Not only that, I found through my experiments that when you have difficultly with the left hand in a certain passage, if you play the passage with both hands together and mirrored like this, it actually helps the left hand play better simply by having the right hand play along, rather than left hand by itself. It's almost like magic. I think I read somewhere that's it's a neurological thing. Has anyone else had the same experience? It definitely helped me sometimes. Also, MAH is amazing!
Yes! I also experience that, not even plaiyng the mirrored part, but the original one from the sheet music. When I practice slowly, sometimes my hand play better when they are together than when they play separately
How is one supposed to mirror them though? How about for songs that aren't mirrored? (Do they still count as mirror even if the fingering is a bit different?) Mind you I'm referring to a much more beginner context of where I'm coming from, rather than crazy Chopin songs
@@shaunreich basically what MAH says in the video, the piano is perfectly symmetrical about D and G#, so take whatever passage you're playing with your left (right) hand, flip it symmetrically around a D or a G# and you'll get the mirrored right (left) hand part. This obviously is only for one hand at a time, so you can do it for left hand first, then right hand until both feel good enough, and then return to the conventional practice methods. The music is gonna sound way off, but mechanically speaking your hand will be doing the exact same thing, regardless of the difficulty of what you're playing. I hope that makes sense, I may have not explained it the best way.
@@shaunreich you can mirror in this way: D becomes D, C becomes E, B/F, A/G, and the reverse can also be applied, also, when some note is sharp, his counterparty will be flat, like, F sharp, in one hand, will be player at B flat, in the other hand. It was clear?
I came up with the idea less than six months ago and it's been a fantastic leap for my left hand, which was already fairly decent from years of playing boogie, jazz and rock (particularly ELP, eg Tarkus/Emerson, or Yes, eg Roundabout/ Chris Squires) music. Also a bit of pipe organ repertoire at or beyond my pay grade, eg Widor, JS Bach.
if that is a hard concept for you i dont know what to say. i dont even play piano and that would be the first thing if somebody told me how to improve my weak hand best
On digital pianos, possibly requiring some additional MIDI hardware/software, one can change the key mapping so the keyboard is "the wrong way around" 😊
Thanks, but I don’t understand. How can it be a mirror if one of those keys is white and the other is black? I can find a mirror though using B below and F above.
@@PedroMachadoPT both are mirrors, but look at one or the other, not both at the same time. For D: to either side of the key, the first one is black, second and third are white, and so on. Ab is WBWWB and so on
This is ingenious!!! Where were you all those years ago when I was spending 5 hrs in the recital hall practicing hannon, czerny, pichinah, and kullach…😏especially the kullach 🖐🏾8v--- studies?! Lol 😂 What a time to learn this technique this late in life? Lol All I can do now is laugh at myself!
@@Gottenhimfella Symmetrical mirroring is just an exercise. If you pick any polyphonic written using invertible counterpoint (and Bach has composed dozens of those), then each voice will have to play exactly the same notes.
@@ampac In symmetrical counterpoint, the mirrored note is adjusted wherever necessary to fit the diatonic scale. Not the same thing at all as rigorous mirroring. And I'm not clear why you point out that the latter is "just an exercise". I am not aware of anyone claiming it was anything else.
As a person who doesn’t play the piano for a living, and no formal training, it’s noticeably foreword that the right hand receives much more “practice” and “development.” The part where most people don’t know is if you okay the mirror notes your mind learns to adapt to hitting proper notes when that situation arises. I think that’s what you’re getting at and I agree. Just wording out my thought process.
I think I encountered this phenomenon while practicing the scales. Running scales with both hands together, for some reasons, always easier than practicing hand separately.
While it does seem easier, you have to be careful here. Go play those scales hands together and it seems easier AND actually sounds good right? Now play the same scales left hand only and see if it SOUNDS the same. If not, it's because hands together you're not listening to what your left hand is doing. The key is slow practice... hands separately until you're absolutely, positively sure of everything and then put them together.
That's a different (albeit related) question, unless you're talking about practicing scales in contrary motion. Otherwise the fingering is different in each hand.
