How do I Play the Piano with Two Hands?

What is the role of each hand when playing the piano for country, worship, blues and other genres?  It’s pretty simple if you think about it the right way.

Video Transcription

Hey Everybody, what’s going on? Wade McNutt here, Piano Meditation, Piano Chops, uh, hope you are having a blessed day.

Just wanted to answer a little question, uh, that I get all the time, and that is, people say, “How, you know, how do I play with two hands, what are, what are my hands supposed to do?”

And so, the way I always think about it when playing the piano is, this right hand I always think of as the guitar player. So, what’s a guitar player doing, well they’re, they’re strumming, they’re keeping a rhythm. So, “chuun, chun, chun, chuuun, chunkaa-an-nka, chunkan, chun.”

Uh, and then the left hand, to me, is the bass player. So, what is the bass player doing? Well, well they’re hitting the notes and holding it out. “Boooooommmmmmme, booooommmme.” And, and depending on the style of music, maybe you know if its Blues, you’re going, “booomme, booomme, booomme, chunk-a, tungg, chung, dunn.” You, know, the bass is doing a lot more. Uh, so, it all depends on the type of music.

But if you can think of, the right hand is the guitar player, the left hand as the bass player, uh, then you’re going to have a way better idea of what you want to do when you’re, when you’re playing the piano.

You can start listening to songs on the radio, or your favorite song and just listen, you know. What’s the guitar doing, “chunka, chun.” What kind of rhythm are they playing, and what kind of rhythm is the bass player playing.

Uh, that’s the beauty of the piano, is that you can be multiple instruments, uh, at the same time. You can hold down the bass, you can hold down the guitar. And even on the piano, you can, uh, a lot of people they orchestrate, uh, big string sections all of that, with the piano, because it’s, it’s such a huge instrument. Has a wide range, uh, so you can do so much with it.

But, keep that in mind, playing hands together, guitar player, bass player, and then I think you will be on your way. God bless ya’ll. Uh, I hope you enjoyed the video. Uh, you know, give me a thumbs up, thumbs down, whatever you want to do. Leave a comment. I hope you have a blessed day, uh, and we’ll see you later.

5 Comments on “How do I Play the Piano with Two Hands?”

  1. Gee, I’ve never seen your face before, Wade. Only heard your voice and seen your fingers. Nice to meet you. 🙂

  2. Wade – it’s Mark (a new player) in OKC. Great comment except one problem. I am working on a G Pentatonic scale right hand and bluesy base riff with left hand (G, C & D) at the same time. Just a quick comment on your analogy. My bass player refuses to show up while the guitar player plays and vice versa. I just started working it so hopefully the feeling of utter uncoordination will resolve itself soon. Thanks for the encouragement my friend.

    1. Hey Mark! Sounds like you need to fire your bass player : )
      Maybe with enough practice they can learn to play together.

      You rock,
      Wade

  3. Yup wade I wanna thank you for your help about piano but I am still inprogress so that I may get high level I am in Africa and I am the one who help various choir in my church,therefore I have seen your video about how to play Let it rains…..and I get associatted wth.
    if possible you can share wth video about how to play canon in F SHARP.THX

Leave a Reply to Mark Oates Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *