[CheshireCat]

(tho anyone else can join in)

When playing piano, how many notes are typically played by the left hand simultaneously at any giving time, and which ones?

Now, obviously this is wide open and the obvious answer to this would be "whatever notes you wanted to", but what is the more common practice?

Like, usually 2-3 notes and they would be the root and the fifth of the chord, and/or maybe a 7th? Mostly arpeggiations?

Also, how would that compare to an accordian where the left hand plays all of these chord buttons?

Any ideas? I have a very specific project I'm working on.

Chesh

[PianoMan]

Obviously i'm not Nate but here goes...

I think that this question's answer is based more on the type of style, or even the song you are playing. If you play blues then its going to be quite a few bluesy minor chords, while with classical they might be octaves or individual notes playing the melody.

[Nate]

Originally Posted by CheshireCat

When playing piano, how many notes are typically played by the left hand simultaneously at any giving time, and which ones?

Haha. That's a broad question.

It depends on a few things... including (but definitely not limited to) genre of music, number of other musicians, and effect desired.

In classical repertoire, it is quite common for the left hand to have extremely full and rich three or four (or sometimes MORE) note voicings for underlying harmonies. It's also common for the left hand to play the bass note of the chord on the first beat of a measure (or group thereof) and then play around with an inversion of the chord during the other beats.

In popular repertoire, the most common thing for the left hand to do is simply octaves on the root of the chord. Other popular techniques include long single-note arpeggiations of the underlying harmony, and three-note voicings of the harmony syncopated against the right hand melody.

In jazz repertoire, it is common to have a full voicing of a chord played underneath an improvised single-note melody line in the right hand. It's also common for the pianist's left hand to mimic a walking bass line, in which case a single-note bassish line is played.

So much for genres (though not really... there are TONS of others )... now on to the question of musicians.

When a pianist is playing solo, they will usually play a LOT more with their left hand then they will if they are playing with other musicians. This is especially true if the other musicians include a bassist or musician with some other low-frequency instrument.

When TWO keyboardists play together, it becomes even more interesting... and often one will completely abandon the left hand (for the most part).

Like, usually 2-3 notes and they would be the root and the fifth of the chord, and/or maybe a 7th? Mostly arpeggiations?

Root and fifth is the most common in popular music... though I love to also have the third (and even the ninth [never the second though] sometimes) in there. I'm not so fond of sevenths in the lower registers, because the dissonance they create usually sounds too "mushy" to my ears. I much prefer to put such strong dissonances up in the right hand.

Also, how would that compare to an accordian where the left hand plays all of these chord buttons?

I've never played accordion, but I have had a chance to sort of familiarize myself with the layout of the left hand buttons. There are buttons for major chords, minor chords, minor sevenths, dominant sevenths, and diminished sevenths. I would imagine that the tendency for an accordionist is to think of his left hand as a sort of rhythmic harmony instrument. In other words, I don't think they would do too much switching of buttons in-between chords in a progression... but they would probably try to keep the basic pulse of the song by playing the button in a rhythmic fashion.

Then again, I'm not an accordionist... so I don't know.

Hope that helps!

In His love,
Nate

p.s. What's the project?