Yeah, it is easier although you really should be practicing scales with hands separately. For the purposes of improving technique, I don't think there's really any reason to play hands together for scales unless you're testing the relative dexterity/strength of both hands.
oh thank God, i thought it was just me that has better right hand technique than my left. whenever i play a new piece, my left hand always makes mistakes and it just seems like my left is incapable of playing it
Thank you for this. I had forgotten about this technique and I really need it. My left hand control and technique is so sloppy!! 😣😬 My neighbour will late me though... 😆
Yessss!!! I Remember finding this out at like 17 and then trying to explain it to my teacher, but he didn’t quite get it. It still makes me feel like at least I found something out and I am not totally inapt. It’s very fun to improvise, and to practice, and the sounds are weird and awesome.
I recently applied this to Rach’s Moment Musicaux 4. The right hand learned that difficult left hand pattern very quickly. And when I played them together, it was like the right hand was teaching my left hand the proper technique for that passage! Cool experience. I tend to get my left hand fingers flat and then slide them along the keys towards myself when playing fast passages. But when I use this technique my left hand fingers were positioned more correctly, like my right hand does naturally, and I could play much faster with my left hand. My only regret is that when I go back to left hand alone, I still slip into those bad habits. I’m sure it’ll come with time.
Wow... that piece sounded fantastic. Suddenly Chopin sounds like Ravel or Debussy.... I listened through 3 times while typing this and my comparison may not be totally appropriate but I still think it sounds great. Particularly from the middle. Wow. What is going on there??? Honestly those pedal tone passages create a fascinating cadence... I have no idea what tonalities it creates swaping left and right hand being a guitar player and all but I'm fascinated. I wanna....gotta know!😂
Exactly! I found that if you just focus on and lead with the left hand, the right hand will find its way without effort and your energy and mastery increase ten fold, and you definitely can hear the whole depth of the score...
I PRESENT TO YOU: The mirrored scale! Built specifically to be played by both hands equally: Cmir (C Mirrored) consists of C# D D# E F G G# A A# B Basically, you take out the 1 and its corresponding tritone. With this, you now have Cmir. Using a mirrored scale, you can form various normal chords, such as for Cmir: C#, Dm, D#, Em, E, and many more... I'm running out of time. Have fun testing it out... I developed this when I was bored.
*Any* scale can be mirrored if you start it on D or Ab, which are the two points of symmetry on a keyboard. You will be basically playing the scale on the modal degree that D or Ab represent. These exercises have been written down at least three centuries ago...
That pedal tone section from about the 3rd bar......holy cow! I am super curious to figure that insane tonality out. And yea... you would absolutely have to employ two hands on the fretboard.
I found that after stopping classical music to go on to playing anime/japanese songs (phyxinon/animenz ararngements) my left hand became alot more independent, and stronger. I'm a right handed, but I would consider my left hand more capable than my right. YMMV, i just happened to play pieces which had ALOT of jumps and ascending/descending arpeggios in the left. My left can even stretch wider than my right.
Not a pianist. But I mess around with my son's keyboard sometimes. There's a synth pad setting that I play with like this. It ends up sounding very hauntingly beautiful to me.
I once set up a MIDI filter to make my keyboard left-handed, reflected around middle D. Playing normally gave surprisingly musical results: not only are high and low exchanged, but also major and minor chords swap, and inversions change around too.
I had an interesting experience with this. Playing the common exercise of C E D F E G F D with a mirror in the left hand went smoothly, but when I reversed it and played G E F D E C D F in the right hand with a mirror in the left, it wasn’t as easy. I realized that my brain is thinking of the right hand and the left hand follows, plus the first melody is more ingrained. Moving that same melody to the left hand isn’t as natural because my brain is more connected to the right hand, and now the familiar melody is backwards. So, to really build up the left hand, I’m wondering if we should think of the left, play the melody in the left, and mirror in the right. Mirroring in the left might help the mechanics of the left, but it might not build as strong a neural connection as we get when the left is primary and the right hand follows.
Interesting point; I think you're onto something. It could be done two distinct ways for a passage not yet played: either learn the *actual* melody in the left hand and mirror in the right, (disadvantage: neither hand is learning a version which will be "useful" in performance) Or my preference would be to first renotate as the mirror version, learn that in the LH, then have the LH "teach" the RH by mirroring visually, without needing reference to either the mirror or the "proper" score. I have been experimenting with symmetrical inversion (having independently come up with the idea, suspecting but not knowing if it was already a "thing" in the wider world) for less than six months, and it's already a breakthrough, for my LH in particular, but also my playing in general.
Let’s take this from another perspective if it wasn’t clear enough. As a beginner gym-goer, you’d experience more strength and size in your dominant side(s). To level out, train both equally, or even better, focus the weaker. This should be all common sense, but we may tend to ignore it completely.
