Chunking, hands separate, starting from the end – free course

Nobody learns a language by reciting entire books: you learn words, then expressions, then sentences. The piano works the same way. Chunking means dividing a piece into small, manageable blocks, then joining them into bigger and bigger blocks.

How to choose your chunks

A good chunk matches a musical unit: a motif, half a phrase, a bar, sometimes just a change of hand position. Don't cut randomly in the middle of a gesture: cut where the music breathes. A practical rule: a chunk must fit in your short-term memory, meaning you can play it while watching your hands after reading it once or twice.

Take this four-bar phrase:

M:4/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=72
K:C
%%staves {RH LH}
V:RH clef=treble
V:LH clef=bass
[V:RH] E2 G2 c2 e2 | d2 B2 G4 | A2 c2 f2 a2 | g8 |]
[V:LH] C,8 | G,,8 | F,,8 | C,8 |]

You could chunk it like this: block A = bar 1 + the first beat of bar 2; block B = bar 2; block C = bar 3 + the first beat of bar 4. Notice that each block always overlaps by one note onto the next: that "bridge" stops the seams from splitting when you glue the pieces together.

The growing-blocks method

Work on A until it is secure (3 times without a mistake).
Do the same with B.
Join A + B.
Work on C, then A + B + C.
The next day, yesterday's blocks become a single "super-block".

Hands separate: when and how

Practising each hand alone lets you settle fingering, articulation and dynamics without overloading your attention. It is essential in passages where each hand has its own difficulty. But beware: hands separate is a stage, not a destination. The brain also has to learn coordination, which is a skill in its own right.

Left hand first: it is often neglected, yet it carries the harmony and the rhythm.
Put hands together early, as soon as each hand is fairly secure, at the slowest tempo.
"One hand plays, the other sings": play the left hand while singing the right-hand melody. You already hear the final result.
Gradual layering: the right hand plays, the left hand adds only the first note of each bar, then all its notes.

Tip: when you put hands together, spot the "meeting points" where both hands play at once. Place those first, then fill in what lies between them.

Starting from the end

This is one of the most powerful and least used techniques. Learn the last chunk first, then the second-to-last followed by the last, and so on. As a result, when you play the piece, you are always heading towards familiar ground, towards ever more solid passages. The ending, usually the most fragile part (fatigue, nerves), becomes the best mastered.

In our example: work on bar 4 first, then bars 3–4, then 2–4, then 1–4.

Common mistakes:

Chunks that are too long: if you have to reread the score on every repetition, the chunk is too big.
Forgetting the overlap: each block is perfect but the join stumbles.
Staying hands separate for weeks: coordination never gets practised.

Exercise

Open the Minuet in G. Divide the first eight bars into four two-bar blocks with overlaps. Learn them starting from the end, left hand then right hand, then together. Note how many days it takes before you can play all eight bars in one go.