 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, we'll focus on hand independence, which is a commonly covered topic we do on our YouTube channel. However, in this lesson, I'm going to try and teach you a way to develop hand independence without the melody per se in the right hand. Usually, a lot of people who want to develop this so-called topic, hand independence, you want to play a tune in the right hand and then patterns in the left hand. In this lesson, we're going to flip it over to the bass register and the right hand will just pretty much hold chords. So you're going to play, you could argue, a riff or a bass melody in the left hand. And that's what the left hand's about. The left hand's going to be a melodic element or your bass line, if you want to call it that. And that's what you heard in the intro video as well. So the right hand will just take a simple chord. I'm not even going to do a chord progression in this lesson because that's not what this is about. This is about the concept of coordinating the two hands. So if you're struggling with hand coordination at any skill level, this lesson is for you and will hope to offer a different perspective to the subject of improving your hand coordination. So let's get cracking, guys. Before we do, all the patterns which you're going to learn in this entire lesson from the basic one all the way to the advanced ones is going to be there, notated for you on our Patreon page. You can head over there and you'll also get a MIDI file if you'd like to listen to it and import it into a player and yeah, so Patreon could work and on our channel it'll be great if you're a regular watcher or viewer to hit that subscribe button and turn on the bell icon for regular notifications. If you've not subscribed yet or if you're new to the channel, watch the video, see if you like it and if you do, don't forget to hit the subscribe and give the video a like. Leave us a comment with stuff you'd like to learn as well as what you thought about this lesson. So to get started in the right hand, I'm going to take a simple G minor chord which I like to play this way, D, G, B flat. This way is also nice, this way is also nice but I'm just preferring D, G, B flat for now. So that's going to be the right hand and we will be exploring or playing the right hand in two rhythm styles. First off, the pulse of the song. The pulse of the song will go with the tempo in quarter notes. So all you have to do is see how your head moves or how you want to play it or what speed you desire and that's your pulse. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, right, 1, 2 or you could double the pulse by doing quavers. Quavers will be 1 and 2, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and okay. So that's quavers dividing by two crotchets or quarter notes on the beat with your head with the pulse, following the pulse. I'd also encourage you to get your pianos ready. This is not a very conceptual lesson, it's a very practical lesson. So you can do this with me, pause the video, do something and then hit play again or whatever suits you best. I'd encourage you to get your pianos out or keyboards, whatever you use. So the left hand, I'm only going to use three notes just for demonstrating the concept. When we have to improvise, when we have to compose or create anything or learn something in music, it's always good to simplify the notes. Don't have too many notes or like this is not even going to be a scale, it's just G, A, B flat, those are my notes. So G, A, B flat and if you're well versed with Indian Swaraj, this would be a Sareg. I may be using that while singing, it's just a way to name the pitches. So Sareg and that's what you're going to do in your left hand. Okay, fingering, well you could go ring, middle, index or you could go, I think that's nice, ring, middle, index or you can do a little bit of crossing if you like. I'm just going to go with ring, middle, index. So variations are going to just keep emerging and the first set of variations will be combining crotchets or quarter notes with minims or half notes. A half note multiplies the beat or is two counts in a four by four bar while a crotchet or a quarter note is one beat. It lasts for one beat in any by four scenario. So one, two, three, four. So the first exercise we have is play two crotchets and then a minimum and use these three notes in any grouping you choose. I'm going to start with Sareg, AB flat, GAB flat. So crotchet, crotchet, minimum, crotchet, crotchet, minimum, okay. Now what you need to do is slow this down to a point that you can count it. Don't bring in the right hand until two things happen. Just sing this, I don't like la la la. So the karekswara, Sareg, GAB flat, which is a little annoying to say all those letters, especially B flat, you could just say these syllables with me. If you observe the G or the B flat is elongated, it's lasting for two counts or two beats. So on the right hand, we are not going to stop. We are going to just do crotchets. So on the left hand with the right hand, it's going to be something like crotchet, crotchet, hold, minimum. You may find that, you know, you slip this a bit and you may end up wanting to do. You may repeat this or over hit this or you may hit the, you may stop the right hand. This happened to all of us. So that's wrong. Your right hand has to keep the pumping going, extra right hand, extra, okay. And that adds a really nice contrast to the whole thing, right? You don't want your two hands to play at the same hit points. Even though, yes, they are playing different things. You don't want them to hit together or strike together. That will start becoming, you know, like in a drummer, from a drummer's perspective, a drummer hitting the kick drum and a snare drum together is rather annoying. You'll always have doop, ta, doop, ta, kick, snare, kick, snare. It's always that marriage of the two forces, the kick and the snare. So in