Try a few Bach fugues -- the left hand plays what the right hand does (while the right hand plays something else ...) -- and it doesn't sound weird ...
@@chrismc1834 The point is that there are plenty of Etudes and polyphonic pieces (especially those with invertible counterpoint) where both hands have to play exactly the same passages. These pieces makes mirroring unnecessary. And Hamelin picked one of the worse examples because the whole point of this Etude is to replicate the same passages with both hands...
@@ampacthe point is that Hamelin explained a method for developing the left hand, and chose a right hand passage to demonstrate. the right hand passage starts on G# so it is easy to see the point of symmetry. this is not meant to be a suggestion of how to practice the 10/4 etude specifically
@@MeleeMoments The method of practicing mirrored passages centered on D or Ab/G# (the two points of symmetry on a keyboard) is at least two centuries old. Scales and passages from any piece (especially after transposition) can be used for this purpose. However, choosing the 10/4 Étude, which Chopin wrote specifically to practice LH and RH symmetry, raises completely unnecessary questions...
See I told this to a friend once. I'm left handed but was told at a young age to use my right . Mind ya I am dyslexic . However in music my left hand is dominant. Yet not many people understand this . Yes I play a left hand guitar but I have a right hand guitar as well because I inherited it . And yes I'm better left handed on guitar then right but can play just as good and it's a great trick at shows . The mirror effect is something i use to practice on keyboard. How ever i did not know there was music made like this .
I play the violin and recently started taking piano lessons. My teacher told me that I play like a lefty. I am right handed but I realize that too. So interesting.
Ok so I haven’t really started piano lessons yet but this is my main issue. My hands are in sync! It is so hard to separate them and I feel like this video is cool bc I could actually have an easier time learning what he played rather than learning a simpler song that has the hand separation
I've been practicing pieces switching my hands around as in physically crossing them over, also playing the same thing in both which I find better, personally I think the best way to be equally handed is to just learn the same things in both hands
You could alter a digital keyboard so that it actually just flipped the keys and play the right and with your left in the proper register but on the lower inverted notes
I just noticed this recently when looking over my piano compositions. The right hand is so complex and for the left I just have way too many arpeggios 😂
you can apply this to scales as well, start in the middle of the keyboard and instead of both hands going in one direction, move them in opposite directions. It won't be perfectly symmetrical with every scale but it's still more fun to play than regular scales.
Music should always be the crucial point. Even the best pianists tend to forget this. They perform technically flawless pieces of …. well, what is that anyway?
Do left-handers inherently have a stronger and more developed hand than right-handed people when it comes to playing the piano? I‘m a lefty and can‘t tell which hand is stronger while playing.
They probably do, it's the same thing when you try to swap hands in your day to day. Left hand people just have their brains optimized for left hand, instead of right. But the brain does prefer one side of motion, and this is determined early. But, I mean if you take a left and a right hander, who never played, they will still both suck at piano equally. So you'd basically just be trading one for the other. Plus, with piano, the right hand is generally melody. So I've could argue it would be harder to start left hand piano because of that. Or... One could argue that the left hander would automatically get way more practice with their right hand, whereas the right hander isn't going to be finding many melodies with the left hand naturally, early in their journey That's my theory, but I'm just a silly lil beginner right now
@@shaunreichseems about right. Im right handed but i hate the fact that most pieces are so difficult on the right hand while my left is playing something simple and not as intricate to develop my left hand technique.
Marc-André Hamelin is a major proponent of both of those. Neither of them provide the specific benefits of this important practice aid. it's not intended as a substitute, it's a great way of getting to grips with specific passages at the level of difficulty which the player could currently manage with only the better of their hands, and it's a great way of ensuring that at some future date, each hand will be as capable as the other. (other neurological benefits as well, to do with bilateral brain recruitment)
There's no reason it wouldn't. Your situation or imbalance just a symmetrical inversion of the more normal situation, and given that the exercise is nothing more or less than symmetrical inversion it is agnostic as to which hand you are trying to "bring up" to the capability you already have with the other. Personally I find this method usually results in a major improvement to my less capable hand but a significant improvement to the better one.
@@user-yq1rc6or9x I mean most people pronounce it Show-pen, some Show-pin. It doesn’t really matter very much, but it does show respect for the name, and it makes you yourself look cultured in front of your peers.
