I just started playing the piano after hooking myself up with a nice Casio with 88 fully weighted keys back in January. Earlier this week, I decided to tackle “Opening” from Glassworks by Philip Glass. The cool thing about this song is that the left-hand plays eighth notes while the right hand plays eighth note triplets. So the left hand is playing two notes in the time it takes the right hand to play three. If you think of the hands as flipping light switches, you can see why the song is super-rad. While the left hand flips down-up, the right hand flips down-up-down. The next time the left hand flips down-up, the right hand flips up-down-up. The right hand thinks it’s playing eighth notes in three in the same time it takes the left hand to play eighth notes in two. I tried to think of it this way, and I just couldn’t get my head around it. One-trip-let-two-trip-let over one-and-two-and just seemed impossible. Then when I decided to count the right hand as one-two-three-four-five-six for three notes, it clicked. I could play the right hand’s down-up-down on the one, three, and five, and I could play the left hand’s down-up on the one and the four. After I changed my perspective, the song went from ridiculously insanely difficult to incredibly simple– at least for someone who plays the drums and finger-picks a guitar. Now the only thing I have to worry about is Michelle losing it if I play it one more time. But I can always plug in headphones, so I’m good.

So find the lowest common multiple. That’s my advice.