Simpedia

Kerry V., Australia

Can he use the audio as one hand? I get my students to play with the audio with one hand as the audio can ‘be the other hand’ without them having to ‘think’ about the process of two hands together. Listening is very powerful, and more so when playing with listening too. Then play the other hand and the audio is the opposite.

If they know what they are doing in each hand but having issues with the BH then have them follow the music as their guide. They are not reading the music per se but using it to guide them.

Mark M., New York

I’ve just been teaching this to more than one adult lesson recently. I find the crucial thing is for students (at any age) to be able to comfortably switch among the three “fourths” in the RH. That’s the skeleton of the whole thing. Have them practice just going up and down those fourths on its own as a sort of warmup exercise prior to doing any other practicing.

Also worth pointing out: the times that a RH fourth repeats go with same-first-letter names in the LH. I.e., the fingers 2-5 RH fourth go with the E and the Eb. The finger 1-4 RH fourth go with the D and the Db. If students get at all lost in coordinating the 7 events across BH (separate from the added melody notes), this can help. If they’ve played the LH E and aren’t sure what comes next in the RH, they can realize “oh, Eb is next in the LH, so I just have to repeat the RH fourth I just did.” If they just did the Eb: “oh, the next LH note is D, different starting letter, so it must be time to come down in the RH.” If they just did D, “oh, Db is next in LH, same starting letter, so just repeat what I just did.” If they just did Db, “oh, the next LH note is C, different starting letter, so it must be time to come down in the RH.”

Finally is the issue of remembering the melodic details. Just this morning with an adult student, I said, let’s think of it like Deep River, as having add-ons. Let’s name the add-ons. After you play a fourth, there are four possible things that happen. Either two melody notes are added going down and back up from the top note of the fourth — think of it like a V, like the opposite of the Ode 2 “decoration.” Or the top note is repeated. Or nothing at all happens after the fourth. Or the note above the top note is played. So, a sequence of 7 add-ons to match with the 7 chordal events: V V Repeat Nothing Repeat Above Nothing.
Get the first section solid with the above. 2nd section and final section just build appropriately from there, CTE.

Laurie Richards, Nebraska

Here’s another specific PB clue for the last section: For the LH, the top note of the broken 10th is always the melody note (top note of the 4ths) just played in the RH.