@@Tennisisreallyfun thank you. I'm half French so have no problem with his name. But those two probounciations are hilarious. I just asked my English dad to read the word Chopin for me and he pronounced it properly. ☺️ I also try and say Bach the right way. But wow Show-pin. 😆😆😆😭😭😭 That is hilarious.
interesting, of course if to theINDIVIDUAL pianist, the music IS THE POINT, CONTRADICTORY to what this man said, LH RH may be approached differently. Hands over all take on different MUSICAL rolls in many pieces. guess it depends on priorities even strength or practicing being musical
Arent most pieces very hard on the right hand though? Meaning, you can just play those pieces and not have to mirror the "difficult" left hand passage. I have recommendation for pieces to develop your left/right hand technique if you need😊
@@_Cyxnide Yeah, but especially when you begin playing the piano as a left handed person, it is hard to assume the same view point as a right handed person, seeing the right hand as the main voice, in the first place. This means it is hard to get into it, but you constantly train your weak right hand.
IN inverse counterpoint, truly symmetrical inversion is only possible if you go completely atonal. Or impose massive restrictions on which diatonic scale notes to employ. If it's not truly symmetrical, most of the benefit is lost. Instead of sharing the cognitive burden of playing one hand across both hemispheres, the burden is increased because the fingering is sometimes identical and sometimes not.
Omg thank you for this. I’ve been playing piano my whole life and scales definitely help but I’m really looking to improve my dexterity greatly in my left hand
Not only that, I found through my experiments that when you have difficultly with the left hand in a certain passage, if you play the passage with both hands together and mirrored like this, it actually helps the left hand play better simply by having the right hand play along, rather than left hand by itself. It's almost like magic. I think I read somewhere that's it's a neurological thing.
Has anyone else had the same experience? It definitely helped me sometimes.
Also, MAH is amazing!
Yes! I also experience that, not even plaiyng the mirrored part, but the original one from the sheet music. When I practice slowly, sometimes my hand play better when they are together than when they play separately
How is one supposed to mirror them though? How about for songs that aren't mirrored? (Do they still count as mirror even if the fingering is a bit different?) Mind you I'm referring to a much more beginner context of where I'm coming from, rather than crazy Chopin songs
@@shaunreich basically what MAH says in the video, the piano is perfectly symmetrical about D and G#, so take whatever passage you're playing with your left (right) hand, flip it symmetrically around a D or a G# and you'll get the mirrored right (left) hand part. This obviously is only for one hand at a time, so you can do it for left hand first, then right hand until both feel good enough, and then return to the conventional practice methods. The music is gonna sound way off, but mechanically speaking your hand will be doing the exact same thing, regardless of the difficulty of what you're playing.
I hope that makes sense, I may have not explained it the best way.
i found this tends to happen when i play scales
@@shaunreich you can mirror in this way: D becomes D, C becomes E, B/F, A/G, and the reverse can also be applied, also, when some note is sharp, his counterparty will be flat, like, F sharp, in one hand, will be player at B flat, in the other hand. It was clear?
When he said "most pianists do not know about this" I thought he was going to talk about dating.
underrated comment
Well, being single also does tend to result in your right hand being more practiced than your left XD
@@snapgab it depends xD
@@snapgabyo
Lmfao, that's so true for me 😭
I randomly started implementing this a few weeks ago and it made a tremendous difference
I came up with the idea less than six months ago and it's been a fantastic leap for my left hand, which was already fairly decent from years of playing boogie, jazz and rock (particularly ELP, eg Tarkus/Emerson, or Yes, eg Roundabout/ Chris Squires) music. Also a bit of pipe organ repertoire at or beyond my pay grade, eg Widor, JS Bach.
Where was this when I was learning piano???? Genius!!!
As a drummer, and percussionist, I approve of this message
Marc-André Hamelin is one of my favorite concert 🎵 pianists of all time.🫵💎🙏🏼✨♾️
same here. I actually met him last month in Parry Sound, Ontario. At the festival of sound. Awesome guy.
Hamelin is a phenomenal musician and technician.
Here's a perfect demonstration of being a virtuoso:
Making the hardest things/concepts look easy!
if that is a hard concept for you i dont know what to say. i dont even play piano and that would be the first thing if somebody told me how to improve my weak hand best
@@hazardeur what exactly is it that attracted your attention about me praising a thing
@@DenXDuman i cant phrase it any clearer than i already did
@@hazardeur key mate
On digital pianos, possibly requiring some additional MIDI hardware/software, one can change the key mapping so the keyboard is "the wrong way around" 😊
Now I want Mattias Krantz
to make a backwards piano
the two mirror spots are D and A-flat for those of you wondering
Thanks, but I don’t understand. How can it be a mirror if one of those keys is white and the other is black? I can find a mirror though using B below and F above.
