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As a young piano student my piano teacher insisted I learn each hand individually before I put them together. I found this very frustrating because I never felt the work I did with my hands individually did anything to prepare me for playing with both hands simultaneously.

Learning to play one hand at a time, with the other completely uninvolved, does not prepare you to play both hands simultaneously. All that is accomplished is the illusion that the music has been learned. However the two-handed co-ordination needed to actually play doesn’t develop without two handed work.
Now some single hand study can be useful for working out specific technical problems or developing an understanding of a complex figuration. However the time should be limited and the opposite hand introduced immediately.

Andrew Remillard
President
ANRPiano.com



Cognitive scientists will tell us that interrupting the visual flow if information is a significant determent to learning. Looking from the score to your hands and back to the score breaks up the information flow into your memory, creating a garbled mess. It is critical for the mastery of playing, that the fingers and arms learn to judge distances without the aid of the eyes. Make the mistakes and learn from them, but do not let the eyes become the crutch of the hands.

Andrew Remillard
President
ANRPiano.com