Hands Together
Two independent lines, one brain. The method is not bravery but patience: each hand alone until it is automatic, then both at half speed — starting with the motion that is easiest of all.
Builds on: 1.2 The Left Hand1.4 Reading the Bass Clef
The coordination problem
Playing with both hands is genuinely hard, and it is worth saying why. Each hand can already play its line. But when you put them together, your attention has to be in two places at once, and the moment one hand needs a decision — a skip, a held note — the other hand stops. Everyone experiences this. It is not a talent gap; it is the brain learning to run two motor programs in parallel, and it learns by repetition under the right conditions.
The method
- Hands separately until each part is automatic — until you can play it while talking. If you have to think about the notes, it is not ready to combine.
- Together at half speed, or slower. Ridiculously slow is right. The hands only have to line up; speed is a separate skill you add later.
- Small chunks. Two bars together, then the next two. Join them only when each chunk is clean.
- Lead with the hand that has more to do. Usually the right hand has the tune and the left hand the support; put your attention on the melody and let the left hand follow the pattern it already knows.
Contrary motion: the easy way in
Remember that the two hands are mirror images, and that the same finger number moves the same distance in both. So if both hands play finger 1, then 2, then 3, 4, 5, the right hand climbs C D E F G while the left hand descends G F E D C. The hands move in opposite directions — contrary motion — and the fingers do exactly the same thing. Your brain has one instruction to send, not two. That is why every piano method begins hands-together playing here.
Parallel motion — both hands moving the same direction, playing the same letters an octave apart — sounds simpler but is harder, because the finger numbers now run opposite ways: RH 1 2 3 4 5 against LH 5 4 3 2 1. You will meet it in the scales of Unit 3.
Holding one hand while the other moves
The most common texture in easy piano music is a held left-hand note (or chord) under a moving right-hand melody. The difficulty is not the notes; it is keeping the left hand down while the right hand does things. The left hand wants to lift in sympathy every time the right hand strikes. Practise it deliberately: hold a C with the left pinky and play five right-hand notes over it without the left key twitching.
Two notes at once — one per hand — is a chord, and the exercise below requires them within a third of a second of each other. Aim to strike them as one sound. If one hand is consistently late, that hand is the one still thinking.
Two exercises. The contrary-motion drill: both hands together, same finger numbers, up and back. Then Frère Jacques with a left-hand chord under the tune — switch to one hand at a time first if the chords tangle, and come back to both.
🎹 Exercise — Contrary Motion
Both hands in C position. Play the same finger number in both hands at the same moment: thumbs together, then 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and back. The hands move apart and then back together.
- Strike both keys as one sound — the exercise counts the step only when both are down.
- Say the finger number out loud as you play it.
- Watch the staff: the treble line rises while the bass line falls.
Press the highlighted key to begin — any input works.
🎹 Exercise — Frère Jacques, Both Hands
The round, with a C major chord in the left hand under every bar. Practise right hand alone and left hand alone with the hand switch, then put them together.
- The left hand plays one chord per bar — hold it while the right hand moves.
- Bars 5 and 6 have eighth notes in the tune; keep the left hand steady through them.
Press the highlighted key to begin — any input works.