@@PedroMachadoPT both are mirrors, but look at one or the other, not both at the same time.
For D: to either side of the key, the first one is black, second and third are white, and so on. Ab is WBWWB and so on
@@biscoitom
I see. One is the middle of the group of three black keys (Ab), the other is the middle of the group of two black keys (D). Thanks.
This is ingenious!!! Where were you all those years ago when I was spending 5 hrs in the recital hall practicing hannon, czerny, pichinah, and kullach…😏especially the kullach 🖐🏾8v--- studies?! Lol 😂 What a time to learn this technique this late in life? Lol All I can do now is laugh at myself!
I love his exquisite sense of humor! ❤️
This is why I adore Bach....
Really? I don't think I've yet discovered a JSB passage longer than three or four notes which is symmetrically mirrored. I'd love to hear more!
@@Gottenhimfella Symmetrical mirroring is just an exercise. If you pick any polyphonic written using invertible counterpoint (and Bach has composed dozens of those), then each voice will have to play exactly the same notes.
@@ampac In symmetrical counterpoint, the mirrored note is adjusted wherever necessary to fit the diatonic scale. Not the same thing at all as rigorous mirroring. And I'm not clear why you point out that the latter is "just an exercise". I am not aware of anyone claiming it was anything else.
Absolute GENIUS!!!!
As a person who doesn’t play the piano for a living, and no formal training, it’s noticeably foreword that the right hand receives much more “practice” and “development.”
The part where most people don’t know is if you okay the mirror notes your mind learns to adapt to hitting proper notes when that situation arises.
I think that’s what you’re getting at and I agree.
Just wording out my thought process.
Obviously, it works the other way around to: this method really helped me to improve my right hand.
I’m definitely doing this technique every day! Thank you for sharing this….may I say miracle for pianists? 💕🙋♀️💕🎹💕
I think I encountered this phenomenon while practicing the scales. Running scales with both hands together, for some reasons, always easier than practicing hand separately.
While it does seem easier, you have to be careful here. Go play those scales hands together and it seems easier AND actually sounds good right? Now play the same scales left hand only and see if it SOUNDS the same. If not, it's because hands together you're not listening to what your left hand is doing. The key is slow practice... hands separately until you're absolutely, positively sure of everything and then put them together.
That's a different (albeit related) question, unless you're talking about practicing scales in contrary motion. Otherwise the fingering is different in each hand.
Yeah, it is easier although you really should be practicing scales with hands separately. For the purposes of improving technique, I don't think there's really any reason to play hands together for scales unless you're testing the relative dexterity/strength of both hands.
oh thank God, i thought it was just me that has better right hand technique than my left. whenever i play a new piece, my left hand always makes mistakes and it just seems like my left is incapable of playing it
Thank you for this. I had forgotten about this technique and I really need it. My left hand control and technique is so sloppy!! 😣😬 My neighbour will late me though... 😆
Yessss!!! I Remember finding this out at like 17 and then trying to explain it to my teacher, but he didn’t quite get it. It still makes me feel like at least I found something out and I am not totally inapt. It’s very fun to improvise, and to practice, and the sounds are weird and awesome.
This dude - i'll play chopin etude both hands inverted. Is this cat for real?!!! Holy moly. Hamelin arguably greatest pianist ever
I recently applied this to Rach’s Moment Musicaux 4. The right hand learned that difficult left hand pattern very quickly. And when I played them together, it was like the right hand was teaching my left hand the proper technique for that passage! Cool experience. I tend to get my left hand fingers flat and then slide them along the keys towards myself when playing fast passages. But when I use this technique my left hand fingers were positioned more correctly, like my right hand does naturally, and I could play much faster with my left hand. My only regret is that when I go back to left hand alone, I still slip into those bad habits. I’m sure it’ll come with time.
Shoutout to my teacher who taught this to me when I was a kid.
That's cool. Never heard of thought about that. I can imagine that it improves muscle memory and playing enormously.
Wow... that piece sounded fantastic. Suddenly Chopin sounds like Ravel or Debussy....
I listened through 3 times while typing this and my comparison may not be totally appropriate but I still think it sounds great. Particularly from the middle. Wow. What is going on there???
