HOW TO PLAY PIANO WITH BOTH HANDS

If you’ve always wanted to play the piano but you’re not quite sure what to do with either hand, then read on.

Now, if you know me, I’m Lady Gaga’s biggest fan!  I really admire her talent and I love watching her play the piano and sing with sheer emotion. It sends me goosebumps every time I listen to her music.

Sometimes, when no one is watching I’ll imagine that I’m Lady Gaga and play the piano and sing like there’s no tomorrow.

I hope you too secretly wish you could do the same because I want to tell you that, YOU ABSOLUTELY CAN play the piano and sing like mad too even if you think you have no talent or are too old for it.

It’s not hard at all if you know what you’re doing and that’s exactly what I’ll be showing with you in this post.

Typically, someone wants to do 2 things when playing the piano:

• Play the piano and sing a song at the same time
• Play the melody or instrumental of a song

Now, there’s a difference between what your right hand and left hand should do if you want to do one of these things. So let’s look at each one of them.

1. Play piano with both hands and sing at the same time

There’s no doubt that playing the piano requires lots of hand and body coordination. Most people freak out because of this and think that playing the piano is a very difficult thing to do.

Any skill that you’re new to is always challenging at first but if you know exactly what to do and you have a proper guide, everything will be a breeze, I promise.

So what to do with your right and left hands when you want to sing your favorite song?

Now I teach my students how to play piano without having to read notes but instead using chords to play songs and I believe that’s exactly what you should do too if you want to play the piano fast.

You can always Google the song you want or you can go to www.ultimate-guitar.com.

Indeed it’s a guitar website but that’s what guitarists do to play songs, they use chords and that’s what we want to do on the piano as well. It’s completely free, so forget about piano scrolls that you have to pay for and take forever to learn.

So, if you want to play the song, let’s say Can’t Help Falling in Love originally by the legendary Elvis Presley, you’ll find the chords sheet of the song that’d look like this from the internet.

Here’s a step-by-step on how to play this song on the piano with both hands and sing:

1. Play the bass note of the chord only with your left hand and count the beats.
2. Hum or sing to the melody of the song while you’re playing the bass notes.
3. Once you’re comfortable with this, play chords with your right-hand side. So for C major, your right hand plays the chord C major which consists of the notes C, E, and G while your left hand plays the bass notes.
4. Once you’re confident with chords switching and singing, add some interesting patterns and rhythms.

If you’re just starting out to play the piano, don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to do too many “stunts” at the same time. Just play chords on your right hand and bass note on your left just once and sing first.

You can totally rock this. I’m betting on ya!

Don’t know how to play all the chords? No problem. Here’s the piano chords chart for all of the 12 major and 12 minor chords. 🙂

2. Play the melody of a song on the piano with both hands

Now you may not be a person who likes to play the piano and sing but rather one who enjoys the instrumental playing of a song on the piano.

I enjoy doing this too especially if I just want to relax and wind down by listening to soft music that I play on the piano.

I also appreciate doing that if I have had a stressful day or an angry day and just want to release every unpleasant feeling that I have by playing some angry songs! 😀

Isn’t it amazing to think about what you can do on the piano if you know what you’re doing?

You can express your emotions through the music you create because many times words just won’t cut it.

I know you’re bringing yourself one step closer to that dream because you’re still reading this post and I cannot wait to see and experience the music you create on the piano.

Now I also teach my students how to play the melody and instrumental part of a song without having to read notes but by simply understanding the fundamentals behind melody.

That fundamental is known as the scale, my friend.

You may or may not have heard of the scale. It’s essentially just pitches or notes arranged in a systematic manner ascending and descending across the piano.

The scale is quite a big deal in music because it is the foundation of chords, melodies, chord progressions, and more. You can learn more about the scale in my post called Discover What is the Famous Piano Scale All About.

Songs are made of a collection of pitches from the scale to form chords and melodies.

Let’s say you want to play the song You Raise Me Up by Josh Groban, but you don’t want to sing this time. You just want to play the melody of the song on the piano with both hands.

Your right-hand side will now play the melody of the song while your left hand plays the bass notes of the chords or just the chords.

Looking at this chords sheet, the song is written in the key of C major. So it means that the song is made of only white keys of the piano unless otherwise stated by the composer.

This is because the song is made of pitches and chords from the scale of C major arranged by the composer put together to form what sounds like this song.  Thus, the song is known to be written in the key of C major.

So here’s a step-by-step on how to play the melody of this song on the piano with both hands:

1. Play the chords and hum or sing first.
2. Sing and find the first note of the melody.
3. Figure out the melody for the rest of the song.
4. Once you remember how to play the melody of the first verse or line, add the bass notes or chords on your left-hand side.
5. Once you’re comfortable doing this, add some patterns to your chords on your left hand and play the melody on your right hand.

Alright, my friend! If you’ve gotten this far, I want to give you a gold medal. Well done to you!

I hope this post on what to do with your hands if you want to play the piano to sing or to play the instrumental of a song was very helpful to you.

This is something you absolutely can implement today.

Now, let’s chat! Tell me what’s your struggle when it comes to playing the piano with both hands? Let me in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you. Meanwhile, keep playing and have fun!