Week 2: How to Achieve Left Hand Balancing at the Piano with Dr. Eloise Kim!

rebecca LAM Hi Rebecca! Welcome to the intensive, and what a wonderful coincidence that you are working on this Chopin Nocturne! It is a beautiful piece, and certainly quite a challenging one.

Your practice videos look great, and thank you for taking the correct steps. I like the sound world you are achieving with the LH, and you move with a nice relaxed arm which is required for this piece. The touch also sounds wonderful too.

It is indeed very tricky to shadow the RH in this piece because of the polyrhythms. The challenge also is to make sure the RH is 'hovering/shadowing' around the correct pitches of when they are supposed to be played. For the polyrhythms, I would suggest to first play strictly in time and marking in the score with a plan of exactly how you will like to line up the notes in the hands. For example at measure 2, this is an "11 against 6" because the RH has 11 notes with LH playing 6 eighth notes. In the end, Chopin meant for this to be 'free' sounding, and most performances of this nocturne slow the LH down naturally when the polyrhythms enter.

But for practicing purposes, it will be helpful to plan out a strict map first before adding freedom. For example in measure 2, since it is an 11 against 6: you could line up around two RH notes per single LH note and leave one of the set as a two against three. The next polyrhythm in measure 3 is a 22 against 12 (22 notes in the RH and 12 notes in the LH), which ends up being two 11 against 6's altogether. I am sending a picture of one way these two measures can be lined up in the hands and highlighted in orange where I would enter the 'two against three's', but I want to emphasize that this is not the only way to do it! I am only giving one of million suggestions :).

The balance between the hands sounded great to me at your third practice video. I encourage you to also practice slowly in the same above steps, because slow practice in this piece is very helpful in many passages. And yes, practicing the third step without pedal first will be a good extra step to hear more clearly of everything that is going on. Thank you for taking this challenge, and best wishes for your learning journey! let me know if any other questions come up along the way.

rebecca LAM Hi Rebecca! Thank you for your new videos! These both sound great! I definitely hear a big improvement in your LH sound--it is soft but also all the notes are much more steadier and even while being a supportive role to the RH melody line. Fantastic work!

I can tell that you will play this piece beautifully. The polyrhythms are sounding much more natural too. As your RH in these flourishes get more fluent with the notes, it will also feel much more natural to put together with the LH too. Thank you for tackling this challenge so well, and let me know if you have any questions that come up! All the best to your Chopin journey

rebecca LAM I am happy to hear this advice helped! Thank you for your kind words and taking this challenge. I hope you all the very best for your continuous music making and learning journey. It was a huge pleasure having you part of this intensive!

Kimy Hi Kimy! Welcome to this challenge, and thank you for your videos! The touch of the LH definitely will change depending on the instrument we are playing on as well. In your videos, your LH sound is playing with a nice even tone, and you are approaching it with a nice technique! I would suggest to try practicing the LH in an even 'slower pace motion,' mainly to explore for an even softer yet warmer tone. This can be done by having the fingers staying physically very close to the keys and delaying the motion of the 'speed of attack' down to the keys. This is actually harder to do on some uprights (I speak from experience!) But I was impressed with your ability to keep a nice balance in the LH while the RH was shadowing.

Very good work! Now when you play out hands together, I will suggest to approach the LH with that slower speed of attack, while the RH can press deeper and sing out more. Great work, and thank you for joining this intensive!

Ko Hi Ko! Thank you for doing this challenge and sharing your practice video! I am very pleased with your LH sound world, and you are playing with sensitive attention to the approach to the keys. I know it is a challenge to do when the RH shadows over the notes, so I will continue to encourage you to repeat this process/step until you feel comfortable with the LH evenness while the RH shadows. When your RH was added, I heard a very nice balancing between the voices. Now at the last step when the RH plays out the notes, I suggest you can play with even deeper tone and relaxed arms so that it is not shying away from singing while the LH maintains that lovely sound world you achieved. Hope these help! Thank you for joining this intensive!

Ellen Weaver Thank you for your videos, Ellen! I really enjoyed watching your practice process. I was impressed by your ability to control your sound when the LH played alone. There are few moment where you can play a little bit more inside the keys because this particular LH passage has a lot of mix of both black and white keys of the piano.

In the "ghosting RH" video, very very well done maintaining an even sound in the LH. I know this is a big challenge to do, but you already tackle it so well. At the third video when you played both hands together, I thought the balance of the hands sounded excellent. I will encourage you to continue practicing each step repetitively as they get more comfortable, and you can apply this to different passages of the Barber Nocturne as well. Do not be afraid to sing out more in the RH when you play hands together. You seem like a very naturally musical already, and it shows in these practice videos.

I am sure you will play this Barber beautifully! Happy learning, and let me know if any further questions come up again! Thank you for joining this challenge

Sara 

Hi Sara! Thank you so much for your video and nice to meet you! You are doing an excellent job with this challenge. I am impressed with your control in the LH. The notes are well spoken and maintain a nice soft quality while not having 'holes.' Very well done! Great job with the RH shadowing too.

When we get to that last step of adding both hands physically playing together, I suggest for students to almost 'exaggerate' the RH melody even more, to practice the 'different weights' we apply to each hand. The RH will need to play with a deeper fuller tone with a slightly 'quicker' speed of attack in comparison to the 'slower speed' of attack in the LH, despite both hands playing in the same rhythmic pulse. And also playing with relaxed arm motion (which you are already doing) will continue to help achieve longer and singing-quality lines in the phrasings.

With that said, I thought your RH and LH balancing at the third step in your practice video sounded terrific! The above is just a suggestion on what you could apply for practice in other sections of this Clara Schumann Romance. It is a wonderful piece, and I am so happy you are learning it with your coach, Stefan!