Organ Playing: Why Developing the Left Hand Technique Is More Difficult Than the Right Hand?

04/14/2012

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When it comes to building your organ technique, very often you will notice how weak your left hand is. Moreover, when you continue playing the organ, your right hand might improve but your left hand still might be underdeveloped. This realization causes a lot of frustration among organists. In this article, I will explain why it is much more difficult to develop the left hand technique than that of a right hand and how to overcome this problem.

You see, for all of us who are right-handed, playing with the left hand precisely is much more difficult than with the right hand. This is because not only we do everything with our right hand much more often but also because in the music you can find many more places when the melody is in the right hand.

That's why we like to practice the right hand first and more often that the other hand. It is like a closed circle: we have a weak left hand, practice more the right hand, and consequently, our right hand develops faster but the left hand not. To break this circle you need to work on the left hand more. That's why you realize that playing with your weak hand is more difficult and you may have to practice this part more times in your organ pieces.

Obviously, if you do like every good organ instructor would teach (practicing parts alone, combinations of 2 voices, combinations of 3 voices, and finally, all parts together) all of this will come naturally to you. You will start developing your left hand technique the same way as the right hand.

Another great help in overcoming this problem is to practice piano exercises either on the piano or on the organ. Good piano exercises will develop both of your hands equally well.

In addition to exercises, you can practice scales, chords, and arpeggios in various keys. Especially valuable are scales in double thirds and double sixths. This type of practice is of course a little more advanced so it is best to master simple scales in parallel and contrary motion first.

If you don't like the dry nature of exercises and scales, you can practice piano etudes on the organ. Great piano composers like Czerny, Berens, Lemoine, many others have left invaluable collections of etudes you can use for your daily practice. If you are an advanced player, try etudes by Chopin and Liszt.

Whatever you choose, play slowly, practice repeatedly, and don't worry about the concert tempo. You will reach this tempo when you are ready. Remember that this kind of playing will help you develop your left hand technique at the same level as the right hand.

By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music.
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How Piano Exercises Can Strengthen Your Left Hand Technique on the Organ?

01/24/2012

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One of the main difficulties an organist can encounter is a weak left hand technique. An underdeveloped left hand can lead you into a number of problems when playing organ music. Very often organists have trouble playing more than one voice in the left hand. Additionally, when they encounter fast passages in an organ piece, their playing might lack precision and clarity. Consequently, majority of organ repertoire is inaccessible to them due to the underdeveloped left hand. If this sounds familiar to you, read on to find out how the left hand technique can be improved.

Obviously you can improve your left hand technique by playing special exercises on the piano or the organ. A great resource for the left hand technique is Piano Music for One Hand: A Collection of Studies, Exercises and Pieces

It is important to understand that both hands should be developed at a similar level. My favorite collection of daily exercises which develops both hands equally is Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist. This collection contains 60 exercises in three parts. The entire set takes about one hour to play in a concert tempo.

In the beginning, it may be enough for you to play just the first part – the basic 20 exercises which last about 20 minutes. Take one new exercise every week and master it. Practice it daily several times. With the following week practice 2 exercises without stopping, later 3, 4, and so on until after about 20 weeks you will know all 20 exercises. After that it will be sufficient to play the entire set of 20 exercises just once.

After they become easy, start adding more advanced exercises from the Part 2. I think you get the idea. When you reach the end of Part 2, your left hand technique will already be at the decent level. If you go even further and play the Part 3 (60 exercises total), you will achieve exactly what the title of this collection promises – the level of the virtuoso.

I have to admit that these exercises are a bit mechanical and it takes some willpower even to play through the Part 1, but the results are really great. It is a great way to develop your technique by only playing one hour a day. I can testify personally that whenever I have not enough time to practice my organ music, if only I continue to play through the set of Hanon exercises daily, my manual technique is in good shape.

I have to add that most of the time I practice them on my organ and not on the piano. Because organ mechanics might be lighter than the piano (at least on a small instrument), it is possible to add a coupler for more resistance. A great thing about practicing Hanon exercises on the organ is that you can turn the power off and play on the silent keyboard. That way you won’t annoy your family but the results will be the same.

A word of caution – always pay attention to how you are feeling. Some fatigue is OK but if you start to feel tension in your hands, you should stop at once and take some time to relax your hands and shake off the tension. This is really important if you want to reap the best results and not to hurt yourself.

Take a slow tempo at first (60, 50, even 40 beats per minute). Later you naturally start to play a little faster and faster until you reach 120 beats per minute.

If you continue practicing the exercises from Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist regularly, I can guarantee that you will see the definite changes in your left hand technique already after a few weeks. Real pianists spend playing etudes and other piano music several hours a day just to maintaining their keyboard technique. With the Hanon exercises you will only need about one hour a day because of the diversity of the exercises. Every imaginable classic piano technique and figure is included in the set, including tremolos, octaves, and scales in double thirds and sixths.

You may be thinking that theses exercises are good only for pianists. However, just think how much the legato Romantic organ technique was influenced by the piano technique in the French symphonic organ school (Widor and Vierne, for instance) and you will have no doubt about the benefits of the Hanon exercises for the organists.

The good thing about this collection is that at the end of the second part there is a set of exercises devoted to scales and arpeggios. So people who are fond of scales and arpeggios will find benefit from this collection as well. By the way, I play scales and arpeggios on two manuals because compass of the organ manuals is a little too short for some exercises. I recommend playing the exercises from Hanon: The Virtuoso Pianist before your regular organ practice because it also serves as a fantastic warm-up.

By the way, do you want to learn to play the King of Instruments - the pipe organ? If so, download my FREE video guide: "How to Master Any Organ Composition" in which I will show you my EXACT steps, techniques, and methods that I use to practice, learn and master any piece of organ music.
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