro’d letters on the keys—just on a few, now, after starting with a whole octave. He’s just started learning to type with a computer program—but I’m pretty fast; typed pages and pages using a dictaphone in doctors’ and lawyers’ offices when I was in grad school…….
Schwartz
Nov 15, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Although I am not plagued by the two hands problem, I will say that many people have a great deal of difficulty playing two hands. (many people have problems typing with 10 fingers as well).
However, you will NEVER go wrong teaching music to a child (or an adult for that matter). My sister studied music therapy, and it’s amazing at how effective it can be with specific types of people.
I think Charlie’s current success is fantastic!
Justthiguy
Nov 16, 2007 at 12:52 am
I like brussels sprouts, prepared pretty much any way.
I toldya I’m not mentally normal.
(assuming normal=average) but then I think again, and think that there must be large numbers of secret brussels sprouts eaters, or we wouldn’t find said sprouts for sale in every grocery store I’ve ever been inside of.
They are very yummy in tomato sauce, IMHO.
Daniel E. Friedman
Nov 16, 2007 at 11:12 am
I wonder if Charlie would enjoy contrary motion scales, especially in C major. The right and left hand always play the same fingers simultaneously. I know my students enjoy both the similar and contrary forms.
Schwartz
Nov 17, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I’ll second that one. I never remembered them until you mentionned it, but I always like them when I was a child as well. They were easier to play.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Nov 17, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I’ll have to ask his teacher about contrary motion scales—I don’t think I did those myself.
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