the left hand now, we've done this tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue tongue. Let's change the rhythm around and do this rhythm. What's happened now? I've elongated the middle one, one, two, three, so the middle, the middle note is the minimum which lasts for two beats, two, three, four, slow it down, three, four, try to count it, and also sing it. Sometimes it helps to close your eyes while playing. You may think it's very ridiculous to close your eyes because there's two hands, there's so much going on, but that's generally how at least I feel. I feel a lot more secure with my eyes closed in a lot of the exercises where you don't move your hands much. I agree. When your hands move, yes, you need to use your eyes, but your hands are pretty much planted in the same spot. So try with your eyes closed, it improves concentration or focus. This is variation two, minimum at the two beat. So we've done minimum at the three, we've done minimum at the two, minimum at the two, now minimum at the one, you may find this easier actually, one, minimum, crotch it, crotch it, minimum. Another variation I like to try would be to not play at the one, but we'll do that in combination with one of these three patterns which we've done. So if you take, let's say, hold, two, three, now you could hold that for even longer, that would end up being like a dotted minimum or tied to the next bars, crotch it, or you can even lift it as a rest, for lift or rest, that's where you have an absent note at the one. So you can do all these combinations, this set of four rhythm patterns, you can combine them, so maybe it builds a bit better phrase, I like this one, so that's the exercise, but to add more flavor, you can also play the same drills in the left hand with quaver movements in the right hand, that would be eighth notes in the right hand. So slow it down a bit, one and two and three, so back to crotch it, hope you figure that out, so the right hand has these variations, you can also do staccato in the right hand, choppy on the pulse, now it sounds nice if you play staccato in both hands, but perhaps if you're a bit more on the advanced side, or if you've been playing for a while, you could think of staccato in the right hand and legato in the left hand, legato in the left hand basically means you play it smoothly and connected, the notes last longer, but if you see the right hand staccato, so staccato the way I like to play it is I like to flick especially when I'm playing chords, I like to flick my fingers towards my wrist, I've done a video on how to play staccato, we've done that video sometime ago on our channel, do check it out in the description, so staccato in the right and then all the variations in the left, okay and that's pretty much it, you could also do staccato left, all these combinations, see how you can adjust each note to your taste, slow it down, if you're not able to process what's going on, or if you're not able to control or feel the dynamics, you need to slow it down, metronome could also be a good tool when you're practicing, but don't forget that it comes after you're able to move your head naturally with the music, so just to perfect yourself, you could use the metronome for a little bit of fine tuning, but this is a nice way to practice, then come back to crotchets, okay, so we've done three notes and what I like to do now in the left hand, I'm sure you'll all agree now by watching this video for so long that it's getting very boring, it's just sarega, sarega, it's just that, so what I would propose now is play around with these three notes, you're in a kind of a jail cell where you have only these three notes, so you don't have to go sarega, you can go garesa, okay, regasa, sagare, garesa, let's fool around, sarega, and I'm taking minimum crotchet crotchet rhythm, sarega, sarega, garesa, sarega, regasa, sarega, sarega, sarega, sarega, I quite like this, sarega, you're not allowed to play any other note, sarega, sarega, and I would always encourage you to sing what you should play or sing in tandem, sarega, sarega, so different rhythm combos and different pitch assortments, so that's how you can fool around to ultimately conquer any pitch in the left hand which can hold its ground and freely improvise along with the right hand which is like a steady foundation, which is why I took one chord deliberately and in the right hand and three notes deliberately in the left hand, so I agree it's not the most musically cool sounding exercise, but it'll really help fine tune and surgically really get the hands to do its thing and there's something about hand coordination or any hand independence exercise which you practice on the piano, once you get it, you kind of get it for life, it's almost like a serve in a game like badminton or table tennis or something like that, even if you're out of touch with such sports, at least you kind of get the serve, you kind of know how it feels on the racket, okay, so moving on I have another set of combos, so we've covered crotchets and minims, now you may be thinking, hey can I not combine other things, you can, but I've just kept this lesson short and crisp if you will, so the next set of rhythms will include eighth notes, so eighth notes in the left hand, while we continue to maybe play pulses in the right or eighth notes in the right, so I'll start with pulses, so now first thing I want you to do is count in the left hand, one and two and three and four and so you're gonna access those, so one and two, so we'll take the same three notes but maybe we can do four hits of the three notes, so maybe sa-re-ga-re-g-a-b-flat-a, so for those of you wondering what scale am I on, I'm on the G scale, G minor scale or G natural or harmonic minor is unknown because we don't know whether it's that seven or that seven, it also be Dorian, we'll get to that later, so now we want to bring in some eighth notes, so I'll play and then explain, so I'm