I've had a very interesting experience over the past couple of weeks. A couple of you may know that I hurt the palm of my right hand and my thumb just before a performance last week. It was fine to play with at the time, but shortly afterwards it swelled up and was all bruised. After a few days, the swelling went down and it didn't hurt as much (only my skin was yellow and blue with the bruise ) but I could not play the piano with my right hand. Not so much of a disaster teaching wise, because most of my advanced students are on holiday at the moment (3 weeks for easter?!) and I can do simple pieces with my left hand, but I have had a revelation with my own playing.

Has anyone ever tried concentrating exclusively on the development of skills in one hand, completely ignoring the other one for a significant length of time? (I'm suspecting this will apply to mostly pianists and organists, but it would be interesting for others too - except strings, that would be impossible! )

At first, I felt like I was disabled - not meaning to offend anyone - but I honestly felt like I had lost a limb or a part of myself. I played all my scales with my left hand only and I wanted to cry because I felt like there was a part of me missing. Then I went on to my beloved Berens exercises - which I do anyway, but not as much as I have done the last week or so. I found that because I couldn't distract myself half way through by tinkering with my right hand, I found myself concentrating harder than ever, trying to do difficult pieces written specifically for the left hand only and paying more attention to the details of what I was trying to improve/achieve. This meant that I noticed what I was not doing perfectly and what I hadn't realised I was skipping over and during a short period of time, the exercises that I had believed to be playing well, suddenly rose to a completely elevated level from before. I was shocked and delighted!

During the course of the last 10 days, I have gone through all my pieces with the left hand only and it has opened my eyes. I can only work with this one hand, so I am doing everything in great detail and my strength, dexterity and general facility in left hand parts has drastically improved. Today, for the first time in a while, I played hands together on a few slow pieces and the quality of sound is so incredibly different that I was taken aback.

I think that from now on, I will take time once a week to concentrate exclusive.y on one hand, pretending I can't use the other one, because it has taught me so much and it really allowed me to concentrate in depth on technical and quality issues relating the the part of that individual hand.

There is always a silver lining!

Try playing CPE Bachs' well known Solfegietto with left hand only. It's good practice !

I think nearly everyone (piano) neglects their left hand to some extent, so focussing on it like that can only be a good thing for your over-all playing.
It is a personal annoyance of mine that in beginner books and through a lot of the grades, the LH will nearly always be playing less notes and less complicated things than the RH. Then, when one gets post grade 8 and starts doing Rach preludes or Chopin etudes, suddenly huge agility is required from the left hand. I remember passing through this stage myself and thinking "Blimey! My LH is not really prepared for that!"

I had exactly the same experience. I dislocated one finger and badly sprained another in a cycling accident last year and could not use my RH for a couple of weeks.

Pieces I used were Brahm's arrangement for LH of the Bach Chaconne and Scriabine's Etude for the left hand, plus a book of LH exercises by Berger.

As little as 2 weeks intensive practice was enough to raise the LH's standard to a completely different level, and you really notice the improved sound when you get back the use of the RH.

Try TG Initial and Grade 1 - the LH gets a really good look-in in some pieces! Whether or not they're used for exam purposes, the pieces and exercises are handy to use.

I remember an episode in my 'pianistic training' when I was playing Hanon with my left-hand only... that was hard work but I still feel the benefit of my left-hand dexterity today even though I haven't played the piano for over 20 years.

I don't think I did anything bad to my right not to use it.. think I just got cross with my left for slacking

A few years ago a pianist friend of mine fell badly and fractured 3 metacarpals in his right hand. He was absolutely devastated, almost like he was grieving and he wouldn't play at all for the first couple of weeks. With hindsight I can see that he had a particularly bad time because for him playing is such an important means of expressing himself, and I think he felt he couldn't do that properly with the LH alone.

Thankfully the piano drew him back in before too long and he did a lot of LH work, and like you he really felt (and 3 years on is still feeling) the benefit. He's pretty much back to normal now, thank Heaven, and playing the repertoire he's used to.

It seems that focussed, quality practice can benefit us all in the long-term, whatever the reason for doing it. Best wishes to you, Cadence, and I'm glad you're back to playing with both hands. It's always good to find something beneficial in what could have been a bad experience. x