Honestly those pedal tone passages create a fascinating cadence... I have no idea what tonalities it creates swaping left and right hand being a guitar player and all but I'm fascinated.
I wanna....gotta know!😂
I loved how it sounded!
Sometimes it doesn't sound as good as in this instance, but it always works!
Exactly! I found that if you just focus on and lead with the left hand, the right hand will find its way without effort and your energy and mastery increase ten fold, and you definitely can hear the whole depth of the score...
I PRESENT TO YOU: The mirrored scale!
Built specifically to be played by both hands equally:
Cmir (C Mirrored) consists of
C# D D# E F G G# A A# B
Basically, you take out the 1 and its corresponding tritone.
With this, you now have Cmir. Using a mirrored scale, you can form various normal chords, such as for Cmir: C#, Dm, D#, Em, E, and many more... I'm running out of time. Have fun testing it out... I developed this when I was bored.
*Any* scale can be mirrored if you start it on D or Ab, which are the two points of symmetry on a keyboard. You will be basically playing the scale on the modal degree that D or Ab represent. These exercises have been written down at least three centuries ago...
It’s one of my favorite practice techniques! 😃
Thank you, you have me a great idea for learning and practising tapping on the guitar !
That pedal tone section from about the 3rd bar......holy cow!
I am super curious to figure that insane tonality out. And yea... you would absolutely have to employ two hands on the fretboard.
This is so helpful.
I found that after stopping classical music to go on to playing anime/japanese songs (phyxinon/animenz ararngements) my left hand became alot more independent, and stronger. I'm a right handed, but I would consider my left hand more capable than my right. YMMV, i just happened to play pieces which had ALOT of jumps and ascending/descending arpeggios in the left. My left can even stretch wider than my right.
Not a pianist. But I mess around with my son's keyboard sometimes. There's a synth pad setting that I play with like this. It ends up sounding very hauntingly beautiful to me.
I mean, sure it's not the masterpiece you'd expect from Chopin played this way. But it does have an odd sense of satisfaction to it.
Great tip ! Thank you !
I once set up a MIDI filter to make my keyboard left-handed, reflected around middle D. Playing normally gave surprisingly musical results: not only are high and low exchanged, but also major and minor chords swap, and inversions change around too.
I had an interesting experience with this. Playing the common exercise of C E D F E G F D with a mirror in the left hand went smoothly, but when I reversed it and played G E F D E C D F in the right hand with a mirror in the left, it wasn’t as easy. I realized that my brain is thinking of the right hand and the left hand follows, plus the first melody is more ingrained. Moving that same melody to the left hand isn’t as natural because my brain is more connected to the right hand, and now the familiar melody is backwards.
So, to really build up the left hand, I’m wondering if we should think of the left, play the melody in the left, and mirror in the right. Mirroring in the left might help the mechanics of the left, but it might not build as strong a neural connection as we get when the left is primary and the right hand follows.
Interesting point; I think you're onto something. It could be done two distinct ways for a passage not yet played: either learn the *actual* melody in the left hand and mirror in the right, (disadvantage: neither hand is learning a version which will be "useful" in performance)
Or my preference would be to first renotate as the mirror version, learn that in the LH, then have the LH "teach" the RH by mirroring visually, without needing reference to either the mirror or the "proper" score.
I have been experimenting with symmetrical inversion (having independently come up with the idea, suspecting but not knowing if it was already a "thing" in the wider world) for less than six months, and it's already a breakthrough, for my LH in particular, but also my playing in general.
Let’s take this from another perspective if it wasn’t clear enough. As a beginner gym-goer, you’d experience more strength and size in your dominant side(s). To level out, train both equally, or even better, focus the weaker. This should be all common sense, but we may tend to ignore it completely.
When I taught I would have my students play Hanon exercises mirrored like this.
I'll need to remember this for when I eventually get around to learning to play piano
This is actually the best pianist in the world.
"most pianist dont know about this". Now, there is no pianist in the world who does not know
I am going to try this today,cant wait! Thankyou 😅
Try a few Bach fugues -- the left hand plays what the right hand does (while the right hand plays something else ...) -- and it doesn't sound weird ...
10/4 etude does not need mirroring. The entire piece is written with the idea that you switch hands and they both take turns to play the melody.