adding a fourth hit or a fourth note which is still part of the same set of three, so the first variation will be four quavers at the beginning, one and two and one and what I like to do is hold this on, tie it on for another, for a minimum extra, one and two and three, four, one and two and three, one and two you could also not choke, offer a very different experience in terms of your exercise routine, it'll be challenging both ways, holding, one and two and still holding, now choking at the last one, okay, so now the next variation will be don't put all of them cluttered up together, you can go maybe a longer first note, so one and two and three, that's the next variation, one and two and three, now we do one and two and so I'm kind of starting at the one but the other notes are pushing more and more to the right, so first I did one and two and three, one and two and now I'm pushing the second note to the two, one and two and three and four, one and now and three and slightly tricky, one and three and four and rest if you want, one and two and three and the four, how else can we do this one and last variation and at the end of the three, a few others as well, I mean off the top maybe, yes there is notation available for all these variations but I would also encourage you watch a bit or listen a bit and you only try to notate it or transcribe a little bit and you don't have to get the pitches, just get the rhythm, so one, crotch it, crotch it, wait pa pa, one and two and three and let's start with this, two, three and one and two and now let's delay the third note and four and the late more, two, stuff like this, so you could play around with all these eight note variations and just to leave you with something cool to practice your independence and actually sound like you're playing an actual song which I also kind of miss when I am doing this lesson as most of my lessons I'm actually tending to talk about some use case in some song, if you're new to the channel, don't forget to go to the channel home page, Nathaniel's school on YouTube and you'll find an array of lessons which we do, you could also go to Nathanielschool.com where we've segregated the lessons by level, beginner, intermediate, advanced, also things like hand independence, you touch the filter and it shows you all the lessons which have been done on hand independence and numerous other topics like chord studies, learning your favorite songs and so on and so forth. You'll also again, it's a reminder if you'd like, if you like what you're learning, which I hope you do, you've watched for a while now, head over to our Patreon and get yourself a lot of my handwritten notes for not only this lesson, but everything we've done in the past, at least over the last three, four years and pretty much whatever we are going to continue to do moving forward. So just to leave you with something cool, I'm sure you've heard this one, right? We don't need no... Okay, so variation one. We don't need no education. It is not the original riff, but it'll build up to it. So one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. Okay, one. It's notated. Check it out. If you don't read, it's okay. You can keep following me and don't forget to play the pulse in the right. So let's break that down. One and two and three and four and three. You can see the notation. Two and three. If you can't read, no problem. Just follow along. I'm repeating. And don't forget to play the pulse at all times in the right hand. Getting closer to the original one with the second variation. So that's an and. Let me break that down. One and two and three and four. We don't need no... Rather harsh line to sing, but go for it. It's a fun song. I'm sure back in the day, everyone was singing this. Pum pum pum pum pum... old variation. Pum pum pum pum pum... new. Pum pum pum pum... and of the three. That's the variation. Now... a lot of ands. That's the kind of the original groove. We don't need no education. It's kind of a combo down, so that's one and two and three and a lot of ends. So I hope this exercise or this approach to practicing the piano to develop hand independence keeps you very active for a few days or weeks or however long it might take you. The thing with hand independence as a subject or as a study, whenever you devote quality time towards it, even if you feel the rewards are not coming or if the actual execution or the result is not coming, don't worry stick to the process. That's all that matters because at one hour you put in to develop your hand independence and the respect or the time you've given for your music practice will always get the rewards in due time. Think of it as watering a plant to eventually become a tree. It's going to take time. So sleep over it, practice, let your brain sort of fry a little bit. It should be sort of pumped up and cooked a bit, but then it has to cool down eventually. So give it another go and then it's going to start tasting better and better and better as the days go by. And if you're a beginner, take it slow. You don't have to do all the variations I gave. If you're an intermediate or an advanced player, yes by all means I think you should try out all these variations. And if you're an advanced person, you can also fool around with other things. It doesn't have to just be a rather boring G minor chord planted or rooted there. It can be anything else. It's just three notes. First segment of the video, I gave you three notes with just three note groupings. And the second part where we introduced eighth notes or quavers, we took three notes with four note combos or four note bars of information using res using different variations. The notes are there. Do check it out. That will supplement your learning. There's also MIDI. You can listen to it quite comfortably. Right guys. Thanks a ton for watching the lesson. This is Jason Zach from Nathaniel. Do stay tuned to our channel for lots more coming your way. Cheers.