Piano Music for Right Hand

BrokenThumb 003

Yup, I know my student broke his LEFT thumb… this photo credit: ourbarnyardshenanigans.blogspot.com

One of my students broke his LH thumb the other week (footy accident!), so I began researching good music for Right Hand alone. As I was doing this, I thought a few links might be useful for other teachers or students who might come to this page via a google search for the same.

I originally used to get a bit frustrated when a student presented at a lesson with an arm in a sling and instructions not to play for six weeks, but I’ve since learnt that it can be a really good learning experience (unless this happens just before an exam or recital!).

So often when practising, we don’t get enough time to focus on building confidence in each hand alone (particularly the left hand for most pianists). This means that when one hand is out of action, we can totally blitz the work on the other.

For my student, we’ve concentrated mainly on phrasing in the RH and ensuring that every detail is followed in the score. There’s lots of potential for one-hand sight-reading. Scales can be practised in all sorts of ways with just one hand and students can even be challenged to compose their own piece of music for the one hand they have available with some guidance and demonstration from the teacher.

I’ve already got plenty of music for LH (and have written a previous post about some LH projects I’ve found online), which is generally a more popular genre, but had to dig around a bit more for RH music. I didn’t originally know it, but IMSLP has a page for all the scores for RH alone piano. Also, this is a great list of music for both Right and Left hand which I found during the search online.

I also discovered that one of my favourite composers for teenage students, Melody Bober, has a series of books that can be played by either hand alone called “Great One-Hand Solos”. Double the value for your money and there is 6 books in the series! Each piece is fingered above for RH and below for LH – a clever way to approach this double-writing. Here’s a link to value packs of her books on offer at Sheet Music Plus:

Grand One-Hand Solos Books 1-3 Value Pack 2012 Grand One-Hand Solos Books 1-3 Value Pack 2012
Arranged by Melody Bober. For Piano. Method/Instruction; Other; Promotional Packet. Grand One-Hand Solos for Piano. Published by Alfred Music Publishing (AP.105434)…more info

 

Grand One-Hand Solos Books 4-6 Value Pack Grand One-Hand Solos Books 4-6 Value Pack
Arranged by Melody Bober. For Piano. Method/Instruction; Other; Promotional Packet. Grand One-Hand Solos for Piano. Published by Alfred Music Publishing (AP.105493)…more info

There’s plenty more available, just search on Sheet Music Plus for “left hand alone” or “right hand alone” to see the range. I’ve ordered a whole heap of these and will blog about the best in due course.

Enjoy!