Hi everyone ,

I have been searching the forum for topics on this but can't seem to find any - I'm sure I've seen one somewhere though

I was wondering if people had any tips for playing forte in the left hand and piano in the right hand. I've tried doing the parts separately but whenever I put them together its either really loud or really quiet! I've also tried practising it really slowly and nothing I can think of seems to work!
Can anyone give me some suggestions?

Thanks,

Lil_miz_music

Ps. I'm actually talking about playing the harp but I thought it would apply to pianists too (there's a lot more of you here! )

Hmm, I was going to say move the hand you want softer a little higher on the keys so it is closer to the body of the piano but I don't know if you can translate that to a harp. But maybe placing your hands higher or lower on the strings can help?

Put Forte V. Piano in the search topic thingy and my thread will come up! There was some good tips on there!

Here you go: http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=22696&hl=

Thanks Scaramouche..I believe you did that before for me!! xxx

Perfect! Thanks everyone

Really think about squeezing the strings in the louder hand and make sure both are articulating fully. Try getting the quieter hand into muscle memory and then really listen to the louder one.

Cheers Erard! I knew you'd come up with something that works

Something I have always found very useful for solving this problem is the following exercise:
(I am assuming the left hand is loud and the right is soft. Reverse this process if it is the other way round)
First play the right hand very soft, and keeping the key depressed, play fortissimo in the left shortly afterwards. Now one hand is loud and the other soft, with no co-ordination problems, since these two actions were separated. Next, decrease the time between the two notes, eventually to the point where the initial right hand note becomes a grace note (but remains held). After a day or 2 practising this you should find that you can allow the two hands to play together, though it will still feel like two seperate movements (which it should). You are now playing different dynamics in each hand!