I dont think he meant to practise the mirroring in that piece for the piece itself but just for development in left hand generally
@@chrismc1834 The point is that there are plenty of Etudes and polyphonic pieces (especially those with invertible counterpoint) where both hands have to play exactly the same passages. These pieces makes mirroring unnecessary. And Hamelin picked one of the worse examples because the whole point of this Etude is to replicate the same passages with both hands...
@@ampacthe point is that Hamelin explained a method for developing the left hand, and chose a right hand passage to demonstrate. the right hand passage starts on G# so it is easy to see the point of symmetry. this is not meant to be a suggestion of how to practice the 10/4 etude specifically
@@MeleeMoments The method of practicing mirrored passages centered on D or Ab/G# (the two points of symmetry on a keyboard) is at least two centuries old. Scales and passages from any piece (especially after transposition) can be used for this purpose. However, choosing the 10/4 Étude, which Chopin wrote specifically to practice LH and RH symmetry, raises completely unnecessary questions...
Genius!
See I told this to a friend once. I'm left handed but was told at a young age to use my right . Mind ya I am dyslexic . However in music my left hand is dominant. Yet not many people understand this . Yes I play a left hand guitar but I have a right hand guitar as well because I inherited it . And yes I'm better left handed on guitar then right but can play just as good and it's a great trick at shows . The mirror effect is something i use to practice on keyboard. How ever i did not know there was music made like this .
This guy has a great voice or is it the Audio recording that is great maybe both 👍
This is a dyslexic’s nightmare. But hope it works for others.
I think a good example of this is the middle section of Chopin’s op. 10 no 3
I play the violin and recently started taking piano lessons. My teacher told me that I play like a lefty. I am right handed but I realize that too. So interesting.
Ok so I haven’t really started piano lessons yet but this is my main issue. My hands are in sync! It is so hard to separate them and I feel like this video is cool bc I could actually have an easier time learning what he played rather than learning a simpler song that has the hand separation
I've been practicing pieces switching my hands around as in physically crossing them over, also playing the same thing in both which I find better, personally I think the best way to be equally handed is to just learn the same things in both hands
You could alter a digital keyboard so that it actually just flipped the keys and play the right and with your left in the proper register but on the lower inverted notes
As a left handed person.. I want to play on an inverted piano... one where the highest notes are on the left side
It doesn't exist?
Same. A left - handed piano with C transposed to E running down the scale would be amazing
Bill Evans was left handed.
Ok, now time to go practice
Maybe you could try practising Ravel's piano concerto for the left hand...
I actually liked the way it sounded.
Great!
I bet that exercise also helps with hand independence, memorization, and getting away from leaning too hard on muscle memory
My neighbors will think I finally and officially went completely nuts ✨
I like the symetrical inversions you made of Chopin, I think he would have liked it also, if it was allowed.
I just noticed this recently when looking over my piano compositions. The right hand is so complex and for the left I just have way too many arpeggios 😂
Clave de Sol derecha y Fa izquierda ( G - F) ...😮Complex!!
I am going to starting doing this today
Read my articles on "Are we all playing left-handed pianos?".
you can apply this to scales as well, start in the middle of the keyboard and instead of both hands going in one direction, move them in opposite directions. It won't be perfectly symmetrical with every scale but it's still more fun to play than regular scales.
PSA this would be called "contrary motion" (+ with some symmetric scales)
Music should always be the crucial point. Even the best pianists tend to forget this. They perform technically flawless pieces of …. well, what is that anyway?
Do left-handers inherently have a stronger and more developed hand than right-handed people when it comes to playing the piano?
I‘m a lefty and can‘t tell which hand is stronger while playing.
They probably do, it's the same thing when you try to swap hands in your day to day. Left hand people just have their brains optimized for left hand, instead of right. But the brain does prefer one side of motion, and this is determined early. But, I mean if you take a left and a right hander, who never played, they will still both suck at piano equally. So you'd basically just be trading one for the other. Plus, with piano, the right hand is generally melody. So I've could argue it would be harder to start left hand piano because of that. Or... One could argue that the left hander would automatically get way more practice with their right hand, whereas the right hander isn't going to be finding many melodies with the left hand naturally, early in their journey
That's my theory, but I'm just a silly lil beginner right now
@@shaunreichseems about right.
Im right handed but i hate the fact that most pieces are so difficult on the right hand while my left is playing something simple and not as intricate to develop my left hand technique.
