Piano Teacher Help Desk

With the help of some inventive finger acrobatics and the odd Berens exercise, you can turn a student’s ‘weaker’ hand into a strong asset, says

Left hand development is a gradual process, explains Kathryn Page, who recommends some exercises and pieces to present to your students

Though there are notable exceptions, the overwhelming majority of pupils we encounter tend to have far more technical vulnerabilities in their left than in their right hands. Having said that, given that only ten per cent of the world’s population is lefthanded, it never fails to amaze me just how many concert players are that way inclined (this includes my husband, Murray McLachlan). Certainly, lefties as a breed seem to cope much more naturally with figurations, jumps and chords in the bass clef region – and this is surely because they tend to use their left hand much more over their right in everyday tasks and chores as their default preference. I am talking here about opening doors, dialling digits on phones, whisking up eggs etc. So, if you have a right-handed student who is struggling with left hand tasks, get them to radically change their lifestyle by using their left hand in everyday life all the time!

Of course, when we first come to a new piece we tend to focus on the glamour of the right hand as soon as we begin. 99/100 it is in this hand that the melody line is primarily positioned, and as we all love melody, our attentions are often immediately directed to the right. Perhaps we should think out of the box a bit, though, and occasionally try the right hand part out with our left hand too? For the development of coordination (and also for a bit of light relief!) I often suggest to pupils that they try out pieces with their hands crossed over (left plays right, right plays left). This inevitably leads to giggles and mirth, for many find it an extremely challenging task to accomplish with more than fitful, laboured success.

Scale work can be focused to strengthen awareness and coordination in the left hand by simple dynamic adjustment: play the right hand pianissimo, feeling that you are ‘lifting’ notes out of the keyboard, whilst you play the left hand fortissimo, aiming for firm fingertips and a real sense of full tone as each note is depressed with strength and conviction.

Bring on the Berens

Though all pupils can make up their own instant left hand exercises simply by isolating difficult excerpts from their current repertoire and trying to play louder and faster (with guidance and awareness of good posture), there are several worthy collections of exercises and studies exclusively for left hand development: Check out Czerny’s 24 Piano Studies Op 718, especially the first eight, which are easily approachable for students after Grade 4 and include useful challenges such as scale runs, rotary movement, thirds in the left hand alone, arpeggio and even ‘stride piano’ figurations (No 4). Mary Wurm’s Piano Studies for the Left Hand Op 51 are not for small-handed pianists working without experienced tutors, as they do include more than a few extensions that could cause the uninitiated injury, but the concentrated focus – the collection is only eight pages long – and variety of challenge could be useful for more experienced players.

But my favourite left hand empowerment anthology is unquestionably Hermann Berens’s Op 89, Training of the Left Hand. 46 exercises that systematically cover so much, followed by 25 entertaining and colourful studies that extend the exercises via pieces which could almost be placed in the encore slot during a public recital [Study No 5 appears inside this issue’s Scores]. Unlike Czerny’s Op 51, Berens only presents the left hand throughout. I’ve found that success will come for students from intermediate level upwards, provided they take each exercise and study in the smallest practice unit at the slowest speed possible. As with most technical issues, left hand development is a gradual progress. Berens’s Op 89 certainly provides a wonderful structural framework for regular practising and eventually mastery. n

Turn to Graham Fitch’s masterclass for extra playing tips, and to Nils Franke’s article for further left hand repertoire ideas.

Kathryn Page has appeared in concert and on television as a soloist and in chamber music. She is a teacher, adjudicator and administrator for Chetham’s International Summer School and Festival for Pianists, as well as the Manchester International Concerto Competition for young pianists. She lives in Cheshire and has five children.