Tag Archives: Inventions and Sinfonias

from Bach to bebop: developing melodic ambidexterity

Assuming that the left hand is going to be the weaker hand for most pianists, here are a few tips designed to help you work your way to becoming (closer to) ambidextrous at the piano…

Practicing contrapuntal music

When it comes to putting the left hand on a par with the right, melodically and technically, what better place to start than the music of Johann Sebastian Bach? His Two-Part Inventions are especially well suited for this very kind of practice, each of them being a short contrapuntal piece in a particular key, wherein the left and right hands dialogue elegantly and flawlessly.

Once a few (at the very least) of these Two-Part Inventions have been mastered, why not try out a Sinfonia (Three-Part Invention)? Adding an extra layer of counterpoint that wanders between the inner parts of the left and right hands is indeed a rewarding challenge! And for the bravest and most disciplined among us pianists, there is always the option to tackle a Prelude and Fugue from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier… Or, perhaps a more exotic choice, one of the twenty-four composed by Soviet-Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich.

Playing bebop lines in octaves

This type of practice is quite straightforward: along with the blues, bebop is indeed a foundational style for every aspiring jazz pianist. It’s always best to learn the tunes by ear whenever possible. Otherwise, the Charlie Parker Omnibook provides some excellent transcriptions. Pick a tune and practice the head/solo slowly in the right hand then the left, with a click track beating on two and four. Make sure to exaggerate the swing feel (ternary subdivision of the beat and accented upbeats) throughout. Once you’re comfortable playing the lines in each hand separately, go for a more powerful sound/texture and play them both together, one or two octaves apart.

Switching roles between the left and right hands in improvisation

Typically, when it comes to jazz piano, it’s fair to say that melodic lines tend to be played in the right hand, accompanied by chords (2-, 3-, or 4-note voicings) in the left. However, turning this familiar situation around (i.e. reversing the parts played by each hand) on a regular basis when practicing/performing proves to be highly beneficial: a strong left hand is an important feature, adding variety of range and texture. Incorporating this technique into your palette will have the following effects:

  • stronger hand independence will be achieved, both rhythmically and harmonically: playing notes other than roots and fifths (and other common chord tones/approaches typically played in bass lines), notably tensions as part of the melody in the low end against the chords higher up in the mid register, can be a novel experience and will have the effect of stretching the realm of what is commonly heard by the ear and processed by the mind.
  • it will lead you to use different chords/inversions: sometimes a voicing may be too low and sound muddy when played with the left hand in the lower part of the keyboard, but the same voicing played higher up will sound OK due to the absence of low interval limitations;
  • the left hand is generally weaker and slower than the right hand. Such technical restraint will force you to rely more on musicality, inner hearing and singing when soloing with your left hand. Going back to improvising with the right hand will feel a lot easier, musicality now being right at your fingertips, with the greater technical ability of your strong hand available to serve it.

References

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Inventions and Sinfonias BWV 772-801 (Two- and Three-Part Inventions).

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Das Wohltemperierte Klavier Teil I BWV 846-869. Munich: G. Henle Verlag.

Parker, Charlie. Charlie Parker Omnibook: for C instruments (Treble Clef), transcribed by Jamey Aebersold and Ken Slone. Los Angeles: Alfred Music Publishing.

Shostakovich, Dmitri. 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87.

hand independence exercise based on Ainu canon

It’s Independence Day in America, and I thought it opportune to post a special workout for pianists focusing on… hand independence, with a global twist!

The song we’ll use as the basis for this exercise is an Ainu canon (the Ainu are a people from Northern Japan and the Russian Far East), which involves call and response between a lead singer and a group of singers.

Although it may seem simple on the surface level, we’ll see that the mental and muscular processes involved in order to produce an acceptable rendition of it on the piano are in fact rather intricate…

To achieve this, I suggest we break down the practice into the five following steps:

  1. learning the melody in the right hand;
  2. learning the (same) melody in the left hand (the song being a canon, the hands are indeed essentially playing the same melody, two beats apart);
  3. adding an accompanying foot pattern on the upbeats to the right and left hand melodies (optional);
  4. putting it all together with the right hand playing the role of the lead singer (call) and the left hand responding [letter A in the sheet music below];
  5. doing the same exercise again, but this time, reversing the hands: the left hand is now playing the lead part (call) and the right the chorus’ part (response) [letter B].

As you will see when you try this at home, although the result sounds simple and the melody is made up of only 3 notes ﹣ a tritonic scale roughly comprised of E, F#, and B (the tuning is not exact) ﹣ it does require some patient practice to really internalize this canon and play it accurately on the piano. For instance, particular attention should be given to the proper feel and articulation (when playing the legato and staccato notes in particular).

Have fun working on your hand independence with this song! It’s a great warm-up before tackling a Bach Invention or Sinfonia for example…


Sheet music (PDF) available here:


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cantabile style playing: practicing both legato and staccato

I’ve recently been working on most of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Two-Part Inventions as a kind of warm-up for the fingers and the ears (I learn them by heart and usually go through several first thing in the morning or at the beginning of each of my piano practice sessions). As I was playing No. 3 (D major) today, I realized I mostly was using legato phrasing and decided to venture into a staccato rendition of the piece. With the change of expression (staccato versus the former legato phrasing), I found myself much less self-assured: my memory failed me and I had to refer to the music on a couple of occasions. This, to me, was an indicator that I wasn’t hearing the melodic lines as clearly as I thought I was able to. Indeed, I don’t think my memory would have been caught off guard in that manner if a had been hearing them strong. So in addition to being a useful technical exercise, practicing cantabile style playing using both legato and staccato phrasing seems to be yet another great way to strengthen one’s inner hearing, and thus a very musical exercise. Highly recommended!


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