Hello, I’ve been playing for a few years, but I’m still having trouble modulating the sounds and volume with my left hand. Specifically, when I practice a lot with a digital keyboard and then go to my acoustic piano, comping sounds muddy, too loud compared to the melody, and generally overwhelms everything else. Does anyone have advice for making left-hand chords sound more melodic and balanced with the melody?
Hi @Alan ,
basically idea is to learn to control the left hand so your volume is always just the way you want it to be. That usually means that the LH is softer than the melody.
A good way to practice is to play very simple on the left hand, and focus on the volume. For example take a jazz standard and just play the roots in the left hand in quarter notes, here’s an example of There Will Never Be Another You:
After learning the notes well, start focusing on the volume; keep right hand relatively loud, and practiced controlling the left hand’s volume by changing the volume from as quiet as you can to the same volume as the right.
When this starts to work out, start adding more notes to the left hand, and repeat the exercise. After this start to work, you can return to your own arrangements, just keeping this exercise in mind.
I hope this helps, let me know if you have any further questions,
all the best,
-Tuomo
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