This occurred to me on the way home from work. I was thinking about Jillian's observation, about how the LH part is so boring... maybe that's, if you'll pardon the expression, a feature, rather than a bug. That is, the Alfred's authors are smart people, who know MUCH more about music than I do. (We're just going to start calling the Alfred's Authors "Alfred", it's just easier that way.) So Alfred decided (see?) to give one hand some boring work to do, while the other hand has to do fancy things like play 8th notes. This was, it lets us rookies feel like are playing actual hands-separate music. And, I reckon, we are, albeit very simple music.
Thoughts on this?
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2 comments:
That's my theory also--to make you feel like you're doing more than you really are. So that when you get to a piece like you'd find in a children's level 1 book, where both hands play a "simple" string of notes rather than the same chord repeatedly, you wonder if you've actually learned anything!
It's also to get the left hand used to doing something. For most people, the left hand will lag behind the right in terms of being able to play effectivley and independently. It's a skill that is built up slowly over time. Giving that left hand too complicated music at the beginning will just frustrate a beginner. At the same time, if all you are doing is mimicing the right hand, the left never learns independence. Chords are not only a very useful accompaniment style to learn anyway, but they are reasonably simple to play with the less dominant hand.
That said, I gotta admit that I have an ultra-stupid left hand! It doesn't seem capable of learning *anything*! lol
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