Just starting to learn, have some questions

[Passero]

This weekend i bought myself a keyboard. A yamaha EZ something Realy like the instrument!
I also have some years experience reading music and playing classical guitar so i have a good background.

Now i want to learn the keyboard/piano and i am using syntesia as an aid. It is a very nice piece of software. To be honnest, i tend to not look at the notes dropping, but i use the sheetmusic view (it would be nice to have a larger view on the sheetmusic instead of a single line).
I notice that when i read the music instead of play the game, i learn slower. WHen i'm watching the notes drop i can get an A after a few tries (the easy songs).

I also notice that when i only use a single hand, i can manage to get some nice A's and brake some of my personal records when reading music instead of watching the notes drop.
But when i play the song in 2 hand modus it all falls appart.

How do you guys learn a new song? First master each hand sepperately untill you almost now it by heart and then put it all together or do you learn it from the beginning with two hands?

Currently that's my biggest issue... Using 2 hands at the same time.

Any tip is more than welcome!

[jimhenry]

I was taught to learn each hand separately. When you can play each hand at tempo, then slow down and put the hands together. The approach does depend a bit on how coordinated the parts are between the two hands. Some music or passages doesn't make sense without both hands and those may be easier to learn with both hands together.

[wlashack]

I am also the very beginner in playing the piano and playing both hands is a problem for me that i am trying to overcome right now. i would be grateful to find a piano course aimed just at this skill. with pieces that lead me gradually through the process. from the easier ones where hands play slowly, alternately, then simultaneously, left hand mirrors the right hand up to more and more different roles of both hands.
anyone has some tip for something like that? thanks.

[TonE]

I was taught to learn each hand separately. When you can play each hand at tempo, then slow down and put the hands together. ... Some music or passages doesn't make sense without both hands and those may be easier to learn with both hands together.

Segment by segment or for the whole song? I assume segment by segment would be a more interesting approach?

Example:
1. First segment loop: Only right hand
2. First segment loop: Only left hand
3. First segment loop: Both hands
4. Next segment.
(in all cases having the auto-speed adjustment, as available in Arcade Mode).

[axjv]

I try not to think about decoordinating the hands, and just learn both hands together. It's easier if you don't think of it as left hand/right hand, but a single flowing song where notes just so happen to land under a certain hand. Normally you can remember which notes play at the same time on the right hand and left hand, and just hit both at the same time when that part comes. If you do this, your hands will eventually be able to act separately through muscle memory.

Start off doing it at a tempo where you can play both hands perfectly; speed will come with repetition and time.

[Baldy]

I try not to think about decoordinating the hands, and just learn both hands together. It's easier if you don't think of it as left hand/right hand, but a single flowing song where notes just so happen to land under a certain hand. Normally you can remember which notes play at the same time on the right hand and left hand, and just hit both at the same time when that part comes. If you do this, your hands will eventually be able to act separately through muscle memory.

Start off doing it at a tempo where you can play both hands perfectly; speed will come with repetition and time.

This works for me too. It takes a bit longer to get it with both hands at once, but when you do it starts to come together more rapidly

[Electrode]

Usually, with my practice methods involving sheet music, I break a song down bar-by-bar (measure-by-measure) and do the right hand, then the left hand, then both hands together - just for that one bar. (I learned this method from a video on YouTube by concert pianist Josh Wright.) When each step is comfortable (which may involve quite a bit of repetition depending on the difficulty of the piece), then I move on to the next bar. For me, this method is the quickest way to learning a song, hands together. For example, last night I learned Chopin's Prelude Op. 28 No. 7 (the really simple one in A major) in an hour by using this method.

Another trick I used when learning this prelude was to start from the end. Starting from the end and working backwards ensures that you are always heading into an area of greater security rather than less. If you start from the beginning, the first few bars are good and then everything just dies as you get into parts of the song that aren't as comfortable. Starting from the end and working backwards (playing through to the end each time) ensures that you are getting more familiar with a piece towards the end, rather than less. Beginning weak and ending strong is always better than beginning strong and ending weak.

If I remember correctly, Synthesia doesn't have support for switching right and left hands while playing, but using loops and keyboard shortcuts for bookmarks, you can still use these methods within Synthesia, as long as you adapt the method to play through the entire right hand part bar-by-bar, then the entire left hand part in the same way, and then both hands together. Unfortunately, this does remove most of the usefulness in that you cannot have immediate feedback by seeing how the hands relate to each other as you play each part, but have to address the issue of coordinating both hands separately to acquiring technique. With the method I use, gaining technique and speed and gaining the ability to coordinate the hands together happen pretty much at the same time, and there is little need to slow down between hands separate and hands together practice unless the piece is rhythmically very difficult (for example, if it contains polyrhythms).

[vicentefer31]

Another trick I used when learning this prelude was to start from the end. Starting from the end and working backwards ensures that you are always heading into an area of greater security rather than less.

Hi, Electrode I also use this method with amazing results since I saw this video from Josh Wright

By the way, Nicholas has good news about a new feature to learn new songs for the next preview. With this new feature we can say how much errors we can have in a loop and if we are playing a loop and we make more than this "Loops.MaxErrors", the loop restarts since the beginning.

The new "Gameplay.LoopMaxErrors" thing that you suggested works pretty well.

[TonE]

I like the idea of practicing from the end to the beginning, so this might be the next idea to add to Arcade Mode. Thanks Electrode!