Piano Duet

A piano duet is a piece of music written for two people to play at one piano. It is often called Piano 4 hands.

To play piano duets the two players sit with one person on the right (playing the high notes) and the other person on the left (playing the low notes). The person on the right is called “Primo” (“First”) and the person on the left is called “Secondo” (“Second”).

Piano duet music is usually printed with the Secondo part on the left-hand page and the Primo part on the right-hand page. Occasionally it is printed with the two parts underneath one another.

Playing piano duets is great fun and an excellent way to become a better musician. Like all group music making, each player has to learn to listen and adapt to what is going on in the other part. Sometimes one player will have to take away his or her hand quickly so that the other player can play the same note immediately afterwards. Sometimes the players have to cross their hands (secondo’s right hand crosses with primo’s left hand).

A lot of the time the primo’s part may have both hands written in the treble treble clef and the secondo’s part may have both hands written in the bass clef. This can sometimes be confusing at first.

The pedalling is usually done by the secondo player. This is because pedalling is very much about keeping chords going (“sustaining”), and it is the secondo who usually has the chords which give the harmony because these are in the lower part.

Source:http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_duet