You could just do Hanon piano exercises for this. Or Chopin Etudes
Marc-André Hamelin is a major proponent of both of those. Neither of them provide the specific benefits of this important practice aid. it's not intended as a substitute, it's a great way of getting to grips with specific passages at the level of difficulty which the player could currently manage with only the better of their hands, and it's a great way of ensuring that at some future date, each hand will be as capable as the other. (other neurological benefits as well, to do with bilateral brain recruitment)
I have actually came to this techniqe myself, I noticed that if left hand imitates right hand at the same time (triller), it can go faster.
I don’t play but that’s the first thing I did on keyboard nothing fancy just mirroring my left and right hands
Maestro.❤
or try and prepare Ravel's concerto for the left hand HAHA, that'd straighten out your right hand technique in no time.
I came up with this technique by myself, used it on op 10 no 2, gave up after left hand died, forgot about it until today
I’m actually a left handed and have to make sure I give equal dynamic power to my right hand.
I’m left handed but my right hand is stronger at the piano, just from years of habit learning the right had first in pieces I guess
There's no reason it wouldn't. Your situation or imbalance just a symmetrical inversion of the more normal situation, and given that the exercise is nothing more or less than symmetrical inversion it is agnostic as to which hand you are trying to "bring up" to the capability you already have with the other.
Personally I find this method usually results in a major improvement to my less capable hand but a significant improvement to the better one.
Can someone please confirm he essentially means the left-hand is playing the right-hand parts, but _in reverse_ ?
Something so simple yet it never occurred to me 😅
Sounds like retro Final Fantasy music
右手、左手と別々に考えたことはないです。メロディが左手から右手に動いたり、中心から外側に向かって動いたり、時々はメロディラインが消えたり…鬼ごっこみたいにね。耳をすましつ
Wish drums had an exercise like this
Are thousands of rudiments is a joke to you?
i mean both hands doing the same thing
I like that he made the effort to pronounce "Chopin" the right way.
Same with the word “pianist”😂
Well he is French
What would be the wrong way?
@@user-yq1rc6or9x I mean most people pronounce it Show-pen, some Show-pin. It doesn’t really matter very much, but it does show respect for the name, and it makes you yourself look cultured in front of your peers.
@@Tennisisreallyfun thank you. I'm half French so have no problem with his name. But those two probounciations are hilarious. I just asked my English dad to read the word Chopin for me and he pronounced it properly. ☺️ I also try and say Bach the right way. But wow Show-pin. 😆😆😆😭😭😭 That is hilarious.
interesting, of course if to theINDIVIDUAL pianist, the music IS THE POINT, CONTRADICTORY to what this man said, LH RH may be approached differently. Hands over all take on different MUSICAL rolls in many pieces. guess it depends on priorities even strength or practicing being musical
This is founded in neuroscience too. Thank you
Just practice Chopin’s Prelude No 3 in G major
Where is the full video
Just realised that piano is symetrical. Now im curious if electric keyboard could have a "Lefthanded" mode where everything is mirrored
hell ya !
I have a perfect piece for practising left hand its Chopins etude Op.10 No.1
I am left handed, my problem has allways been the opposite, so this is a nice change for once. ^^
Arent most pieces very hard on the right hand though?
Meaning, you can just play those pieces and not have to mirror the "difficult" left hand passage.
I have recommendation for pieces to develop your left/right hand technique if you need😊
@@_Cyxnide Yeah, but especially when you begin playing the piano as a left handed person, it is hard to assume the same view point as a right handed person, seeing the right hand as the main voice, in the first place. This means it is hard to get into it, but you constantly train your weak right hand.
Playing guitar for 23 years really makes me wanna get a keyboard that can be arranged to be left handed 😂
❤
Why not just treat it as inverse counterpoint, playing F clef on the right and vice versa?
IN inverse counterpoint, truly symmetrical inversion is only possible if you go completely atonal. Or impose massive restrictions on which diatonic scale notes to employ.
If it's not truly symmetrical, most of the benefit is lost. Instead of sharing the cognitive burden of playing one hand across both hemispheres, the burden is increased because the fingering is sometimes identical and sometimes not.
I wonder if famously left-handed Paul McCartney has ever tried switching hands, or mirroring, when he plays keys.... 🤔🎼🎶🎹
Actually it sounds cool lol
🙏🙏🙏
Well... That etude is actually quite balanced as written originally
This is the most Hamelin practice technique dver
Omg thank you for this. I’ve been playing piano my whole life and scales definitely help but I’m really looking to improve my dexterity greatly in my left hand