Browse docs

Left and Right Hands

1 min read
0:002:26

Orfeo can work out which hand plays each note of a piano part and colour it: blue for the left hand, pink for the right. You can view the hands in colour, split them into separate tracks to practise one at a time, and correct any note the automatic guess got wrong.

IMAGE · practice-hands.png · 1600 × 1000 px · A piano piece playing with Hand Assignment on: left-hand notes in blue and right-hand notes in pink on the roll and the keyboard, with small L and R badges on the lit keys.

See the hands in colour

  • Turn on Hand Assignment in Settings → Editing.
  • Open a piano piece. Each piano note is coloured by the hand that plays it, on the roll and on the keyboard.
  • Optionally, turn on Hand tags in Settings → Practice to add a small L or R badge on lit keys, for colour-blind players.

The assignment is automatic: a strong guideline, not a verified transcription. Use your ear, especially where the hands cross or overlap.

Max Fingers

Under Hand Assignment, Max Fingers sets how many notes of a wide chord each hand may take, 4 or 5, separately for left and right. The rest of the chord goes to the other hand: the left hand counts from the bottom of the chord, the right hand from the top. Lower it if the guess gives one hand chords that are too big to play.

Practise one hand at a time

To mute, hide or slow down one hand, split the piano part into two tracks:

  • Open the  MIDI Playback Editor and click  Split on the piano track.
  • Check the preview and click Split into two tracks, then Save & Reload.
  • The new version has a Left Hand and a Right Hand track. Mute one in the  Tracks panel and play that hand yourself while Orfeo plays the other.

Split tracks are always shown in blue and pink, whether Hand Assignment is on or not.

Correct wrong notes

For a perfectly accurate split, fix the notes yourself in the  MIDI Note Editor: turn on  Reassign hands, select the notes and right-click Assign to Left Hand or Assign to Right Hand. Your corrections are saved in the new version and used from then on.

The  Playback Editor shows how reliable a split is: passages where Orfeo is less sure are marked as low confidence, so you know where to check first.

 Tip

Learn the left hand first at 70% speed with the right hand still playing, then swap. The coloured roll shows you exactly what your other hand should be doing.