Has anyone taught piano or keyboard to a pupil with only one useable hand?
I am about to start teaching the electric keyboard to a young pupil who has full use of her left hand, but only very limited use of her right. I am hoping we can make use of the single finger chord facility or record in an accompaniment for her to add the melody to. I would be grateful for any advice/experiences on this issue. Are there any keyboard tutor books that anyone can recommend. All the ones I have seen cover a lot of note and rhythm learning very quickly and do not seem to encourage the pupil to learn to read music.

Ooh, thats a hard one and a shame the more active hand isn't the right, I would probably look to use a specific keyboard book along side one of the piano beginners books, as you would be able to adapt the methods so that she can start to encourage the use of the active hand across various melodies. Probably something like the Me and my piano series.

You would then need to supplement this with some basic early harmony lessons so she can improvise with single finger to see what sounds good with various melodies Which some of the easy keyboard books can help with as once she can read a line of melody, she could then play the guitar notes that are always written above the melody with the right hand.

I'm really not sure whether this helps at all but I hope it does and I wish you the very best.

D

Yes, I think Me and My Piano would be good too, as it has one half of the book in each clef for one hand to start off with. You could adapt the treble clef section so they use the left hand instead of the right. Then when you reach the tunes for 2 hands you could as you say record one hand while she plays the other. I teach piano and only ever did a small bit of keyboard teaching-the tutor books I looked at in those days didn't seem to be as comprehensive as piano tutors-but maybe there's something on the market now that I haven't come across for keyboard. I'd agree that a piano book alongside a keyboard one would be a good plan, and plenty of harmony and ensuring her reading skills become really fluent, so she eventually is able to adapt written parts to what she is able to do. Best of luck-sounds like she's really keen to learn and will get a lot out of it.

I have a pupil who had an operation on her right hand at one point which meant it was out of action for about six months, and during that time we played pieces as a duet, with me doing the right hand. We also did a lot of jazz improvisation, either with me doing a bass line and her doing a melody, or vice versa.
I discovered she had also started picking out melodies with her left hand at home, so I encouraged that. Luckily as she was already fluent with the bass clef it wasn't a problem re-thinking the left hand into the treble clef. This happened over Christmas and she ended up learning all the XMAS tunes with her left hand.

In fact that would be your main challenge - whether to learn the left hand in the bass clef or the treble clef and the answer would probably depend upon how much the right hand can do and whether it is a condition which would improve with time, as my pupil's has.